/,///, // 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. ^ 
 
 

 
THE 
 
 * JAN 141911 
 
 mkl SEtt< 
 SEVENTH VIAL; 
 
 AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALFPSE, 
 
 AND IN PARTJCULAR OK THK 
 
 POURING OUT OF THE SEVENTH VIAL, 
 
 IVJTH SPECIAL REFKRENCE TO THK 
 
 PRESENT REVOLUTIONS IN EUROPE. 
 
 Jov-rvAes ,A'»-bke-n M/ylj'e^ 
 
 " And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air ; and there came 
 a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is 
 done. And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings ; and there 
 was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, 
 60 mighty an earthquake, and so great.— Rev. xvi. 17, 18. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN JOHNSTONE, 26, PATERNOSTER ROW ; AND 
 15, PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH. 
 
 MDGCCXLVIII. 
 
-MILLKR .INL K-VlflLV. I'lU XTICRS. KLilNElKUK. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introductory Remarks 
 
 Apocalyptic Symbols . 
 
 Stmcture of the Apocalypse 
 
 Vision of the Mighty Angel 
 
 The Little Book .... 
 
 The Oath of the Angel 
 
 The IMeasuring of the Temple 
 
 The Two Witnesses 
 
 Avenging Power of the Witnesses 
 
 War with the Witnesses 
 
 Death of the Witnesses 
 
 Resurrection of the Witnesses 
 
 The Ten-Horned and Seven-Headed Beast of the 
 
 The Two-Horned Beast of the Earth 
 The Commencement and Termination 
 
 Days 
 
 The Harpers on INIount Zion 
 
 The Seventh Trumpet 
 
 The First Five Vials . 
 
 The Sixth Vial and the Three Frogs 
 
 The Seventh Vial 
 
 Voices, Thunders, and Lightnings 
 
 Great Earthquake 
 
 The Tripartition of the Great City 
 
 An Angel in the Sun 
 
 The Vintage .... 
 
 The Battle of Armageddon 
 The Harpers by the Sea of Glass 
 
 of the 
 
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 Page 
 
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 5 
 
 16 
 
 46 
 
 58 
 
 70 
 
 80 
 
 105 
 
 124 
 
 137 
 
 158 
 
 176 
 
 197 
 221 
 
 231 
 250 
 265 
 275 
 289 
 299 
 323 
 332 
 352 
 360 
 365 
 374 
 385 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 In magnificence and terror the judgment of 
 the Seventh Vial stands alone. It possesses a 
 marked pre-eminence over every other judg- 
 ment in the Volume of Prophecy. Its ven- 
 geance will be on a scale that shall surpass all 
 that went before it since the world was destroy- 
 ed by water, and all that shall come after it till 
 the world shall again be destroyed by fire. It 
 ranks as one of the three mighty dispensa- 
 tions, standing midway, as it were, between 
 the waters that overwhelmed the antediluvian 
 world, and the fires that shall consume the post- 
 diluvian. Viewed in all its comprehensiveness 
 as the closing act of a great drama, which be- 
 
2 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 gan so early as the days of Daniel, and ever 
 since has been advancing step by step to its 
 consummation, it will form the most finished 
 demonstration of God's power and justice of 
 which earth has been the scene, or guilty man 
 the object. The glory of this event will pene- 
 trate far into the Past, and dart its rays for- 
 ward into the Future. In the light of the 
 Seventh Vial the scheme of prophecy will stand 
 revealed ; the admirable wisdom and beautiful 
 order of past dispensations will be clearly seen ; 
 a new light will be shed upon the character of 
 God ; and the great principles of truth and 
 righteousness will be settled on a stable foun- 
 dation for all time to come. It is the finishing 
 of the mystery of God, as He hath declared to 
 his servants the prophets. How^ great shall 
 that event be ! The great empires which the 
 doom of heaven overwhelmed righteously of 
 old, — Babylon, Egypt, Jerusalem, — were but 
 types of that City on whom this Vial is to be 
 poured out ; and in her consummated ruin shall 
 all these types find their complete fulfilment. 
 -^^^ho can conceive the terrors of a judgment 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. S 
 
 comprehending in itself the combined vengeance 
 and accumulated horrors under which the great 
 empires we have named were overthrown and 
 utterly broken ? And is it not meet that this 
 judgment should be one of unexampled terror 'i 
 Let us only think of the consolidated strength 
 of that kingdom which this judgment is to 
 break in pieces, and of the enormous guilt it is 
 to avenge. By this stroke, an enemy greater 
 than Babylon, greater than Edom, greater even 
 than Imperial Rome, is to be brought down, — 
 an enemy whose rage and craft, whose malig- 
 nity and strength, have never been surpass- 
 ed, never equalled, — an enemy which has com- 
 mitted more crimes,. and violated more oaths, — 
 which has shed more blood, and crushed more 
 victims, — which has brought more woes upon 
 the earth, — seduced and destroyed more souls, 
 — offered a more determined opposition to the 
 cause of God, — and defied God himself with 
 more effrontery, and that for a longer time, — 
 than any other enemy that ever arose. It is 
 this enemy whom the Seventh Vial is to sweep 
 away. The prayers and hopes of the Church 
 
4 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 have looked forward to this event during past 
 ages ; and when it shall have been accomplish- 
 ed, her songs and thanksgivings will look back 
 upon it throughout all succeeding eras. That 
 was a majestic hymn sung of old on the shore 
 of the Red Sea. A nobler song is yet to burst 
 upon the world. When a greater enemy shall 
 fall than he whose destruction the timbrel of 
 Miriam celebrated, a shout of joy shall publish 
 it to the ends of the earth ; and the melody of 
 that shout, rolling in triumphant numbers over 
 the world, shall meet its re-echo from the 
 heavens, in the halleluias of angels, and the 
 songs of prophets, and apostles, and martyrs. 
 " Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy 
 apostles and prophets ; for God hath avenged 
 you on her. And again they said, Alleluia. 
 And her smoke rose up for ever and' ever."'' 
 
APOCALYPTIC SYMBOLS. 
 
 APOCALYPTIC SYMBOLS. 
 
 The key of the Apocalypse is to be sought in 
 the Old Testament Scriptures. This is the 
 briefest, and perhaps the best, rule that can 
 be laid down for the interpretation of this book. 
 We do not know that there is a really new 
 symbol made use of in it from beginning to end. 
 There is not a single figure or character ad- 
 mitted whose use had not been already sanc- 
 tioned, and its meaning determined, in the law, 
 the Psalms, or the prophets. The Apocalypse 
 differs from them only in that it is symbolical 
 throughout. It resembles those monuments 
 and temples of Egypt, which, being wholly 
 written over with hieroglyphics, were illegible 
 till the accidental discovery of the Rosetta 
 stone. This furnished the key ; and instantly 
 the graven monuments of that ancient land 
 
6 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 stood forth, fraught with the secrets of past 
 •Ages. In some chapter of Isaiah, or in some 
 Psahn, we find the Rosetta stone of the Apoca- 
 Ivpse: we mean that we there find this and the 
 other symbol used in such a way that it is im- 
 possible to miss its meaning. Thus we make 
 out an alphabet, by the aid of which we come 
 to read the whole of this symbolic writing. In 
 the prophets the heavenly bodies uniformly 
 symbolize the rulers of kingdoms. We find 
 this symbol employed, particularly in the de- 
 nunciations against Egypt and Babylon. Of 
 Egypt Ezekiel says, — " I will cover the sun 
 with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her 
 light. All the bright lights of heaven will I 
 make dark over thee.'"" From the Psalms we 
 learn that a vine is the symbol of the true 
 (Jhurch : — " Thou hast brought a vine out of 
 Egypt.'' In Ezekiel and other books of Scrip- 
 ture we find the false Church exhibited under 
 the symbol of an harlot. In Daniel we are 
 told that a wild beast is the symbol of a con- 
 <|uering and despotic power ; and that a horn 
 denotes a kingdom. Thus, by diligent search 
 
APOCALYPTIC SYMBOLS. 2. 
 
 in the Scriptures, we discover the symbols here 
 employed in such connection, that their mean- 
 ing is obvious ; and when we meet the same 
 symbol in the Apocalypse, we have only to 
 transfer its ascertained meaning to the predic- 
 tion under review, and, without more ado, we 
 translate it into plain language. Thus we come 
 to read off the Apocalyptic prophecies much as 
 we would any ordinary writing. As an ex- 
 ample of the way in which an alphabet of the 
 Apocalypse might be made out, we may in- 
 stance a few of its more important symbols. 
 Earth symbolizes society in a settled state. Sea, 
 society in a state of convulsion. Rivers, na- 
 tions. Mountains and islands, great and small 
 kingdoms. Air, the political atmosphere. 
 Heaven, the civil or ecclesiastical firmament. 
 Sun, the monarch. Stars, inferior rulers. Hail 
 and thunder, wars. Earthquake, revolution. 
 Head, form of government. Horn, king or king- 
 dom. Bow, war. Crown, victory. Altar, mar- 
 tyrdom. Coals, severe judgments. Vine, a 
 church. Rainbow, a covenant. Key, ecclesias- 
 tical authority. Angel, a minister of God's pur- 
 
8 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 poses. Having determined the import of the 
 individual symbols, it becomes easy to interpret 
 them when found in combination. Thus, when 
 we are shown in the Apocalyptic drama, coah 
 of fire taken from the altar and cast upon the 
 earthy we understand that the action indicated 
 is the infliction of terrible judgments^ on ac- 
 count of the martyrdom of the saints, on the in- 
 habitants of the Boman it^orld. Again, when 
 we read, " And I stood upon the sand of the 
 sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, 
 having seven heads and ten horns, and upon 
 his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the 
 name of blasphemy," all that is necessary to 
 the right interpretation of the prophecy is to 
 give to each of its component symbols its ap- 
 propriate meaning. Dealt with on this prin- 
 ciple, the passage reads as follows : — I was 
 shown (sea) society in a state of convulsion, 
 and out of these convulsions emerged a (beast) 
 powerful despotic monarchy, having, i.e. hav- 
 ing had, seven (heads) distinct forms of govern- 
 ment, but broken up at the time of its emer- 
 gence into ten (horns) separate kingdoms, with 
 
APOCALYPTIC SYYBOLS. 9 
 
 their (crowns upon the horns) kings ; each of its 
 seven forms of government possessing an im- 
 pious and idolatrous character, as intimated by 
 the name of blasphemy upon its seven heads. 
 Amid the closing scenes of the Apocalypse 
 there occurs the following : — " And another 
 angel came out of the temple which is in 
 heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. And 
 another angel came out from the altar, which 
 had power over fire ; and cried with a loud cry 
 to him that had the sharp sickle, saying. Thrust 
 in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of 
 the vine of the earth ; for her grapes are fully 
 ripe."' What a picture of the final doom of the 
 Papacy ! No description could convey, in ten 
 times the space, one half of what these few sym- 
 bols disclose respecting the manner and severity 
 of Babylon's destruction. A vine is before us, 
 — the symbol of a Church ; but it is the vine 
 of the earth, — a false Church. The vine is ripe, 
 and is to be cut down. The idolatrous faith of 
 Rome has landed her adherents in downright 
 infidelity and atheism, — the natural fruit of su- 
 perstition. Men w^ho believe in no God can be 
 
10 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 governed by no law ; and now an end is come. 
 Accordingly, an angel, — a minister of God's 
 vengeance, — appears upon the scene, having the 
 instrument of destruction, — a sharp sickle : 
 how sharp, will be seen when the time comes. 
 The command to thrust in the sickle and begin 
 the work of destruction comes from the altar, 
 and is given by the angel who has power over 
 fire. To Home, at such an hour, the altar was 
 a symbol of terrific import ; it reminded her of 
 the blood she had shed. From the altar as- 
 cended the cry, " How long, LordT And 
 now from the altar comes the command, 
 " Thrust in thy sharp sickle ;'' and from the 
 altar, too, is taken the fire in which Rome is 
 consumed. 
 
 There are tw^o rules which must be rigidly 
 ^adhered to, otherwise our interpretations of 
 the Apocalypse can possess neither certainty 
 nor consistency. First, we must always treat 
 its symbols as such. We must not regard 
 them as figures in one place, and literal de- 
 scriptions in another. The earth can never 
 mean literally the earth, but some other thing, 
 
APOCALYPTIC SYMBOLS. 11 
 
 — society in a particular state. When we 
 read, " In the earthquake were slain of men 
 seven thousand,*" we must understand the state- 
 ment as having reference, not to a literal, but 
 a symbolic slaughter, — the defection from a» 
 certain interest, of a large body of adherents. 
 And so with regard to all the symbols in the 
 Apocalypse. There are interpreters of no 
 mean name who disregard this rule. Second, 
 we must always give the same interpretation 
 to the same symbol. Just as we attribute the 
 same power to the same alphabetic character, 
 and just as we attach one meaning to the 
 same hieroglyphic, wherever we find it on the 
 Egyptian monuments, so we must preserve 
 uniformity in our interpretations of the Apo- 
 calyptic symbols. A slight variety of inter- 
 pretation may be admitted ; but that variety 
 must never be inconsistent with, but always 
 embody, the radical meaning of the symboL 
 If we find that the meaning which we have 
 given to a certain symbol does not carry us- 
 from beginning to end of the Apocalypse, and 
 that it is not in all places perfectly natural 
 
12 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 and easy, and that its interpretation does not 
 piece in with that of the other symbols with 
 which it stands in combination, we may be 
 sure that we have not yet discovered its true 
 import. There will always, till the Apocalypse 
 has been all fulfilled, be some doubt about the 
 commencement and termination of its grand 
 epochs ; but if regard be had to what we have 
 now said respecting the interpretation of its 
 symbols, there can be no difficulty in determin- 
 ing the character of the great events which the 
 Apocalypse predicts. 
 
 There are some who regard the Apocalypse 
 as wanting in arrangement and meaning, — who 
 decry the study of it, and deny its claims to in- 
 spiration. And why ? Because it is symboli- 
 cal. Do such persons depreciate the value and 
 reject the authenticity of other symbolical writ- 
 ings ? Would they not account the labours of 
 a lifetime well spent in successfully decipher- 
 ing the Egyptian tablets, and in bringing to 
 light the secrets which lie hid under the mys- 
 terious characters which cover the Sinaitic 
 Mountains ? Why, then, should such take 
 
APOCALYPTIC SYMBOLS. 1 3 
 
 offence at this book, because it is written in 
 symbolic characters ? And why should that 
 which stimulates ingenuity and excites to la- 
 bour in other cases, be held as a sufficient 
 reason for declining all inquiry and investiga- 
 tion in this? If the graven pillar that rises 
 amid the sands of the Nile awakens within us 
 so engrossing an interest, and is regarded with 
 awe, because it still holds forth, to those who 
 can read its record, those great transactions 
 of the past which gave to Egypt her glory and 
 renown, would it not be strange if we should 
 regard without either awe or interest this ve- 
 nerable monument, which God himself has set 
 up in the field of revelation? We wish to 
 know the future : here it is already come. 
 We wish to know how the world^s drama shall 
 end : here it is already wound up. The past, 
 the present, and the future, here meet. Let 
 us turn aside, then, and see this great sight. 
 By the help of these heaven -engraven hiero- 
 glyphics, we can survey the whole history of 
 the Christian Church at a single glance. We 
 
14 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 can trace her path from the Mount of Olives 
 to the gates of that holy city, New Jerusalem, 
 which John saw coming down from God out of 
 heaven. We see her in all the variety of her 
 earthly condition ; — in the wilderness, where 
 for twelve hundred and sixty years she was 
 clothed in sackcloth ; engaged in war with 
 the beast, and her blood flowing like water ; 
 on Mount Zion, with the Lamb in white, 
 ascribing salvation, and glory, and honour, and 
 power, unto God, when she sees the smoke of 
 Babylon's torment ; living and reigning with 
 Ghrist a thousand years ; dehvered from a 
 dreadful combination of foes to be formed 
 against her at the close of time ; redeemed at 
 last from the grave itself ; and, after all her 
 toils, entering in, and made to dwell through 
 ages that have no end, amid the living waters 
 of the paradise of God. Brought thus into 
 one view, we are the better able to trace the 
 admirable order and progression that reign 
 among these events, and especially among 
 those more immediatelv under our review, and 
 
APOCALYPTIC SYMBOLS. 
 
 which fill up the long and momentous period 
 extending from the white horse of the First 
 Seal, to the lightnings, and thunders, and earth- 
 quake of the Seventh Vial. 
 
16 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 STEUCTUEE OF THE APOC.iLYPSE. 
 
 In order that our readers may be the more 
 able to perceive the force and truth of our 
 statements and conchisions respecting the Se- 
 venth Vial, we propose introducing ourselves 
 to it by a rapid survey of the whole of that 
 grand drama, of which this Vial is the closing 
 act. We shall make the tenth chapter of the 
 Apocalypse our starting point, — a position bet- 
 ter adapted than any other, perhaps, for look- 
 ing around and taking a survey of the plan 
 and structure of this wonderful book. The 
 Apocalypse is, in brief, a history of the Church, 
 written in grand symbolical characters, from 
 the ascension of Christ to his second and glo- 
 rious coming. On the little stage of Patmos, 
 a rehearsal of Providence, so to speak, took 
 place. Those mighty acts which were to fill 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 17 
 
 up the history of ages, and of which the ample 
 territory of the Roman earth was to be the 
 scene, were made to pass in figm-e before the 
 apostle John, who was permitted to behold 
 them in the character of the representative of 
 the Church. By the same apostle, under the 
 inspiration of the Spirit, were these things 
 committed to writing, and communicated to 
 the Church, as a help to her faith and pa- 
 tience during the protracted period when both 
 should be severely tried. The Apocalypse 
 opens with a representation of the exaltation 
 of Christ, and his installation on the right 
 hand of God. This is the grand subject of the 
 vision of the fourth and fifth chapters. Having 
 rested a while after the first vision which he 
 saw (that of the first chapter), John again lift- 
 ed up his eyes, " and behold a door was open- 
 ed in heaven,"" — denoting the free access now 
 given to John, and to the Church through 
 John, to know the secrets of futurity, — the 
 grand events of the new dispensation. A great 
 voice, which in strength and melody the apostle 
 could compare only to a trumpet, now spake to 
 
 B 
 
18 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 him, and said, " Come up hither, and I will 
 show thee things which must be hereafter/'' 
 No sooner had the voice spoken to him, than 
 John seemed to have ascended ; and he pro- 
 ceeds to describe the august vision which he 
 saw : " Behold a throne was set in heaven, and 
 One sat on the throne/' The heaven of the 
 vision, where the throne stood, is not that 
 heaven which is the abode of the blessed. By 
 the heaven now thrown open to John, we are 
 to understand the Churcli ; and the scene is 
 intended to represent the majesty and grace 
 with which God there reigns. " And there 
 was a rainbow round about the throne," — the 
 symbol of the covenant of perpetuity which God 
 has established with the Church. Seven lamps 
 of fire burned before the throne, which were 
 the symbol of that Spirit which is the blessed 
 source of the Church's light, and of the efficacy of 
 all her ordinances. " And out of the throne pro- 
 ceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and voices,'"* 
 — the Apocalyptic symbols of the dispensations 
 of Providence, chosen so as strikingly to repre- 
 sent the terror and sublimitv which sometimes 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 19 
 
 accompany these acts, and intimating that 
 they all proceed from the throne of God. The 
 gospel ministry is symbolized in the vision by 
 the four living creatures ; and the gifts with 
 which they are clothed, by their being full of 
 eyes before and behind ; and the tendency of 
 all their labours, which is to advance the 
 Church's profit, and the glory of her Head, by 
 the song of praise which they are represented 
 as offering day and night. The members of 
 the Church generally are represented by the 
 twenty-four elders, clothed in white, and hav- 
 ing crowns of gold upon their head ; and the 
 worship of the Church, by that ascription of 
 " glory, honour, and power," which is begun 
 by the four living creatures, and, being taken 
 up by those that occupied the twenty-four 
 thrones, is pealed forth by the whole assembly, 
 and rises in one loud and united anthem around 
 the great throne in the midst, on which sat One 
 who was to look upon as a jasper and as a sar- 
 dine stone, and out of which proceeded the 
 lightnings, and thunderings, and voices. 
 
 The same vision is continued in the fifth 
 
20 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 chapter, only a new object is produced upon 
 the scene. " Lo, in the midst of the throne, 
 and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the 
 elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain,"" — 
 the symbol of Christ as mediator ; his priestly 
 office being prefigured in his appearing as if 
 He had been slain, and his kingly, in that He 
 stood in the midst of the throne. John was 
 next shown, in the right hand of Him that 
 sat on the throne, a BOOK or roll, sealed with 
 seven seals ; and whilst he contemplated this 
 awful book, a mighty angel came forward, and 
 proclaimed in the hearing of all creatures, that 
 it was the will of Him who sat upon the throne 
 that this book should be opened, and the writ- 
 ing it contained known, and saying with a loud 
 voice, " Who is worthy to open the book, and 
 to loose the seals thereof V A profound si- 
 lence followed the angeFs challenge, for " no 
 man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the 
 earth, was able to open the book, neither to 
 look thereon."' And John wept much, " be- 
 cause no man was found worthy to open the 
 book." Its seals were likely to remain for 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 21 
 
 ever unbroken, and all within buried in im- 
 penetrable mystery, till the event should de- 
 clare it. At this crisis, when heaven and 
 earth were mute with expectation and fear, 
 the Lamb came forward, and taking the book 
 out of the right hand of Him that sat upon 
 the throne, proceeded to open the seals, and 
 unroll the volume. What is the truth that 
 lies hid under the veil of this symbolical trans- 
 action? Plainly this, even the delegation of 
 authority to Christ to carry on the work of 
 Providence, and his assumption of that great 
 task, signified by the act of taking the sealed 
 book from the hand of Him that sat on the 
 throne. " He raised Him from the dead, and 
 set Him at his own right hand in the heavenly 
 places, far above all principality, and power, 
 and might, and dominion, and every name tJiat 
 is named, not only in this world, but also 
 in that which is to come ; and hath put all 
 things under his feet, and gave Him to be 
 head over all things to the Church, which is 
 his body." Similar were his own words to 
 his disciples just before he ascended : " Jesus 
 
22 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 came and spake unto them, saying, All power 
 is given unto me in heaven and in earth." 
 This supreme dominion and universal empire, — 
 for every " principality" in heaven, and every 
 throne on earth, were put under Him, — were 
 conferred on the Son as mediator, and for 
 the purpose of enabling Him to accomplish 
 the great ends of his mediation. It w^as ne- 
 cessary that He should be able to wield every 
 instrument, and have authority to summon to 
 his help, and engage in his service, every agent, 
 in order that He might break in pieces the 
 kingdom of his great rival, and set up his own 
 in its room. When the task of governing a 
 universe was committed to Him, the resources 
 of a universe were placed at his disposal. It 
 would neither have been just on the part of 
 the Father to have exacted the duty without 
 conferring the means of fulfilling it, nor wise 
 on the part of the Son to have entered on the 
 work wanting the powers which its successful 
 execution demanded. As mediator, we say, 
 was this great commission, — the administration 
 of Providence, — given to the Son ; for it was 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYrSE. 2S 
 
 the Lamb that had been slain that received the 
 sealed book. And the special and paramount 
 object for which He undertook this commis- 
 sion, and which he continues to keep in eye in 
 its execution, is the preservation of the Church 
 meanwhile, and her complete triumph at last. 
 He that presides over all events, arranging,, 
 directing, overruling all, stands not only in the 
 midst of the throne, but in the midst of the 
 living creatures, and in the midst of the elders ; 
 that is, in the midst of the Church. This 
 act gave unbounded joy to the Church, which 
 hailed with a shout of praise her Saviour's en- 
 trance on his difficult but glorious work. She 
 knew that his power and wisdom were ade- 
 quate to its triumphant execution. Though 
 yet afar off, and though many a gloomy dispen- 
 sation was to intervene, and though many a 
 hard struggle had to be endured, and many a 
 powerful enemy had to be struck down, yet the 
 Church confidently anticipated, now that she 
 saw the sealed roll in the hand of the Lamb, 
 the advent of victory, because, though distant, 
 it was certain. She knew that the administra- 
 
24 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 tion of her Head could have only one issue, 
 and that issue unspeakably glorious and bless- 
 ed. Accordingly she shouted for joy. And 
 that shout was a prelude of that yet more ec- 
 static song which shall be heard on that day 
 when Christ's administration shall have termi- 
 nated in the total discomfiture and final over- 
 throw of the Church's foes, and in her complete 
 triumph and everlasting reign with her Lord. 
 " I heard the voice of many angels round about 
 the throne, and the beasts, and the elders ; 
 and the number of them was ten thousand 
 times ten thousand, and thousands of thou- 
 sands ; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is 
 the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and 
 riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, 
 and blessing. And every creature which is in 
 heaven, and in the earth, and under the eartli, 
 and such as are in the sea, and all that are 
 in them, heard I saying. Blessing, and honour, 
 and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth 
 upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever 
 and ever."" 
 
 Having exhibited in symbol Christ's instal- 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 2o 
 
 lation on the right hand of God, and his en- 
 trance on his great work, the Apocalypse next 
 presents in figure the various acts of his ad- 
 ministration. It is here necessary to call to 
 mind the grand end contemplated in the whole 
 of that administration, namely, the universal 
 establishment of his kingdom, the Church, in 
 the unity, purity, and splendour of the Millen- 
 nium, in order to see how each successive act 
 paved the way for the full attainment, in due 
 time, of that glorious object. First of all, the 
 ground had to be cleared. When Christ as- 
 cended and sat down at the right hand of God, 
 the ground where he had purposed to plant his 
 Church was occupied by the old pagan em- 
 pire of Rome. A most degrading Polytheism, 
 deeply founded in the passions and lusts of 
 men, attired in the garb of a most fascinating 
 poetry, enjoying the venerable prestige of a 
 high antiquity, sanctioned by the laws, and pro- 
 tected and upheld by the military power, of the 
 State, was so interwoven with the fabric of 
 the empire, that it had become necessary, in 
 order to eradicate the one, and strip it of its 
 
26 THE SEVENTH YIAL. 
 
 props and defences, that the framework of the 
 other should be shaken and rent. This was 
 accomplished in the opening of the seals. Each 
 seal (see chap, vi.) ushered in a new dispen- 
 sation to the R-oman empire; and by these 
 successive acts of judgment, — by the passage 
 across its stage of the red, the black, and the 
 pale horses, — war, famine, pestilence, — that 
 powerful State was so exhausted and broken, 
 that at last, in the opening of the sixth seal, 
 that great revolution was accomplished which 
 issued in the elevation of Christianity, in the per- 
 son of Constantino, to the throne of the empire. 
 There is here a stop in the Apocalyptic 
 history. The progression of the symbolical 
 drama now passing before John is arrested. 
 With a professedly Christian emperor on the 
 throne, and with all the helps and facilities 
 naturally springing therefrom for the diffusion 
 of Christianity, we expect to be instantly told 
 of its universal reign. With the winds of per- 
 secution and political contention all hushed, 
 with serene skies over the Church, and nothing 
 to impede the labours of the spiritual husband- 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 27 
 
 man, we expect to see him scattering the seed 
 far and wide, and with zeal worthy of his cause 
 adding field to field, till at last he had includ- 
 ed the whole earth within the vineyard of his 
 Lord. Alas ! our anticipations are suddenly 
 overcast. A ranker idolatry springs up than 
 that which had been well nigh extirpated. A 
 murkier night settles down on the world than 
 any that had ever heretofore darkened its fir- 
 mament. Fiercer persecutors are seen mov- 
 ing on the scene than any that had defended 
 the cause of Paganism with fire and knife. 
 We are now but a little way off from the com- 
 mencement of that noted period, — obscurely 
 hinted at to Daniel, plainly announced to John, — 
 the twelve hundred and sixty prophetic days or 
 years, for which preparations of a very unusual 
 kind, but requisite, doubtless, are made. This 
 period was to form the gloomiest, without ex- 
 ception, in the annals of the world, — the period 
 of Satan's highest success, and of the Church's 
 deepest depression ; and lest she should become 
 during it utterly extinct, her members, never 
 so few as then, were all specially sealed. Thus 
 
28 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 secured by a Divine precaution against perishing, 
 whether by craft or by violence, they enter the 
 <jloud. The long night passes on, darkening as 
 it advances ; but the sealed company are not 
 visible : they disappear from the Apocalyptic 
 stage, just as they then disappeared from the 
 observation of the world ; for they fled away, 
 to escape the dungeons and the fires of their 
 persecutors, to hide in the hoary caves of 
 earth, or to inhabit the untrodden regions of 
 the wilderness, or to dwell beneath the shadow 
 of the Alps, or to enjoy fellowship with God, 
 unsuspected and unknown, in the deep seclu- 
 sion and gloom of some convent. But at last 
 the clouds break away, and the sealed com- 
 pany, having trod this valley of the shadow of 
 death unhurt, one and all of them come forth, 
 the hundred forty and four thousand sealed 
 ones, in white raiment, and carrying palms ; 
 not to hunger and to thirst, as aforetime, when 
 the bread and water of life were scantily suj)- 
 plied, nor to be scorched by the hot sun of per- 
 secution, but to be fed by the Lamb, and to be 
 led to fountains of livins^ waters, and to have 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 29 
 
 all tears wiped away from their eyes ; denoting" 
 the happy and prosperous state of the Church 
 which shall succeed the twelve hundred and 
 sixty years, and the exemption she shall then 
 enjoy from all the perils, enemies, and sufferings, 
 that have hitherto attended her path. This is 
 the vision of the seventh chapter. The vision 
 affords ua a glimpse of the Church, protected 
 against no ordinary danger by the seal of the 
 angel, just before she entered on the fated 
 twelve hundred and sixty days ; and another 
 glimpse of her as she appeared after she had 
 come through the " great tribulation" of those 
 days ; but it leaves the events of that disastrous 
 period, — the fury with which Antichrist had 
 warred against her, and the noble constancy 
 with which she had withstood the assault, — un- 
 told, because these were to form the subject of 
 future Apocalyptic narration. 
 
 After this vision the symbolic scene again 
 progresses. The eighth chapter takes up the 
 history exactly at the point where the sixth 
 had dropped it. The seventh and last seal is 
 opened, and the seven trumpets begin to be 
 
so THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 sounded. The first four trumpets include 
 those irruptions of the barbarous nations of 
 the north by which the western Roman em- 
 pire was completely destroyed, and the let or 
 hindrance to the appearance of the Man of 
 Sin, of which the apostle Paul had spoken, 
 taken out of the w^ay, and the stage left empty 
 for the rise of Antichrist. Rome had ceased 
 to be pagan, and had become Christian ; but 
 its Christianity was not worth much ; and its 
 imperial government still subsisting, it formed 
 an obstacle to the rise of the Papacy ; for how 
 could the Pope become lord of the world, while 
 Caesar continued to be so ? It behoved this em- 
 pire, therefore, though professedly Christian, 
 to give place, that the predestined enemy of 
 Christ might appear. Accordingly each trum- 
 pet announced the descent of a new calamity 
 upon the unhappy empire : first a tempest of 
 liail and fire, mingled with blood, swept across 
 it, — the symbol of the frightful ravages, extend- 
 ing from A.D. 396 to A. D. 410, — which the 
 Goths under Alaric inflicted on Greece and 
 Italy ; and of the descent of Rhadagasius, with 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 31 
 
 his host of Yandals, Suevi, and Burgundians, 
 who, as Gibbon says, " burst hke a dark thun- 
 der-cloud on the Rhoetian and Italian valleys." 
 Next a burning mountain was cast into its sea, 
 — the symbol of the Vandals under Genseric, 
 who began in 429 to desolate Africa with burn- 
 ing and slaughter, and, by means of his fleet, 
 ravaged the coast of Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia. 
 Next, from its firmament a star shot down, 
 burning as a lamp, and, falling upon its rivers 
 and fountains, turned them into wormwood. 
 In this star we behold the scourge of God, 
 Attila, the king of the Huns, who, returning 
 from his eastern wars in a.d. 450, crossed the 
 Rhine as high as Basle, and descending its 
 course, made the entire valley through which 
 it rolls a scene of slaughter, burning its towns 
 and massacring the inhabitants. Turning then 
 to the south, he inflicted on the towns of 
 Mantua, Milan, and Venice, the same miseries 
 as in the cities of the Rhine. But at the 
 sounding of the fourth trumpet, the empire 
 which these successive and terrible shocks had 
 brought to the verge of ruin, was utterly dis- 
 
32 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 solved. Its dissolution, under this trumpet, is 
 symbolically exhibited, after the manner of 
 Scripture when the fall of empires is the 
 theme, by the darkening of the sun and stars, 
 — imagery highly appropriate, and imparting 
 a gloomy grandeur to the subject. About the 
 year 566, the Senate, and, in short, the entire 
 framework of the Roman Government, were re- 
 moved ; and that proud city, which for so many 
 ages had held the rank of mistress of the 
 world, was reduced to the miserable condition 
 of a tributary dukedom. Thus the stage on 
 which Antichrist was to appear was now clear- 
 ed. The colossal empire which had occupied 
 it so long had been shivered, and its very frag- 
 ments swept away. John, however, defers en- 
 tering on the history of the Papacy. He with- 
 draws our attention to the eastern world, and 
 exhibits, under the fifth and sixth trumpets, 
 the infliction of the woes by which the eastern 
 empire was destroyed. 
 
 The lights of the imperial firmament had 
 been obscured ; and amid the gloom that pre- 
 vailed, — symbolizing the confusion into which 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 33 
 
 all things had been brought by the destruction 
 of established order and government, — John 
 heard the voice of an angel flying in mid- 
 heaven. Three times did that awful voice de- 
 nounce woe against the inhabiters of the earth. 
 After what had already taken place, this is 
 an unexpected as well as awful announcement. 
 One would have thought that the angel of 
 woe had already emptied his worst vial, — that 
 nothing more fearful could he inflict than 
 that which he had already inflicted. But no. 
 The calamities that were yet to fall on the 
 world would obliterate the recollection of 
 those that had already overtaken it. Three 
 awful judgments were approaching. ' The his- 
 tory of the w^orld from the beginning is made 
 up of but a succession of woes ; but in the 
 dark retrospect of the past eighteen centuries 
 we can discern three calamities of surpassing 
 magnitude, so fearfully dismal, that others lose 
 their blackness when placed by their side, — 
 three woes towering above all others which 
 during that period have overtaken the miser- 
 able race of man. These were the burden of 
 
34 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the angel which John now saw flying through 
 the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice. 
 AVoe, woe, woe ! The first woe was to happen 
 under the fifth trumpet ; the second under the 
 sixth trumpet ; and the third and last under 
 the seventh trumpet, which comprehends the 
 judgments of the seven vials. 
 
 Leaving, then, the western world, which Pro- 
 vidence, by a series of tremendous dispensa- 
 tions, had made empty and void, in order that 
 a more terrible enemy than that which had 
 just been struck down might be suffered to lift 
 up himself, to be destroyed in his turn, the 
 scene changes to the East. Immediately the 
 scenery becomes eastern. So long as the West 
 was the stage of the Apocalyptic drama, the 
 scenery was of an occidental character, — 
 storms of hail, and burning mountains. Now 
 the symbols become oriental. The fifth angel 
 sounds. The bottomless pit is opened ; and 
 forthwith there issues from it a smoke so dense 
 that, as it rolls its murky folds onward, it dark- 
 ens the air, and inflicts blight upon the earth, — 
 the symbol of that system of imposture which, 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 35 
 
 arising in Arabia, overspread so large a por- 
 tion of the world. In the Bible, error is dark- 
 ness, truth is light. Along with the smoke 
 there came locusts from the pit, which, for the 
 space of five months, tormented men with their 
 stings, — the Saracens, by whose arms the reli- 
 gion of Mahomet was propagated, and their 
 dominion extended from the banks of the Indus 
 to the base of the Pyrenees, and whose career 
 of conquest lasted for five symbolical months, — 
 an hundred and fifty years. 
 
 The scene of the sixth trumpet, or second 
 woe trumpet, is the banks of the Euphrates. 
 On its sounding, the four angels which were 
 bound in that river were loosed. The term for 
 which they had been prepared was an hour, 
 and a day, and a month, and a year. Their num- 
 bers were almost incredible, — two hundred 
 thousand thousand. Their equipments and 
 appearance were of a truly martial order. " I 
 saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat 
 on them, having breastplates of fire, and of ja- 
 cinth, and brimstone ; and the heads of the 
 horses were as the heads of lions, and out of 
 
36 THE SEVEXTII VIAL. 
 
 their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brim- 
 stone. Their tails were like unto serpents, 
 and had heads, and with them they do hurt.^' 
 Their commission was to slay the third part of 
 men. Of the correctness of the interpretation 
 which applies this symbol to the Turks, it is 
 scarce possible to entertain a doubt. Did our 
 time allow, we could show that the event ful- 
 filled the prediction in all its particulars. At 
 the time referred to in the prophecy, this 
 people, who had come originally from Scythia, 
 were divided into four clans or sultanies, all of 
 whom were located in the neighbourhood of 
 the Euphrates. They were at length let loose, 
 to desolate Asia with their arms, and that part 
 of it particularly which was the seat of the 
 eastern empire. Their troops consisted main- 
 ly of cavalry, and their mode of warfare was 
 new, artillery being now for the first time em- 
 ployed ; both of which particulars are not ob- 
 scurely hinted at in the prophecy. They con- 
 tinued a conquering power for three hundred 
 and ninety-one years, which, putting a day for 
 a year, give? the predicted term of " an hour, 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 37 
 
 and a day, and a month, and a year/' Their 
 peculiar vocation or mission was, " to slay the 
 third part of men." It was against the cor- 
 rupt and idolatrous Christians of the eastern 
 empire that the Turks were sent ; and they 
 were charged to inflict a fuller measure of ven- 
 geance than their predecessors the Saracens 
 had done. The latter were sent to inflict chas- 
 tisement, if so be those on whom it fell would 
 repent ; but not repenting, the Turks were 
 commissioned to destroy them. To the one 
 it was commanded that they should not hurt 
 the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, 
 neither any tree; and accordingly the con- 
 quests of the Saracens were comparatively 
 bloodless. The fields were as green, the palm 
 trees as flourishing, behind their army, as in 
 advance of it. But the longer the judgments 
 of God are continued, if they prove ineflectual, 
 they grow the more severe. Accordingly, the 
 commission given to the Euphratean horsemen 
 was, to slay those whom the locusts had power 
 only to sting ; and the work assigned them 
 they executed. During their career of conquest, 
 
58, THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 tlicy committed an incredible number of slaugh- 
 ters, and inflicted hitherto unheard-of miseries. 
 All the provinces of the eastern empire they 
 subjugated and occupied, — Egypt, Greece, Pa- 
 lestine, Syria, Asia Minor. At last they crossed 
 the Hellespont, drew their armies around Con- 
 stantinople, besieged and took it ; and thus the 
 empire of the Caesars came to an utter end. 
 
 We have now come to that point in the 
 Apocalyptic history where we design to begin 
 our fuller, yet very imperfect, exposition. But 
 in order that we may include in one view the 
 whole order and plan of the Apocalypse, we 
 shall continue to its close our brief narrative 
 of its events. A few moments will suffice. So far 
 the administration of Christ had been successful. 
 Not in vain had He sat down on the right hand 
 of God. In the exercise of his power, one 
 enemy had been overthrown after another, — 
 Rome pagan in the opening of the seals, and 
 Rome Christian in the sounding of the trum- 
 pets. Was the stage then clear? and had 
 the hour now come when the kingdom of Christ, 
 in all its universality and glory, was to be set 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. o9 
 
 up i The time was not yet. Another chance, 
 so to speak, was to be given to Satan. All his 
 attempts hitherto had been abortive. He had 
 seen the labours of long ages swept away by 
 the seals and the trumpets : another cycle of 
 centuries was to be given him, that he might 
 do his very utmost to render frustrate the 
 grand design of Christ's mediation. The west- 
 ern world was to be allotted to him as a field 
 of operation, and twelve hundred years were 
 to be allowed him to mature his plans, — time 
 enough, and room enough, surely. According- 
 ly, putting his ingenuity and malignity to the 
 stretch, he now brings forth his masterpiece, 
 — even Popery, the most finished system of im- 
 posture, the most complete embodiment of Sa- 
 tanic malice and cunning, and the most skil- 
 fully organized plan of opposition to the cause 
 of God, which the world ever saw. This is the 
 grand subject which is now introduced on the 
 Apocalyptic scene. 
 
 The progress of the grand symbolic drama 
 is arrested, till, in a subsidiary vision, John has 
 a history given him of tlie rise, the character, 
 
40 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 and the reign of Antichrist, and the sufferings 
 endured by the Church during the period of his 
 dqmination. The lesser is marked off from the 
 greater vision by its symbols, which are of a 
 completely different sort, — by its subject, whicli 
 is not the administrative acts of Christ, but the 
 crimes and successes of his enemy, — and by its 
 retrogression in point of time. The great Apo- 
 calyptic vision had advanced to the end of the 
 fifteenth century, when, at the sounding of the 
 sixth trumpet, the Greek empire was destroyed ; 
 but the vision now exhibited to John recedes 
 to the middle of the fifth century, when the 
 Roman empire in the West was overthrown 
 by the judgment of the fourth trumpet. TJie 
 events which occurred in the West during this 
 interval, — that is, from the middle of the fifth 
 to the close of the fifteenth century, — form the 
 subject of this vision. The fourth trumpet had 
 taken out of the way the " let" which for so 
 long a time had prevented the rise of "the 
 Man of Sin.*" The obstruction being remov- 
 ed, he arose ; and now, at the beginning of 
 the sixteenth centurv. he stood fullv revealed, — 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 41 
 
 reaching the zenith of his power about the time 
 that the sixth trumpet consummated the ruin 
 of the eastern empire. This was the la^t 
 enemy who was to arise to oppose the erection 
 of Christ's kingdom, and whom Christ, in the 
 exercise of his great power, w^as to destroy, as 
 he had done others. Accordingly, at this mo- 
 ment the seventh trumpet is sounded, and 
 seven angels, having the seven last plagues, ap- 
 pear upon the scene. Vial after vial is poured 
 out upon the Papacy, and each successive shock 
 helps onward the consummation of its awful 
 doom. The seventh and last is poured out ; 
 and " a great voice out of the temple of heaven, 
 from the throne,*" announces, " It is done f' the 
 grand object of Christ's administration has been 
 accomplished. And while the utter and irre- 
 trievable ruin of mystic Babylon is brought vi- 
 vidly before us by the symbol of the company 
 who stand afar off weeping and wailing, '' And 
 saying, Alas ! alas ! that great city, that was 
 clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, 
 and decked with gold, and precious stones, and 
 pearls ! For in one hour so great riches is come 
 
42 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the 
 company in ships, and sailors, and as many as 
 trade by sea, stood afar off. And cried, when 
 they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, 
 Wliat city is like unto this great city ! And 
 they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weep- 
 ing and wailing, saying, Alas ! alas ! that 
 great city, wherein were made rich all that 
 had ships in the sea, by reason of her costli- 
 ness ! for in one hour is she made desolate i'*" 
 the immediate erection of Christ's kingdom is 
 no less vividly presented to us by the symbol of 
 that other company, who hail with shouts of 
 joy and praise the near advent of some long 
 expected and thrice blessed event. "And I 
 heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, 
 and as the voice of many waters, and as the 
 voice of mighty thunderings, saying. Alleluia ! 
 for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Let 
 us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: 
 for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his 
 wife hath made herself ready.'" 
 
 Let us here pause. Read in the light of the 
 Apocalypse what a sublime scheme is Provi- 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 43 
 
 dence ! How vast, yet simple, its plan ! How 
 complicated, yet harmonious, its movements f 
 What an infinite variety of parts, yet what 
 unity of action ! How great the apparent risk 
 of missing the end, yet with what completeness 
 and certainty is the end attained ! How amaz- 
 ing the regularity and exactness with which its 
 great cycles are performed, so that no enemy is 
 ever permitted to rise higher, or exist a mo- 
 ment longer, than infinite wisdom has ordain- 
 ed. And then, how surpassingly grand are its 
 results ! Let us lift up our eyes, and contem- 
 plate a scheme on which the power, wisdom,, 
 and goodness of God are so gloriously inscribed ; 
 and let us, with the Church, ascribe blessing, 
 and honour, and glory, and power, unto the 
 Lamb, by whom it is administered. It is but a 
 troubled and gloomy light at the best, which 
 history sheds upon the course of this world's 
 affairs. If we look back upon the time which 
 has elapsed since the ascension of Christ with 
 this help only, we are altogether unable to dis- 
 cover anything like order or progression among 
 the events which fill up the period. One war 
 
44 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 has been ended only that another might be com- 
 menced. One empire has been overthrown, for 
 no end, apparently, but that another, not less 
 hostile to the liberties and the religion of the 
 world, might take the place of its predecessor. 
 In vain we question history, what advantage or 
 profit has the world reaped from the calamities 
 it has endured, and the revolutions and changes 
 it has undergone ? It can tell us of nothing 
 worthy of being set off against so great an 
 amount of suffering. It exhibits the world 
 moving on through ages of barbarism and 
 bloodshed, yet never approximating an era of 
 repose ; and, for anything it can confidently 
 affirm to the contrary, the world may have an- 
 other eighteen hundred years of wars and con- 
 vulsions, of secular and spiritual thraldom, be- 
 fore it, and even then be no better than it is at 
 this hour. We begin to lose hope, and allow 
 our despair to drive us to the conclusion, that 
 its present most miserable state can be ended 
 no otherwise than by its annihilation. But 
 when we avail ourselves of the aid of the Apo- 
 calypse, instantly a great light is shed upon the 
 
STRUCTURE OF THE APOCALYPSE. 45 
 
 scene. We can discover the beautiful order 
 and rapid progression of events. We can as- 
 sign to every act in the long series its place ; 
 and can tell the special end it was designed to 
 accomplish ; and can measure the degree in 
 which it contributed to the success of the 
 whole. We can plainly see that, vast and com- 
 plicated as is the scheme, there is not an act, 
 from beginning to end, which has been in vain, 
 or which could have been left out ; and that, 
 long as the time is since the first seal was 
 opened, — and to the Church, which has been a 
 sufferer throughout the entire period almost, 
 it has seemed long indeed, — yet not a day, nay, 
 not an hour, has been lost. Constant, rapid, 
 irresistible, has been the march of events, — 
 onward, and ever onward. There has been no 
 delay, — no retrogression. There have been no 
 mistakes to rectify, — no unforeseen occurrences 
 to provide against, — no useless expenditure of 
 power, — no useless expenditure even of suffer- 
 ing. The heavens themselves present not a 
 spectacle of more perfect order, or of more har- 
 monious movements. 
 
46 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 YISION OF THE MIGHTY ANGEL. 
 
 Visions of terror, symbolizing events yet more 
 terrible, which were to desolate a wretched 
 world, had passed before the eye of John, — 
 tempests of hail mingled with blood, burning 
 mountains forcibly projected into the sea, the 
 obscuration and the fall of part of the heavenly 
 luminaries, the smoke from the pit by which 
 the sun and the air were darkened, and the 
 terrible ranks of the Euphratean horsemen, 
 which overran the eastern world, and slew the 
 third part of men. But now, like the dawn 
 breaking upon a night of thick darkness, after 
 these symbols of woe comes a vision of trans- 
 cendent glory. " And I saw another mighty 
 angel come down from heaven, clothed with a 
 cloud ; and a rainbow was upon his head, and 
 
VISION OF THE MKJHTY ANGEL. 4/ 
 
 his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as 
 pillars of fire." 
 
 " I saw another mighty angel."' He is con- 
 trasted with others whom John had seen, but 
 whom he far excelled, — even the angels of the 
 trumpets. The point in which the contrast is 
 here made to lie is his power, — a "mighty 
 angel." The angels of the trumpets had had 
 great power over the earth : they had broken 
 in pieces the iron kingdom of Rome, both in 
 the West and in the East ; but that power was 
 not their own ; it was derived from the " mighty 
 angel" who now stood before John. Yiho this 
 mighty angel was does not admit of doubt. 
 He was plainly the Church's King and the 
 world's King, our Lord Jesus Christ. Mr 
 Elliot, who has brought to the exposition of 
 the Apocalypse a rare erudition, both classic 
 and historic, great candour of mind, the most 
 exemplary patience of inquiry, and an admir- 
 able sobriety and sagacity of judgment, and 
 who, aided by these great qualities, has excel- 
 led all his predecessors in this field, gives it 
 as his opinion, that Christ here appears in a 
 
48 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 symbolic character, as the Angel of the Re- 
 form atiox. To this opinion we demur. It 
 appears to us that it is liable to the objection 
 that it confounds the Administrator with his 
 acts of administration. In no other part of 
 the Apocalypse is a person singly and by him- 
 self employed as a symbol to denote an event. 
 The opinion, moreover, appears untenable on 
 the ground of time. The vision is seen by 
 John, it is true, after the sounding of the sixth 
 trumpet ; but there is here an undoubted retro- 
 gression, inasmuch as the events included under 
 this vision date their commencement from the 
 sounding of the fourth trumpet, and, starting 
 with the rise of Antichrist, run on in symbolic 
 narrative till the sounding of the seventh trum- 
 pet, when Antichrist, having reached the sum- 
 mit of his power, begins to be brought down. 
 Now, seeing the vision of the " mighty anger** 
 occupies the foreground in that symbolic repre- 
 sentation which was made to John of the trou- 
 bles of the twelve hundred and sixty days, what 
 more natural than to conceive that this vision 
 was meant to prefigure the manifestation which 
 
VISION OF THE MIGHTY ANGEL. 49 
 
 Christ would make to the Church, of his power 
 and faithfulness as her King, both before the 
 commencement of these sad events, and dur- 
 ing their continuance ? Antichrist was to lay 
 claim to the sovereignty of the world, exact 
 the homage of all who dwelt upon it, and deny, 
 to such as should withhold their worship, a 
 spot where to rest while living, or sleep when 
 dead. How consolatory to the Church, in these 
 circumstances, to reflect, that her Saviour had 
 set his right foot on the sea, and his left on 
 the earth, in token of his being Lord of all, 
 and that he should yet assuredly wrest what 
 was his own out of the hand of the usurper ! 
 She knew that while Antichrist was laying both 
 sea and land under tribute, and while both 
 were groaning under his oppressions and his 
 crimes, the " mighty angel" was standing over 
 him, ready to deal the blow, at the proper 
 time, by which he was to be destroyed. All 
 the appearances of Christ are suitable to the 
 dispensations He comes to usher in ; and how 
 suitable his present appearance to the dispen- 
 sation about to commence, we shall see when 
 
 D 
 
50 TJIE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 we explain, which we now proceed to do brief- 
 ly, the particulars of the vision. 
 
 Power is the attribute by which this angel is 
 mainly characterized. He is the Mighty One. 
 As God, He laid the foundations of the earth ; 
 and the heavens are the workmanship of his 
 hands. As Mediator, He sits on the right hand 
 of power in the heavens, and has all power in 
 earth and heaven committed to Him. There is 
 not a being in the world of mind, nor an ele- 
 ment in the world of matter, over which He 
 does not exercise control. The angels that ex- 
 cel in strength do his commandments through- 
 out every part of his vast dominions. Equally 
 supreme is his sovereignty over our lower world. 
 The lights of the sky shine at his command ; the 
 tempests of the air gather and burst at his bid- 
 <ling ; the waves of the sea rise or are stilled at 
 his voice ; the armies of earth are his ; and, even 
 when acting against Him, are in reality acting 
 for Him. It is His to give stability and glory to 
 thrones, or to overturn them ; to crown hosts 
 Avith victory, or to break them in pieces ; and 
 ^ He wills their success or defeat, according as 
 
VISION OF THE MIGHTY ANGEL. 51 
 
 they subserve the great ends of his reign and 
 government. Greater still is his power, and 
 wider still is his dominion. Even the spirits of 
 the pit are not exempt from that tribute of 
 service under which He lays the whole of crea- 
 tion. He displays his power over them, by re- 
 straining, directing, and overruling them; so 
 that, with intentions the most opposite to his, 
 they assist in the accomplishment of his ever- 
 lasting and holy purposes. How many displays 
 has He given of his great power in " the an- 
 cient days,'^ — in " the generations of old.'' These 
 the Church has commemorated in her songs. 
 He it was, when she dwelt in the house of 
 bondage, who " cut Rahab, and wounded the 
 dragon.*" He it was, when she was in captivity, 
 who " sent to Babylon,"" and " brought down all 
 their nobles." But among all the great acts 
 which have marked the course of his adminis- 
 tration, there is not one equal to that which He 
 reserved for the last. This shall eclipse all 
 that went before it. Egypt and Babylon were 
 great oppressors ;} Rome pagan, in her latter 
 days, was a greater oppressor than either ; and 
 
52 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the deliverance of the Church from their yoke 
 was a signal mercy ; but when did there arise 
 an enemy like Antichrist ? When before had 
 the universe beheld such a fearful combination 
 of policy and power, of hypocrisy and craft, of 
 impiety and blasphemy ? — an enemy who spake 
 great words against the Most High, and did 
 wear out the saints of the Most High, and 
 thought to change times and laws ; who waxed 
 irreat, even to the host of heaven ; and did 
 cast down some of the host and of the stars to 
 the ground, and stamped upon them. And as 
 the world never before beheld so formidable an 
 enemy, so never before did it witness so tre- 
 mendous an overthrow, — an overthrow so sig- 
 nal, unexpected, and terrible, that the whole 
 earth shall hear of it, and glorify the power 
 and the holiness of Him who has inflicted it. 
 
 " Clothed with a cloud." This forms a beau- 
 tiful connection between his a])pearances to the 
 Church of the Old Testament, and the appear- 
 ance he now made to the Church of the new 
 dispensation, represented by John. Veiled in a 
 cloud, He marched before his people through the 
 
VISION OF THE MIGHTY Ax\GEL. hl^ 
 
 wilderness. When He descended on Sinai to 
 receive the homage of that nation whose Sove- 
 reign he condescended to become, he said, " Lo ! 
 I come unto thee in a thick cloud." When 
 intimating that He would be present in his 
 Church, he said that he would dwell in the 
 " thick darkness."" Was that " darkness'' sym- 
 bolic ? There can be little question that it 
 was. It shadowed forth the nature of this dis- 
 pensation, which was one of type and shadow ; 
 revealing, yet obscurely, the work of Christ 
 and the way of salvation. So the clouds that 
 veiled the form of the " mighty angeF' may be 
 held as symbolizing the character of the dis- 
 pensation now to commence, — a period of judg- 
 ment to the world, and of trial to the Church. 
 As at a former period of judgment, so now, 
 " He made darkness his secret place ; his pavi- 
 lion round about Him were dark waters and 
 thick clouds of the skies.'' How often should 
 the Church, during this part of Christ's admi- 
 nistration, — of all others the most mysterious, 
 — have occasion to say, " Thy way is in the 
 sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy 
 
54 THE SEVENTH VIA!.. 
 
 footsteps are not known."" " Clouds and dark- 
 ness are round about Thee.*" 
 
 " And a rainbow was upon his head/' With 
 regard to this symbol, since the era of the Flood 
 it has been used as the sign of a covenant. 
 This is its consecrated use. After the waters 
 had assuaged, and the mountains and valleys 
 had again looked forth, God said, " I do set my 
 bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token 
 of a covenant between me and the earth,*" that 
 '' the waters shall no more become a flood to 
 destroy the earth." In the dark cloud now 
 gathering above the Church, God had set his 
 bow, — the token of the covenant between Him 
 and the Church, that the waters of wrath which 
 were now to roli over the world should not be- 
 come a flood to destroy the Church. Under 
 the shadow of that cloud, and in sight of those 
 desolating torrents that were to fall from it, 
 and to grow into a deluge that should sweep 
 away empires and dynasties, the Church, undis- 
 mayed, fixing her eye upon the sign of the 
 covenant, might sing, '' God is our refuge and 
 strength, — a very present help in trouble: there- 
 
VISION OF THE MIGHTY ANGEL. :j5 
 
 fore will we not fear, though the earth be re- 
 moved, and though the mountains be carried 
 into the midst of the sea.""* This sign, display- 
 ed on the bosom of the cloud, was as if God 
 had said to her. Fear not, little flock. In 
 awful judgment am I come forth against the 
 world; but the arm now stretched forth against 
 it to destroy it is around thee, to protect thee. 
 Though I should make a full end of all nations, 
 I will not make a full end of thee. 
 
 " His face was as it were the sun." Through- 
 out the whole of that dark night, whose twilight 
 shadows were already falling, his face was to be 
 hidden to the world, but his own should see it, 
 and be refreshed and cheered thereby. The 
 Church was to dwell in light, while the world 
 should be shrouded in darkness. When the 
 Church passed through the Red Sea, the pillar 
 of cloud that followed her was a pillar of light 
 to her, but of darkness to the Egyptians. That 
 pillar was to take its stand once more between 
 the sealed Church and the antichristian world, 
 and to perform its functions, as of old, in shed- 
 ding light upon the one and darkness upon the 
 
56 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 other. The glory of Christ was seen, and his 
 love enjoyed, even during the night of the 
 Papacy, by his chosen witnesses. Though hid- 
 den from the world, yet not from Christ, some 
 dwelt in the inaccessible cliffs, or in the deep 
 valleys of Piedmont, covered by the friendly 
 shadows of the overhanging mountains ; others 
 retired to the remote and uninhabitable wilds 
 of the Hebrides; others found shelter in the 
 convents of England and Germany ; others lay 
 hid in the caverns of Bohemia. But wherever 
 their retreat, the Word of God lay open be- 
 fore them; and through its instrumentality they 
 held communion with Christ. Thus the pro- 
 mise was fulfilled, as it has often been in days 
 of darkness to the world, — " But unto you that 
 fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness 
 arise, with healing in his wings.'' 
 
 " And his feet as pillars of fire.'' The "steps" 
 of God are uniformly employed in the Old Tes- 
 tament to denote his dispensations of provi- 
 dence. Such is the undoubted meaning of the 
 symbol here. It implies that the providential 
 procedure of Christ, during the period now 
 
VISION OF THE MIGHTY ANGEL. O / 
 
 commencing, should combine, in no ordinary 
 degree, power, glory, and terror. His feet 
 were as pillars of fire, — strong to carry forward 
 his work, maugre all opposition, and to fulfil 
 his own purposes amid tlie ruin of the plans 
 and purposes of all others. In the government 
 of the world, as in its creation. He fainteth 
 not, neither is weary. On He goes, conquer- 
 ing and treading into the dust all his enemies. 
 His feet were as pillars <di fire. Fire scorches 
 and burns up : so were the judgments now to 
 be introduced. They were in due time to 
 scorch and burn up the Papacy, and to refine 
 and purify his Church. She should be safe 
 while the earth was trembling and its pillars 
 giving way beneath the feet of this mighty 
 angel. She should be built up by the same 
 events which should break in pieces the world 
 and its inhabitants. 
 
58 THE SMVE.Ni II VIAL. 
 
 THE LITTLE BOOK. 
 
 In the hand of this mighty and glorious angel 
 was a little book open. We cannot think that 
 the interpretation of the symbol which Mr 
 Elliot, Dr Keith, and others have given, is the 
 true one, viz. that it represents an open Bible^ 
 first given to the world at the Reformation. 
 It is contrary to every canon of interpretation 
 of the Apocalyptic symbols, to say that a hook 
 is the symbol of a hooJc. Nor will this idea 
 consist with the sequel. John was command- 
 ed to take the book out of the angeFs hand, 
 and eat it. When he had done so, he found 
 it sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly. 
 We cannot see the propriety of applying this 
 to the publication of the Scriptures at the Re- 
 fgrmation. No sooner had John digested the 
 
THE LITTLE BOOK. 59 
 
 book, than he received a commission to pro- 
 phesy again. This seems to connect the little 
 book with the predictions that follow, and to 
 lay a ground for the supposition that these 
 predictions formed the little book. It was 
 pleasant to know the events contained in this 
 book, but painful to announce them to the 
 Church, relating as they did to her long pro- 
 phesying in sackcloth, and to the arduous con- 
 flict she should be called to wage ^vith the dra- 
 gon. We are persuaded that the opinion held 
 concerning the little book by Mede, in which he 
 was followed by Vitringa, and Sir Isaac Newton, 
 and others, is the sound one. That opinion is 
 substantially what we have stated. The little 
 book naturally suggests a larger book, with 
 which it is contrasted. Had it symbolized the 
 Bible, it would have been described simply as 
 a hool\ But the little book (^i^Xcc^'diov) in 
 the angeFs hand is obviously contrasted with 
 the LamVs book (jSi^'kiov), It is represented 
 with great propriety as a little book, because 
 the space of time comprehended in it is much 
 shorter than that included in the other. The 
 
60 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Lamb's book comprehends the whole period 
 from the opening of the first seal till the re- 
 turn of Christ to judgment. The little book 
 comprehends only twelve hundred and sixty 
 years; or, to come nearer the truth, it com- 
 prehends only that part of these years which 
 includes the rise and reign of Antichrist ; for 
 it leaves off his history when his overthrow 
 commences, — the point where the sealed roll 
 takes it up, to carry it on under the symbol of 
 the vials. The prophecy of the little book is 
 contained, we apprehend, in the eleventh, 
 twelfth, and thirteenth chapters. Without 
 this little book the sequel of the Apocalypse 
 would scarce have been intelligible ; for then 
 we should have seen the third woe inflicted, 
 without having had the object on whom that 
 woe fell described. We have already said, 
 that when the western empire was destroyed 
 at the sounding of the fourth trumpet, the scene 
 of judgment was transferred to the eastern 
 world. The fifth trumpet, or first woe trum- 
 pet, was sounded, introducing the plague of the 
 locusts, or Saracens. The sixth trumpet, or 
 
THE LITTLE BOOK. 61 
 
 second woe trumpet, was next sounded, intro- 
 ducing the plague of the horsemen, or Turks, by 
 whom the eastern empire was destroyed. But 
 during the infliction of these woes in the East, 
 Popery was gradually rising in the West. On 
 IT the third woe was now to be inflicted ; there- 
 fore is was necessary to retrograde in the sym- 
 bolic narrative, in order to bring up the history 
 of affairs in the West from the time the west- 
 ern empire had been overthrown. This the 
 little book does. It exhibits the rise of Anti- 
 christ, and his gradual ascent to universal do- 
 minion. Once, again, and a third time, are we 
 told the story of that eventful period : first, in 
 the witnesses who prophesy in sackcloth, are 
 slain, and rise again ; next, in the woman 
 clothed with the sun, persecuted by a dragon, 
 and obliged to flee into the wilderness ; and 
 yet again, in the history of the beast of the 
 sea and the beast of the earth ; which last 
 grew to such a height of power, and waxed so 
 self-willed and imperious, that he would per- 
 mit no one to buy or sell who did not wear his 
 mark in his forehead or in his right hand. 
 
62 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Thus the prophecy is thrice given, and each 
 time under different imagery; because God 
 had established the thing, and would surely 
 bring it to pass ; and also, that opportunity 
 might be given minutely to paint Antichrist 
 in his character and actings, in order that the 
 Church might know him when he appeared. 
 Such, then, is the subject of the little book. 
 It supplies the history of some most important 
 events which took place during the sounding 
 of the fifth and sixth trumpets, — that is, from 
 the close of the fifth to the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century, — and the knowledge of 
 which is essential to the right understanding 
 of the closing acts in the great Apocalyptic 
 drama. The main objection of Mr Elliot to 
 this interpretation is, that had the little book 
 been prophetical, it would have been represent- 
 ed as closed, like the LamVs book, and open- 
 ed gradually as the other was. We do not 
 think that there is much force in this. The 
 true answer to it we apprehend to be, that the 
 main idea set forth in the unrolling of the 
 sealed book was, not that its contents related 
 
THE LITTLE BOOK. 63 
 
 to the future, but that the whole administra- 
 tion of Providence was in the hands of Christ. 
 The act of opening the seals exhibits Christ, 
 not as a prophet, but as He to whom it be- 
 longs to execute the purposes of God. It was 
 unnecessary to exhibit symbolically this truth 
 over again ; and therefore the little book is 
 represented as open, just as the roll given to 
 Ezekiel by the river Chebar, from which this 
 part of the imagery of the Apocalypse is un- 
 doubtedly taken, was spread before him, al- 
 tliongh it contained the predictions he was to 
 deliver to the house of Israel, and thus related 
 to the future. Whether sealed or open, the 
 disclosure of its contents could proceed only 
 from Him who reveals secret things to his ser- 
 vants. 
 
 " He set his right foot upon the sea, and his 
 left foot on the earth.'' A striking representa- 
 tion this of his universal dominion as Mediator. 
 Mr Elliot, and others, who make this angel 
 the symbol of the Reformation, — a most ano- 
 malous interpretation, we cannot help think- 
 ing- — interpret this secf. on which the right foot 
 
64 THE SEVExNTII VIAL. 
 
 of the angel rested, as meaning Britain, and 
 those maritime parts of the Continent — Hol- 
 land, Denmark, Sweden — where the influence 
 of the Reformation was most felt ; and the 
 earthy on which the angel placed his left foot, as 
 denoting the more inland parts of the Conti- 
 nent, where the effects of the Reformation 
 were less permanent. But this is to violate a 
 most imperative law in symbolic interpretation, 
 according to which the sea cannot mean the 
 sea, but something else ; nor the earth the 
 earth, but some other thing. Having framed 
 a symbolic alphabet, we must adhere to it 
 throughout, and not give to the same charac- 
 ter one meaning in one passage, and another 
 meaning in another passage. In this way we 
 might make anything of the Apocalypse, or 
 rather, we should make nothing of it. The sea 
 is the symbol of nations, particularly in a state 
 of excitement, and th^rofore may be here taken 
 to denote secular S')ciety. The earth is so- 
 ciety in its mor3 pe'tio 1 state ; but being that 
 out of which the Papacy arose, it is sometimes 
 put elliptically to denote the Papacy, and 
 
THE LITTLE BOOK. 65 
 
 may be here taken to mean ecclesiastical so- 
 ciety. As the world is composed of sea and 
 dry land, so society is made up of secular and 
 ecclesiastical. Christ is here seen standing on 
 both, — on the sea and the earth of the anti- 
 christian system, — denoting his power over 
 both civil and ecclesiastical society. He had 
 his foot on the nations, and he had it planted, 
 too, on Antichrist ; and notwithstanding that 
 for a long period he appeared to practise and 
 prosper against God, Christ was all the while 
 subserving his own purposes by him ; and when 
 these were accomplished, he trod him into the 
 dust. 
 
 " And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion 
 roareth."" By the voice of Christ is meant the 
 dispensations of his providence. By these He 
 speaks to the world. His voice was loud, ma- 
 jestic, terrible, as when a lion roareth. The 
 world resounded and shook, as does the wil- 
 derness when the lion roars ; and its tribes be- 
 came mute with terror. This denotes the aw- 
 ful character of those events He was now to 
 introduce, and by which He was to rebuke the 
 
 E 
 
G6 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 nations for their sin, and proclaim his power 
 and justice. " And when he had cried, seven 
 thunders uttered their voices," — (A/ svTa /5g«i;ra/), 
 the seven thunders, not simply seven thunders. 
 Various, and in some cases very extraordinary, 
 interpretations have been given of this symbol. 
 The " seven thunders,'" says Vitringa, mean the 
 "seven crusades;'' and John was commanded, 
 he tells us, to pass over in silence what they 
 uttered, because "Nee dignse erant quse pro- 
 lixius exponerentur." The explanation of Mr 
 Elliot is scarcely more satisfactory to our mind. 
 These seven thunders symbolize, according to 
 him, the excommunications which the Pope 
 launched against the reformers ; and he rests 
 not a little stress upon the fact, as a vindica- 
 tion of his theory, that the papal bulls, in com- 
 mon phrase, are denominated thunders, and 
 emanate from the seven hills. The fault of this 
 exposition appears to us to lie in its being too 
 ingenious. Mr Elliot builds also a good deal 
 upon the circumstance of the definite article 
 being employed, — " the seven thunders." We 
 submit that this bears with much greater force 
 
THE LITTLE BOOK. 67 
 
 against than for his theory. Had the papal 
 thunders been here symbolized, it is probable 
 that the definite article would have been omit- 
 ted, seeing they are never introduced before or 
 after in the Apocalypse. Besides, the rise of the 
 beast had not yet been shown ; and it is con- 
 trary to all propriety to introduce his thunders 
 or roarings before he himself had received ex- 
 istence. What, then, are we to understand by 
 the seven thunders, and the command given to 
 John to seal up what they uttered ? Let us 
 follow the leadings of the figure. The angel 
 speaks with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth ; 
 and the seven thunders are the re-echo of the 
 angePs voice. Similar in character to the ori- 
 ginal sound must be the reverberations. The 
 voice denoted the awful events of the coming 
 dispensation, especially those that were to bring 
 about " the consummation ;" and so must the 
 seven thunders which were awakened by that 
 voice. They relate, we are strongly persuaded, 
 to the plagues that were to constitute the third 
 woe, — the judgments by which the ruin of the 
 Papacy was to be accomplished. If so, they 
 
68 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 are the same as the plagues of the seven vials, 
 with which they correspond in point of num- 
 ber ; and the words of the angel that follow 
 give ground to conclude that they correspond 
 with the vials in point of time also ; that, in 
 fact, both relate to the same events. Why, 
 then, was it said to John, " Seal up those 
 things which the seven thunders uttered, and 
 write them not V Obviously because the events 
 they announced were to be afterwards revealed 
 to him in symbol under the seventh trumpet. 
 They were sealed up now, because John had 
 first to be shown the rise and reign of that ter- 
 rible power on which the plagues which the 
 thunders announced were to be inflicted. It 
 W'Ould have violated the proprieties of the Apo- 
 calyptic drama to write the doom before the 
 OBJECT of that doom had arisen. These dis- 
 closures were to be introduced at their proper 
 place in the Apocalypse, with this difference, 
 that whereas the thunders described, — most 
 probably without any figure or metaphor, — the 
 judgments by which Antichrist was to be over- 
 thrown, the revelation afterwards made of 
 
THE LITTLE BOOK. 69 
 
 these things was given in symbolical language. If 
 this be the right interpretation, — which we are 
 persuaded it is, — then, although the things that 
 were uttered by the seven thunders were sealed 
 up at that time, they are now in course of be- 
 ing revealed. The days in which we live are 
 the days of the voice of the seventh angel ; and 
 the events of Providence are now publishing to 
 all men what it was unlawful then for the pen 
 of the apostle to write ; and when the hour of 
 Antichrist's overthrow shall have arrived, we 
 shall know more fully still what these seven 
 thunders uttered. 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 THE OATH OF THE AXGEL. 
 
 The grandeur of the vision is heightened by the 
 rtwfully solemn act which the august being, who 
 stood with one foot planted on the sea and the 
 other on the earth, now proceeded with great 
 impressiveness to perform. " And the angel 
 which I saw stand upon the earth and upon the 
 sea lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by 
 Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created 
 jieaven and the things that therein are, and tho 
 earth and the things that therein are, and the 
 sea and the things which are therein, that there 
 should be time no longer." Every one qualified 
 to consult the original will at once admit that 
 our translation does not give the precise im- 
 port of the angel's oath, — xi^"^^*^ ^^'^'■^■'^' s&rc/.i, — 
 literally, " The time shall not be yet." The 
 angel refers plainly to the time when some 
 
THE OATH OF THE ANGEL. 71 
 
 event, important in itself, and anxiously desired 
 and expected by John, as representative of the 
 Church, should happen, and of which the angel 
 had just spoken, and been answered by the 
 thunders which had disclosed the particulars 
 of that great event. When, then, shall it be 1 
 " But," continues the angel, " in the days of the 
 voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin 
 to sound, the mystery of God should be finish- 
 ed, as He hath declared to his servants the 
 prophets." That it was some joyful event, 
 to the Church at least, whatever its aspect to 
 the world, is undoubted, from the term which 
 the angel employs when speaking about it, 
 — (i-jTiyyiXiis)^ — the same word which is em- 
 ployed to denote the preaching of the gospel. 
 It had been declared as c/ood news. We learn 
 farther from the angeFs oath, that the event 
 had ere now been foretold. It had been de- 
 clared, — preached as good news, — to the pro- 
 phets. To which of the prophets ? Is there 
 any of them to whom we find a revelation made, 
 — a revelation on oath, — of the consummation, 
 or the finishing of some grand epoch in God's 
 
72 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 government of the world l We find such a re- 
 velation made to Daniel, conveyed in terms 
 and accompanied with imagery so very nearly 
 identical with those of the vision before us, that 
 we can have no doubt the allusion is to that 
 prophet. In the last chapter of Daniel's pro- 
 phecy we find a time of trouble spoken of, " such 
 as never was since there was a nation, even to 
 that same time." But Michael should stand up, 
 and Daniel's people should be delivered, — "every 
 one that should be found written in the book.'' 
 In the hearing of Daniel, one made enquiry at 
 " the man clothed in linen, which was upon the 
 waters of the river. How long shall it be to the 
 end of these wonders ? And I heard the man 
 clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of 
 the river, when he held up his right hand and 
 his left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him 
 that liveth for ever, that it shall be for a time, 
 times, and an half; and when He shall have 
 accomplished to scatter the power of the holy 
 people, all these things shall be finished." The 
 epoch, which was to bear a complex character, 
 in as much as it was to be a period of unex- 
 
THE OATH OF THE ANGEL. 73 
 
 ampled trouble, and of deliverance equally un- 
 exampled, was then far distant: accordingly 
 Daniel was told, " the words are closed up and 
 sealed till the time of the end/' 
 
 The vision of Daniel helps us to interpret 
 that of John. In the words we have quoted, 
 there is a reference made to a noted period in 
 the Apocalypse, — " a time, times, and an half,'"* 
 i. e, a year, two years, and half a year ; i. e. 
 twelve hundred and sixty prophetic days, or 
 years. The period, we say, is a strongly mark- 
 ed one in the Apocalypse, seeing it embraces 
 the reign of Antichrist. At the end of that 
 period all these wonders of judgment and de- 
 liverance are to happen. This enables us to 
 determine what is here meant by the mystery 
 of God, which shall be finished in the days of 
 the voice of the seventh angel. It also goes a 
 great way to determine with certainty what the 
 things were which the seven thunders uttered, 
 but which John was forbidden to write. See- 
 ing we are informed in Daniel that they were 
 to take place at the close of the twelve hundred 
 and sixty days, we infer that they were the 
 
74 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 seven last plagues, by which Antichrist was to 
 be slowly consumed, and at length suddenly and 
 fearfully destroyed. The history of the " little 
 book'' begins after the sounding of the fourth 
 trumpet; from which period, speaking generally, 
 we date the rise of Antichrist. The oath of 
 the angel, touching the finishing of the mystery 
 of God in his destruction, bore that it should 
 not be yet. A full millennium had to intervene, 
 — from the fifth to the sixteenth century : not 
 sooner should Antichrist reach his meridian. 
 But having attained the height of his power, 
 the seventh angel should sound ; and then, as 
 sure as God possessed almighty power and 
 eternal being. Antichrist should be destroyed. 
 There was a high propriety in the angePs ap- 
 peal to these two attributes of the Divine cha- 
 racter. No power less than that which made 
 the heavens and the earth could destroy so con- 
 solidated a system as the Papacy ; and He only 
 that liveth for ever could carry on through suc- 
 cessive ages, that series of events by which Anti- 
 christ should eventually be brought down. Nor 
 was the propriety less of terming this great 
 
THE OATH OF THE ANGEL. /i> 
 
 event the finishing of the mystery of God. We 
 know not how long God's providence over the 
 world, in its present state, shall last ; but we 
 know this, — that the mystery of providence, — 
 that part of providence which, from the intrica- 
 cies and perplexities with which it has abound- 
 ed, has been a mystery to the wisest, — shall come 
 to a close when Antichrist falls. It is long since 
 it was revealed to Daniel that there should be 
 four grand epochs in the history of the world, 
 marked off by the rise and fall of four great 
 monarchies ; that these should be preparatory 
 to the kingdom of Christ ; and that as soon as 
 the fourth and last of these monarchies had 
 fallen, that kingdom should be set up. The fall 
 of the last monarchy was to form the comple- 
 tion of the scheme, — the winding up of the dra- 
 ma ; and when finished, the admirable wisdom 
 with which its plan had been arranged should 
 be seen, and all the mystery in which, to hu- 
 man penetration, it had been shrouded during 
 its progress, should be removed. This long- 
 predicted and much-desired event should hap- 
 
76 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 pen, John was assured by the angel on oath, 
 during the days of the voice of the seventh 
 angel. Not longer was the patience of the 
 Church to be tried ; and not longer should Sa- 
 tan be permitted, by the instrumentality of his 
 agents, to deceive and destroy the nations. The 
 seventh trumpet should sound the world's ju- 
 bilee, — the day of vengeance and the year of 
 the redeemed. The idea that it is the day of 
 judgment that is here announced is inadmis- 
 sible ; but in respect that the scenes by whieli 
 the close of this part of God's providence shall 
 be signalized will be second in importance and 
 terror only to those scenes amid which time it- 
 self shall close, they are depicted by imagery 
 taken from the last judgment. This period 
 will be a harbinger of the day of judgment, — in 
 reality a judgment-day to the world. Accord- 
 ingly, it is predicted, both in Daniel, and else- 
 where in the Apocalypse, that then the dead 
 shall be raised ; that is, those whom Anti- 
 christ has slain shall stand up, — not in their 
 persons, but in their cause, — that their inno- 
 
THE OATH OF THE ANGEL. 77 
 
 cence may be published, and his iniquity pro- 
 claimed, before he is cast into the lake that 
 burns with fire and brimestone. 
 
 The vision ends with an intimation to John 
 to receive the book from the angel, and eat it. 
 He did so ; " and it was in my mouth sweet as 
 honey ; and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly 
 was bitter.'' To eat the book denoted the ex- 
 ercise of his mind respecting it. To understand 
 a matter at once important and profound is 
 pleasant, — sweet as honey ; but, alas ! the 
 book contained heavy tidings to the Church : 
 it announced a period of twelve hundred and 
 sixty years of sorrow to her, and of triumph to 
 her foes : " and as soon as I had eaten (under- 
 stood) it, my belly was bitter.'"* Once more was 
 the voice of prophecy to be heard in the world 
 before it should become silent for ever. " Thou 
 must prophecy again before many peoples, and 
 nations, and tongues, and kings." John was 
 the last of the prophets, and this was the last 
 prophecy. It respected the Church's last ene- 
 my ; and as soon as this prediction should 
 be published, the volume of prophecy would be 
 
i 8 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 closed. John was not in person to publish these 
 sayings to the world. He was a prisoner in 
 Patmos, kept there by the tyrant who now go- 
 verned the world. But though he had been 
 permitted that very day to leave the shores of 
 the lonely isle, he was too full of years and suf- 
 ferings to journey through the countries, and 
 proclaim what was now made known to him. 
 He was soon by death to rejoin in glory that 
 Lord whose chosen and best beloved companion 
 he had been during his humiliation on earth. 
 But being inspired to write the visions of Pat- 
 mos, he is prophesying to this hour before 
 peoples and nations. And by the Church he 
 has ever been held to be one of the greatest of 
 those prophets which, though dead, yet speak 
 unto her. 
 
 How infallibly certain is it that Popery shall 
 be brought down ! God has not only promised, 
 not only prophesied, but sworn, to overthrow it. 
 At the commencement of that grand scheme of 
 Providence which embraces the four monar- 
 chies, the angel who stands upon the sea and 
 the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and 
 
THE OATH OF THE ANGEL. 79 
 
 sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, 
 that after a time, times, and an half, it should 
 come to an end. At the commencement of the 
 fourth and last monarchy, the same oath was re- 
 peated in the same solemn manner. The oath of 
 the angel must be fulfilled, oppose it whoso list. 
 Nor is God slack concerning his oath. Our im- 
 patience often provokes us to think that the vi- 
 sion tarries, — that events pass slowly over tlic 
 stage of time. We measure the duration they 
 occupy by our own little span. We are like one 
 viev/ing the motions of the great bodies of the 
 firmament at the distance of the earth, to whom 
 they seem to creep slowly across the sky, whilst, 
 were he nearer, he would be dazzled by the ra- 
 pidity and irresistible force with which they 
 move onward. So would we judge of the events 
 of Providence, were we to measure their pro- 
 gress by the standard here set up by the angel, 
 - — God's eternity. Twelve hundred and sixty 
 prophetic days have been allotted to Antichrist. 
 To that term not a day, not an hour, shall be 
 added. When it expires his knell will be rung, 
 and a universe shall shout over his fall. 
 
80 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 THE MEASUKING OF THE TEMPLE. 
 
 J(JHN having digested the contents of the book, 
 and received the command again to prophesy, 
 now addresses himself to his task. Like Eze- 
 kiel, who, after he had eaten the open roll, and 
 had been commanded to prophesy to the house 
 of Israel, began to do so by signs, John enters 
 on his prophetic mission by the exhibition of 
 signs. He measures the temple and its wor- 
 shippers, — an act which bears on the face of it 
 that a great apostacy among the members of 
 the visible Church was now to take place, of 
 which the measuring of the temple was at once 
 the preparation and the prediction. Chap. xi. 
 1, '• And there was given me a reed like unto a 
 rod : and the angel stood, saying. Rise, and 
 measure the temple of God, and the altar, and 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 81 
 
 them that worship therein/' " There was given 
 me a reed" (xaXa/xog). The xaXa/^og or reed 
 was used in three ways among the Jews, — as a 
 walking- staff, as a measuring rod, and as a pen. 
 Its size varied according to its use. To show 
 in which of these senses the xaXa.ao; or reed is 
 here to be taken, it is added, that it was " like 
 unto a rod." It v/as a measuring reed, then, 
 that was now given to John. " And the angel 
 stood, saying. Rise and measure the temple of 
 God, and the altar, and them that worship 
 therein. But the court which is without the 
 temple leave out, and measure it notr Not to 
 the literal temple on Zion, obviously, was John 
 to apply his measuring rod, for that " holy and 
 beautiful house" where his fathers worshipped, 
 long before the period referred to in this vision, 
 was to be levelled with the ground, and the Ro- 
 man ploughshare drawn over it, if, indeed, it 
 had not been so already. It is the Christian 
 Church that is here meant, described by ima- 
 gery borrowed from the hill of Zion. As there 
 is so obvious a reference here to the plan and 
 arrangements of the ancient Jewish temple, it 
 
 F 
 
82 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 becomes necessary, in order to the clear appre- 
 hension of what John now did, and the precise 
 significancy of the act, to describe briefly the 
 arrangements of the ancient temple. The sa- 
 cred buildings occupied the summit of the hill. 
 In the centre was a noble and spacious edifice, 
 divided into two chambers. This formed strict- 
 ly the temple. The innermost chamber was 
 the holy of holies : it contained the ark of the 
 covenant, overshadowed by the cherubim, be- 
 tween whom dwelt the cloud of glory, — the 
 symbol of Jehovah's presence. Into this awful 
 chamber there entered no one save the high 
 priest, and even he only once in the year. The 
 second or outer chamber was named the sanc- 
 tuary, and contained the altar of burnt-offer- 
 mg and the altar of incense. The priests only, 
 and such of the people as had sacrifices to offer, 
 were permitted to enter here. Then running 
 round the temple, and immediately adjoining it, 
 was the inner court, the appointed place of as- 
 sembling for the Israelites. Beyond the court 
 of the Israelites was another, — the outer court; 
 a spacious area, which covered the entire sum- 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 83 
 
 mit of the mount, and was designed for the ac- 
 commodation of proselytes to the Jewish reli- 
 gion, and hence was termed sometimes the 
 court of the proselytes. 
 
 Such were the arrangements of the Jewish 
 temple, which evidently formed the model of 
 that which stood before John in the Apocalyp- 
 tic visions. There was first the sacred edifice, 
 consisting of two chambers ; then, running 
 round it, in an oblong form, was the court of 
 the Israelites ; and running round that again, 
 was the court of the Gentiles. John was com- 
 manded to measure the temple of God, and the 
 altar, and them that worship therein. It is 
 not said whether the court of the Israelites was 
 to be included or left out in the measurements 
 of John. Mr Elliot thinks it was included ; 
 for this reason, that John was commanded to 
 measure the " altar, and them that worship 
 therein f' and he believes this implies the altar 
 court, by which we understand him to mean 
 what is commonly termed the inner court. It 
 does not necessarily mean this ; and we think 
 a more natural interpretation of this clause is, 
 
84 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 that it refers to the chamber in which the 
 altar stood, and to those who worshipped in 
 that chamber, consisting of the priests, and of 
 those of the people who had sacrifices and offer- 
 ings to present. We are of opinion, therefore, 
 that the whole area outside the temple-build- 
 ing was left out ; the court where the ordinary 
 worshippers assembled, as well as the more 
 spacious court of the Gentiles. This last, it is 
 certain, was left out ; for it is particularly com- 
 manded to be so, and a reason assigned : " But 
 the court which is without the temple leave 
 out, and measure it not; for it is given unto 
 the Gentiles ; and the holy city shall they tread 
 under foot forty and two months."' Nothing, in 
 our view, was included but the temple, and those 
 who worshipped beside the altar within the first 
 vail. But it is of importance to inquire what 
 the action symbolized. Sometimes the measur- 
 ing rod is employed to denote construction, as 
 in the case of Ezekiel (chap. xl. 8 et seq.)^ where 
 the angel uses his measuring reed to mete out 
 the proportions of a new temple to be erected. 
 Sometimes it is the symbol of destruction. In 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TE]\H'LE. 85 
 
 2 Kings, xxi. 13, and else\yliere, it is so used; 
 a part was to be preserved, and a part was to 
 be destroyed. It is plain that here the mea- 
 suring reed is used in a sense somewhat analo- 
 gous to its last-mentioned meaning. That it 
 was not used for the purpose of construction, 
 as Mr Elliot supposes, is very evident ; for the 
 temple measured was already built, and stand- 
 ing before John : but it was used for the pur- 
 pose of dividing between what of that temple 
 was to be kept holy, and what was to be account- 
 ed profane. That this was the design of the 
 measuring is certain, from the reason assigned 
 for leaving the outer court unmeasured : " for 
 it is given unto the Gentiles ; and the holy city 
 shall they tread under foot forty and two 
 months." The action gave warning that a 
 great apostacy was to take place, and that 
 the limits of the true Church were now to 
 be greatly curtailed. Unless we mistake, 
 John now predicts in symbol what Paul had 
 already foretold in plain language. We find 
 him saying, in 2 Thessalonians, ii. 3 et seq. 
 •' Let no man deceive you by any means : for 
 
86 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 that day [the day of Christ] shall not come, 
 except there come a falling away first, and that 
 Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of Perdition, 
 who opposeth and exalteth himself above all 
 that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so 
 that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, 
 showing himself as God."*^ This passage, we are 
 persuaded, is the key to the right interpretation 
 of the measuring of the temple. The vision is 
 evidently placed at the commencement of the 
 forty-two months ; for why was the temple 
 measured, but that its inviolability might be se- 
 cured during the time, — the forty-two months, 
 — that the outer court should be trodden under 
 foot of the Gentiles ? And if we consult the 
 history of the period referred to, we find that 
 there was indeed a great " falling away/^ Dur- 
 ing the fifth century the Church underwent a 
 great change for the worse in her doctrine and 
 worship, and, of course, also in her practice. 
 The great body of her members were grossly 
 ignorant, and her clergy wallowed in wealth 
 and luxury. Magnificent churches were erect- 
 ed, in which ministers officiated attired in rich- 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 87 
 
 ly decorated vestments. True piety lay buried 
 under a load of pompous rituals, and burden- 
 some and superstitious ceremonies. Pilgri- 
 mages began to be made to the tombs of mar- 
 tyrs, where tapers were kept burning at mid- 
 day. Miracles were wrought by the efficacy of 
 relics ; the saints and the Virgin were invocated ; 
 and, amongst other pernicious inventions, fatal 
 to morality as well as to religion, the confes- 
 sional was introduced ; and the pagan doctrine 
 of the purification of departed souls by fire was 
 more amply explained and confirmed in this 
 century than it had previously been. The 
 grand doctrines of Christianity were lost, es- 
 pecially those pertaining to the great atone- 
 ment and the one Mediator. The true temple, 
 which God had pitched, and not man, was 
 abandoned : the true altar was forsaken, — not, 
 indeed, entirely, — a few there were whom the 
 growing corruptions and superstitions had not 
 carried away. These now formed the true 
 church, — they were the altar worshippers ; but 
 they formed no greater a proportion to the mul- 
 
88 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 / titudes which filled the courts without, — Chris- 
 
 tians in name, heathens in reality, — than did 
 the priests at the altar of old to the assembled 
 congregation of Israel that thronged the courts 
 without. Thus the great apostacy rose, whose 
 swelling tide lifted the " Son of Perdition'' to 
 his lofty seat in the temple of God, where 
 through successive ages he showed himself as 
 God, by arrogating the powers and assuming 
 the names and attributes of God. In Vi- 
 tringa's exposition of the passage we, on the 
 Avhole, thoroughly concur. " The interior 
 temple," says he, " means true Christians ; 
 the exterior, false Christians, heretics, &c. ; 
 the altar means Christ ; measuring the temple 
 and worshippers is scrutinizing the charac- 
 ter of Christians, real or professed ; the cast- 
 ing out of the outer court is excommunicating 
 false professors ; the heathen who are to tread 
 down the temple and city are Christians in 
 name only (and therefore called heathen), who 
 are to form an external Church, and have do- 
 minion over it, suppressing at the same time 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 89 
 
 the true worshippers of God, until at last God 
 shall exclude them from even the external pale 
 of his Church." 
 
 The Gentiles were not merely to possess the 
 court which was without the temple : they were 
 to tread under foot the holy city. Jerusalem 
 is here used as the symbol of the Christian 
 Church. The term " treading under foot"' 
 denotes the subjection in which the Church 
 would be held, and the indignities with which 
 she should be treated. Like Jerusalem when 
 taken by the Chaldeans, or rather like the same 
 city when its site was ploughed by the Romans, 
 its walls broken down, its stately palaces de- 
 molished, and the foe walking in triumph over 
 the ruins, so the Church of God was to exhibit, 
 during this long and calamitous period, a spec- 
 tacle of desolation. Her rights and privileges 
 were to be taken from her ; her ordinances were 
 to be profaned ; her Head was to be insulted ; 
 and her members persecuted and slain. These 
 oppressions she should suffer for forty-two 
 months, which is the precise length of time 
 that the witnesses were to prophesy in sack- 
 
90 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 cloth ; the only difference being, that the period 
 of the witnesses is given in days ; that of the 
 treading under foot of the outer court by the 
 Gentiles, in months. This to our mind is com- 
 pletely satisfactory that the profanation of the 
 outer court and the prophesying of the wit- 
 nesses were to be contemporaneous ; and that 
 it is the same event that is prefigured by both 
 symbols, — the apostacy of the heathenish and 
 persecuting Church of Rome, and the indigni- 
 ties and oppressions to be endured by the true 
 Church during the continuance of that apos- 
 tacy. 
 
 We cannot but admire the appropriateness 
 of the symbols, and the exact and lively picture 
 which they exhibit of the leading events of the 
 grand apostacy. John receives a measuring 
 reed ; the angel commands him to rise and 
 measure the temple. He does so. On the au- 
 thority of his Divine commission, and in the 
 application of a Divine rule, he draws a line of 
 separation between the pure and holy worship- 
 pers at the altar, and the unclean and idola- 
 trous multitude in the outer court. We be- 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 91 
 
 hold Christendom divided into two ecclesiasti- 
 cal confederacies, vastly dissimilar in point of 
 numbers, as well as in point of character. 
 During one period of the forty-two prophetic 
 months we behold the one company grown so 
 small, that the inaccessible cliffs and caves of 
 the Piedmontese Alps sufficed for their dwelling; 
 and, though driven by the rage of man to dwell 
 here, beloved of God, and enjoying access to 
 Him through the one Intercessor, — kings and 
 priests unto God ; while the other company was 
 so numerous, that the wide plains and popu- 
 lous cities of the rest of Europe could scarce 
 contain them. John, in measuring the temple, 
 acted, we have said, on a Divine commission, 
 and by the application of a Divine rule ; plain- 
 ly though symbolically teaching us, that every 
 thing about the Church, — her government, her 
 worship, the admission of her members, — is to 
 be regulated by the Word of God. Civil rulers 
 have sometimes arrogated the power of mak- 
 ing laws for her, and of saying who were to be 
 admitted and who excluded from her offices 
 and privileges. The self-righteous pride and 
 
^2 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the superstition of men have led them to in- 
 vent pompous rites and burdensome ceremonies ; 
 but when brought to the test of Scripture, — 
 the rule which Christ has put into the hands of 
 his servants, for the purpose of regulating the 
 affairs of his house on earth, — they are discover- 
 ed to be unwarranted and superstitious ; they 
 must be discarded ; and such as persist in the 
 observance of them must be cast out of the 
 Ohurch as profane. 
 
 It is at this part of Mr Elliot's great v/ork 
 that its main blemish occurs. Nothing could 
 be more anomalous, inconsistent, and fanciful, 
 than his interpretation of this whole vision, and 
 especially of that part of it which relates to 
 the measuring of the temple. The time when 
 the temple is measured, according to Mr Elliot, 
 is the era of the Reformation. The measuring 
 signifies, he tells us, the regular constitution 
 of the Reformed Ohurch by Luther and his 
 brother reforming ministers, who recognised as 
 belonging to it those only who held the car- 
 dinal doctrine of the Christian faith, — " justi- 
 fication by the alone efficacy of Christ's pro- 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 9S 
 
 pitiatory sacrifice, and through Christ's alone 
 mediatorship."' The rod (^ciQdog) given to John 
 wherewith to measure the temple, intimates, 
 says Mr Elliot, " that in order to these impor- 
 tant acts, a certain ecclesiastical authority would 
 be officially given them ; it being said, ' There 
 was given me a reed like unto a rod!^ with which 
 to measure ; and both the more usual Scripture 
 use of the word rod^ and the fact of this use 
 being here absolutely necessary, in order to the 
 words having any force at all (for what could 
 be the use of resembling the measuring reed 
 to a simple stick or staff?) indicating that that 
 same official rod was intended by the word 
 which was the badge of ecclesiastical or ciml 
 autliorityr Our readers will scarce gather 
 from this passage the precise meaning which 
 Mr Elliot attaches to the symbol of the (^aCJo^) 
 rod. He speaks vaguely about it throughout. 
 He nowhere distinctly tells us whether we 
 ought to understand the rod as symbolizing 
 civil power, or ecclesiastical power, or a mixed 
 exercise of the two ; or whether this power is 
 exercised directly by civil rulers, or mediately 
 
94 THE SEVENTH VIAL, 
 
 by ecclesiastical rulers, that is, in the way of 
 borrowing their authority for re-constituting 
 the Church from the civil powers. Mr Elliot's 
 meaning must be gleaned, obscurely at the 
 best, from a collation of passages scattered 
 throughout this part of his work. It will be 
 admitted, we think, that we state his meaning 
 fairly when we say, that he makes the symbol 
 of the rod to carry the royal supremacy in mat- 
 ters ecclesiastical ; and on the symbol so inter- 
 preted he founds the grave inference that the 
 royal supremacy is lawful, and tenders an ad- 
 monition to those who impugn it, and object 
 to the constitution of the Church of England 
 as Erastian. " The Apocalyptic prophecy,'" 
 he says, " seems to have pronounced distinctly 
 against them, representing, as it does, the ori- 
 ginal constitution of the Lutheran and Angli- 
 can Reformed Churches on that very principle, 
 not as any act of sinful Erastianism, but as 
 Christ's own doing, and so with the stamp of 
 his approbation on it."*' 
 
 The fallacy of this interpretation, in which 
 an attempt is made to graft Erastianism on 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 95 
 
 the Apocalypse, has been ably exposed by Dr 
 Candlish. We refer those who may wish to 
 see his argument at length, to his " Four Let- 
 ters/' Dr Candlish accepts Mr Elliot's inter- 
 pretation of the vision ; he grants that he is 
 right as regards the time and the leading 
 event symbolized, namely, the re-constitution of 
 the Reformed Church. He joins issue with him 
 only on his interpretation of the rod^ denying 
 both the meaning assigned to the symbol, and 
 the historical application of it. He asks just- 
 ly, " Whether does jaC3o; (' the rod') signify 
 ecclesiastical or civil authority \ or does it 
 stand for both together, or for either indiffer- 
 ently \ If it be ecclesiastical authority that is 
 meant, then from whom is it derived, and by 
 whom is it exercised ? John says, ' There was 
 given to me a reed like unto a rod, and the 
 angel stood, saying, Arise and measure.' I 
 presume you will not deny that the ' reed like 
 unto a rod' is given into John's own hands, im- 
 mediately by the angel himself, ' standing upon 
 the sea and upon the earth,'— the angel of the 
 covenant, — just as the little open book was, in 
 
9^ THE sb:ventii vial. 
 
 th« preceding part of the vision. There is not 
 a hint here of any third party coming in be- 
 tween John and the angel, who is Christ him- 
 self. On the other hand, does the ' reed like 
 unto a rod' signify civil authority, as applied 
 to the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs? Then, 
 again I ask. Who is the person wielding it? 
 John, and John alone. And from whom does 
 he receive it ? Is it not directly from the 
 angel f 
 
 Thus there is nothing in the symbol to coun- 
 tenance Mr Elliot"*s interpretation, but every- 
 thing to countenance a very opposite interpre- 
 tation. The authority proceeded from the 
 Head of the Church ; it was exercised by a 
 minister of Christ ; and there is literally no- 
 thing to connect it, either in its nature or in 
 its exercise, with the civil powers ; and there- 
 fore the interpretation that so connects it, be- 
 ing inconsistent with the constitution of the 
 Church and the nature of spiritual authority, 
 as revealed in the New Testament, is to be re- 
 jected. 
 
 But a more searching examination of the 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 97 
 
 context than Dr Candlish's space permitted, 
 or the necessity of proving his point required, 
 would have led him, we think, to adopt a still 
 broader ground of objection to the interpreta- 
 tion of the (^aC3oj) rod^ presented in the " Horae 
 Apocalypticse." There are valid grounds for 
 setting aside Mr Elliot's whole interpretation 
 of the vision of the fifteenth chapter and the 
 first two verses of the sixteenth. It can be 
 shown almost to demonstration, that the mea- 
 suring of the temple must refer to a period 
 greatly prior to the Reformation, when the mi- 
 nisters of Christ had no connection with the 
 civil authority, and derived no aid from it. 
 Why was the temple measured, and the outer 
 court cast out ? Plainly that it might be trod- 
 den under foot of the Gentiles. Does not this 
 warrant the inference that the profanation of 
 the outer court dates from the measuring ? 
 And how long was it to continue ? Forty and 
 two prophetic months. How, then, can Mr 
 Elliot avoid the conclusion, that if his inter- 
 pretation, according to which the symbol of 
 the measuring was fulfilled in the re-constitu- 
 
 G 
 
98 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 tion of the Church by Luther, be correct, there 
 must from that period be forty-two prophetic 
 months, — twelve hundred and sixty years, — 
 during which the profanations of Antichrist 
 are to be continued. Is it not much more na- 
 tural to suppose, that as the period of the pro- 
 fanation of the outer court, and that of the 
 prophesying of the witnesses, are precisely of 
 the same length, the two are contemporaneous ; 
 the more especially that the two events seem 
 the counterparts of one another, — the triumph 
 of Antichrist and the humiliation of the true 
 Church ? It might also be asked. Was there 
 no separation between the true and the false 
 Church till Luther's days ? Yes. The dis- 
 tinction between Rome and the true worship- 
 pers of the Lamb was in many respects much 
 greater before than after the Reformation. 
 But it is said that the Church of Rome was 
 publicly pronounced to be idolatrous, to be 
 Antichrist, by the Reformers, — that it was 
 " cast out." But was she not Antichrist till 
 seen to be so? Did the Gentiles not tread 
 under foot the outer court till Luther pro- 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 99 
 
 claimed the fact i Or rather, did not the 
 faithful remnant preserved all along, by their 
 separation from her and withdrawal from her 
 communion, and by the testimony that they 
 bore against her, which Mr Elliot tells us was 
 pointed against all her errors, " cast her out," 
 as really as Luther did I In fine, it may be 
 asked why, seeing the vision has obvious re- 
 ference to a great apostacy, it should be view- 
 ed as referring, not to the time when the great 
 antichristian apostacy arose, but to the time 
 when that apostacy began to be healed, and 
 the limits of the Church to be again enlarged. 
 Mr Elliot's theory is open to all these objec- 
 tions, to which no satisfactory answers that we 
 know of either have been or can be given. 
 
 As regards the vision of the tenth chapter, — 
 that of the mighty angel, who appeared veiled 
 in a cloud, with a rainbow on his head, a little 
 book in his hand, and who stood with his right 
 foot on the sea and his left on the earth, and 
 who, lifting up his hand, swore by Him that 
 liveth for ever and ever, that in the days of the 
 voice of the seventh angel the mystery of God 
 
100 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 should be finished, as had been declared by 
 the prophets, — we dissent altogether from the 
 interpretation that makes the vision the prefi- 
 j^uration of the Reformation : first, because 
 the Apocalyptic history had not yet come up 
 to the great subject of Popery ; and it is ex- 
 ceedingly improbable that the symmetry of 
 the Apocalyptic plan would be so far violated, 
 and the laws of dramatic arrangement so far 
 infringed, as that the Reformation from Popery 
 should be exhibited before Popery itself had 
 been exhibited : second, because the interpre- 
 tation given to the subordinate symbols in the 
 vision, in order to suit the theory, is fanciful, 
 in some instances incongruous, and generally 
 such as violates the first principles of symbolic 
 interpretation. A person, — Christ, — is made to 
 symbolize an event, — the Reformation. This 
 is incongruous. The little book is held to be 
 the symbol of the Bible, the sea the symbol of 
 the sea, and the earth the symbol of the earth. 
 This is inadmissible ; for it is plain that if they 
 are symbols, as is admitted, they cannot be sym- 
 bols of themselves. The main interpretation is 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 101 
 
 mconsistent with the order of the Apocalypse, 
 and the subordinate interpretations are incon- 
 sistent with the laws of Apocalyptic exposi- 
 tion. 
 
 We think the interpretation we have given 
 agrees better with regularity of plan in the 
 Apocalyptic drama, and with the uniformity of 
 its symbols. The series of events in the West 
 had been brought down till the fall of the 
 Roman kingdom. In the East they had been 
 brought still farther down, — even to the subver- 
 sion of the eastern empire by the Turks in the 
 end of the fifteenth century. The Apocalyptic 
 history now returns to the West, and resumes 
 the narrative of events at the point where it 
 had been interrupted. This point forms a 
 grand epoch in the Apocalypse, as it did in 
 the history of the world ; for now the Man of 
 Sin was to be revealed. A dark night there- 
 fore was at hand, — darker than any that had 
 overtaken the world hitherto, and bringing 
 with it to the Church sorer trials and more 
 protracted sufferings than any she had ever 
 
102 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 passed through. At this crisis of the drama 
 the great Administrator of it appears before 
 John. He is seen encompassed with all the 
 glorious symbols of universal dominion, al- 
 mighty power, absolute unchangeableness, and 
 covenant faithfulness. He comes to comfort 
 his Church, by giving her something to think 
 of during the trials of her protracted night. 
 He comes to bid her be of good cheer ; that, 
 this last trial over, all would be over ; and, to 
 show that the mystery of Providence was now 
 drawing to a close, and that it should assured- 
 ly be finished in the destruction of that enemy 
 who was now on the eve of being revealed, he 
 renews the oath which had been sworn in the 
 hearing of Daniel, at the beginning of that 
 course of mystery, so long before. He comes 
 to deliver his last prophecy to the Church, and 
 to commission his last prophet to the nations. 
 What a seasonable appearance ! How like 
 to his last interview with his disciples before 
 his first departure ! The language of this ma- 
 nifestation was in effect the same as that which 
 
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE. 103 
 
 fell from his blessed lips on that memorable 
 occasion : " A little while and ye shall not see 
 me. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye 
 shall weep and lament, but the world shall re- 
 joice ; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sor- 
 row shall be turned into joy. I will see you 
 again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your 
 joy no man taketh from you.*" The cloud was 
 again to receive Him out of their sight. It 
 was expedient that He should go away. He 
 had not yet brought to a close that wonderful 
 series of glorious dispensations which should 
 introduce the final triumph and universal es- 
 tablishment of his Church. But the end was 
 nigh. One other dispensation, more full of 
 terror to his enemies, of mercy to his friends, 
 and of mystery to both, than any that had 
 preceded it; and then, what a blessed reali- 
 zation of what Daniel had seen in the night- 
 visions ! — " One like the Son of Man came with 
 the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient 
 of days, and they brought Him near before 
 Him. And there was given Him dominion, 
 
104 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, na- 
 tions, and languages should serve him : his do- 
 minion is an everlasting dominion, which shall 
 not pass away, and his kingdom that which 
 «hall not be destroyed/' 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 105 
 
 THE TWO WITNESSES. 
 
 Planted by apostles, and watered by the la- 
 bours of evangelists and pastors, Christianity 
 grew and spread widely in the Gentile world. 
 The legions from the banks of the Tiber gained 
 victories less illustrious than those of the fisher- 
 men from the shores of Gennesareth, and the 
 dominion of Csesar was less extensive than that 
 of Christ. The nations inhabiting from India 
 on the east to Britain on the west received the 
 gospel. There were few places throughout this 
 extensive tract where Christian congregations 
 were not formed. The name of Jesus was 
 known even on the frontier of China. Scatter- 
 ed throughout the Continent of India, as well 
 as in the islands of its Archipelago, were nu- 
 merous companies of disciples. The gospel had 
 been planted, too, in those lands which were 
 
106 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the birthplace of the human family ; and it 
 flourished upon the ruins of the Babylonian and 
 Medo-Persian monarchies. The deserts of the 
 sons of Ishmael, from the boundary of which 
 the arms of Greece and Rome had recoiled, 
 were subjugated by the cross. Amid the moul- 
 dering temples of Egyptian mythology arose 
 places for Christian worship. The gospel spread 
 throughout Asia Minor, and its superstition 
 and licentiousness were restrained ; it entered 
 Greece, and its philosophy grew into disrepute ; 
 it was carried to Rome, and its idols were de- 
 throned. From Rome it spread northward, 
 taming the fierceness and enlightening the dark- 
 ness of barbarous nations : so goodly were the 
 limits of the Church, — so vast the territory she 
 occupied. During these ages innumerable souls 
 were converted, and passed to glory. The 
 righteousness of Zion had gone forth as bright- 
 ness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that 
 burneth. And the Gentiles had seen her righte- 
 ousness, and all kings her glory, and she was 
 called by a new name, which the mouth of the 
 Lord had named. But the faith which had been 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 107 
 
 spread over so many lands, and received the 
 homage of so nmnerous nations, was now to re- 
 cede from its ancient limits, leaving the space 
 it had filled covered once more with heathenism,, 
 under the name of Christianity. What a fear- 
 ful fulfilment of the Apocalyptic prophecy given 
 in the measuring of the temple, and the altar- 
 worshippers, and the casting out of the outer 
 court, that it might be trodden under foot of 
 the Gentiles ! The enquiry which must have 
 immediately suggested itself to the mind of 
 John, when the fate of the outer court was dis- 
 closed to him, could only be this : Will the 
 apostacy be universal ? Shall none be spared^ 
 to offer tfue worship and bear faithful witness 
 for God in these evil times I Already John's 
 anxiety on this point had been set at rest ; for 
 in virtue of the same commission by which he 
 had cast out the outer court, he had included 
 the temple, with the select company that mi- 
 nistered at the altar. But the angel now pro- 
 ceeds to communicate fuller particulars. Under 
 the history of the witnesses, — for, while taken 
 in connection with the temple they are priests, 
 
108 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 taken in connection with an apostate world 
 they are witnesses, — a succinct and clear ac- 
 count is given of the struggle which the follow- 
 ers of the Lamb should be called to maintain, 
 during the forty-two months, with an ungodly 
 and antichristian world ; the persecutions that 
 should befall them in the maintenance of their 
 testimony ; their almost total suppression, to- 
 gether with the truth to which they had testi- 
 fied ; their sudden and miraculous revival at 
 the very moment that their enemies were re- 
 joicing on account of their death ; and their 
 public assumption to a state of dignity and 
 power. Thus we have the leading events of 
 the twelve hundred and sixty days epitomised 
 in the history of the witnesses, presented in fi- 
 gures comparatively plain, that the more highly- 
 wrought symbolical prefigurations that were to 
 come after might be the more easy of interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 " And I will give power unto my two wit- 
 nesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand 
 two hundred and three- score days, clothed in 
 sackcloth." God left not the old pagan apos- 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 109 
 
 tacy without a witness, neither should He leave 
 the antichristian apostacy without a witness. 
 " I will give unto my two witnesses,"" for so runs 
 the original. The question is, what shall be 
 given ? The implied answer of our translation 
 is, we think, the right one, — " Power." The 
 power is spiritual ; power to perceive the truth, 
 and reject the errors by which so many were to 
 be misled ; power to cleave to the truth, and 
 resist the temptations before which the ma- 
 jority were to fall ; power to proclaim the truth, 
 and, by doing so, to convert others who might 
 stand in their room and maintain their testi- 
 mony when they should be called away, so that 
 the line of witnesses should not be cut off, but 
 I'un continuously on till better times should 
 come. Individually they would be removed by 
 death or persecution, but as a body the wit- 
 nesses should be inviolable. 
 
 Their work is next defined : " They shall pro- 
 phesy.*" Prophesying means here, as in many 
 other passages of the New Testament, every 
 kind of preaching by Divine aid. The pro- 
 phesying of the witnesses was not to consist in 
 
110 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the revelation of new truths, but in condemn- 
 ing the world for its defection from old ones. 
 They were to receive and profess the whole body 
 of doctrine revealed by Christ and his apostles, 
 iind in doing so they should testify against the 
 Romish apostacy. Hence the name given to 
 them, — " Witnesses." The name is borrowed 
 from the Old Testament : " Ye are my wit- 
 nesses,"''' said God to the ancient Israel. The 
 honourable office of Israel, — as a nation to 
 whom had been committed the sacred oracles, 
 — was to stand before the other nations of the 
 earth, and testify to the fact that Jehovah was 
 the one true God, and that they were no gods 
 that were made by men's hands. The same 
 honourable office was to be assigned to the little 
 company before us. They were to stand before 
 the antichristian nations, and testify to the fact 
 that Christ was the one only Intercessor. As 
 God termed the ancient Israelites " my wit- 
 nesses" because they witnessed for the supre- 
 macy of God the Father, in opposition to the 
 heathen deities, so here the angel, that is, 
 Christ, calls these men " my witnesses," because 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. Ill 
 
 they were to witness in behalf of the supre- 
 macy of God the Son, in opposition to the anti- 
 christian deities ; and especially were they to 
 witness for Him as the one Intercessor, in op- 
 position to the numerous intercessors of the 
 Romish Church. 
 
 The guise in which they were to discharge 
 their office is specially marked. " They shall 
 prophesy clothed in sackcloth." This is no 
 stroke of colouring, introduced for the mere 
 purpose of deepening the dark picture. It is a 
 most significant symbol. It denotes the deep 
 distress and mourning of the true Church dur- 
 ing the whole of that period. It was a thank- 
 less office they were to discharge ; and often 
 should they receive rough and cruel treatment 
 at the hands of men. At the thought of the 
 Church of God lying waste, and their brethren 
 slain, a continual sorrow should oppress their 
 hearts. Denied all participation in honours 
 and offices, — deprived sometimes of their na- 
 tural rights, — hated of all men for his name- 
 sake, whose witnesses they were, — and banished 
 from society, — they should exhibit the same pic- 
 
112 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 4 
 
 ture of mourning as the ancient prophets, of whom 
 it had been recorded, " They wandered about in 
 sheep-skins and goat- skins ; being destitute, af- 
 flicted, tormented (of whom the world was not 
 worthy) ; they wandered in deserts, and in 
 mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.*" 
 They were to prophesy clothed in sackcloth 
 many days. The exact number is determined, 
 — twelve hundred and sixty. These are not 
 literal, but symbolical days, and denote years. 
 The question touching the commencement of 
 these days, which determines, of course, their 
 expiration, is one of the most famous in the 
 whole field of Apocalyptic inquiry. Of that we 
 shall speak afterwards. At present we shall 
 merely indicate the principle on which our in- 
 terpretation of prophetic time proceeds. Scarce 
 any principle is more clearly taught in the 
 Word of God. A day for a year is a mode of 
 symbolic speech which appears to have been in 
 use in very early times. The institution of the 
 Sabbatical year was given in these terms. In 
 Leviticus, xxv. that year is spoken of as if it 
 were one day, and termed the Sabbath of the 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 113 
 
 land. When a mystic character was given to 
 the prophet Ezekiel, and he was called, as the 
 substitute of the house of Israel, to bear their 
 iniquity, the length of the infliction was deter- 
 mined on this principle, — a day for a year. 
 Chap. V. 5, 6, " I have laid upon thee the years 
 of their iniquity, according to the number of the 
 days, three hundred and ninty days : so shalt 
 thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. 
 And when thou hast accomplished them, lie on 
 thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity 
 of the house of Judah forty days."" God him- 
 self announces the principle on which that ar- 
 rangement proceeded. " I have appointed thee 
 each day for a year.'' Like the prophet Eze- 
 kiel, these mystic witnesses were substituted 
 for the Church, and called to prophesy, clothed 
 in sackcloth, during as many days as she was 
 afterwards to do for years. We have had 
 experience, moreover, of the truth of this prin- 
 ciple. Daniel's prophecy of seventy weeks com- 
 pletely establishes it. Between the decree to 
 restore and rebuild Jerusalem, and the death 
 of the Messiah, seventy weeks were to inter- 
 
 H 
 
114 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 vene. In seventy weeks there are four hundred 
 and ninety days. And between the edict of 
 Artaxerxes Longiraanus and the death of 
 Christ were four hundred and ninety years. In 
 the prophecy before us, then, we are to substi- 
 tute years for days. Our authority for doing 
 so is clear. During the long period of twelve 
 hundred and sixty years was the Church to 
 prophesy, that is, she was to testify against the 
 apostacy of Rome doctrinally by professing the 
 opposite truths, and practically by separating 
 from her communion ; and she was to prophesy 
 in sackcloth, that is, in the endurance of all 
 the sacrifices and sufferings to which her faith- 
 fulness might expose her. During these years 
 no inconsiderable portion of her members should 
 be required to seal their testimony with their 
 blood. 
 
 The next question of importance is, Who 
 are the witnesses? This part of the Apoca- 
 lypse has been the subject of boundless conjec- 
 ture. These interpretations, incongruous and 
 irrelevant in many instances, we do not stay 
 to enumerate ; for it is unnecessary to state 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 115 
 
 what it would be useless to refute. The cha- 
 racter of the witnesses may be determined with 
 certainty from the nature of their work. The 
 matter of their witness-bearing was the truth. 
 The party for whom this testimony was borne 
 was Christ, — " my witnesses.'"* The party against 
 whom it was borne was Antichrist. Whom, 
 in that case, can the witnesses be, but those, in 
 whatever land, who, during the period of Anti- 
 christ, professed the truth of Jesus, and testi- 
 fied against the idolatries of Rome ? But why 
 only two ? " I will give power unto my two 
 witnesses." We prefer the more common, 
 because the more natural explanation. Two 
 witnesses were enough in law to substantiate 
 any fact. " At the mouth of two witnesses 
 shall every word be established.*" But they 
 were the smallest number that could do so. 
 And therefore, when we are told that two 
 witnesses should prophesy, we are given to 
 understand that such a number should be pre- 
 served from apostacy as should be competent 
 to condemn the Romish idolaters, and leave 
 them without excuse. And when we are told 
 
116 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 that only two witnesses should prophesy, we 
 are to infer that the number should not be 
 greater than was absolutely requisite to give 
 credibility to their testimony, and to take away 
 all reasonable ground of excuse from the apos- 
 tate nations. Few will maintain that indivi- 
 duals are intended : two literal men would 
 have been far too few to bear testimony with 
 effect against the apostacy of a world. Orga- 
 nized societies must be meant. It is not persons^ 
 but Churches, that constitute the two witnesses. 
 And if we look to the history of the period, we 
 find a small but competent number, both in the 
 East and in the West, who continued all along 
 to testify against the prevailing corruptions. 
 We are disposed to concur in the opinion of 
 Mr Elliot, Mr Faber, and others, that the 
 reference here is to the Eastern and Western 
 Churches. The former has, with great histori- 
 cal research, and with complete success, traced 
 a succession of witnesses in both Churches, from 
 the close of the sixth century till the Reforma- 
 tion. Such of our readers as may wish to have 
 fuller information respecting the two witnesses, 
 
THE TAVO WITNESSES. 117 
 
 their reduced numbers, and their sore trials 
 during the long period of their prophesying in 
 sackcloth, may consult the " Horse Apocalyp- 
 ticse."" Speaking of the eastern Christians, and 
 showing their claim to be regarded as one of 
 the two Apocalyptic witnesses, Mr Elliot re- 
 marks, — " First, then, in regard both of ministers 
 and congregations, the teachers and the taught, 
 it is notorious that they bore a continuous and 
 unvarying protest against those grosser super- 
 stitions of saint-mediatorship, image-worship, 
 and other kinds of idolatry, through which 
 the so-called Christians of the Roman world 
 had degenerated into Gentiles of the outer 
 court ; and against which, consequently, wit- 
 nesses answering to those of the Apocalypse 
 must needs have testified."" " Second, though 
 before the eyes of men the self-styled Catholics 
 of the eastern and western Roman world seem- 
 ed to constitute Christendom, — though they 
 filled, as it were, the whole visible temple, — yet 
 did these Paulikians'' (the name given to the 
 eastern Christians) " regard and speak of them 
 throughout as those who belonged not to the 
 
118 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Church of Christ, but, being apostates, belonged 
 rather to the Gentile or outer court. Small as 
 their numbers were, yet they called their as- 
 semblies the Catholic Clmrch^ and said, ' We 
 are Christians, you are Romans." " " Thirdly, 
 as the Apocalyptic witnesses are said to have 
 observed the commandments and Word of God^ 
 so the adherence of the Paulikian dissentients 
 to the gospel word, as the alone ground of their 
 faith, subject of their preachings and teach- 
 ings, and rule of life, is all along marked most 
 strongly." " Fifthly, it is obvious that the pri- 
 vations and sufferings entailed on them by their 
 profession of faith were such as to make the 
 mourning garb of sackcloth their fit clothing ; 
 as also that under them they exhibited a self- 
 denial^ umcearied zeal^ constancy^ and fortitude^ 
 through life, and unto death, just as if there 
 was some superhuman power sustaining them ; 
 even a power such as St John was told of in 
 those words of the Apocalypse, ' I will give 
 power to my two witnesses.' ""' 
 
 As regards the witnesses of western origin, 
 who has not heard of the Waldenses? In- 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 119 
 
 habiting the Cottian Alps, and those deep val- 
 leys through which the Rhone rolls, they main- 
 tained through successive ages their testimony 
 against the corrupt Churches of Roman Chris- 
 tendom. Mr Elliot has likewise traced their 
 history from the close of the sixth century 
 till the era of the Reformation, not, indeed, 
 without some breaks in the chain, which are 
 not surprising when we take into account the 
 remoteness of their times and the obscurity in 
 which they lived, but still with wonderful con- 
 tinuity. Here, amid these alpine regions, they 
 kept alive the lamp of truth, while darkness 
 covered the rest of Europe. They were re- 
 nowned for the purity of their faith, the simpli- 
 city of their life, and the constancy with which 
 they testified against the Romish doctrines, re- 
 sisting even unto blood. Europe was then one 
 wide scene of profanation, — covered with idola- 
 trous temples, and polluted with idolatrous 
 practices ; but its central mountains, white 
 with eternal snows, which descend upon them 
 from above, and are unsoiled by the foot of 
 man, had been reserved, like the inner temple 
 
ISO THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 when the outer court was cast out, for the wor- 
 ship of the Lamb. With regard to their claim 
 to rank as one of the two Apocalyptic wit- 
 nesses, we may quote the following passages 
 from Mr Elliot's work : — " With regard to the 
 doctrine of the Waldenses, their own writings 
 offer us, of course, the best evidence. In the 
 former"" (the Noble Lesson) " written, as it has 
 appeared, within some twenty years of 1170, 
 the following doctrines are drawn out with 
 much simplicity and beauty. The origin of sin 
 in the fall of Adam, its transmission to all men, 
 and the offered redemption from it through the 
 death of Jesus Christ ; the union and co-ope- 
 ration of the three Persons of the blessed 
 Trinity in man's salvation ; the obligation and 
 spirituality of the moral law under the gospel ; 
 the duties of prayer, watchfulness, self-denial, 
 unworldliness, humility, love, as ' the way of 
 Jesus Christ f their enforcement by the pro- 
 spect of death, and judgment, and the world's 
 near ending, by the narrowness, too, of the way 
 of life, and the fewness of those that find it, as 
 also by the hope of coming glory at the judg- 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 121 
 
 merit and revelation of Jesus Christ ; — all these 
 points, I say, of Christian doctrine are drawn 
 out in the Noble Lesson very simply and beau- 
 tifully. Besides which, we find in it a protest 
 against the Romish system generally, as one of 
 soul-destroying idolatry, against masses for the 
 dead, and therein against the whole doctrine of 
 purgatory, against the system of the confes- 
 sional, and asserted power of the priesthood to 
 absolve from sin ; this last point being insisted 
 on as the most deadly point of heresy ; its ori- 
 gin referred to the mercinariness of the priest- 
 hood, and their love of money ; the iniquity 
 further noticed of the Romish persecutions of 
 good men, and teachers that wished to teach 
 the way of Jesus Christ ; and the suspicion 
 half hinted, and apparently formed, that 
 though a personal Antichrist might be expect- 
 ed, yet Po]pery itself might very possibly be 
 one form of Antichrist. Such is the doctrine 
 of the Noble Lesson, In the Treatise of Anti- 
 christ we advance to an admirable and direct 
 identification of the antichristian system of the 
 Pa'pacy^ which, though written after the period 
 
122 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 we are passing under review, — perhaps in the 
 last quarter of the fourteenth century, — may 
 yet be fairly presumed to exhibit the opinions 
 of the Vaudois of the thirteenth century on the 
 subject ; they having embraced, as we know, 
 at the least as early as that period, the view 
 of the Papacy and Roman Church being the 
 very Babylon and harlot of the Apocalypse."" 
 The following is an outline of the views held 
 on this subject by the Waldensian Church : — 
 " That the Papal or Romish system was that 
 of Antichrist, which, from infancy in apostolic 
 times, had grown gradually, by the increase of 
 its constituent parts, to the stature of a full 
 grown man ; that its prominent characteristics 
 were, to defraud God of the worship due to 
 Him, rendering it to creatures, whether de- 
 parted saints, relics, images, or Antichrist, 
 i.e. the antichristian body itself; to defraud 
 Christ, by attributing justification and forgive- 
 ness to Antichrist's authority and words, to 
 saints' intercessions, to the merit of men's own 
 performances, and to the fire of purgatory ; to 
 defraud the Holy Spirit, by attributing regene- 
 
THE TWO WITNESSES. 123 
 
 ration and sanctification to the opus operatum 
 (I borrow the Fridentine term used afterwards) 
 of the two sacraments ; that the origin of this 
 antichristian religion was the covetousness of 
 the priesthood ; its tendency to lead men away 
 from Christ ; its essence a vain ceremonial ; 
 its foundation the false notions of grace and 
 forgiveness/"* 
 
 Such was the noble testimony of the Wal- 
 denses ; and how nobly they maintained it, 
 history testifies. How marvellous the ways of 
 God ! How astonishing his power and faith- 
 fulness in preserving his truth in the worst 
 of times ! When all the dwellers on the plains 
 and in the cities of the Roman world were bow- 
 ing the knee, and saying, " Who is like unto 
 the Beast," in the midst of the earth, — in the 
 very centre of Europe, — rose a temple not 
 made with hands, in which the true God was 
 worshipped. In the very midst of their ene- 
 mies was an asylum found for the witnesses, 
 where they prophesied a thousand two hundred 
 and three-score days, clothed in sackcloth. 
 
] 24 THE SF.VEXTH VIAL. 
 
 AVENGING POTOB OF THE WTNESSES. 
 
 The office of the two witnesses is still farther 
 symbolically described. It will not be imin- 
 «tructive to attend briefly to the more notice- 
 able points in it. Chapter xi. 4, — " These are 
 the two olive-trees, and the two candlesticks 
 standing before the God of the earth."' The 
 istation of the witnesses was a very dignified 
 one : they stood before the God of the earth. 
 Their office was not less dignified and excel- 
 lent : they were " the two olive-trees,'' — the 
 only repositories of the true oil ; they were 
 " the two candlesticks," — the only dispensers 
 of the true light. Let us consider them first 
 as the two olive-trees. Of all the valuable 
 trees with which Palestine abounded, the most 
 precious was the olive. Not to speak of its 
 
AVENGING POWER OF THE AVITNESSES. 125 
 
 numerous commercial and domestic uses, its 
 oil alone was permitted to be burned in the 
 temple lamps. Seeing this tree was devoted 
 to a sacred use, it may well be used as a sym- 
 bol of persons in sacred office. It is the pas- 
 tors of the Church that are intended. There 
 is an evident allusion here to the vision exhi- 
 bited to Zechariah, at a period of great depres- 
 sion in the history of the Old Testament Church. 
 The prophet was shown a candlestick, all of 
 gold, with seven lamps burning on its branches. 
 Beside the candlestick stood two olive-trees> 
 whose oil flowed into the seven lamps, and kept 
 them alive. The prophet had the vision inter- 
 preted to him, and was given to understand 
 that the candlestick was the symbol of the Old 
 Testament Church, — the lamp of Divine truth 
 preserved by God in the midst of heathenism ; 
 and that the two olive-trees which supplied that 
 candlestick with oil were " the two anointed 
 ones (sons of oil) that stand by the Lord of 
 the whole earth,'' — meaning the prophets and 
 priests who communicated the truth to the 
 Church of old. The same symbols are employ- 
 
126 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 ed in the vision of the Apocalyptic witnesses, 
 and, of course, are to receive the same interpre- 
 tation as in Zechariah's vision. The two candle- 
 sticks are plainly the Churches, — the Eastern 
 and Western, we have supposed, — preserved 
 by God's power and mercy during the period 
 of Antichrist. Zechariah saw seven lamps : 
 John, at a former stage of the Apocalypse, had 
 seen seven candlesticks, — the seven Churches 
 of Asia ; but now he beheld only two candle- 
 sticks. This showed what a dark time it would 
 be : no light in the world but the two candle- 
 sticks, struggling to dispel the thick gloom that 
 was to shroud the earth. Yet there they 
 burned throughout the long night, maugre all 
 the efforts of the Man of Sin to extinguish 
 them, till the light of a glorious day returned 
 once more to bless the earth. By the two 
 olive-trees are meant plainly the pastors of 
 these Churches. They conveyed the oil which 
 maintained the brightness of the mystic candle- 
 sticks. They performed the same office to 
 these Churches which the prophets and priests 
 performed to the Old Testament Church : they 
 
AVENGING POWER OF THE WITNESSES. 127 
 
 preached the Word ; and they were employed, 
 moreover, in multiplying manuscript copies of 
 the Holy Scriptures ; so that they supplied the 
 Church with both the preached and the written 
 word; answering, according to the ingenious 
 and natural supposition of Vitringa, to the two 
 golden pipes by which the two olive-trees in 
 Zechariah's vision emptied the golden oil out 
 of themselves. Besides its great fruitfulness, 
 the olive possesses this property, that it re- 
 mains green all winter. So did these mystic 
 trees : they were green during the long winter 
 of the Christian Church. When the storm of 
 temptation arose, and others were overturned, 
 they remained firmly rooted and grounded ; 
 when the poisonous wind of error blew, and its 
 deadly influence became visible in the seared 
 leaves and mouldering trunks of the spiritual 
 vineyard, they remained unscathed by the 
 blight, — like the fleece of Gideon, wet when 
 all around was dry. And why did their lamps 
 burn amid the darkness that had extinguished 
 those of others ? Why was their leaf green 
 during the winter [that brought so deadly a 
 
128 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 blight with it to others? They were full of 
 oil, — oil drawn from no earthly fountain, but 
 flowing down upon them from the heavens. 
 
 Placed in the midst of powerful enemies ; 
 called to discharge a duty peculiarly irritating 
 and tormenting to these enemies; provided 
 with no outward means of defence ; how should 
 they be able to repel the assaults to which 
 they would be exposed? how, indeed, should 
 they continue to exist ? The Apocalyptic sym- 
 bols represent them as armed with the most 
 ample avenging powers. " And if any man 
 will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their 
 mouth and devoureth their enemies ; and if 
 any man will hurt them, he must in this man- 
 ner be killed. These have power to shut 
 heaven, that it rain not in the days of their 
 prophecy ; and have power over waters to turn 
 them into blood, and to smite the earth with 
 all plagues as often as they will.'' 
 
 " These have power to shut heaven, that it 
 rain not in the days of their prophecy."" The 
 allusion here is to an incident in the life of 
 Elijah; and we are tauglit by association the 
 
AVENGING POWER OF THE WITNESSES. 129 
 
 horrors of the famine that was to prevail dur- 
 ing the prophesying of the witnesses. Elijah's 
 first appearance before us is with the words, 
 "• As the Lord God liveth, before whom I 
 stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these 
 three years, but according to my word." And 
 the word of the prophet was fulfilled. That 
 moment the heavens became brass over the 
 land of Israel. The spring came, and summer 
 and autumn followed ; and these were suc- 
 ceeded by winter ; but there was neither cloud 
 in the heavens nor rain or dew on the earth. 
 What a doleful picture did the land of Israel 
 then exhibit ! Every mountain and pleasant 
 field was burnt up, the channels of the brooks 
 were dry, the figs dropped from the fig-tree, 
 the cluster hung rotting on the vine, the herd 
 perished from the stall, and the faces of men 
 began to gather the blackness of famine. As 
 it was with the land of Israel during these 
 three years and a half, so was it to be with 
 Roman Christendom during the three and a 
 half prophetic years of the prophesying of the 
 witnesses. It was not a literal famine with 
 I 
 
180 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 which the world was to be scourged, — a blight 
 upon the earth, which should consume its foun- 
 tains and its fruits, and cut off from man the 
 bread on which the body lives. The drought 
 here foretold was to afflict the spiritual heavens 
 and earth, and dry up the fountains of salva- 
 tion. It was a famine of the Word of God. 
 It is a historical fact, that during the ages of 
 their ministry there was neither dew nor rain 
 of a spiritual kind on the earth, but at the 
 word of the witnesses. There was no know- 
 ledge of salvation but by their preaching, — no 
 descent of the Spirit but in answer to their 
 prayers; and as the witnesses were shut out 
 from Christendom generally, a universal famine 
 ensued. The Word of God was locked up in 
 a dead language, or forbidden to be read. The 
 priests of Rome, instead of preaching the gos- 
 pel, descanted on the merits of indulgences, the 
 efficacy of relics, or entertained their hearers 
 with monkish traditions or ridiculous and men- 
 dacious legends, — things that could not feed the 
 soul. The heavens were shut, and there was no 
 rain. 
 
AVENGING POWER OF THE WITNESSES. 131 
 
 " And have power over waters, to turn them 
 to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues 
 as often as they will.'" There is, we appre- 
 hend, an allusion here to the plagues by which 
 Egypt was destroyed, which began by the turn- 
 ing of their river into blood. The former was 
 a spiritual infliction ; this is a temporal judg- 
 ment. We are told, at a subsequent part of 
 the Apocalypse, that waters are the symbol of 
 peoples ; and when we are told that these 
 symbolical waters are to be turned into blood, 
 we are to understand that direful carnage and 
 bloody wars are meant. The Egyptians had 
 attempted to destroy the Hebrews by drown- 
 ing their children in the Nile ; and righteously 
 the Nile was turned into blood. The anti- 
 christian nations should employ the sword to 
 exterminate the witnesses, and by the sword 
 should God exterminate them. Hence the 
 song of the angel of the waters, when the third 
 vial was poured out " upon the rivers and foun- 
 tains of waters,*" — " Thou art righteous, O 
 Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, be- 
 cause thou hast judged thus ; for they have 
 
132 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 shed the blood of saints and prophets ; and 
 tlioii hast given them blood to drink, for they 
 are worthy .'"' This angel was answered by an- 
 other from the altar, — " Even so, Lord God 
 Almighty ; true and righteous are thy judg- 
 ments ;" intimating that the Church should 
 take special notice of the equity of God, in 
 laying upon the supporters of the Papacy 
 judgments so similar to the injuries they had 
 inflicted on his witnesses. When power is 
 ascribed to them to smite the earth with all 
 plagues as often as they will, the allusion to 
 Egypt is plainly continued. Moses had power 
 to smite that kingdom with all the plagues ne- 
 cessary to accomplish its overthrow, and set 
 free the Israelites. A similar power were 
 these men in sackcloth to possess over the 
 Papacy, — a power to bring destruction upon 
 destruction, till the kingdom of the Man of Sin 
 should be annihilated, and its captives liberated. 
 Not that these plagues should come at their 
 wish, as if thpy cherished a vindictive spirit, or 
 had pleasure in the destruction of their ene- 
 mies ; but, foreseeing the doom with which 
 
AVENGING POWER OF THE WITNESSES. 133 
 
 prophecy menaced them, they should predict 
 its approach. On their account, moreover, 
 should all these plagues be inflicted : Christ, 
 their head, should take care that not one wrong 
 done them should ever pass unavenged in his 
 administration of providence. 
 
 " And if any man will hurt them, fire pro- 
 ceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their 
 enemies.'' We have placed this last, because 
 it is a final judgment. The symbol becomes 
 of easy interpretation when we refer to that 
 part of Old Testament history from which it 
 is taken. " Behold,'' said God to Jeremiah, 
 " I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and 
 this people wood, and it shall devour them." 
 This plainly refers to the consuming judgments 
 Jeremiah was commissioned to denounce. Of 
 the same sort was the fire that was to proceed 
 from the mouth of the witnesses. When Rome 
 was wasting the witnesses with fire and sword, 
 and shedding their blood like water, they fore- 
 told that a time should come when she should 
 be visited in like manner, — have blood to drink 
 for all the blood she had shed, and be consum- 
 
1S4 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 ed in the fires she had kindled for them. And 
 not one of their words ever fell to the ground. 
 The warning is repeated, to intimate its ter- 
 rible certainty : — " If any man will hurt them, 
 he must in this manner be killed ;" a caution 
 not unnecessary, seeing they were apparently 
 so defenceless ; for never did any class of men 
 appear more completely in the power of their 
 enemies. But, — as if the caution had run, — 
 let no man venture to engage in any plot 
 against them, or have any hand in doing them 
 injury, promising himself impunity in oppress- 
 ing men so devoid of the power to retaliate. 
 In seeking to hurt them he will most infalli- 
 bly destroy himself. They have invisible guards 
 to protect them ; they have invisible powers at 
 their command; they need only utter the 
 word, and the bolt of heaven is not more 
 speedy or deadly in its work of vengeance. 
 And have not their words been as fire to the 
 nations ? What mean the bloody wars, the 
 calamities of divers kinds, which have ravaged 
 the Popish countries of Europe these three 
 hundred years ? These are the words uttered 
 
AVENGING POWER OF THE WITNESSES. 135 
 
 long ago by the men who dwelt amid the Alps ; 
 these are the answer to their prayers; these 
 are the fire from the mouth of the witnesses, 
 kindled, burning, and to burn yet more fiercely. 
 This power the witnesses were to exercise, 
 not when the time came that they should pos- 
 sess the kingdom, but during their prophesy- 
 ing, and while they wore sackcloth. It was 
 especially during the latter half of their pro- 
 phesying that these judgments were to be 
 inflicted, and particularly after the seventh 
 angel had sounded, and her last plagues had 
 begun to fall on Rome. All these plagues 
 came in answer to the prayers, in fulfilment of 
 the predictions, and to recompense the wrongs 
 done the witnesses. The words we have been 
 considering look back on three theatres of 
 judgment, — Jerusalem, Egypt, Sodom ; and 
 they exhibit the three leading plagues by which 
 Rome's destruction shall be accomplished, — 
 Famine, Blood, Fire. By famine was Jerusalem 
 scourged, by blood was Egypt destroyed, and 
 by fire was Sodom consumed. These are the 
 
136 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 three awful types of Rome's end. All the ca- 
 lamities peculiar to each shall meet in her de- 
 struction ; for strong is the Lord God who 
 judgeth her. 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 137 
 
 WAE WITH THE WITNESSES. 
 
 " And when they shall have finished their tes- 
 timony, the beast that ascendeth out of the 
 bottomless pit shall make war against them, 
 and shall overcome them, and kill them." This 
 introduces us to the solemn subject of the 
 death of the witnesses. 
 
 Whether are we to place the slaying of the 
 witnesses among the fulfilled or the unfulfilled 
 predictions of the Apocalypse I There are able 
 expositors who regard this as not a past event, 
 but one still to come. Of late, not a few in 
 our country, whose attention has been turned 
 to the Apocalyptic predictions, have avowed it 
 as their belief that the days of slaughter and 
 extermination prefigured in the symbol before 
 us are yet awaiting the Church. If such are 
 
138 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 correct in their interpretations, all organiz- 
 ed societies professing the truth, all visible 
 Churches throughout the earth, must yet be 
 extinguished. Europe must be covered with 
 the bodies of slain Protestants. Rome has not 
 yet reached the summit of her power, nor com- 
 mitted the greatest of her crimes ; she must 
 yet lift her head higher towards heaven, and 
 smite the prostrate earth with more dread- 
 ful bolts than she ever hurled against it ; she 
 must yet efface the memory of all her past 
 wickedness, by deeds of more awful cruelty, — 
 by slaughters and massacres more inhuman 
 and exterminating than any with which her 
 past annals are stained. All this must yet come 
 to pass, if the event we are considering falls to 
 be classed among the unfulfilled prophecies of 
 this book. If such indeed be the times we are 
 approaching, it behoves the Church to have 
 \varning, on good authority, that she may pre- 
 pare herself ; but if already the witnesses have 
 been slain, the fear such a prospect is fitted to 
 inspire, being unfounded, cannot be salutary, 
 and ought to be dismissed. 
 
AVAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 139 
 
 The witnesses were to be slain by the beast 
 that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit. This 
 is the first appearance in the Apocalypse of 
 this great enemy of God, and ruthless murderer 
 of his saints. We here simply assume that 
 this beast is the ten confederate kingdoms of 
 Europe, — the same that grew out of the old 
 Roman empire, — the Papacy prompting their 
 policy, and guiding their arms. This beast was 
 afterwards seen by John, with seven heads and 
 ten horns, rising out of the abyss or sea. It 
 was on this ten-horned beast that the harlot 
 rode; and we find the interpretation of the sym- 
 bol in the historical fact, that the wealth and 
 power of the ten kingdoms were lent to aggran- 
 dise the Papacy, and that their swords were 
 ever at her service when she needed them to 
 slay the saints. 
 
 The time when the witnesses should be slain 
 is marked by these words : " When they shall 
 have finished their testimony,"' orav nhsaojet rriv 
 fAu^Tv^iuv avrcav. The verb " to finish," rsXsw, is 
 used in numerous passages in the New Tes- 
 tament in two distinct and different senses: 
 
140 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 First, to finish in point of time, so that the 
 person ceases to act. Second, to finish in the 
 way of perfecting the work on which he is 
 employed: he has perfected, matnred it; and, 
 though he still repeats it, he ceases to perform 
 it more completely or perfectly. We may 
 make our meaning clear by a few instances. 
 We have an example of the first sense in 
 PauFs words to Timothy, — " I have finished 
 (rergXsxa) my course,*" 2 Tim. iv. 7. Here the 
 word clearly refers to time. We have an ex- 
 ample of the second sense in James, i. 15, 
 " When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth 
 sin ; and sin, when it is finished (aTorgXstf^g/tfa), 
 bringeth forth death."' The meaning here, 
 " sin, when it is finished,'' is plainly not that so 
 soon as the sinner has ended his course of sin- 
 ning, but so soon as his sin is perfected, com- 
 pleted, ripened, it bringeth forth death. These 
 are examples of two different sets of passages 
 in which this word occurs. In the one set the 
 verb " to finish" has reference to the expiration 
 of a certain period ; in the other it denotes the 
 perfecting or completing of a certain act. Mr 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 1 41 
 
 Elliot has selected an instance of the use of the 
 word in the latter sense, from what is said of 
 the Jewish priests, in Hebrews, ix. 6, and which 
 is much in point : " ' They enter the Taber- 
 nacle continually (rag ^argf/a? iieiTikx^Tii)^ fulfilling 
 their services, or priestly functions.' The which, 
 day by day, included several acts, — the receiv- 
 ing incense, carrying it witli altar-fire into the 
 holy place and burning it, kindling or snuffing 
 the lamps, &c. ; after the whole of which was 
 accomplished, on any one defined occasion, then 
 it might be said that the priest had fulfilled his 
 service, ittk^ae ttjv Xar^j/ai/ ayr» ; yet not SO as 
 then to have finally ceased, >.argjus/v, or to have 
 resigned thereon his priestly office. Just in 
 the same way," continues Mr Elliot, " suppos- 
 ing a repetition, more or less frequent, of their 
 /xagryg/a, or testimony, required of the two wit- 
 nesses of the Apocalypse, — so soon as they 
 might once have gone through the several com- 
 ponent parts or acts of that testimony, so soon 
 it might be said of them that they had fulfilled 
 or completed their testimony ; yet not so as to 
 hnply that their whole period of testifying was 
 
142 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 at an end, or that they thereupon ceased to be 
 any longer Christ's witnesses." Seeing the 
 word is used in these two senses, — that of 
 finishing a course of acting, and that of com- 
 pleting an act by performing all its parts, — 
 the question remains, in which of these senses 
 is it here used ? Whether does it relate to 
 the time of prophesying, — the twelve hundred 
 and sixty days, — or to the witness-bearing, 
 ^iz^ru^/a, abstractly viewed I The more natural 
 reference, we admit, is to the time of prophesy- 
 ing ; and were there no elements of judgment 
 but such as are found in the verse before us, 
 we would at once grant that this is the true 
 reference. But other considerations, springing 
 from other parts of the Apocalypse, render 
 this supposition impossible, and constrain us 
 to apply the words to the iO-agrug/a, testimony, — 
 that is, to regard the slaying of the witnesses 
 as foretold to happen, not at the end of the 
 twelve hundred and sixty days, but as soon as 
 they should have completed their testimony ; 
 which might be expected to happen whenever 
 Popery should be fully developed, and the tes- 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 143 
 
 timony of the Church have come to be pointed 
 against all the leading errors in the Papal sys- 
 tem, which should then be seen and proclaimed 
 to be the Antichrist. Let us mention these 
 considerations. 
 
 First, the place the prophecy of the slaying 
 of the witnesses occupies in the Apocalypse. 
 It comes in between the sounding of the sixth 
 and the sounding of the seventh trumpet. This 
 leads naturally to the conclusion that the 
 slaughter of the witnesses would occur during 
 this interval. The sixth trumpet was sound- 
 ed at the beginning of the fourteenth century, 
 and the seventh a very considerable while after 
 the Reformation ; and it is an historical fact, 
 that during this interval almost all the slaugh- 
 ters that have been committed on the adherents 
 of the truth occurred, and that the Church Avas 
 brought lower than it has ever been before or 
 since. Second, immediately after the prophecy 
 of the slaying of the witnesses, the approach of 
 the third woe is announced. Now, on whom 
 does the third woe fall ? On Antichrist : it 
 consists of the seven plagues by which he is to 
 
144 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 be brought to his grave. It is natural to con- 
 chule that the slaughter of the witnesses should 
 take place when Antichrist was at his height ; 
 which he attained before the infliction of the 
 second woe, — and not when he was reeling 
 and staggering under the weight of his last 
 plagues. It is natural to suppose that affairs 
 would be at their lowest in the Church when 
 they were at their highest in the kingdom of 
 Antichrist ; that the midnight of the one would 
 correspond with the noon-day of the other; 
 and that the greatest effort of the beast would 
 be made when his affairs were flourishing, and 
 not when his power was broken, and his king- 
 dom had begun to pass from him. Third, 
 while it is stated, at this part of the Apoca- 
 lypse, that the issue of the war between the 
 beast and the followers of the Lamb should be, 
 that the beast should overcome them and kill 
 them, it is stated at a subsequent part of the 
 Apocalypse, that the issue of this same war 
 should be, that the Lamb should overcome the 
 armies of the beast. The only way of reconcil- 
 ing these apparently conflicting statements is 
 
WAR AVITH THE WITNESSES. 145 
 
 by the natural supposition that the war was to 
 have these different issues at different times ; 
 that the beast should for a time prevail, and 
 seem to be carrying all before him ; but the ad- 
 vantage should turn out to be only temporary, 
 and, the war going on, final victory should re- 
 main with the Lamb. These two issues could 
 not be contemporaneous ; and there can be no 
 doubt as to which of the two should be the 
 final one. It is plain, therefore, that the 
 slaughter of the witnesses could not be defer- 
 red till the conclusion of the war, but must 
 have taken place at a former period, — suffi- 
 ciently early to allow of the first battle being 
 lost, of the second being gained. We presume it 
 will not be maintained that the termination of 
 the prophesying of the witnesses in sackcloth 
 is earlier than the termination of the war ; for 
 what is meant by their warring with the beast, 
 but just their testifying, in adverse circum- 
 stances, against the abominations of Popery ? 
 Fourth, in the same hour in which the wit- 
 nesses revived there was a great earthquake, 
 and the tenth part of the city fell, — Britain, 
 
146 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 one of the ten kingdoms. This renders the 
 conclusion inevitable that the resurrection of 
 the witnesses is considerably prior to the end of 
 the Papacy ; for observe what happens when 
 the seventh vial is poured out : the great city 
 is divided into three parts, and the cities of 
 the nations fall, which is a much more striking 
 result than the overthrow of merely the tenth 
 part of the city. 
 
 Fifth, The course of events these three hun- 
 dred years past, and the state and prospects of 
 the world at this hour. This is the last con- 
 sideration we mention which strongly induces 
 the belief that the slaying of the witnesses is 
 past. From about the year 600 onward till 
 the Reformation, the course of events ran 
 steadily in favour of the Papacy ; all the great 
 social revolutions and political changes of the 
 world helped it onward ; even the most insigni- 
 ficant and trifling occurrences turned to its ad- 
 vantage, — brought it new accessions of wealth 
 and power. In every contest in which Rome 
 engaged, whether with bishops or kings, she 
 was victor ; and by a course of almost un- 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 147 
 
 broken prosperity of more than eight hundred 
 years' duration did Antichrist reach the sum- 
 mit of his grandeur. But at the Reformation 
 how plainly did the tide in his affairs turn ! 
 Almost every event that has happened since 
 has gone against him. We can trace the same 
 uniformity in the operation of events now, as 
 before, so far as they regard Antichrist ; only 
 then they wrought for his advancement, — now 
 they are working his downfall. Partial re- 
 vivals and successes Popery may yet have ; but 
 we are strongly persuaded that affairs will con- 
 tinue to run steadily in the same course, till 
 they end in its total downfall. Let us think, 
 moreover, of the state and prospects of the 
 world. Its state is now such as to render the 
 supposition incredible, that Popery, especially 
 after it has been so greatly weakened by the 
 judgments of God, should raise itself to such 
 universal power as to be able to suppress the 
 truth in the same degree as before the Refor- 
 mation. Though the gospel should be suppress- 
 ed in Europe, there are wide realms around 
 where it has been planted, and would continue 
 
148 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 to flourish, — America, India, Australia, and 
 the islands of the Pacific. If a period of dark- 
 ness yet awaits the Church, such as that fore- 
 told in the symbol of the witnesses, the gospel 
 must be suppressed in all these places, and all 
 the labours of the past three hundred years, 
 and all the efforts of missionaries, must come to 
 nought. But happily the world seems to be 
 secured against such a catastrophe, not only 
 by its own inherent improbability, but also by 
 the terms of the Apocalyptic prophecy. Both 
 the scene of slaughter and the agent of slaugh- 
 ter appear to be limited to Europe. It is the 
 ten-horned beast by whom the witnesses are 
 slain, which every commentator admits to be 
 the symbol of the ten Roman kingdoms of 
 Europe. And it is on the streets of the great 
 city that their dead bodies are exposed, which 
 plainly identifies the scene of the tragedy with 
 the European dominions of the Papacy. On 
 all these grounds we unhesitatingly conclude 
 that the slaughter of the witnesses is past. 
 
 But how stand the facts of history with our 
 interpretation ? They are in perfect accordance 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 149 
 
 therewith. The Waldenses, the Vaudois, and 
 other bodies of Christians, had borne an open 
 testimony from the beginning against the vari- 
 ous corruptions of Rome, — her errors in doc- 
 trine, her idolatries in worship, and her im- 
 moralities of life ; — but at last, in the end of 
 the twelfth century, — the same century in 
 which, according to Gibbon, the meridian of 
 Papal greatness was attained, — they proclaim- 
 ed her to be the Antichrist of Scripture, — the 
 harlot of the Apocalypse. Thus and then did 
 the witnesses fulfil their testimony. It was 
 foretold that this should be the signal for the 
 beast to make war with them ; and so it was. 
 Rome as a body now moved against them, which 
 she had not. done before. The war was com- 
 menced in the edicts of councils, which stigma- 
 tized the pure doctrines drawn from the Bible 
 as heresy, and branded those who held them as 
 heretics. The next step was to pronounce the 
 most dreadful anathemas on those whom Rome 
 termed heretics, which were executed in the 
 same remorseless and exterminating spirit in 
 which they were conceived. The confessors of 
 
150 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the truth were denied both their civil and their 
 natural rights. They were forbidden all par- 
 ticipation in dignities and offices ; they could 
 not buy or sell ; their goods were confiscated ; 
 their houses were to be razed, and never more 
 to be rebuilt ; and their lands were given to 
 those who were able to seize them. They were 
 shut out from the solace of human converse : 
 no one might give them shelter while living, or 
 Christian burial when dead. Thus were the 
 witnesses called to prophesy in sackcloth. At 
 last a crusade was commenced against them. 
 Preachers were sent abroad through Europe, to 
 sound the trumpet of vengeance, and assemble 
 the nations. To stimulate their ardour in these 
 holy wars, a full remission of all sins committed 
 from the cradle to the grave was promised to 
 such as might fall in battle. Nay, a service of 
 forty days was so meritorious a work as to en- 
 title the person to no less a reward than para- 
 dise. The Pope wrote to all Christian princes, 
 exhorting them to earn their pardon and win 
 heaven, rather by bearing the cross against 
 these heretics than by marching against the 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 151 
 
 Saracens. Army after army was assembled 
 imder such men as Simon of Montford and 
 Saint Louis. We do not intend to darken our 
 page with a recital of the horrors of this war. 
 We search in vain for anything equal to them 
 even in the worst atrocities of savage tribes, 
 when engaged in their most sanguinary con- 
 flicts. Were a faithfid account of all these en- 
 ormities to be given, the recital would fill many 
 volumes, and would shock and outrage every 
 feeling of our nature. Though legions of fiends 
 had become incarnate, and been let loose to ra- 
 vage the earth, they could not have devised 
 more exquisite torments,— they could not have 
 mflicted more ruthless slaughters and massa- 
 cres, — nor could they have stood by and witness- 
 ed the agonies of their victims with a more hel- 
 lish delight. The peaceful and fertile valleys of 
 the Vaudois and the Waldenses were invaded, 
 and speedily devastated with fire and sword ; 
 their towns and villages were burnt ; while not 
 one individual, in many cases, escaped to carry 
 tidings to the next valley. The young and the 
 gray-haired, the most helpless and the most un- 
 
152 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 offending, were involved in the same indiscrimi- 
 nate slaughter: mothers, with their infants, were 
 thrown from the rocks ; bonfires w^ere kindled, 
 and human beings by hundreds were piled upon 
 them ; pits were dug, and vast numbers were 
 buried alive. In short, every cruelty, barbarity, 
 and indecency, which rage, lust, and bigotry 
 could invent and perpetrate, were inflicted on 
 these confessors of Christ. To accomplish what 
 the crusades, though carried on with indescrib- 
 able fury, failed to effect, it was at last resolved 
 that the Holy Office of the Inquisition should 
 be erected. The horrors of this terrible court 
 far exceeded those even of the crusades. The 
 crusades did their work quickly : they swept 
 across the scene of their visitation like a tem- 
 pest, converting in a few days, sometimes in a 
 few hours, busy and populous seats into pro- 
 found solitudes. Such a proceeding was merci- 
 ful compared with the lingering and excruciat- 
 ing torments to which the victim was doomed 
 in the dungeons of the Holy Office. The ra- 
 vages of the crusades were acted in the face of 
 day : the smoke of burning cities and human 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 153 
 
 hecatombs rose into the air, polluting the firma- 
 ment with a dismal cloud ; the shrieks of the 
 mother, as in her agony she clasped her babe, 
 when both were about to be precipitated head- 
 long from the top of some precipice, were re- 
 peated again and again from the rocks adown 
 
 which they were thrown. 
 
 " Their moans 
 
 The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
 
 To heaven." 
 Accordingly, history has recorded part at least 
 of these horrible tragedies, that we may admire 
 the grace of God, as shown in the constancy 
 and courage of the noble confessors that endur- 
 ed them, and know at what an expense of suf- 
 fering and blood the truth has been handed 
 down to us. But it is not so as regards the In- 
 quisition. History has been forbidden to de- 
 scend with her torch into the dungeons of the 
 Holy Office. The crimes that have been there 
 enacted, and the sufferings that have been there 
 endured, remain untold. The familiars and the 
 racks of the Inquisition plied their dreadful 
 work in darkness. No eye saw the writhings of 
 their victim ; no ear heard his groans ; and the 
 
154 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 much that these dungeons conceal shall remain 
 concealed for ever, till the dread judgment- 
 day. This terrible court ramified into every 
 country where there were professors of the 
 truth, — into Piedmont, France, Spain, Bohe- 
 mia, Germany, Poland, Flanders, England ; 
 and endeavoured, by the most horrible means, 
 to exterminate what it termed heresy and here- 
 tics, — to wear out the saints of the Most High. 
 Thus were the words fulfilled, " When they 
 shall have completed their testimony, the beast 
 that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall 
 make war with them.""* The history of the 
 world is little else than a series of wars : many 
 of these are sufficiently melancholy and revolt- 
 ing ; but in no age of time, and in no country 
 of the globe, has there been seen a war of so 
 cruel, ferocious, and blood-thirsty a character 
 as that which the beast carried on against 
 the witnesses. Having partaken of her wine, 
 and being phrenzied and maddened therewith, 
 princes, at the instigation of Rome, have wast- 
 ed the blood and the treasure of their sub- 
 jects, and literally beggared themselves to carry 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 155 
 
 on this war. Philip the Second of Spain, when 
 on his death-bed, acknowledged to the prince, 
 his son, that he had spent on the civil wars of 
 France, those of the Low Countries, and in 
 other enterprises of the same nature, more 
 than five hundred and ninety-four millions of 
 ducats, — a sum altogether inconceivable. How 
 many millions of lives, as well as of treasure, 
 have the efforts to extirpate the Hugonots in 
 France cost that kingdom ! How often has it 
 been brought thereby to the brink of ruin ! 
 As an instance of how careful Rome was to 
 bind all secular princes to prosecute this war in 
 the most unrelenting spirit, we may mention 
 the decree of the Council of Toledo, which was 
 to the following effect : — " We, the holy Coun- 
 cil, promulgate this sentence, pleasing to God, 
 that whosoever hereafter shall succeed to the 
 kingdom, shall not mount the throne till he 
 hath sworn to permit no man to live in his 
 kingdom who is not a Catholic. And if, after 
 he hath taken the reins of government, he shall 
 violate his promise, let him be anathema marana- 
 tlia in the sight of the eternal God, and fuel for 
 
156 THE SEVENTH YIAL. 
 
 eternal fire/' Numerous bulls of the Popes, 
 conceived in the same terms, and enjoining the 
 same duty, might be adduced. Who can tell 
 what vast numbers of Christians have fallen a 
 sacrifice in this way ? When, at the last trum- 
 pet, the mounds of this great battle-field, — 
 which is wide Europe, — shall be opened, what 
 numbers of slain shall rise up to condemn their 
 common murderer ! Calculations have been 
 formed of the numbers whom Popery has slain. 
 From the year 1540 to the year 1570, compre- 
 hending only the space of thirty years, no fewer 
 than nine hundred thousand Protestants were 
 put to death by Papists in the different coun- 
 tries of Europe. During the short pontificate 
 of Paul the Fourth, which lasted only four 
 years, the Inquisition alone, on the testimony 
 of Vergerius, destroyed an hundred and fifty 
 thousand. Those that perished in Germany 
 during the wars of Charles the Fifth, and in 
 Flanders under the infamous Alva, are counted 
 by hundreds of thousands. For a number of 
 years, especially after the Reformation, these 
 countries swarmed with executioners, and were 
 
WAR WITH THE WITNESSES. 157 
 
 covered with scaffolds and fires. In France 
 several millions were destroyed in the innu- 
 merable massacres that took place in that king- 
 dom. It has been calculated that, since the 
 rise of the Papacy, not fewer than fifty millions 
 of persons have been put to death on account 
 of religion. Of this inconceivable number the 
 greater part have been cut off during the last 
 six hundred years, — for the Papacy persecuted 
 very little during the first half of its existence : 
 it was not till the witnesses completed their 
 testimony that it made war against them. Fifty 
 millions in the space of six hundred years gives 
 a rate of upwards of eighty thousand every year. 
 Let us think of eighty thousand human beings 
 destroyed year after year for the long period of 
 six hundred years, till at last the numbers are 
 swelled to the overwhelming amount of fifty 
 MILLIONS ! What a fearful meaning does this 
 give to the words of John, " I saw the woman 
 drunken with the blood of the saints, and with 
 the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And in her 
 was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, 
 and of all that were slain upon the earth !" 
 
158 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 
 
 " Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the 
 great waters, and thy footsteps are not known." 
 Such was the exclamation of the Psalmist, as 
 he recalled the past events which had befallen 
 the Church, and thought how much of mystery 
 her history had wrapped up in it. A retro- 
 spect of Divine Providence at this day would 
 furnish abundant cause to repeat the exclama- 
 tion. One would have thought, that after 
 Christ had come, and by his death put an end to 
 the comparatively dark dispensation of Moses, 
 and introduced the more glorious and spiritual 
 economy of the gospel, — that after Christianity 
 had been published to many of the nations, 
 and established in many of the countries of the 
 Gentile world, — it would never be in any dan- 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 159 
 
 ger of being suppressed. It might have been 
 expected that a final end would be put to all 
 the trials and calamities of the Church, — that 
 her path henceforward would be one of un- 
 broken prosperity and ever-enlarging triumph, 
 — that her light would wax brighter and bright- 
 er, till at last it shone in the full splendour 
 of the Millennium, ushering in that day, long 
 foretold and long ardently expected, which 
 shall see all nations worshipping God and serv- 
 ins: the Lamb. This is what the Old Testa- 
 ment saints doubtless expected : they looked 
 forward to the coming of the Messiah as the 
 end of the Church's troubles, and the intro- 
 duction of an era in which the truth should 
 have no opposition to encounter, and its friends 
 no suffering to endure, in the way of its main- 
 tenance. This was what the primitive Chris- 
 tians also expected. When the Word of 
 God grew mightily and prevailed, — when the 
 Church, which had been confined hitherto to 
 the land of Judea, went forth among the Gen- 
 tiles, and the desolate parts of the earth were 
 inhabited, — little did they anticipate that her 
 
160 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 period of greatest darkness was yet to come, 
 and that her severest trials were yet awaiting 
 her, — that all she had suffered in Egypt, all 
 she had suffered in Babylon, was as nothing, 
 compared with those more dreadful sufferings 
 which she had yet to endure at the hands of an 
 enemy to arise within herself. And even we, 
 when we look back, and think of the little pro- 
 gress the gospel has made, and of the countries 
 once enlightened, some plunged again into dark- 
 ness, while others are Christian only in name, — 
 oven we, we say, wonder why God has allowed 
 so great obstacles to impede the progress of 
 the gospel, and not to impede it merely, but 
 actually to roll it back, and to leave those 
 countries once covered with its fertilizing 
 waters again bare, to be scorched by the fiery 
 rays of idolatry. We feel persuaded that God 
 has some special and great end in view in this 
 arrangement, — that the early triumph of the 
 gospel would, in some way that we know not, 
 have marred its ultimate and final triumph, — 
 and that the long delay of its success was 
 some way or other connected with the happi- 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 161 
 
 ness of future ages. We feel assured that 
 God has some end of this kind in view in this^ 
 arrangement, which shall be clearly understood 
 by the men of future ages, and which we our- 
 selves, in other stages of our being, shall know 
 and admire ; but meanwhile it is a mystery un- 
 fathomable to us. It yields, however, no small 
 satisfaction to know that all has happened ac- 
 cording to the Divine arrangement. If we 
 compare the events of the past eighteen cen- 
 turies with the prophecy before us, we find 
 tliat there is an exact accordance between the- 
 two. In the Apocalypse John was warned, 
 and we through him, that even after the truth 
 should have been widely spread, and the Church 
 planted in all the more important countries of 
 the world, she should be brought into a more 
 depressed condition than she had ever former- 
 ly been in, — that truth should be all but 
 totally suppressed, — that for twelve hundred 
 and sixty years the whole world should apos- 
 tatize, — that two witnesses only should appear 
 in behalf of Christ, — and that these should 
 have to maintain a terrible warfare, waged 
 
162 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 against them by the beast, the issue of which 
 «hould be truly disastrous. 
 
 We have already sketched the outline of 
 the war with the witnesses ; we have traced its 
 beginning to the edicts of councils, and have 
 shown that the form in which it first displayed 
 itself was that of the anathemas of Popes, — 
 those thunders from the seven hills which have 
 -ever betokened woe to the world, — that scarce- 
 ly had these anathemas been launched, till hosts 
 began to muster, and immense armies to roll 
 towards the Alps, amid the deep valleys and 
 inaccessible cliffs of which the witnesses dwelt. 
 When it was seen that the sword was inef- 
 ficient to exterminate them, the Inquisition 
 was called into existence. To the fire and 
 sword of war, the racks and wheels of the 
 Holy Office were now added. Undismayed 
 by the hosts that gathered round their hills, 
 and bidding defiance to the terrors with which 
 they w^ere menaced, the witnesses still main- 
 tained their testimony. The world was in 
 arms against them ; but greater was He who 
 was in them than he who was in the world. 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 163 
 
 Their numbers were thinned, — their dwellings 
 were laid in ashes, — their valleys were stained 
 with the blood of their dear brethren or their 
 beloved relatives, — ^they were compelled to 
 abandon the low plains, and betake themselves 
 to the high valleys; and there, amid rocks 
 and eternal ice, though not altogether free of 
 assaults from their enemies, and sometimes suf- 
 fering dreadfully from their fury, yet, defended 
 in good degree by the difficult nature of their 
 position, — " the place prepared of God," — 
 they maintained with noble constancy, from 
 nge to age, their testimony against the cor- 
 ruptions and idolatries of Rome. Throughout 
 the whole of the thirteenth, and fourteenth, 
 and fifteenth centuries, was the war carried 
 on. At last it became apparent that the end 
 approached ; not because the fury and rage of 
 the Church's enemies had abated, but because 
 her members had been well nigh all cut off. 
 This happened towards the end of the fifteenth 
 century. There is something so truly pathe- 
 tic and mournful, — something so much in the 
 spirit of the Apocalyptic prediction itself, — in 
 
164 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Fleming's account of this transaction, that we 
 shall here give it at length, though doubtless 
 already familiar to many of our readers. 
 
 " Now the slaying of these witnesses began 
 in the year 1416, when John Huss, and after- 
 ward Jerom of Prague, were burnt, but came 
 not to its height until the Bohemian Calixtines 
 complied with the Council of Basil, ann. 1434; 
 after which the faithful Taborites were totally 
 ruined, as well as their brethren in Piedmont. 
 France, fcc, which hapned about the year 
 1492. For they being destroyed, the Calix- 
 tines were no better than the dead carcases 
 (as they are called, v. 8), or corps of the for- 
 mer living witnesses, over which the Popish 
 party did triumph ; for they looked upon them 
 as standing trophies of their victor}^ and there- 
 fore did not think fit to kill them further, or 
 bury them out of their sight. For it is said, 
 verses 7, 8, that after they had finished their 
 testimony, the beast did make war upon them, 
 xa/ a'TOKTivei avrig xa/ ra. rrru/Mccrci avruv, &;c., he 
 killed them, and their corps also (for the addi- 
 tional words in our version, shall ly, are not in 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 165 
 
 the original, and do but mar the sense), or 
 their bodies (for some readings have it ^w/^ara), 
 in the street of the great city, i. e, in Bohemia, 
 one street of the Papal dominions, or the great 
 city Rome, in a large sense. For I find that 
 towards the end of the fifteenth century the 
 witnesses were in a manner wholly extinct. 
 For Comenius tells us, that about the year 
 1467 the Waldenses in Austria and Moravia 
 had complied so far as to dissemble their reli- 
 gion, and turn to Popery in profession and out- 
 ward compliance. The Taborites, in the mean- 
 time, upon their refusing to do so, were so de- 
 stroyed, that it was much that seventy of them 
 could get together^ to consult about continu- 
 ing their Church, and about finding out some 
 qualified person to be their minister, for they 
 had none left, ann. 1467. And so low was the 
 Church of Christ then, that when the hidden 
 remains of the Taborites (who were called 
 Speculani, from their lurking in dens and 
 caves) sent out four men (as the same autlior 
 relates in another book) to travel, one thro' 
 Greece and the East, another to Russia and 
 
16^ THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the North, a third to Thrace, Bulgaria, and 
 the neighbouring places, and a fourth to Asia, 
 Palestine, and Egypt, they did all indeed safe- 
 ly return to their brethren, but with this sor- 
 rowful news, that they found no Church of 
 Christ that was pure, or free from the grossest 
 errors, superstition, and idolatry. This was 
 in the year 1497. And when they sent two of 
 their number two years afterwards, — viz. Luke 
 Prage and Thomas German, — to go into Italy, 
 France, and other places, to see if there were 
 any of the old Waldenses left alive, they re- 
 turned with the same melancholy news as the 
 former had done, that they could neither find 
 nor hear of any remaining ; only they were in- 
 formed of the martyrdom of Savanarolla (who 
 suffered in the year 1498) ; and they were 
 told of some few remains of the Piemontois, 
 that were scattered and hid among the Alps, 
 but nobody knew where. Now, a few years 
 after this, even the few remains of the Ta- 
 borites were found out and persecuted, hardly 
 any escaping; so that A. c. 1510, six suffered 
 together publickly; and the year following, that 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 167 
 
 famous martyr Andreas Paliwka, who, I think, 
 was the last of that period ; from whose death, 
 in the end of the year 1511, or beginning of 
 1512, to the dawning of the Reformation by 
 the first preaching of Carolastadius and Zuin- 
 glius (who appeared at least a year before 
 Luther, as Hottinger and others tell us), there 
 was only about three years and a half, which 
 answers as near as can be to the three days 
 and a half of the unburied state of the wit- 
 nesses ; so that the Spirit's entering into the 
 witnesses, verse 11, began with the year 1516, 
 if not the year before, tho' this appeared most 
 remarkably when Luther opposed the Pope 
 publickly, ann. 1517.'' 
 
 The two witnesses were not individuals, but 
 organized societies, — Churches. Their death, 
 therefore, must needs be symbolic : not their 
 death as individuals, but their apparent exter- 
 mination as organized societies, — the suppres- 
 sion of that public testimony which these 
 Churches had borne before Christendom. Now, 
 if we look back, we discover but one period in 
 the history of Christendom to which the pre- 
 
168 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 diction can apply, — the period we have indi- 
 cated, — the beginning of the sixteenth century, 
 just before the Keformation. During that 
 period, all public testimony of the witnesses 
 against the Papacy was silenced in every part 
 of Europe, and Rome appeared to be univer- 
 sally and completely triumphant. Fleming 
 has told us in his own affecting language, with 
 what wonder and dismay the few individuals 
 who were left after the slaughters and mas- 
 sacres of three centuries, beheld the universal 
 triumph of the Beast, — witnessed the total ex- 
 tinction of gospel light, which had ceased to 
 be held forth by any constituted Church. He 
 has told us that, as if only half believing the 
 tremendous fact of which they were the wit- 
 nesses, they sent out four messengers to search 
 throughout the earth, if haply they might dis- 
 cover somewhere a pure Church of Christ. The 
 messengers returned, like the dove to Noah, but 
 with no olive leaf plucked off, — they return- 
 ed to tell those who had sent them forth, that 
 the faith of the apostles existed nowhere, — that 
 error and superstition everywhere prevailed, — 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 169 
 
 that a second deluge had rolled over the world, 
 and that its dark waters stood above the tops 
 of the highest hills. 
 
 But the most satisfactory and convincing ex- 
 position of the fulfilment of this Apocalyptic 
 prediction is that which Mr Elliot has given. 
 By a variety of historical references and docu- 
 ments he has shown, that from the 5th of May 
 1514 to the 31st of October 1817, — three years 
 and a half precisely, — all public testimony 
 against the Papacy was suppressed ; and that 
 at the later date that testimony was suddenly 
 and gloriously revived. The importance and 
 interest of the subject will justify us in giving a 
 series of extracts from that part of the " Horse 
 Apocalypticse,''' to show the eminent clearness of 
 Mr Elliot's demonstration. " And thus,"' says 
 Mr Elliot, " what was the aspect of things 
 when the new [sixteenth] century opened ? 
 Let Milner's be my first historic testimony. 
 ' The sixteenth century opened,' he says, ' with 
 a prospect of all others the most gloomy in the 
 eyes of every true Christian. Corruption both 
 in doctrine and in practice had exceeded all 
 
170 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 bounds ; and the general face of Europe, though 
 Christ's name was everywhere professed, pre- 
 sented nothing that was properly evangelical. 
 The Roman Pontiffs were the uncontrolled pa- 
 trons of impiety. The Waldenses were too 
 feeble to molest the Popedom ; and the Hus- 
 sites, divided among themselves, and worn out 
 by a long series of contentions, were at length 
 reduced to silence? To the same purport is the ' 
 testimony of Mosheim. ' At the commence- 
 ment of this century no danger seemed to 
 threaten the Roman Pontiffs. The agitations 
 previously excited by the Waldenses, Albi- 
 genses, Beghards, and more recently by the 
 Bohemians, had been suppressed by counsel and 
 the sword; and the wretched surviving rem- 
 nant of Bohemian heretics were an object ra- 
 ther of contempt than fear.' So, again, Mr 
 Cunninghame (whose historic sketch of the 
 epoch I may the rather quote because his pro- 
 phetic explanation is independent of it) : — ' At 
 the commencement of the sixteenth century 
 Europe reposed in the deep sleep of spiritual 
 death, under the iron yoke of the Papacy. 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 171 
 
 That haughty power, like the Assyrian of the 
 prophet, said, in the plenitude of his insolence, 
 ' My hand hath found as a nest the riches of 
 the people ; and as one gathereth eggs, I have 
 gathered all the earth ; and there was none 
 that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or 
 peeped; Once more, in language strikingly to 
 the point, the writer of the article on the Re- 
 formation in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica'" 
 thus describes the era :— ' Everything was 
 quiet, — every heretic exterminated, — and the 
 whole Christian world supinely acquiesced in 
 the enormous absurdities inculcated by the 
 Romish Church,— when,'— I only break off the 
 quotation at his notice of just such a speedy^ 
 sudden, and extraordinary revival of the wit- 
 nessing as we saw from the prophetic sequel 
 ought to follow the event intended by the death 
 of the witnesses. '''' 
 
 Having adverted to the proofs arising from 
 the Apocalyptic description of the scene of the 
 slaughter,— "the street of the great city, which 
 spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where 
 also our Lord was crucified,"— and of the pub- 
 
172 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 lie rejoicings on account of their death held by 
 them, of the peoples, and kindreds, and tongues, 
 and nations, to which we ourselves shall after- 
 wards have occasion to refer, Mr Elliot pro- 
 ceeds as follows: — " In turning from prophecy to 
 history, — from the symbolic picture to the thing 
 symbolized, — it seems almost impossible to mis- 
 take the ])recise scene and occasion alluded to. It 
 can surely be none other than that of the very 
 Lateran Council held from 1512 to 1517, under 
 the pontificates of Julius the Second and Leo 
 the Tenth, just before the Reformation. "" Hav- 
 ing stated that the object for which this Coun- 
 cil was assembled was the suppression of all 
 that might yet remain in Western Christendom 
 of witnesses for Christ, and particularly the Bo- 
 Ihemian Hussites, — for both the Lollards of Eng- 
 land and the Waldenses of Piedmont had been 
 reduced to silence, — Mr Elliot resumes, — " In 
 a Papal Bull issued, with approbation of the 
 Counqil, in the very next or eighth session, held 
 December 1513, a charge was issued summon- 
 ing the dissidents in question (the Bohemian 
 witnesses)^ without fail to appear and plead be- 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 173 
 
 fore the Council at its next session ; unless, in- 
 deed, they should have previously done so be- 
 fore a neighbouring Papal Legate, — the object, 
 declared being their conviction, and reduction 
 Avithin the bosom of the Catholic Church ; and 
 the time finally fixed for the said important 
 session. May the 5th, in the spring ensuing/' 
 
 " Thus was the crisis come which was to try 
 the faith of this bleeding remnant of witnesses, 
 and exhibit its mtality or death. And would 
 they then face their Lord's enemies ? Would 
 they brave the terrors of death, and plead his 
 cause before the lordly Legate, or the antichris- 
 tian Council ; like the Waldenses at Albi and 
 at Pamiers, like Wickliffe and Cobham in Eng- 
 land, like Huss and Jerome at the Constance 
 Council, or Luther afterwards at Augsburg 
 and at Worms I Alas ! no. The day of the 
 9th session arrived. The Council met. But 
 no report from the Cardinal Legate gave inti- 
 mation either of the pleading, or even of any 
 continued stirring, of the Bohemian heretics. 
 No officer of the Council announced the arrival 
 of deputies from them to plead before it. Nor, 
 
1 74 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 again, was there a whisper wafted to the Synod 
 from any other State, or city, or town in Chris- 
 tendom, of a movement made, or a mouth open- 
 ed, to promulgate or support the ancient here- 
 sies. Throughout the length and breadth of 
 Christendom Christ's witnessing servants were 
 silenced ; they appeared as dead. The orator 
 of the session ascended the pulpit, and, amid 
 the applause of the assembled Council, uttered 
 that memorable exclamation of triumph, — an 
 exclamation which, notwithstanding the long 
 multiplied anti-heretical decrees of Popes and 
 Councils, — notwithstanding the yet more multi- 
 plied anti-heretical crusades and inquisitorial 
 fires, — was never, I believe, pronounced before, 
 and certainly never since, — " Jam nemo recla- 
 mat, nullus obsistit !'' " There is an end of re- 
 sistance to the Papal rule and religion : op- 
 pressors there exist no more." So did " they, 
 from the people, and kindred, and tongues, and 
 nations," assembled in the ^Xars/a, or Broad 
 Place of the Great City, look on Christ's wit- 
 nesses as (from thenceforth) dead. Let the 
 reader well mark the description, for it is a 
 
DEATH OF THE WITNESSES. 175 
 
 description from the life ; and let him well mark 
 the day, for it seems scarce possible that we can 
 be mistaken in regarding it as the precise com- 
 mencing date of the predicted three and a half 
 years, during which Christ's witnesses were to 
 appear as dead corpses in the face of Christen- 
 dom. It was May 5, 1514."'' 
 
 So ended the long and furious war waged by 
 the beast against the witnesses. Christianity, 
 after existing during fifteen centuries, had be- 
 come extinct as regarded the public profession 
 of it. There were a few individual saints still 
 upon the earth ; but there was nowhere a 
 Church. There were none who now dared 
 open their mouth and proclaim Rome to be 
 Antichrist. The event was astounding ; and 
 yet it was only what the prophecy had foretold : 
 — " The beast that ascendeth out of the bottom- 
 less pit shall make war against them, and shall 
 overcome them, and kill them." It was a- 
 dark night, yet but the prelude to a glorious 
 morning. 
 
176 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 EEST'EEECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 
 
 The witnesses were slain ; and how were their 
 bodies disposed of? Doubtless by being com- 
 mitted to the grave, — the quiet grave. When 
 one dies, both friends and foes unite in consign- 
 ing him to the tomb, — his friends to show re- 
 spect to his memory, and his enemies that they 
 may not incur the reproach of a revolting in- 
 humanity. When John was beheaded, his dis- 
 ciples came and took up the body and buried 
 it. The tyrant by whom he was cut off did not 
 think of carrying his resentment so far as to 
 forbid the rites of sepulture to his remains. 
 But it was not to be with the witnesses as with 
 other dead. They had no friends who might 
 perform this office to their remains ; and their 
 enemy, whose rage and vengeance extended be- 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 177 
 
 yond death, would not suffer their dead bodies 
 to be put into graves. Therefore, where they 
 had fallen, there they lay. " And their dead 
 bodies shall lie in the street of the great city.'' 
 Our jBrst enquiry regards the place where the 
 dead bodies of the witnesses were to be expos- 
 ed,—" the street of the great city.'' As re- 
 gards the "great city" there is no difficulty. 
 The symbol is explained in chapter xvii., where 
 it is said to be that " great city that reigneth 
 over the kings of the earth." There is only one 
 city to which this can apply, even Rome ; not 
 the literal city, but that system of polity, ec- 
 clesiastical and civil, of which Rome was the 
 centre, and which extended over, and was su- 
 preme in, all the ten kingdoms of Europe. Go- 
 verned by the Papal code, Europe formed but 
 one corporation or symbolic city. To make the 
 city indicated still more clear, its designation is 
 given, " which spiritually is called Sodom and 
 Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." It 
 will not be supposed that the literal Sodom is 
 here meant, because she had been turned to 
 ashes many ages before the visions of Patmos. 
 
 M 
 
1 78 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 That it is neither the literal Sodom nor the li- 
 teral Egypt that is here intended, is plain from 
 the words, which spiritually is called Sodom and 
 Egypt. The city, on the street of which the 
 dead bodies of the witnesses were to lie, should 
 exhibit precisely the same moral and spiritual 
 character as Sodom and Egypt, — should bear 
 as close a resemblance as if she had been these 
 long perished kingdoms risen from the grave. 
 She is called Sodom, to denote her impurity and 
 lewdness. This was the characteristic vice of 
 that city on which God rained fire and brim- 
 stone. But we question whether tlie most re- 
 volting abominations of Sodom equalled those 
 gigantic and dreadful pollutions of which sober 
 history affirms the palaces of the popes and car- 
 dinals, and the religious houses which covered 
 Europe, to have been the scene. This " great 
 city'' is called Egypt, to denote her idolatry 
 and cruelty. Egypt was the land of false gods ; 
 and she was, moreover, the first and crudest 
 persecutor. The resemblance holds good in 
 that Rome was a land of superstition, — a 
 worshipper of demons ; and, like Egypt, held 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 17^ 
 
 the true Church in captivity, and sought utterly 
 to destroy it ; and, in seeking to accomplish her 
 purpose, shed more righteous blood than ever 
 was shed on the earth by any other power. 
 Others have been sated, — she was drunk with 
 blood. Both cities have inherited an immor- 
 tality of shame, — Sodom from her lewdness, 
 and Egypt from her superstition and cruelty. 
 Rome has become the heir of both : she unites 
 in her own person the impurity of the one, — 
 tlie cruelty of the other. 
 
 It is added, as farther descriptive of this 
 city, " where also our Lord was crucified," that 
 is, Jerusalem ; Jerusalem being used not lite 
 rally, but symbolically. " Where our Lord was 
 crucified," not in his own person. Since the 
 day that he ascended from the Mount of Olives, 
 and entered within the gates of heaven, no suf- 
 fering has come near his blessed body. But 
 there are other ways in which Christ may be 
 crucified. The apostle tells us that they who 
 apostatize from the faith crucify the Son of God 
 afresh. Rome is the grand apostacy. Christ 
 in his truth she has crucified; and Christ in 
 
180 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 his members she has crucified. His own bless- 
 ed body was beyond her rage : she could 
 neither imprison, nor torture, nor crucify it. 
 His members were fully in her power; and 
 there are no torments which racks, and fires, 
 and steel can inflict, which she did not subject 
 them to. " Inasmuch,'' said He from heaven, 
 as another and another of his witnesses was 
 slain, — " inasmuch as ye did it to the least of 
 these, ye did it unto me." 
 
 Here, then, are the three types of the city, — 
 Sodom, Egypt, Jerusalem. Here are portray- 
 ed by a single stroke her three leading charac- 
 teristics, — impurity, idolatry combined wdth 
 persecuting cruelty, and infidelity. And as we 
 are to view these three as types of the manner 
 of her life, so, as we have already said, we are 
 to view them as types of the manner of her end, 
 — utter rejection like Jerusalem, — the sword 
 like Egypt, — and burning like Sodom. 
 
 The "great city,*" we have said, is wide 
 Europe in its Papal character. But what lo- 
 cality is symbolized by the "street" of the 
 great city I The street, -rXan/a, literally the 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 181 
 
 broad place, has reference plainly to the forum 
 of ancient cities. This was the place where 
 pubhc assemblies were held, where laws were 
 proclaimed, justice administered, and mer- 
 chandise set forth. To guide ourselves to the 
 street on which the sad spectacle of the dead 
 bodies of the witnesses should be seen, we have 
 only to inquire in what city of Europe was it 
 where the Papal gatherings took place, where 
 the Papal laws were proclaimed, where Papal 
 causes were adjudged and sentence pronounc- 
 ed, and where the Papal merchandise was set 
 forth? The answer is, Rome. This was the 
 broad place, or forum, of the great city. 
 
 " And they of the people, and kindreds, 
 and tongues, and nations, shall see their dead 
 bodies three days and a half, and shall not suf- 
 fer their dead bodies to be put in graves." It 
 is well remarked by Mr Elliot, that it is clear 
 from these words, " they of [from] the people, 
 and kindreds," &c. that there was to be an 
 assembly of deputies from all parts of the Pa- 
 pal world, at the time that the dead bodies of 
 the witnesses should be lying on the street of 
 
182 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the city, who should behold and enjoy the spec- 
 tacle. This was remarkably fulfilled in the 
 Lateran Council then met at Rome, composed 
 as it was of princes and prelates from every 
 part of the Roman world. But what are we 
 to understand by the prediction, " and shall not 
 suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves V 
 Mr Elliot, we think, has not been equally suc- 
 cessful in his exposition here. He makes the 
 words refer mainly to the well-known practice 
 of Rome to deny Christian burial to the bodies 
 of heretics. As the witnesses were symbolic, 
 so the burial here represented as withheld must 
 be also symbolic. As to deny burial to a per- 
 son is one of the greatest indignities that can 
 be done him, and was in ancient times employ- 
 ed to express utter contempt, so nothing more 
 may be here meant than the contempt which 
 the Council expressed for heretics, and the va- 
 rious methods to which recourse was had to 
 heap disgrace on their cause. But perhaps this 
 may not be thought precise enough. Then we 
 must first inquire what we are to understand 
 by their corpses or dead bodies. Life and or 
 
RESLRKECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 183 
 
 ganization are connected. The moment life 
 departs, the organization is lost, and the body 
 is reduced to its component elements. The 
 witnesses were organized societies, and the 
 slaying or silencing of them lay in their sup- 
 pression as Churches. After that, though a 
 few of the individual members which had com- 
 posed these Churches existed, they had lost 
 their organization,— the principle of social life ; 
 they were the mere elements of what had been 
 the living witnesses,— they were their corpses. 
 These corpses their enemies would not suffer to 
 be put in graves. Mr Elliot mentions a fact 
 which we presume to think is the true explana- 
 tion of the matter. The same day on which it 
 was proclaimed that there were no longer any 
 opposers to the Papal rule and religion, the 
 Council issued an edict cutting off all heretics, 
 of whatever kind, and of whatever nation, from 
 the Church, and decreeing against them the 
 usual punishments. Seeing that, on the avowal 
 of Rome herself, there was no longer any or- 
 ganized Church anywhere opposing her autho- 
 rity, the edict could have respect only to indi- 
 
184 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 vidual dissentients which might and did exist, 
 though concealed, in some places, — the corpses 
 of the witnesses. These by her edict she cast 
 out of the Church, and adjudged to contempt 
 and punishment. By her famous proclamation, 
 " Jam nemo reclamat, nullus obsistit,'' she af- 
 firmed that the witnesses were slain ; by the 
 edict that followed, she proclaimed that their 
 remains were still upon the earth. That edict, 
 in truth, served the same end to these remains 
 of the witnesses, which the refusal of burial does 
 to a dead body, — it kept them in the sight of 
 men. 
 
 Now, indeed, there was rejoicing. The two 
 witnesses were slain, and every square and 
 street of the great city rang with shouts of 
 triumph over their death. "And they that 
 dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, 
 and make merry, and shall send gifts to one 
 another ; because these two prophets torment- 
 ed them that dwelt on the earth." What ! so 
 powerful and so proud, and yet so unhappy at 
 the sight of these two witnesses ! How little 
 was Rome to be envied, even when at the height 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 1 85 
 
 of her glory ! What tormentings burned be- 
 neath her purple, and scarlet, and fine linen ! 
 Had she not unbounded riches and dominion I 
 Did not the whole world worship before her ? 
 And yet all this availed her nothing, so long as 
 these two witnesses in sackcloth refused, like 
 Mordecai at the palace-gate of old, to do obei- 
 sance. " These two prophets tormented them 
 that dwelt on the earth.'' They condemned 
 Rome as the Antichrist ; and though one would 
 have thought that that "still small voice'' 
 would have remained unheard amid the loud 
 roar of a world's homage, it reached her ear ; 
 and there was in it that w^hich both roused her 
 indignation and shook her courage; for con- 
 science, — not utterly extinct, — told her that 
 the testimony of the witnesses was just. But 
 now the witnesses were silent, and the predic- 
 tion before us, — " rejoicing, and maUng mernj, 
 and sending gifts one to another,'' — whose terms 
 are borrowed from the customs of ancient fes- 
 tive occasions, is finely and vividly descriptive 
 of the unbounded exultation and congratulation 
 which reigned throughout the Roman world, 
 
186 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 now that all heresy, as was supposed, was for 
 ever suppressed. But since man was placed 
 upon the earth, the triumphing of the wicked is 
 short. 
 
 Accordingly, the next event that happens on 
 the Apocalyptic scene is the resurrection of 
 the slain witnesses. " And after three days and 
 an half the spirit of life from God entered into 
 them, and they stood upon their feet; and 
 great fear fell upon them which saw them.'' 
 Three days did Christ lie in the grave, and 
 then He returned from it, to the terror of his 
 enemies. In this He was the prototype of his 
 witnesses. Their enemies imagined, doubtless, 
 that, being dead, they had now done with them ; 
 but at the very height of the triumphing of 
 their foes the witnesses suddenly arose. The 
 resurrection must be of the same kind with the 
 death. The death was symbolic ; so also must 
 be the resurrection. It was the truth that was 
 suppressed ; it was the truth that again burst 
 forth. The witnesses did not arise in their 
 persons, but in their cause. The confessors 
 that had been put to death in former ages, and 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 187 
 
 whose martyred blood and ashes had been 
 sown over the various countries of Europe, 
 still continued in their graves ; their spirits re- 
 turned not from their glory, to animate their 
 former bodies, and contend over again on the 
 stage on which they suffered of old ; but a new 
 generation of men, animated by the spirit of 
 the ancient martyrs, and testifying in behalf of 
 the same cause, arose ; Churches were organiz- 
 ed ; and a public testimony was again borne 
 against the abominations of Popery, — fuller 
 and bolder than ever. The spirit that quicken- 
 ed them is termed the spirit of life from God, 
 — the knowledge of the truth conveyed by the 
 Holy Spirit. It is said the Spirit entered into 
 them. The original term denotes not only en- 
 trance, or taking possession, but entrance so 
 as to dwell in them. The witnesses were not 
 again to be slain ; the truth was not again to 
 be totally suppressed, as before. They stood 
 upon their feet ; terms which indicate the cou- 
 rage with which they were filled. They stood 
 boldly up, as men who knew that God had 
 raised them, and that their enemies had no 
 
188 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 power to kill them. But in what event in the 
 history of the Church are we to seek the fulfil- 
 ment of this symbolic resurrection ? If we were 
 right in applying the death of the witnesses to 
 the suppression of all public testimony in behalf 
 of truth immediately before the Reformation, 
 then their resurrection must refer to that re- 
 markable Revival of truth ; indeed, in the past 
 history of the Church, there is not another 
 event to which we can apply it. The exposi- 
 tion which Mr Elliot has given of this predic- 
 tion is so precise, striking, and satisfactory, 
 that it is enough on this subject to quote it. 
 *' But does the chronology suit V asks Mr El- 
 liot. " It was predicted that for three and a 
 half da^s the witnesses were to be looked on as 
 desud ; in other words, that there was to be the 
 interval of three and a half ^ears between the 
 Jirst recognition of their extinction by the assem- 
 bled deputies from the states of Christendom, 
 and their resuscitation. Was this the interval 
 between that memorable day of the ninth ses- 
 sion of the Lateran Council, on which the orator 
 pronounced his psean of triumph over the ex- 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 189 
 
 tinction of heretics and schismatics, and the 
 first and yet more memorable act of protesta- 
 tion by Luther ? Let us calculate. The day 
 of the ninth session was, as we have seen. May 
 5, 1514; the day of Luther's posting up his 
 theses at Wittenberg (the well-known epoch of 
 the Reformation) October 31, 1517. Now, 
 from May 5, 1514, to May 5, 1517, are three 
 years; and from May 5, 1517, to October 31 
 of the same year, 1517, the reckoning in days 
 is as follows : — 
 
 May 5—81 27 
 
 June .30 
 
 July 31 
 
 August 31 
 
 September 30 
 
 October 31 
 
 In all one hundred and eighty, or half three 
 hundred and sixty, days ; that is, just half a 
 year. So that the whole interval is precisely, 
 to a day, three and a half years, — precisely, 
 to a day, the period predicted in the Apoca- 
 lyptic prophecy ! Oh, wonderful prophecy, 
 is the exclamation that again forces itself on 
 my mind ! Oh the depth of the riches of the 
 wisdom and the foreknowledge of God." 
 
 That the symbol of the rising from the dead 
 
190 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 was fulfilled in the fact that although the mar- 
 tyrs continued in their graves, the cause for 
 which they had suffered arose, we may appeal 
 to the testimony of both friends and foes. 
 "And I,'"* said John Huss, speaking of the 
 gospel-preachers that should appear after he 
 had suffered at the stake, — " and I, awakening 
 as it were from the dead, and rising from the 
 grave, shall rejoice with exceeding great joy.*" 
 Again, in 1523, after the Reformation had 
 broken out, we find Pope Hadrian saying, in a 
 missive addressed to the Diet at Nuremberg, — 
 " The heretics Huss and Jerome are now alive 
 again in the person of Martin Luther." The 
 consternation and dismay which fell upon all 
 the adherents of the Papacy when Luther 
 arose, and the Reformation under him began to 
 gain ground, is a fact too well known to every 
 reader of the history of the period, to need any 
 particular illustration here. 
 
 " And they heard a great voice from heaven, 
 saying unto them, Come up hither. And they 
 ascended up to heaven in a cloud ; and their 
 enemies beheld them.'' Christ, after his resur- 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 191 
 
 rection, ascended to heaven in a cloud : so was 
 his Church received up at the Reformation. 
 Whatever tended to give protection and influ- 
 ence to the Church of the Reformation, may 
 be justly regarded as the fulfilment of this sym- 
 bol, — the civil laws passed in her favour, by 
 which, in several of the countries of Europe, 
 she was placed in the enjoyment of full reli- 
 gious toleration, and could worship without 
 incurring, as aforetime, either civil or eccle- 
 siastical penalties. But the exposition most 
 in harmony with this ascension symbol is that 
 given by Dr Candlish, in his " Four Letters to 
 Elliot,'' and which is as follows : — 
 
 " Thus, generally, it may be said concern- 
 ing the Apocalyptic distinction between the 
 heaven and the earth, that the one represents 
 the region of influence, the other the region 
 of events ; the one the seat of power, the other 
 the seat of action ; the first the ideal locality, 
 or, as it were, retiring-room, in which the un- 
 seen agencies that tell upon the world's his- 
 torv meet, and mingle, and adjust themselves, 
 — the last the actual locality, or open stage on 
 
192 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 which the palpable occurrences of that history 
 are enacted.'"' 
 
 " Thus, on the earth, the Reformation is be- 
 gun. For a time, the agents in that mighty 
 work, — Luther and his compeers, — are like 
 passive instruments, acted upon rather than 
 acting, — Luther himself being like one blindly 
 driven by a superior force, which he can neither 
 measure nor explain. He puts forth vast 
 power, but it is as one impelled or possessed. 
 He cannot regulate his own movements ; he 
 recoils, and is reluctant ; he knows not whither 
 his steps are leading him, and he staggers as 
 he finds himself in front of the Papal bull. 
 
 " But, by and by, the principles thus rudely 
 wrought out, in the region of events, pass 
 again, with their great Author and Inspirer, 
 into the region of influence. The Reforma- 
 tion becomes something more than an uncon- 
 trollable effect ; it becomes a commanding 
 cause. The motives and impulses which, as if 
 spontaneously and simultaneously, stirred every- 
 where the irrepressible revolt against Rome's 
 intolerable tyranny, are gathered up, syste- 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 193 
 
 matlzed, and elevated into the high position of a 
 ruling power, not only in morals and religion,, 
 but in the whole economy, also, of the social 
 system of the world. In a \vord, the scheme 
 of Protestant doctrine, — based upon the sole 
 supremacy of the Scriptures as the rule of 
 faith, and of the Spirit as the interpreter of 
 the Scriptures, — was settled and promulgated, 
 as a testimony for Christ, open, authoritative, 
 and influential ; and the Jiarmony of the Re- 
 formed Confessions became, as to its spirit and 
 substance, the true ascension of the witnesses. 
 Certainly, nothing has more struck and startled 
 their enemies than this, in so far as it has 
 been wrought out. It has been really, in an- 
 intellectual and spiritual point of view% more- 
 noticeable, as a source of real trouble to them, 
 than all the Protestant Establishments in 
 Christendom put together. Their very anxiety 
 to exaggerate real and to invent imaginary dis- 
 crepancies among Protestants, proves how 
 keenly they are stung by the essential and 
 Divine unity of the Reformation testimony, in 
 favour of a free salvation by grace, through 
 
194 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 faith alone. It is this holy and heavenly sys- 
 tem that they hate and fear ; and its exalta- 
 tion, as by a voice from heaven, into a prin- 
 ciple of paramount influence, in the teaching 
 and standards of the Reformers, is the real 
 cause of the amazement with which ' their 
 enemies beheld them."* 
 
 " I am persuaded that this view will com- 
 mend itself the more it is pondered, as fully 
 answering all the conditions of the symbol, 
 even as you apply it to the era of the Refor- 
 mation. I think also that it is free from the 
 difficulties to which I formerly adverted. The 
 ascension to heaven, upon this theory, has no- 
 thing in it inconsistent with a prolonged pro- 
 phesying in sackcloth. The Reformers, in 
 giving to Protestant impressions a high ' local 
 habitation and name,' among the elements and 
 sources of command over the minds of men, 
 did no more than carry out more authorita- 
 tively and influentially, yet still with persecu- 
 tion, the completed testimony of their martyr- 
 ed predecessors."' 
 
 The resurrection of the witnesses, like that 
 
RESURRECTION OF THE WITNESSES. 195 
 
 of their Lord, was accompanied by an earth- 
 quake. The earthquake was connected with 
 and sprung out of the resurrection, and may 
 therefore be viewed as symbolizing a revoki- 
 tion mainly of a moral or religious character. 
 In the earthquake, " the tenth part of the city 
 fell.'' To explain this, we have only to bear, 
 in mind that the " city"" was constituted of the 
 ten Roman kingdoms of Europe confederated 
 under the Papacy. Which of these ten king- 
 doms was it that fell at the Reformation, as a 
 Popish country ? The answer is, Britain. The 
 fall of this tenth part (the tithe) of this city 
 was the first fruits, as it were, of that great 
 liarvest of destruction awaiting the Papacy. 
 
 An important announcement follows : " The 
 «eeond woe is past ; and, behold, the third woe 
 Cometh quickly." The second woe, — the Turks, 
 — came to its height in 1572, about the same 
 time that the Reformation was established; 
 but could not be said to be past, as we shall 
 afterwards show, till about the middle of the 
 eighteenth century. The third woe was to 
 begin when the seventh trumpet should be 
 
196 THE SKVKNTII VIAL. 
 
 sounded, and was to comprehend the seven 
 last plagues of mystic Babylon. " The third 
 woe Cometh quickly.^"* There was an inter- 
 val of five hundred years between the first and 
 second woe ; but the second was to be followed 
 by the third, at the distance of only about fifteen 
 years. It was to do its work quickly, after it 
 did come. By a series of fearful and extermi- 
 nating judgments, following each other with 
 astounding rapidity, was Rome to be brought 
 down. The seventh trumpet now to be sound- 
 ed was her death-knell ; but though to her a 
 terrific peal, it was a trumpet of jubilee to the 
 Church : it announced the destruction of her 
 great enemy, and the deliverance of the nations, 
 who were henceforth to become the kingdoms 
 of her Lord and of her Christ. Accordingly, 
 no sooner did it sound, than great voices were 
 heard in heaven, proclaiming the reduction of 
 the world under the reign of God. 
 
THE TEX-HORNED BEAST. 197 
 
 THE TEN-HOKNED AND SEVEN-HEADED 
 BEAST OF THE SEA. 
 
 Before describing the third and last vial, we 
 must speak of the object of that vial. We 
 have had no occasion to do so hitlierto, because 
 he has not yet appeared on the Apocalyptic 
 scene. The next vision of John, however, 
 brings him before us. Paul, as well as other 
 apostles, had spoken of one whose coming is 
 after the working of Satan, with all power, 
 and signs, and lying wonders, — the Man of 
 Sin, the Son of Perdition, who opposeth and 
 exalteth himself above all that is called God, 
 or that is worshipped ;. so that he, as God, sit- 
 teth in the temple of God, showing himself that 
 he is God. But when Paul wrote, as he himself 
 
198 THE SEVENTH VIAI,. 
 
 tells us, there were lets and hindrances in ex- 
 istence, which obstructed the appearance of 
 the Man of Sin, and should continue to do so 
 for some ages to come. But the apostle inti- 
 mated, at the same time, that these obstruc- 
 tions should in due time cease to exist, — that 
 the let would be taken out of the way, and 
 then that that Wicked would be revealed, af- 
 fording to the saints an opportunity of display- 
 ing their patience in the endurance of his ty- 
 ranny, and to God of manifesting his power in 
 breaking him in pieces. The Roman empire, 
 in its imperial form, was the grand let to the 
 rise of Popery in Paul's time, and for some 
 time after. It was necessary that the throne 
 of the Emperor should be abolished, in order 
 that the chair of the Bishop might be erected 
 in its room. And to what were the great acts 
 of the drama we have been contemplating, — 
 the events falling under the seals and trumpets, 
 — directed, but just to break in pieces the 
 fabric of imperial Rome, that, the let being 
 taken out of the way, the Man of Sin might be 
 revealed. Accordingly, in the vision to which 
 
THE TEN -HORNED BEAST. 199 
 
 we have now come, we witness his portentous 
 rise. 
 
 '' And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and 
 saw a beast rise out of the sea, having seven 
 heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten 
 crowns, and upon his heads the name of blas- 
 phemy.'' (Chapter xiii.) This chapter contains 
 an account of the rise of two beasts. The first 
 beast is represented as rising out of the sea, 
 having; seven heads and ten horns ; the second 
 beast is represented as rising out of the earth, 
 having two horns like a lamb, and speaking as 
 a dragon. We shall briefly indicate what we 
 are to understand by these two beasts. This 
 will enable us to enter with advantage upon 
 the exposition of the details of the symbols. 
 The first beast,— that which rose out of the 
 sea, — we take to be the secular empire, \nth. its 
 Papal head. The second beast,— that which 
 rose out of the earth, — we take to be the hier- 
 archy or ecclesiastical state. It was by the 
 union of these two that the world was so long 
 oppressed, and the Church brought to the 
 very brink of extermination. Between the two 
 
200 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 branches of the Papacy there was as close and 
 intimate alliance almost as between body and 
 soul. The State served the same purpose to 
 the Popedom which the horse does to the rider, 
 — which the hand does to the will. It was the 
 beast on which the harlot rode ; it was the 
 arm by which the Papacy executed all its cruel 
 and bloody decrees. 
 
 It appeared to John as if he were stationed 
 on the sea-shore ; and as he gazed upon the 
 waters, which at the time were agitated with 
 tempest, he saw a monster emerging from the 
 deep. His appearance was sufficiently dread- 
 ful. He had seven heads, indicative of craft ; 
 ten horns, the symbol of power ; crowns upon 
 his horns, the emblem of dominion and au- 
 thoritv ; on his heads blasphemous titles, 
 plainly indicating an idolatrous and impious 
 character. Such was the frightful combina- 
 tion of evil qualities, — craft, ferocity, power, 
 impiety, — which was apparent at the very first 
 glance. 
 
 It is usual in Scripture to represent tyran- 
 nical kingdoms under the symbol of a wild 
 
THE TEN-HORNED BEAST. 201 
 
 beast. It is impossible not to admire the pro- 
 priety of the symbol. It is the property of 
 man to be ruled by reason, to be accessible to 
 considerations of clemency and pity, and to 
 have respect in his actions to the will of his 
 Maker. It is the attribute of a beast, on the 
 other hand, to be actuated only by brute pas- 
 sion and appetite. Now, have not the king- 
 doms of the world hitherto, and especially the 
 four great Despotisms seen by Daniel in vision, 
 acted more like the beast of prey than as as- 
 sociations of reasonable and accountable be- 
 ings ? Have they not exercised a lawless vio- 
 lence all along, and done whatever they listed, 
 without regard to the will of Him who ruleth 
 among men 1 The ascertained import of the 
 symbol, then, renders it clear that it is the 
 rise of a tyrannical and persecuting power that 
 is here prefigured. A reference to the pro- 
 phecy of Daniel will give us material aid in 
 determining the kingdom here symbolized. 
 There is the closest resemblance, as any one 
 may see who compares the two descriptions, 
 between the fourth beast of Daniel and the 
 
202 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 beast of the sea seen by John. The descrip- 
 tion given by Daniel is such as to lead us to 
 conclude that the fourth beast was a com- 
 pound of the preceding three. It had the 
 teeth of the Babylonian lion, the claws of the 
 Persian bear, and the spotted skin of the Ma- 
 cedonian leopard ; that is, it possessed all the 
 propensities of its predecessors, in addition to 
 its own characteristic qualities. Now, such is 
 precisely the appearance of the beast of the 
 sea, verse 2 : — " And the beast which I saw 
 was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as 
 the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth 
 of a lion."" Hence we conclude that it is one 
 and the same political association which is 
 symbolized by the fourth beast of Daniel and 
 the beast of the sea of John. The ten horns 
 of the beast of the Apocalypse answer to the 
 ten toes in the image in Daniel. But the 
 fourth beast of Daniel is, by the universal con- 
 sent of expositors, the symbol of the Roman 
 empire ; and it is this empire, therefore, that 
 is symbolized by the beast of the sea ; only we 
 have mainly to do with it in its divided form, 
 
THE TEN-HORNED BEAST. 203 
 
 as held forth by the ten horns. We may note 
 this farther point of resemblance, — that the 
 two beasts came to the same end : Daniel's 
 is slain, and his body is given to the devouring 
 flame ; John's is taken prisoner at the battle 
 of Armageddon, and is cast into the lake bm'n- 
 ing with fire and brimstone. A short com- 
 mentary will make the application of the vision 
 to the Papal empire exceedingly plain. 
 
 The beast rose out of the sea. The sea is 
 the symbol of society in a state of agitation. 
 The western world at this time was convulsed. 
 The winds that agitated it blew from the 
 north, and were formed of the Gothic nations,, 
 whose successive eruptions completely destroy- 
 ed the fabric of the empire, and plunged so- 
 ciety into the utmost confusion. It was out 
 of this flood that the ten Roman kingdoms 
 of modern Europe emerged. " Having seven 
 heads." Let us here avail ourselves of the aid 
 of an interpreter who, we are sure, will not 
 mislead us. In Revelation, xvii. 9, 10, we are 
 told the seven heads have a twofold significa- 
 tion. First, they symbolize the seven hills 
 
204 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 which were to be the seat of the government 
 of the kingdom. This, as Elliot remarks, " is 
 a character as important as it is obvious. It 
 binds the power symbolized, through all its 
 various mutations, from its earliest beginning 
 to its end, to that same seven-hilled locality, 
 even like one adscriptum glebse, and as an 
 essential part of his very constitution and life." 
 This leads us at once to the city of Rome. In 
 the passage just referred to, we are farther in- 
 formed that the seven heads also symbolize 
 seven kings, i. e. seven forms of government. 
 Now, such is the number of distinct forms of 
 government which the Roman empire has as- 
 sumed from first to last, — kings, consuls, dic- 
 tators, decemvirs, military tribunes, emperors. 
 Of these kings, or forms of government, it was 
 said, " five are fallen, and one is, and the other 
 is not yet come.'"' Five of these had fallen be- 
 fore the days of John ; the sixth, namely, the 
 imperial, was then in being; and the seventh 
 was then future. It was intimated, " and 
 when he [the seventh head] cometh, he must 
 continue a short space.'* Who is this seventh 
 
THE TEN-HORNED BEAST. 205 
 
 head, whose term of existence was to be so 
 brief I On no point are Apocalyptic commen- 
 tators more divided, or their conclusions more 
 vague. Mead makes the seventh head the 
 demi-Csesar, or western emperor. Bishop 
 Newton thinks the dukedom of Rome, estab- 
 lished after the conquest of the Heruli, is 
 meant. Others suppose that the Christian em- 
 perors constituted the seventh head, and had 
 its wound by the sword of the Heruli. Mr 
 Elliot finds the seventh head in the change of 
 government that took place under Diocletian, 
 who, together with his successors, in place of 
 emperor or general of the Roman armies, be- 
 came king or lord, and in place of the laurel 
 crown and purple, assumed the diadem and 
 robe of silk, — the Asiatic symbols of absolute 
 rule. This was followed by great and funda- 
 mental changes in the administration, and is 
 marked by Gibbon as the " New Form of 
 Administration.'" These are the nearest ap- 
 proaches which have been made to the solu- 
 tion of the difficulty of the seventh head, — 
 '' And I saw one of his heads as if it w^ere 
 
206 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 wounded to death." This form of government 
 was extinguished by the sword of the Goths. 
 A new head was to arise in the room of that 
 which was cut off; and this, though it should 
 count only as the seventh, would in reality be 
 the eighth ; and under it the beast was to go 
 into perdition : " he is the eighth, and is of 
 the seven, and goeth into perdition.'' Who is 
 the eighth head I To this question an answer 
 is given by the angel himself, — " The beast that 
 thou sawest was, and is not. And the beast 
 that was, and is not, even he is the eighth." 
 From which we infer that the Papacy is the 
 eighth head. This is a singular, and apparently 
 contradictory, account of the beast, — " the 
 beast that was, and is not, and yet is."' How 
 was it possible that both statements could be 
 true, — that the beast had ceased to exist, and 
 yet was in existence, i. e. when it was the ob- 
 ject of wonder to all who dwelt on the earth ? 
 And yet this account is perfectly consistent 
 with fact. Pagan and imperial Rome had ex- 
 isted; but the Gothic invasion had brought its 
 exfstence to an end, apparently for ever ; but 
 
THE TEN-HORNED BEAST. 207 
 
 it rose again in its decem-regal state. It was 
 the same empire in reality which existed now 
 in the ten kingdoms, as had existed in its un- 
 divided form before the Gothic invasion. We 
 have already shown the identity of the seven- 
 headed and ten-horned beast of the abyss or 
 sea, with Daniel's fourth monarchy. But 
 DaniePs fourth monarchy was the Roman em- 
 pire, and therefore the symbol before us is 
 that of the Roman empire, which again re-ap- 
 peared. It had apparently been wounded to 
 death ; but it was resuscitated, and mainly 
 through the Papacy. Thus the beast was not, 
 and yet was. 
 
 "And ten horns.'*'' This is explained in chap- 
 ter xvii. 12. " And the ten horns which thou 
 sawest are ten kings,'*'' — not individual kings, 
 but lines of rulers or kingdoms, — " which have 
 received no kingdom as yet ;"' — an intimation 
 that their appearance was still future. The 
 empire had to be broken in pieces by the shock 
 of the barbarous nations, and out of what had 
 been one undivided monarchy, ten distinct and 
 independent kingdoms were to arise. It is well 
 
208 TIIK SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 known that such was the origin of the ten Ro- 
 man kingdoms of Europe. Let us trace the 
 boundary line of the western empire. The 
 wall of Adrian, dividing Scotland from Eng- 
 land, forms the boundary on the north. This 
 line we prolong across the German Ocean to 
 the Rhine. We ascend that river to Baden- 
 Baden ; thence strike eastward to the source 
 of the Danube, which we descend to Belgrade, 
 and thence in a south-western direction, across 
 the Adriatic and Mediterranean, to the great 
 desert of Africa. This line will include the 
 Roman empire of the west ; and on this plat- 
 form were the ten kingdoms to arise. We 
 should expect that these ten kingdoms would 
 be formed not long after the Gothic invasion, 
 for the beast emerged from the flood, with all 
 the ten horns already apparent. We are dis- 
 posed to take the era a.d. 532. At that epoch 
 we find the following ten kingdoms within the 
 limits we have traced : — the Anglo-Saxons ; 
 the Franks of central, the Allaman-Franks of 
 eastern, and the Burgundic- Franks of south- 
 eastern France ; the Visigoths ; the Suevi ; the 
 
THE TEN- HORNED BEAST. 209 
 
 Vandals ; the Ostrogoths in Italy ; the Bava- 
 rians ; and the Lombards. Great changes 
 have occurred at various periods in Europe. 
 Some of its states have fallen, and others have 
 arisen ; but from the Gothic invasion to the 
 present era, ten has been the prevailing num^ 
 ber of its kingdoms. 
 
 Of these ten kings or kingdoms it was said, 
 that they "receive power as kings one hour 
 with the beast." The (^/av w^av), one hour, 
 indicates not the duration of their power, but 
 the time when they should receive it, — that 
 their formation as independent kingdoms, and 
 the development of the beast, should synchro- 
 nise ; both should receive their power at one 
 and the same time. It was at the end of the 
 fifth century, or rather the beginning of the 
 sixth, that the formation of the ten Gothic 
 kingdoms was completed ; and by the same 
 time the Pope, supported by the decrees of 
 councils and the acquiescence of kings, had as- 
 serted his character of vicar of Christ and vice- 
 gerent of God, in virtue of which he claimed 
 supremacy over all kings, and had begun to ex- 
 
210 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 hibit the antichristian characteristics of blas- 
 phemy and hostility to the saints. 
 
 No sooner had the beast of the sea appeared, 
 than " the dragon gave him his power, and his 
 seat, and great authority." The dragon recog- 
 nised the beast newly arisen as his lineal de- 
 scendant, and, as such, hastened to serve him 
 heir to all his power, wealth, and dominion. 
 By the dragon Pagan Rome is meant. By the 
 seat of the dragon is denoted the countries over 
 which Rome had swayed the sceptre, which in- 
 cluded the richest lands and the wealthiest 
 cities of the western world. Of all these, once 
 the possession of Pagan Home, Papal Kome has 
 long been mistress. She occupies the same 
 seat as the dragon of old. On his heads 
 were names of blasphemy. Esery form of go- 
 vernment which had arisen at Rome has as- 
 sumed titles and arrogated powers of a blasphe- 
 mous character. The chief magistrate of the 
 Romans from the first was the high priest, — 
 Pontifex Maximus, — and the supreme authority 
 in matters ecclesiastical. To come down to the 
 emperors, some of them were addressed as the 
 
THE TEN-HORNED BEAST. 211 
 
 '' august"' and the " eternal one.'"* Most of 
 them were worshipped as God after death, and 
 some of them were so even before it. But the 
 last head, — the Papacy, — far surpassed its pre- 
 decessors. There is nothing in the history- of 
 the universe that equals the blasphemous titles 
 and powers which the Popes have assumed. 
 They have openly laid claim to be regarded as 
 vicar of Christ, the vicegerent of the Creator, 
 and governor of the world ; and on that claim 
 is built up the tremendous and monstrous fab- 
 ric, partly civil and partly ecclesiastical, that 
 constitutes the Papacy, — the beast. 
 
 " And all the world wondered after the 
 beast." This was partly owing to what is 
 stated before, namely, that " his deadly wound 
 was healed.'" The event was so marvellous, 
 that it drew the admiration of all that dwelt 
 upon the earth to the beast that was the sub- 
 ject of it. When it was pierced by the sword 
 of the Goths, men thought there was now an 
 end of that terrible kingdom, which had shed 
 so much blood and devoured so much flesh ; 
 but when they saw it revive in its ten horns 
 
21 2 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 or kingdoms, — occupying the same territory, 
 governed by the same laws, as its predecessor, 
 and finding a new bond of union in the Papacy, 
 — it appeared to them as if Rome had returned 
 from her grave, — so completely had the wound 
 been healed. This appeared little less than a 
 miracle in the eyes of a blinded world, which ac- 
 cordingly fell down before the beast. They 
 had worshipped the dragon, — given unbound- 
 ed admiration and implicit obedience to every 
 edict of Pagan Rome, whether it regarded 
 things civil or things spiritual ; — it had dictat- 
 ed supremely both law and religion. And when 
 they saw the beast sitting on the same throne, 
 and wielding the same power, as the dragon, 
 they could render nothing less to the beast 
 than they had given aforetime to the dragon. 
 ^' And they worshipped the dragon, which gave 
 power unto the beast ; and they worshipped the 
 beast, saying. Who is like unto the beast ? Who 
 is able to make war with him V The religion 
 of Papal Rome was but a revival of that of 
 Pagan Rome, under different names ; and it be- 
 came an easy matter to those who dwelt upon 
 
THE TEN- HORNED BEAST. 213 
 
 the earth to transfer their worship from the 
 one to the other. They who had worshipped 
 demons could do so by whatever name they 
 were called, whether the classic one of Venus, 
 or the Christian one of Mary. 
 
 " And there was given unto him a mouth, 
 speaking great things and blasphemies.'' M^hen 
 the beast found himself on the throne of the 
 dragon, and the world prostrate before him, 
 his heart was lifted up within him, like that of 
 the king of Babylon of old. He imagined him- 
 self to be God, and the pride of his heart found 
 vent in the dreadfully blasphemous words of 
 his mouth. He opened his mouth in blas- 
 phemy against God, to blaspheme his name, 
 and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in 
 heaven.'' No names have been so fearfully 
 blasphemous as those which the Pope has as- 
 sumed. He has claimed dominion over the 
 whole world ; and, as if this were not enough, 
 he has extended it into the other. Whom he 
 will he can consign to hell, and whom he will 
 he can save from it. The gates of Paradise he 
 can lock and unlock. He has issued his order 
 
214 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 to angels, straitly charging them to do his bid- 
 ding. *• We command the angels of Paradise 
 to introduce that soul into heaven,*" said Cle- 
 ment the Sixth, of such as might die on their 
 pilgrimage to Rome in the year of Jubilee. 
 He has exercised authority over devils, com- 
 pelling them to release such as he wished to 
 deliver from flames. Gregory the Great res- 
 cued thus the soul of the pagan emperor Tro- 
 jan. To speak of his setting his throne above 
 that of kings is nothing very remarkable: he has 
 exalted it above that of angels and archangels, 
 — he has exalted it above God himself ; he 
 has annulled Divine ordinances, and claimed a 
 power to abrogate the moral law, — thus chal- 
 lenging an authority superior to that from 
 which the law emanated ; he has sat in 
 the temple of God, showing himself that he is 
 God. " To the Romish Church," writes Cle- 
 ment the Second, " every knee must bow of 
 things on earth, and that at his pleasure even 
 the door of heaven is opened and shut."'' We 
 find Cardinal Domiani, writing to Victor the 
 Second, introducing Christ as speaking, — " T 
 
THE TE\-HORNED BEAST. 215 
 
 have appointed thee to be as the father of 
 emperors ; I have delivered into thy hands the 
 keys of the whole Church universal, and placed 
 thee my vicar over her : yea, by the removal 
 of a king" (the Emperor Henry the Third had 
 just died), '' have granted thee the rights of the 
 whole Roman empire now vacant.*" We find 
 Innocent the Third calling himself the " Lieu- 
 tenant of Him who hath written upon his ves- 
 ture and on his thigh, the King of kings and 
 Lord of lords,'' and telling King Richard 
 that ''he held the place of God upon the 
 earth ; and, without distinction of persons, he 
 would punish the men and the nations that 
 presumed to oppose his commands." We find 
 Clement the Seventh affirming, in a letter to 
 King Charles the Sixth, that " as there is but 
 one God in the heavens, so there cannot nor 
 ought to be of right but one God on earth." 
 Politianus thus addresses Alexander the Sixth : 
 *' We rejoice to see you raised above all human 
 things, and exalted even to Divinity itself, see- 
 ing there is nothing, except God, which is not 
 put under you." Under the pontifical arms, at 
 
216 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the coronation of the Pope we have just named, 
 was inscribed this distich, — 
 
 " Coesare magna fuit, nunc Roma est maxima, Sextus 
 Regnat Alexander : ille vir, inde Deus. 
 
 But, not to multiply proofs, we close with the 
 very extraordinary titles assumed by Martin the 
 Fifth, in the instructions given to a nuncio sent 
 to Constantinople : — " The most holy and most 
 blessed, who is invested with heavenly power, 
 who is lord on earth, the successor of Peter, 
 the Christ or anointed of the Lord, the lord 
 of the universe, the father of kings, the light 
 of the world, the sovereign pontiff. Pope ^lar- 
 tin.'' Nor are we to suppose that this was a 
 mere empty boast, or unallowed claim, like the 
 high-sounding titles which eastern despots have 
 sometimes assumed. It was ratified by coun- 
 cils, submitted to by kings, and exercised in 
 the very spirit in which it was arrogated over 
 the persons, consciences, and lives of all men. 
 There is not a fact in history better established 
 than the literal fulfilment of what is here fore- 
 told : — " These have one mind, and shall give 
 their power and strength unto the beast.'" 
 
THE TEN-HORNED BEAST. 217 
 
 " And all that dwell upon the earth shall wor- 
 ship him, whose names are not written in the 
 book of life of the Lamb slain from the foun- 
 dation of the world.'" And thus, too, was 
 Paul's prophecy in his epistle to the Thessa- 
 lonians fulfilled : — " Who opposeth and exalteth 
 himself above all that is called God, or that is 
 worshipped, so that he, as God, sitteth in the 
 temple of God, showing himself that he is 
 God." 
 
 " And it was given unto him to make war with 
 the saints, and to overcome them."' We have 
 already spoken of this war under the head of 
 the witnesses, and our space does not permit 
 us to re-open the subject. There is not one of 
 the ten horns which has not at some period of 
 its history persecuted the saints ; nor is there 
 a spot of Europe, within the limits we have 
 formerly traced, which has not been sprinkled 
 with their blood. We need only name the 
 murderous crusades carried on for ages against 
 the Waldenses and Albigenses ; the slaugh- 
 ter of the Piedmontese, whose bones whiten- 
 
218 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 od the Alps ; the martyrs of Provence, whose 
 blood tinged so oft the blue waters of the 
 Rhone ; the massacre of St Bartholomew, 
 when in Paris alone thirty thousand Protes- 
 tants perished, and the intelligence of which 
 was received at Rome with the ringing of bells 
 and the firing of cannon ; the revocation of the 
 edict of Nantes, when many thousand Protes- 
 tant churches were razed to the ground, and 
 hundreds of thousands of Protestants were put 
 to the sword, or driven into banishment ; the 
 bloody wars of Alva in the Low Countries ; the 
 suppression of the Reformation in Spain and 
 Italy by the terrors of the axe, the faggot, 
 and the horrors of the Inquisition ; besides the 
 countless thousands who perished at other times, 
 and in other parts of Europe, by the hands of 
 Popery, and of whom no record has been kept, 
 and whose names shall never be known till the 
 books are opened. Engraven on the page of 
 history stands the record of her crimes. She 
 ehall perish, but it is eternal. To the end of 
 time not a line of the crimson writing shall 
 
THE TEN^HORNED BEAST. 219 
 
 be effaced ; and so long as it continues to be 
 read, it will excite the mingled horror and in- 
 dignation of mankind. 
 
 But the most marvellous thing in the prophecy 
 is, that the beast should overcome in the war, 
 i. e. in the first instance, for in the final issue 
 the Lamb should overcome. Let us here mark 
 the adorable sovereignty of God. This power 
 to make war, and to overcome in the w^ar, was 
 O'lven unto the beast. " Thou couldest have 
 no power at all against me," said Christ, when 
 standing before Pilate to be judged, " had it 
 not been given thee from above.'' The beast, 
 in the plenitude of his pride and power, thought 
 that he might do according to his will, without 
 having respect to any God or man, saying, no 
 doubt, with the king of old, who is he that can 
 deliver out of mine hand I The beast was mis- 
 taken herein ; he could not have spilt a drop of 
 the Church's blood, nor touched a hair of her 
 head, had he not received power from above. 
 But why did God permit his fold so long to be 
 a field of slaughter I Why did the Church's 
 blood continue to flow, and her groans to ascend 
 
220 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 to heaven, while He stood by as one who either 
 would not or could not deliver ? We know not. 
 But this we know, that it was God who did it, 
 and that He had wise purposes for doing it, and 
 that He will yet bring good out of it all, and 
 glorify both himself and the Church by the 
 €ourse of suffering through which He has led 
 her. 
 
THE TWO-HORNED BEAST. 221 
 
 THE TWO-HOENED BEAST OF THE EAKTH. 
 
 *' And I beheld another beast coming up out of 
 the earth ; and he had two horns like a lamb, 
 and he spake as a dragon." We intend here 
 simply to indicate, in a few brief sentences, wha 
 this lamb-like beast is, and then pass on to the 
 grand catastrophe. 
 
 It is the ecclesiastical hierarchy which we take 
 to be here symbolized. The vision brings the 
 Pope again before us ; only in the beast of the 
 sea he is seen as the ruling head of the ten Pa- 
 pal kingdoms ; here he is beheld as the ruling 
 head of the Papal clergy. This beast rose out 
 of the earth, — the symbol of the western empire 
 in its tranquillized state. He had two horns 
 like a lamb. The key of the symbol is found in 
 our Lord^s warning : — " Beware of them that 
 
222 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 come to you in sheep's clothing^ Such was the 
 clothing in which the beast of the earth ap- 
 peared, — a circumstance which fixes upon him 
 a clerical character. The two horns indicate 
 the two kinds of dominion which were to centre 
 in the ruling head of that body, — the civil and 
 the sacerdotal. The Pope united the imperial 
 diadem with the mitre. He grasped the sword 
 of the Caesars together with the keys of St 
 Peter. We may adduce the bull of Boniface 
 the Eighth, commonly called Unam Sanctaiu, 
 as affording a good commentary upon the sym- 
 bol of the two horns. This bull attributes to 
 the Church and the Pope two swords, the 
 spiritual and the temporal ; the former to be 
 exercised by the Church, the latter for it ; the 
 former by the sacerdotal, and the latter by the 
 regal and military hand, but at the nod and 
 sufferance of the priest, according to the com- 
 mission given to Jeremiah, — " So I have this 
 day set thee over the nations and over the king- 
 doms, to root out. and to pull down, and to de- 
 stroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.'' 
 There are some who understand the two orders 
 
THE TWO-IIORNED BEAST. 22:> 
 
 of the Pope's clergy, — the regular and the 
 monastic, — as being intended by this symbol. 
 These were sufficiently distinct and sufficiently 
 powerful to answer to the two horns. The beast 
 of the earth, then, was a pretended minister of 
 Christ ; we say pretended, because, while he had 
 horns as a lamb, " he spake as a dragon.'" The 
 dragon is the symbol of Pagan Rome. The 
 Popes displayed all the lust, cruelty, ambition, 
 tyranny, of the Caesars. But it was in his speech 
 mainly that he was to display the characteristics 
 of the dragon, which clearly points to the cha- 
 racter of his teachings. The religion which the 
 hierarchy of Rome inculcated was paganism 
 very slightly disguised. The doctrine of the 
 Popes was the doctrine of devils. 
 
 " And he exerciseth all the power of the first 
 beast before him," i. e. by delegation. The 
 clergy were vested in the same powers as the 
 Pope. They could loose and bind ; they could 
 offer sacrifice for sins ; in short, perform every 
 ghostly function which the Pope could do, in 
 virtue of powers received from him. They dis- 
 charged the functions of both horns. By ec- 
 
224 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 clesiastics mostly were the temporal affairs of 
 the ten kingdoms managed. And all this power 
 the second beast exercised in the way of being 
 accountable to the first, and for the purpose of 
 subserving his interests. Thus, it is added, 
 " and causeth the earth, and them who dwell 
 therein, to worship the first beast, whose deadly 
 wound was healed." The Papal clergy were 
 the great preachers of passive obedience. They 
 bound the people neck and heel, and laid them 
 at the foot of the civil power. They were the 
 grand supporters both of secular and spiritu- 
 al despotism. Through their instrumentality 
 mainly was the world plunged into slavery, and 
 kept enslaved for so many ages. No human 
 power can prevent a people enlightened by re- 
 ligion from achieving their independence ; and 
 no human power can make a superstitious and 
 ignorant people other than slaves. What ad- 
 vances might the world have made in the know- 
 ledge both of the principles of civil liberty and 
 of physical science, had it not been for these 
 men, who have been the grand obstacles to pro- 
 gress of every kind ! The great discoveries in 
 
THE TEN-IIORNED BEAST. 225 
 
 physics and mechanics which have distinguished 
 our times would have been made years ago, and 
 much more numerous, beautiful, and useful ap- 
 plications of them would have been known at 
 this day, which are still to be found out. The 
 laws by which nations are to be governed, com- 
 merce carried on, and the intercourse of States 
 with one another regulated, are only beginning 
 to be understood. And why only now ? Be- 
 cause mind was completely overborne by a set 
 of men who placed all virtue and wisdom in 
 the maxim, that the world should worship the 
 beast. 
 
 " And he doeth great wonders."" Who has 
 not heard of the pretended miracles of the 
 Popish Church, — the palpable cheats, gross de- 
 lusions, and impudent falsehoods, which she 
 has practised in support of her authority I 
 Transubstantiation alone, which her priests are 
 performing every day, were enough to confer 
 on that Church unrivalled pre-eminence as a 
 wonder-worker. Nor are the wonders of the 
 beast sometimes of a very harmless kind : 
 " He maketh fire to come down from heavea 
 p 
 
226 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 on the earth in the sight of men." Has he 
 not arrogated to himself the power of wielding 
 at will the thunderbolts of God ? What 
 dreadful curses, with bell, book, and ca-ndle, 
 has he not pronounced on the persons, goods, 
 and souls of his victims ! These anathemas 
 struck terror into the hearts of the bravest, 
 and laid the mightiest monarchs prostrate in 
 the dust. No armies, no human might, could 
 avail the man against whom had been launch- 
 ed the thunders of the seven hills. The fire 
 of heaven could not have been more instanta- 
 neous or more deadly. With this fire how 
 often has the Pope scathed whole nations at 
 once ! When the sentence of excommunica- 
 tion was thundered against a kingdom, what 
 wailing, despair, suffering, overspread it ! The 
 whole course of life was instantly arrested, 
 the churches were closed, the sacraments were 
 interdicted; and whoever died while the excom- 
 munication was in force, his body lay unburied, 
 and his soul was cast out of paradise. " And 
 deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, by the 
 means of those miracles which he had power 
 
THE TEN-HORNED BEAST. 227 
 
 to do in the sight of the beast/' It was by 
 the help of these impostures that the clergy 
 kept up the authority of the Pope, — " saying 
 to them that dwell on the earth, that they 
 should make an image to the beast, which had 
 the wound by a sword, and did live." The 
 beast that received the wound was the old Ro- 
 man empire. From the Gothic sword did it 
 receive what seemed to be its death-blow ; but 
 it lived again in the ten kingdoms, united and 
 governed by the Papacy. This last was a 
 faithful imitation of the former. Its head ar- 
 rogated more than the supremacy and extent 
 of dominion possessed by the Cassars ; and its 
 religion was just a revival of paganism; so that 
 Papal Europe was but the image of Pagan 
 Europe. Nevertheless, the clergy wrought so 
 adroitly with their wonders, that they gained 
 the consent of a blinded world, that this image 
 should be set up, and held in universal venera- 
 tion. 
 
 " And he had power to give life unto the 
 image of the beast, that the image of the 
 beast should both speak, and cause that as 
 
228 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 many as would not worship the image of the 
 beast should be killed/' It was no dead paint- 
 ing : there was life in the image ; and the 
 clergy breathed that life into it, in discharge 
 of their main function, which was, to proclaim 
 the supremacy and divinity of the Pope. 
 " That the image of the beast should both 
 speak,'*'' — speak in blasphemy against God, by 
 arrogating his titles and powers ; and speak in 
 anathemas against the saints, — " them that 
 dwell in heaven,^' — by denouncing all wha 
 would not worship him, as heretics, and deli- 
 vering over their bodies to be burned. " And he 
 caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, 
 free and bond, to receive a mark in their right 
 hand, or in their foreheads ; and that no man 
 might buy or sell, save he that had the mark 
 or the name of the beast, or the number of 
 his name/'' It was customary in ancient times 
 for servants and soldiers to have imprinted on 
 their persons the mark of their master and 
 commander. The mark was sometimes a hie- 
 roglyphic, sometimes the capital letters of the 
 name, and sometimes the name in full. Popery, 
 
THE TEN-HORNED BEAST. 229 
 
 too, required its supporters to wear its mark, 
 more or less conspicuously, if not in their 
 forehead, yet in their right hand. That mark 
 consisted in the profession of the Romish faith, 
 without which, Rome would not permit any 
 man to enjoy either natural or civil rights : 
 " no man might buy or sell, save he that had 
 the mark, or the name of the beast, or the 
 number of his name.'^ From instances almost 
 innumerable we shall select only one. Pope 
 Martin the Fifth, in his bull issued soon after 
 the Council of Constance, enjoined the profes- 
 sors of the Catholic faith not to permit here- 
 tics to have houses in their districts, or enter 
 into contracts, or carry on commerce, or enjoy 
 the comforts of humanity with Christians. 
 This furnishes a striking point of resemblance 
 between the beast whose deadly wound was 
 healed, and the image of that beast, — between 
 the dragon and the dragon's successor, which, 
 though it wore the lamb's skin, had the dra- 
 gon's voice; for we find an edict issued against 
 the primitive Christians by the pagan emperor 
 Diocletian, in precisely similar terms. Ac- 
 
Z^0 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 cording to that edict, " the Christians," says 
 Justin Martyr, " had not the power of buying 
 or selling anything, nor were they allowed the 
 liberty of drawing water itself, before they had 
 offered incense to detestable idols." We might 
 go on in this way presenting the portraiture of 
 Popery, but many volumes would not suffice t6 
 contain it, and a whole lifetime would not be 
 long enough to finish it. 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 231 
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT AND TEEMINATION 
 OF THE 1260 DAYS. 
 
 We now come to discuss the question of time. 
 There is a certain period fixed by God between 
 the birth and death of every man. The same 
 Providence, by an irresistible decree, has de- 
 termined the days of the Man of Sin. Between 
 his appearance above the dark flood, and his 
 descent into his burning grave, an interval will 
 elapse of twelve hundred and sixty years. This 
 number occurs in the Apocalypse, in connection 
 with the existence of Antichrist, not less than 
 five times. The Gentiles were to tread the 
 holy city under foot forty and two months : 
 the witnesses were to prophesy, clothed in 
 sackcloth, a thousand two hundred and three 
 score days. The woman fled into the wilder- 
 
232 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 ness, where she had a place prepared of God 
 for a thousand two hundred and three score 
 days ; and in the wiklerness she was nourished 
 for a time, and times, and half a time. Power 
 was given unto the beast of the sea to continue 
 forty and two months. The period is variously 
 expressed in days, months, times, but its length 
 is the same in all, — twelve hundred and sixty 
 days, or years. The prophecy of Daniel, too, 
 limits the duration of Antichrist to the same 
 period, — a time, times, and the dividing of time. 
 Thus, as regards the length of the period, there 
 is no doubt. The Papacy cannot possibly sur- 
 vive its twelve hundred and sixtieth year, dated 
 from its rise. This is the hour of its doom, 
 beyond which neither craft nor power can pro- 
 long its existence : then it goeth into perdition. 
 The main point here, then, is to ascertain the 
 period of the rise of the Papacy : twelve hun- 
 dred and sixty years added to that will give 
 the epoch of its fall. Of course its rise must 
 be placed subsequent to the Gothic invasion ; 
 for out of that flood did the ten kingdoms 
 emerge. The ten kingdoms, as we have al- 
 
THE 12G0 DAYS. 233 
 
 ready stated, were completed by the opening 
 of the sixth century. We are not, therefore, 
 to look for the full development of the Papacy 
 before that century, nor are we to look for it 
 at any era very much subsequent, as must be 
 evident from our former explanations, that the 
 ten kingdoms of Europe, united and governed 
 by the Pope, their last and eighth head, forms 
 the beast of the abyss, whose continuance is 
 limited to forty-two months. Do we find any 
 strongly-marked epoch occurring soon after the 
 commencement of this century in the history of 
 the ten kingdoms or of the Papacy ? Do we 
 find any signal change in the constitution of 
 the first, or any signal enlargement or confir- 
 mation in the powers and claims of the second ? 
 We do. About the year .580 we find a change 
 passing upon the ten Gothic kingdoms, which 
 made them, in fact, Roman kingdoms, and link- 
 ed them to the fourth monarchy of Daniel, and 
 made them, in truth, but a continuation of that 
 Roman empire to which the invasion had given 
 a deadly wound. From A. D. .530 to A. D. 533, 
 Gibbon tells us, the Emperor Justinian pub- 
 
234 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 lished his immortal works, the Code, the Pan- 
 dects, and the Institutes. These contained 
 a digest of the laws of the ancient Roman em- 
 pire, which henceforward became the law of the 
 ten kingdoms. Gibbon remarks that, by the 
 execution of this work, " Justinian, the Greek 
 emperor of Constantinople and the East, was 
 the legal successor of the Latian shepherd who 
 had planted a colony on the banks of the Tiber .'^ 
 Much more, would we remark, was it true of 
 the ten kingdoms, which now began to be go- 
 verned by the laws of ancient Rome, and into 
 which the very spirit of Rome was thus infused, 
 that it had now become the legal successor of 
 that Latin kingdom which Romulus founded 
 on the banks of the Tiber. The promulgation 
 of the Justinian Code seems to mark the epoch 
 of the full emergence of the ten-horned beast 
 above the Gothic flood : the ten kingdoms then 
 became the true lineal descendant of pagan 
 Rome, But what of the Papacy ? Was there 
 about the same time any signal enlargement or 
 confirmation of the powers of the Pope ? It 
 was just at this time that Justinian issued his 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 235 
 
 famous Decretal Epistle to the Pope, in which 
 he recognised him as the head of all holy 
 Churches, — not the head of the Churches of the 
 western empire only, but of those of the eas- 
 tern also. Roman Catholics themselves have 
 acknowledged this to be the first imperial re- 
 cognition of the absolute primacy of the Pope. 
 Then it was that the Pope assumed the blas- 
 phemous title of Christ's Vicar, — a character 
 which forms the basis of that authority which 
 the Pope claims over temporal sovereigns. 
 Christ is King of kings ; and were the Pope 
 really Christ's Vicar, he would be a king of kings 
 too. Thus, in the assumption of the title and 
 character of Christ's Vicar, the Antichrist was 
 revealed. It is remarkable that at the same 
 period we find a remarkable change taking 
 place, both in the constitution of the ten king- 
 doms, and in the character of their real head : 
 we find the former becoming Roman kingdoms, 
 and the latter Christ's Vicar, i. e. Antichrist. 
 From this period, then, we are disposed to date 
 the commencement of the twelve hundred and 
 
236 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 sixty years, during which the witnesses pro- 
 phesied clothed in sackcloth. 
 
 Seventy years later we find another strongly 
 marked epoch in the history of the Papacy. In 
 A.D. 606, the Emperor Phocas confirmed by his 
 decree what Justinian had done, by constitut- 
 ing the Pope universal bishop, and requiring all 
 the Churches to acknowledge the Papal supre- 
 macy ; and in A. D. 608, Phocas gave Pope 
 Boniface the Pantheon, which, from being a 
 temple originally dedicated to all the Pagan 
 gods, was henceforward dedicated to the wor- 
 ship of the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs. 
 It had been the high place of Pagan idolatry, 
 and now it became the high place of Antichris- 
 tian idolatry. We would request our readers 
 specially to mark these two stages in the rise 
 of the Papacy. They are Justinian's edict, 
 A. D. 533, and Phocas' edict, a.d. 606. 
 
 Others have traced yet a third stage in the 
 rise of the Papacy, — the era of Charlemagne. 
 Charlemagne, king of France, was crowned 
 Emperor of the Romans, by Pope Leo, in A.D. 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 237 
 
 800. By the help of Charlemagne, the Pope's 
 temporal authority was enlarged and confirm- 
 ed ; three of the ten kings whose territory ad- 
 joined the Roman see being abolished, and the 
 Pope being vested in their authority and their 
 territories, — thus fulfilling the prophecy of Da- 
 niel, that three of the horns should be plucked 
 up before the little horn. 
 
 From which of these three epochs are we to 
 date the commencement of the twelve hundred 
 and sixty years ? The opinion entertained by 
 some that there may be a double, or perhaps 
 even a treble commencement of this period, is 
 very probable, and may turn out to be true. 
 It is countenanced by a prediction long since 
 fulfilled. The " seventy weeks'' of Daniel de- 
 termined the length of the captivity in Baby- 
 lon. But there was at three several times a 
 carrying away ; and, of course, the question 
 came to be, from which of these periods the 
 commencement of the seventy weeks should be 
 dated. It was found that as there were three 
 stages in the captivity, so there were three 
 corresponding stages in the return, with ex- 
 
238 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 actly seventy weeks between each correspond- 
 ing stage. So, to the three stages in the rise 
 of the Papacy there may be three answering 
 stages in its downfall and total extinction. If 
 we date the commencement of the twelve hun- 
 dred and sixty years from the era of Justinian, 
 A.D. 533, we are brought down to 1793. If 
 we date from the era of Phocas, A.D. 606, we 
 are brought down to 1866. And if we date 
 from the era of Charlemagne, A.D. 800, we can- 
 not look for the downfall of Popery till 2060. 
 
 Let us examine these three epochs a little 
 more particularly, and see how they corre- 
 spond with the present state of the world and 
 of the Papacy. We feel satisfied that we are 
 warranted to make the era of Justinian the 
 frimary commencement, at least, of the twelve 
 hundred and sixty years. At that epoch we 
 behold the ten kingdoms risen, governed by 
 Roman law, with Christ's Vicar placed in ar- 
 rogant and blasphemous supremacy over them. 
 If to that we are to add twelve hundred and 
 sixty years, we are brought down, as we have 
 said, to 1793, the era of the French Revolu- 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 239 
 
 tion. How does that period correspond ? Was 
 there any similarity between the rise of the 
 • Papacy in 533 and its fall in 1793 ? A very 
 striking similarity. The code of Justinian 
 first recognised the Pope's absolute ecclesias- 
 tical supremacy, which properly constitutes him 
 the Antichrist, and is the basis of all the power 
 he claims over temporal potentates. At the 
 French Revolution, the leading kingdom in 
 continental Europe disavowed and formally 
 abolished his supremacy : the clergy were declar- 
 ed totally independent of the see of Borne ; and 
 the choice of bishops was vested in the depart- 
 mental authorities. The manifold calamities 
 of which the Revolution was productive to the 
 Papacy we shall have a future occasion of stat- 
 ing : we only here farther remark, that the tre- 
 mendous blow then inflicted on Rome she has 
 somewhat repaired, but is very far from having 
 fully recovered. The second epoch, — that of 
 Phocas, A.D. 606, — brings us to 1866. All ad- 
 mit that the Pope was by this time vested in 
 the title and powers of Christ's Vicar. The 
 general consent on this point warrants the con- 
 
240 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 elusion, that at this era there was a fuller mani- 
 festation of Antichrist ; that now, at least, he 
 was fully come ; and that at the corresponding 
 era of 1866 he will be fully and finally destroy- 
 ed. But though the Papal system will then, 
 in all likelihood, be broken up and swept away, 
 remnants of Popery may remain, and the full 
 glory of the millennium, consisting in the re- 
 storation of the Jews, and the full conversion 
 of the Gentile world, may not be realized till 
 toward 2000, — forming a third period corre- 
 sponding to the era of Charlemagne. 
 
 Daniel speaks of two periods, — one of thirty, 
 and the other of forty-five years, making 
 seventy-five years in all, — which are to be added 
 to the twelve hundred and sixty days. " And 
 from the time that the daily sacrifice shall bo 
 taken away, and the abomination that maketh 
 desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two 
 hundred and ninety days ;"' which are just 
 thirty days added to the twelve hundred and 
 sixty. Thirty years after the termination of 
 the twelve hundred and sixty years, we may 
 expect some event bearing with decided effect 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 241 
 
 on the downfall of Antichrist. But a still 
 more blessed change may be expected forty-five 
 years after that again ; for it is added, " Blessed 
 is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand 
 three hundred and five-and-thirty days.'' If we 
 make the era of Justinian, a.d. 533, or rather 
 530, — for he began the promulgation of his code 
 in 530, — the commencement of the twelve hun- 
 dred and sixty years, they will end in 1790, 
 and, adding thirty years to that epoch, we are 
 brought down to 1820, the era of the Greek 
 insurrection, — the pouring out of the sixth vial, 
 as we shall afterwards show; so that the waters 
 of the symbolic Euphrates might be dried up, 
 and preparation made for the catastrophe. In 
 another forty-five years, which brings us to 
 1865, according to Daniel, a blessed era shall 
 begin, — the millennium, most probably ushered 
 in by the complete destruction of Antichrist. 
 It is a remarkable coincidence, that in the rise 
 of Antichrist there were seventy-five years be- 
 tween his primary appearance at the era of 
 Justinian, and his secondary at the era of 
 Phocas ; and we find an era of corresponding 
 
:242 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 ^iength in his predicted downfall, extending from 
 the French Revolution to 1865, which most 
 probably marks the epoch of his consummat- 
 ed ruin, the interval being filled up with the 
 plagues of the consummation. 
 
 But there are some who maintain that the 
 rise of the Papacy cannot be dated earlier than 
 A.D. 800, when the Pope became a temporal 
 sovereign, having, by the help of Charlemagne, 
 completed his conquest of three of the ten 
 princes, and incorporated their territories with 
 the patrimony of St Peter. Such base their 
 conclusion on the symbol employed in Daniel 
 to represent him, — the little horn, which, say 
 they, imports his temporal sovereignty; and 
 that therefore till he appeared as a horn, that 
 is, as a temporal sovereign, he could not be 
 said to be risen. It appears to us that such 
 confound the accidents with the essence of the 
 Papacy. We know not on what ground it is 
 asserted that a horn cannot symbolize an eccle- 
 siastical ruler, especially when the ecclesiasti- 
 cal authority is of so absolute and sweeping a 
 character as to involve the possession and ex- 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 243 
 
 €rcise of temporal dominion, whether the per- 
 son vested in that ecclesiastical authority be 
 nominally the head of a temporal kingdom or 
 no. The following considerations, we think, 
 will be deemed satisfactory. First, the pre- 
 diction respecting the three horns that were to 
 be plucked up before the little horn, is not 
 given in the Apocalypse at all, — a circumstance 
 that satisfies us that great stress is not to be 
 placed upon it. Second, the plucking up of 
 the three horns is represented in Daniel as 
 subsequent to the rise of the little horn. The 
 words are, — " The other which came up, and 
 before whom three fell;"" "another shall rise 
 after them, and he shall be diverse from the 
 first ; and he shall subdue three kings.'" Thus 
 the symbol represents him as existing previous 
 to the subjugation of the three horns, and ex- 
 hibits their subjugation as his act. It follows 
 that Antichrist was a horn before he had any 
 temporal kingdom. Third, it is expressly said 
 that this horn was diverse from the others. To 
 what can this refer but to the fact, that while 
 they were secular rulers, he was an ecclesiasti- 
 
244 THE SEVENTH VTAL. 
 
 cal potentate. If the horn symbolizes him only 
 as a temporal prince, it could have been af- 
 firmed on no good ground that he was diverse 
 from the others. Fourth, the temporal power 
 of the Pope springs out of his ecclesiastical 
 authority. His having a temporal kingdom 
 was, if we may so speak, a mere accident. It 
 was not that which gave him his temporal au- 
 thority : although he had never been sove- 
 reign of the Papal States, his temporal do- 
 minion would have been not the less unbound- 
 ed and supreme. It grew out of his claim as 
 Chri&fs Vicar ; and though he had never had a 
 single soldier nor a single acre of territory, he 
 would, as the Vicar of Christ, have been su- 
 preme over the kings of the earth. It is this 
 claim that constitutes him the Antichrist, — a 
 claim that involves in it supreme dominion, 
 temporal as well as spiritual ; and to us it ap- 
 pears a matter of no moment at what time he 
 obtained his insignificant patrimony, seeing his 
 supreme dominion was neither in point of 
 theory nor in point of fact founded on that. 
 The moment that the Bishop of Rome avowed 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 245 
 
 himself the Vicar of Christ, and had that claim 
 acknowledged, the Antichrist was come : then 
 lie had a character allowed him which placed 
 him above sovereigns, entitled him to dispose 
 of their crowns and kingdoms, and to press 
 into his service, when occasion required, the 
 revenues and armies of Europe. This claim, 
 we have already shown, was first admitted by 
 Justinian in 530, and more formally and fully 
 recognised by Phocas in 606. These seventy- 
 five years form a broad line, marking off the 
 era of the reign of Antichrist, and the twelve 
 hundred and sixty days of sackcloth to the 
 witnesses; and a line of equal breadth will 
 mark the termination of his reign, filled up by 
 tw^o terrible catastrophes, the first of which we 
 have already seen ; the last is most probably 
 opening upon us; — the former symbolized in the 
 Apocalypse by the Harvest, and the latter by 
 the Vintage. 
 
 There is another consideration which adds 
 great force to our conclusion, — a consideration 
 which is ably stated by Mr Elliot in his great 
 work. All the great lines of prophecy, how- 
 
246 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 ever remote the point whence they take their 
 rise in the past, converge to our era. In the 
 eighth chapter of Daniel's prophecy, we find 
 the longest prophetic number anywhere in the 
 Bible, — two thousand three hundred days, — 
 forming the limiting period of the defilement 
 of eastern Christendom by the Mahommedan 
 abomination : " Then I heard one saint speak- 
 ing, and another saint said unto that certain 
 saint which spake, How long shall be the 
 vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the 
 transgression of desolation, to give both the 
 sanctuary and the host to be trodden under 
 foot ? And he said unto me, Unto two thou- 
 sand and three hundred days ; then shall the 
 sanctuary be cleansed. '"* No time is specified 
 from which the commencement of the two 
 thousand and three hundred days is to be 
 dated, and w^e are left at liberty to select the 
 most marked epoch in the history of the power 
 by which the sanctuary was to be defiled. 
 Some commentators have dated it from the 
 year B.C. 165, when the temple was defiled by 
 Antiochus ; but there is no authority for this 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 24 T 
 
 in the prophecy itself. There is more proba- 
 bility in the epoch fixed on by Mr Elliot, — that 
 of the acme of the Persian ram's conquering 
 power, which was seen in the vision pushing 
 westward, and northward, and southward. 
 Counting from B. c. 480, when Xerxes made 
 his triumphant progress to invade Greece, the 
 two thousand three hundred prophetic days 
 bring us down to A. D. 1820, the year of the 
 Greek insurrection, when Greek Christendom 
 began to be cleansed from the Turk and his 
 religion. Mr Elliot is not alone in his selec- 
 tion of this period ; and according to this cal- 
 culation, the termination of these days falls 
 within the noted seventy-five years assigned 
 by Daniel for the time of the consummation. 
 Again, it is highly probable that the seven 
 years'* insanity and bestiality of Nebuchadnez- 
 zar were typical of the moral and political 
 madness with which the four monarchies, of 
 which he was the golden head, were to be 
 Bmitten. If so, and if we calculate from B. c. 
 727, when the Ass}Tians under Shalmaneser 
 first " came down like the wolf on the fold""" 
 
/ 
 248 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 of Israel, we find the " seven times'' of the 
 aberration of the great monarchies terminat- 
 ing about 1790. It is a striking fact, taken 
 in connection with this view of the matter, 
 that the French Revolution appears to have 
 brought to an end in Europe the war of 
 monarchs. The wars that may be waged 
 henceforward will be those of the people 
 against their monarchs. Yet again, the most 
 probable calculation of the world's chronology- 
 makes the world's seventh millenary to begin 
 about seventy-five years after the epoch which 
 we have fixed on as that of the primary termi- 
 nation of the twelve hundred and sixty years. 
 It was an old Jewish opinion, and likewise an 
 early Christian belief, that after the year 6000, 
 dated from the creation, the world's Sabbath 
 would begin. We are on the eve of this long- 
 anticipated Sabbath. It already begins to 
 dawn towards that great First Day of the 
 coming era of rest and blessedness. Thrice 
 welcome to a world which has been so long 
 desolated by the tempests of war, and en- 
 thralled by the fetters of superstition ! and 
 
THE 1260 DAYS. 249 
 
 not less welcome to a Church which for so 
 many ages has worn only sackcloth ! Unless 
 the shadow on the dial of prophecy greatly 
 misleads us, that mighty consummation is at 
 hand. 
 
250 THE SEVENTH VIAL 
 
 THE HAEPEKS OX MOUNT ZION. 
 
 As the night of his seven last plagues closes 
 darkly around Antichrist, we behold the day 
 opening upon the Church. John had just been 
 shown a vision of the rise of the beast of the 
 abyss, — his pride, ambition, blasphemy, un- 
 bounded cruelty, and tyranny. After these 
 had been symbolically detailed, one would have 
 expected the next scene to be the terrible ca- 
 tastrophe of his overthrow. But no : when 
 the curtain rises, the view rests on a compara- 
 tively small but blessed company gathered with 
 the Lamb, and standing with their harps amid 
 the light of the Mount Zion : " And I looked, 
 and lo ! a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and 
 witlLHim an hundred, forty, and four thousand. 
 
THE HARPERS ON MOUNT ZION. 251 
 
 having his Father's name written in their fore- 
 heads/' (Chap, xiv.) 
 
 We saw this company before. Immediately 
 previous to the apostacy of Christendom, and 
 just as the beast, after which the whole world 
 was to wonder, save those whose names were 
 written in the Lamb's book of life, was about 
 to rise and begin his domination, we saw a cer- 
 tain number, — the precise number that now ap- 
 peared on Mount Zion with the Lamb, — select- 
 ed in Divine sovereignty, and sealed by God in 
 order that they might not be seduced by the 
 craft of the beast, nor destroyed by his power. 
 But where had they dwelt, and how had they 
 been preserved ? When Antichrist revelled in 
 the wealth and dominion of the western world, 
 they found an asylum in the wilderness ; when 
 the Gentiles were treading under foot the outer 
 court, they ministered at the altar ; and how 
 often did they there present the sacrifice of 
 their own lives ! for as individuals they were 
 mortal, though as a sealed company they were 
 inviolable and immortal. But now, after being- 
 60 long hidden from view, they re-appear, and 
 
252 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 not one is lacking. The identical number seal- 
 ed at the commencement of the twelve hundred 
 and sixty years of sackcloth, is seen with the 
 Lamb on Mount Zion at the termination of 
 these years. *'And I heard the number of 
 them which were sealed."' The special atten- 
 tion of the Apocalyptist was called to the num- 
 ber, that he might afterwards be able to mark 
 the fact of their wonderful preservation : "I 
 heard the number of them which were sealed ; 
 and there were sealed an hundred and forty 
 and four thousand.'"* John could not but re- 
 cognise the same company, and admire their 
 completeness, notwithstanding the calamities 
 and apostacies that had been prevalent since 
 the epoch of their selection : " And I looked, 
 and lo ! a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and 
 with him an hundred, forty, and four thousand, 
 having his Father's name written in their fore- 
 heads." To what occasion in the Church's his- 
 tory does this appearance refer ? It is exceed- 
 ingly improbable that so important an epoch as 
 the Reformation would pass unnoticed in this 
 symbolical history. It had been referred to in 
 
THE HARPERS ON MOUNT ZION. 25S 
 
 the history of the witnesses under the symbol 
 of their resurrection ; but we would expect also 
 to meet it in the parallel prophecy of the beast. 
 The chronological point where we would na- 
 turally look for it is precisely that which thiis 
 vision of the hundred, forty, and four thousand 
 on Mount Zion occupies. Without hesitation, 
 therefore, we conclude that this vision symbo- 
 lizes the Reformation. The several parts of the 
 vision exactly agree with the various facts of 
 that great event. These we shall briefly note. 
 The company appeared on the Mount Zion, 
 — the symbol of the true Church, in opposition 
 to the city now trodden under foot of the Gen- 
 tiles ; they appeared with the Lamb, — the true 
 priest, in opposition to the false prophet, after 
 which the world wondered ; they had his Fa- 
 ther's name written on their foreheads, i. e. 
 they made open profession of his truth. John 
 heard a voice from heaven, " as the voice of 
 many waters,'' symbolizing the nations that 
 embraced the reformed faith, (waters being 
 the symbol of nations) — Germany, Denmark, 
 Sweden, Holland, Geneva, England, Scot^ 
 
254 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 land. He heard, too, " as the voice of a great 
 thunder,^' the symbol of those mighty dispensa- 
 tions of Providence which attended and follow- 
 ed the Reformation. The wonderful unanimity 
 of sentiment and harmony of profession which 
 reigned among the Reformed Churches ai^e 
 brought finely before us in the symbol of " the 
 voice of harpers harping with their harps.'' 
 Scattered throughout several of the countries 
 of Europe, yet holding and expressing the same 
 views of truth, they resembled a confederated 
 "Company of harpers. And even in our days of 
 division we still perpetuate the recollection of 
 that noble melody which flowed from their well- 
 strung harps, by the general use of the phrase, 
 the harmony of the reformed confessions. 
 
 " And they sung as it were a new song before 
 the throne, and before the four beasts, and the 
 ciders.'' In the various places in Scripture in 
 which reference is made to a new song being 
 sung, we find that the occasion is some new 
 and signal deliverance, — a deliverance so great, 
 marvellous, and complete, as to take precedence 
 of all former deliverances, and supersede all 
 
THE HARPERS ON MOUNT ZION. 255 
 
 former songs. Such was the song of Moses at 
 the Red Sea ; such was the song of Deborah 
 when Sisera was discomfited ; and such was 
 that of the captives when they escaped from 
 Babylon : " The ransomed of the Lord returned 
 and came unto Zion with singing." So the new 
 song sung by the hundred and forty and four 
 thousand who had escaped from mystic Baby- 
 lon is finely expressive of the wonder, grati- 
 tude, and joy of the reformers, on occasion of 
 their miraculous escape from the rage and 
 power of Antichrist. They were like them that 
 dream. Then was their mouth filled with laugh- 
 ter, andf their tongue with singing. " But no 
 man could learn that song, save the hundred 
 and forty and four thousand, which, were re- 
 deemed from the earth." They only who had 
 participated in the deliverance, — been redeemed 
 from the Papal earth, — could join in the song 
 of thanksgiving. Or if by that song be meant 
 the truth professed with such singular unani- 
 mity by the Reformed Churches, then none but 
 those who had been elected by God's grace, and 
 illuminated by his Spirit, could learn that song. 
 
256 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 God had an " election" in the various countries 
 of Christendom ; and they only, from the era of 
 the Reformation downwards, have been able 
 to profess the truth as held by the Reformed 
 Church. 
 
 Several particulars of their life and character 
 are added. " They are virgins," which inti- 
 mates the care they would exercise to preserve 
 themselves, both in doctrine and practice, from 
 the pollution of the Romish idolatry. " These 
 are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever 
 He goeth," — the symbol of their steadfastness, 
 self-denial, and patient endurance. Many and 
 grievous accusations would be preferred against 
 them : they would be regarded as rebels by the 
 civil authorities, and heretics by the ecclesiasti- 
 cal. Nevertheless they should stand acquitted 
 in the presence of Him whose judgment is ac- 
 cording to truth : " And in their mouth was 
 found no guile ; for they are without fault be- 
 fore the throne of God." To these elected and 
 sealed ones should attach the farther interest 
 of being the first fruits of refonned Christen- 
 dom, Like the sheaf presented of old in the 
 
THE HARPERS ON MOUNT ZION. S;")? 
 
 Temple at the beginning of harvest, the Re- 
 formed Church was the first sheaf of that o-lori- 
 ous harvest yet to be gathered from all the 
 countries of Europe : " These were redeemed 
 from among men, being the first fruits unto 
 God and to the Lamb." 
 
 The great apostacy was now drawing to its 
 close, and by three grand epochs was the work 
 of God on earth to be revived, and the millen- 
 nial glory of the Church introduced. These 
 three distinct stages are exhibited under the 
 symbol of three successive angels seen by John 
 flying in the midst of heaven. To each of these 
 revivals in the Church there is a corresponding 
 epoch in the downfall of the Papacy. The first 
 is thus described : — " And I saw another angel 
 fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlast- 
 ing gospel to preach unto them that dwell on 
 the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, 
 and tongue, and people.'' This angel is the 
 symbol of a body of faithful preachers of the 
 gospel, which were to arise at the time referred 
 to in the various countries of the Roman earth. 
 To ascertain the epoch in question, we have 
 
 R 
 
258 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 only to inquire when was the first general pro- 
 mulgation of the truth in Europe after it had 
 been suppressed by Antichrist ! Undoubtedly 
 at the Reformation. And, what corroborates 
 this opinion is the fact, that the angel gave 
 warning of the danger of continuing in the 
 idolatry of Rome, and revealed to men the true 
 object of worship, — " Saying with a loud voice, 
 Fear God, and give glory to him ; for the hour 
 of his judgment is come ; and worship Him that 
 made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the 
 fountains of waters :" the very call which the 
 Reformed preachers addressed to the Popish 
 idolaters. The second angel, we apprehend, 
 marks the epoch of the termination of the 
 twelve hundred and sixty years. He proclaim- 
 ed the fall of Rome. "And there followed 
 another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fal- 
 len, that great city, because she made all na- 
 tions drink of the wine of the wrath of her for- 
 nication." It is not the final, but begun fall of 
 Babylon that is here announced; for the se- 
 cond angel is followed by a third, who pro- 
 claims her consummated ruin. The reference 
 
THE HARPERS ON MOUNT ZION. 259 
 
 here, we conceive, is to the tremendous blow 
 which the first French Revolution inflicted on 
 the Papacy, and from which there is no pro- 
 bability that it will ever recover. On the 
 minds of Protestants that dispensation pro- 
 duced an impression that Popery was near its 
 fall, just as if an angel had cried it from heaven. 
 The third and last angel announces the com- 
 pleted overthrow of Babylon. This is plain, 
 from the fact, that the terms of the proclama- 
 tion are the same with those which in other 
 parts of the Apocalypse are employed to ex- 
 press the final and consummated doom of Anti- 
 christ, — a cup of unmixed wrath and torment, 
 with fire and brimstone, the smoke of which 
 ascendeth up for ever and ever. And the 
 third angel followed them, saying with a loud 
 voice, " If any man worship the beast and his 
 image, and receive his mark in his forehead or 
 in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of 
 the wrath of God, which is poured out without 
 mixture into the cup of his indignation ; and 
 he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone 
 in the presence of the holy angels, and in the 
 
260 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their 
 torment ascendeth up for ever and ever ; and 
 they have no rest day nor night, who worship 
 the beast and his image, and whosoever re- 
 ceiveth the mark of his name.'' Then follows 
 an intimation, the import of which we take to 
 be, that now at least the period of suffering al- 
 lotted to the Church had terminated, and that 
 henceforward the saints should enjoy a special 
 blessedness. Has the third angel, — the herald 
 of Babylon's final doom, — yet appeared in hea- 
 ven? We cannot confidently affirm that he 
 has ; neither are we prepared to maintain that 
 he has not. When we look to the Roman 
 earth, and contemplate the insurrections, mas- 
 sacres, intestine broils, and bloody wars, of 
 which it is at this moment the theatre, — when 
 we think of the fierce resentments and animo- 
 sities which have sprung up, and which every 
 hour is exascerbating, and which are now being 
 directed in their full force against the members 
 of that city whose capital is the seven hills, — we 
 are persuaded that we see the cup in the hand 
 of JBabylon, the fires kindled amid which she is 
 
THE HARPERS ON MOUNT ZION. 261 
 
 to be consumed, and the smoke of her torment 
 ah-eady ascending into the skies. 
 
 It is not here only, but in other parts of tho 
 Apocalypse, and also in Daniel, that we find 
 the three great epochs that will constitute " the 
 time of the end'** predicted. Daniel adds a 
 period of seventy-five years to the twelve hun- 
 dred and sixty, — the commencement of that 
 period synchronizing, we conceive, with the 
 second angel, who announces the begun ruin of 
 Babylon, and its termination, with the third 
 angel, who proclaims Babylon's completed de- 
 struction. In chapter xviii. of the Apocalypse, 
 which contains a lengthened and detailed ac- 
 count of the overthrow of the Papacy, we find 
 that overthrow marked off into three periods. 
 The first is that of an angel, with whose glory 
 the earth was lightened, and who " cried 
 mightily with a loud voice, saying, Babylon 
 the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become 
 the habitation of devils, and the hold of every 
 foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and 
 hateful bird.'' This angel seems to correspond 
 with the era of the Reformers, whose preach- 
 
262 THE SEVENTH YIAL. 
 
 ing lightened Europe, and who exposed the 
 abominations of Popery in almost the identical 
 words ^3f the angel. The next stage is that of 
 the voice which gave warning of the approach- 
 ing plagues of Babylon, and called on God's 
 people to flee out of her, which synchronizes, 
 w^e apprehend, with the French Revolution, 
 when her doom began to be inflicted. The last 
 is termed " a mighty angel :" power is his at- 
 tribute, for he shall finish what the other two 
 only commenced ; and accordingly the act he 
 performs strikingly symbolizes the sudden, fear- 
 ful, and irretrievable ruin that shall then over- 
 take Rome. " And a mighty angel took up a 
 stone like a great millstone, and cast it into 
 the sea, saying. Thus with violence shall that 
 great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall 
 be found no more at all." There are yet other 
 two prefigurations in the Apocalypse of " the 
 time of the end," fraught with more terrible 
 import than even those to which we have just 
 adverted, — the Harvest and the Vintage. 
 The first, we are disposed to think, synchro- 
 nizes with the termination of the twelve hun- 
 
THE HARPERS ON MOUNT ZION. 263 
 
 dred and sixty days, and was formed of that 
 great event which marked that era, and which, 
 breaking out in unprecedented horror in France, 
 overspread Europe in a desolating war. The 
 last is yet to come ; but probably it will fall out 
 so as to be completed before the termination 
 of the seventy-five supplementary years. The 
 intelligent reader can scarce fail to remark how 
 strikingly this accords with the manner of 
 Antichrist's destruction, as foretold by Paul, in 
 2 Thessalonians, ii. 8 : " And then shall that 
 Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall con- 
 sume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall 
 destroy with the brightness of his coming,'' — 
 consume gradually at the first, and destroy sud- 
 denly and fearfully at last. 
 
 It thus appears, that not in a single day or 
 year, but by three mighty and progressive dis- 
 pensations, is Rome to be destroyed, and the 
 millennial glory of the Church established. 
 Rome must pass through long years of shame, 
 disgrace, humiliations, sufferings, and torment. 
 Awful horrors will crowd around the path that 
 leads down into her tomb. Dismissed she can- 
 
2G4 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 not be from this earthly scene, till the world 
 resound with her woes, as once it resounded 
 with her crimes. The history of the past is 
 filled with the record of her grandeur, and the 
 history of the future must be filled with that of 
 her disgrace. Most equitable and just, surely, 
 is the sentence which has been passed upon 
 her, — " How much she hath glorified herself, 
 and lived deliciously, so much torment and sor- 
 row give her." The justice that pronounced 
 this sentence will infallibly execute it. And as 
 the gloom deepens around the one, the glory of 
 the other shall shine forth, waxing brighter 
 and brighter, like the day. In this, as in every 
 thing else, God has provided for the full dis- 
 play of his own wisdom, the ample vindication 
 of his saints, and the signal punishment of his 
 foes. 
 
THE SEVENTH TRUMPET. 261 
 
 THE SEVENTH TEUMPET. 
 
 The dark scene of Babylon^s overthrow now 
 opens to our view, not merely in the symbols 
 of the Apocalypse, but not improbably also in 
 ♦the astounding events of our times, — a conside- 
 ration fitted, surely, to produce that solemn and 
 devout spirit which eminently becomes an in- 
 quiry like the present. The commencement 
 of the dreadful catastrophe is notified to the 
 world by the trumpet of the seventh angel. 
 The first question here is. When did this angel 
 sound ? We derive material aid in determin- 
 ing this point from an intimation immediately 
 preceding that of the angeFs sounding. " The 
 second woe is past ; and, behold, the third woe 
 cometh quickly.'" The second woe was the 
 Turkish invasion. The capture of Constanti- 
 
266 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 nople in 1453 formed the acme of that power. 
 We cannot surely make that date the end of 
 the Turkish woe ; for we find the Turks after- 
 wards becoming a woe to the western w^orld. 
 The first check given to their arms was in 1673, 
 by John Sobieski, before the walls of Vienna. 
 This is the earliest date we can assign to the 
 passing away of the second woe ; but even this 
 appears to be too early ; for the form of speech 
 here employed intimates not merely that the 
 woe had begun to decline, but that it was past ; 
 and we think, with Mr Elliot, that 1774, in 
 which year the Turks, after sustaining repeated 
 defeats by the allied forces of Russia and Aus- 
 tria, signed a peace, the terms of which were 
 dictated by the conquerors, is the true period 
 when the woe had passed. Before 1774, then, 
 the seventh trumpet, which forms the third 
 woe, could not be sounded. But it must have 
 been sounded soon after, for the third woe was 
 to follow quickly on the passing away of the 
 second. The next great epoch of calamities 
 that opened on the world followed the exhaus- 
 tion of the Turkish woe at the distance of only 
 
THE SEVENTH TRUMPET. 267 
 
 fifteen years, — the French Revolution. Beyond 
 that event, — 1790, — we are not disposed to de- 
 fer the sounding of the seventh angel ; and we 
 cannot fix it earlier. This makes the sounding 
 of that angel synchronize with what Daniel de- 
 signates " the time of the end," and also with 
 the termination of the twelve hundred and 
 sixty years ; and the appearance of the angel 
 with the cry of Babylon's falling. 
 
 The sounding of the seventh trumpet was in- 
 stantly followed by great voices in heaven, an- 
 nouncing the conversion of the kingdoms, the 
 wrath of the nations, the time of the dead 
 that they should be judged, the opening of 
 the temple of God in heaven, accompanied by 
 lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an 
 earthquake, and great hail. These symbols we 
 can only briefly indicate, not illustrate. The 
 voices which spoke in heaven announced, as the 
 first consequence of the sounding of the trum- 
 pet, the conversion of the kingdoms, i. e. of the 
 Roman earth. " The kingdoms of this world are 
 become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his 
 Christ." This foretells a radical change as 
 
268 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 awaiting the kingdoms of Europe, — a change as 
 great as that which passed on Nebuchadnezzar, 
 when, at the end of the days, his understanding 
 returned, and he lifted up his eyes to heaven, 
 and blessed the Most High. Like their proto- 
 type, these kingdoms have long been smitten 
 with the mad rage and ferocious cruelty of the 
 wild beast ; but at the end of the days their 
 reason shall return, and they shall praise and 
 honour Him that liveth for ever. The Roman 
 element which Justinian breathed into them 
 shall become extinct ; new principles shall 
 guide their policy, even those of the Word of 
 God ; their wealth and pow er shall be devoted 
 to higher objects, — the true happiness of their 
 subjects ; and whereas they have been the bul- 
 warks and fences of superstition, they shall 
 eome to account it their glory to subserve the 
 interests of God. But in order that this trans- 
 formation may be wrought upon them, they 
 must first, as indicated in DaniePs vision of 
 the image, be ground to powder. 
 
 " And the nations were angry/' This im- 
 plies, that at the period of the seventh angel. 
 
THE SEVENTH TRUMPET. 269 
 
 the nations of the Roman world should become 
 exceedingly exasperated. It forebodes an era 
 of turbulence and fierce contention. The ob- 
 ject of their rage is not stated. Let us observe 
 that it is the nations that are angry, not the 
 beast. His wrath has now been changed into 
 terror and despair : " And thy wrath is come, 
 and the time of the dead that they should be 
 judged." Who the dead are, and the design 
 for which they are now judged, we gather from 
 the next clause,—" And that thou shouldest 
 give reward unto thy servants the prophets, 
 and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, 
 small and great ; and shouldest destroy them 
 who destroy the earth." It is some grand and 
 public vindication of the martyrs slain in for- 
 mer ages that is here foretold. They had this 
 day in their eye when they were slain ; and 
 from the tribunals where they were condemn- 
 ed, from the fires, and scaffolds, and dungeons, 
 where they perished, they appealed to the judg- 
 ment of this day ; and when it comes, the events 
 of Providence shall make it as clear to the world 
 as if the great Judge himself were to erect 
 
270 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 his tribunal on the earth, that their cause was 
 just, and that they perished fighting for liberty 
 and truth. In the triumph of their cause on 
 that day, and the honour to which their me- 
 mories shall then be raised, God shall give re- 
 ward unto his servants the prophets, and to 
 his saints, and to those of them especially who 
 lived during the twelve hundred and sixty days 
 of the domination of Antichrist, and were called 
 to prophesy clothed in sackcloth. 
 
 " And the temple of God was opened in 
 heaven, and there was seen in his temple the 
 ark of his testament," — the symbol of the par- 
 tial enlargement of the Protestant Church, and 
 the readier access now afforded to the men of 
 the Roman earth to the Bible. Contemporane- 
 ously with the French Revolution, or immedi- 
 ately subsequent, there was a signal revival of 
 the evangelic and missionary spirit in Britain. 
 Numerous societies were formed for the spread 
 of the gospel and the circulation of the Scrip- 
 tures. Missions were set on foot to almost all 
 parts of the world, — the West Indies, the South 
 Sea Islands, Africa. Australia, Greenland. The 
 
THE SEVENTH TRUMPET. 271 
 
 evangelization of India was a work not too 
 mighty to be undertaken. The Jews were vi- 
 sited ; and even the benighted and idolatrous 
 Churches of Eastern and Western Christendom 
 were not neglected. The French Revolution 
 opened great part of Europe to the preaching 
 of the gospel. Thus the temple was opened ; 
 and the ark of the testament, — the Bible and 
 gospel, — which Popery had veiled, was anew 
 discovered to the Roman nations. But this 
 statement must be taken in connection with 
 another most important intimation, in the end 
 of chapter xv., respecting the temple now open: 
 " And the temple was filled with smoke from 
 the glory of God, and from his power ; and no 
 man was able to enter into the temple till the 
 seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled." 
 God w^as present on the scene as an avenging 
 God, punishing the Popish nations for the blood 
 they had shed and the idolatries they had com- 
 mitted, — the smoke from the glory of God, and 
 from his power, that filled the temple ; and till 
 He had vindicated his holiness by the infliction 
 of these awful plagues, no man was able to enter 
 
272 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 into the temple. Nevertheless, all the while the 
 storm was raging, it stood open, revealing, as it 
 were, to the nations, the sanctuary of safety, and 
 the temple of worsliip, where they should ulti- 
 mately be gathered. Since evangelic agen- 
 cies began to be employed on the Continent of 
 Europe, there have been individual conversions 
 not a few ; but there has been no general or na- 
 tional evangelization ; nor are we to expect that 
 there will be, till the judgment of the seventh 
 vial is ended. France, Austria, and the other 
 Popish countries continue nominally Popish to 
 this hour. This has often occasioned great dis- 
 couragement to the friends of truth ; but when 
 they think that this is precisely what was fore- 
 told, the result ought to confirm their faith in 
 the Divine Word, and stimulate to greater ex- 
 ertions in spreading it. The labours of the 
 missionary are not in vain, though not followed 
 by immediate fruit. After the " lightnings, and 
 thunderings, and great hail" of the vials, will 
 come the "tender rain" of the Spirit; and then 
 the seed he is now sowing shall spring up. 
 This is another circumstance that tends to sa- 
 
THE SEVENTH TRUMPET. 273 
 
 tisfy US that we are right in fixing the sounding 
 of the seventh angel at the era of the French 
 Revohition. Those who defer the pouring out 
 of Ihe seventh vial and the downfall of Popery 
 till more than two hundred years from the pre- 
 sent time, must defer likewise the conversion 
 of the continental nations till the same period. 
 But when we think of the numerous evangelic 
 agencies now at work, and the zeal, ability, and 
 devotedness with which they are prosecuted, 
 and will continue to be prosecuted, — for the 
 temple remains open in the symbolic represen- 
 tation till the vials have been all expended, — 
 we cannot think that for two hundred years to 
 come these efforts are to be without result. It 
 is not the manner of God to withhold so long 
 his blessing from the labours of his servants, 
 honestly, zealously, and prayerfully carried on. 
 'The terrible convulsions, revolutions, and 
 wars which were to follow the sounding of the 
 seventh trumpet are symbolized in the vision 
 by " lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, 
 and an earthquake, and great hail.'' The Arc 
 de Triomphe at Paris, which forms the approach 
 
274 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 to the city on the west, is inscribed all over 
 with the great battle-fields of Napoleon. No 
 nation but the French could show so long a list 
 of victories gained in so short a space. These 
 are the lightnings, thunderings, earthquake, 
 and hail of the seventh trumpet. This arcli, 
 with its record, will descend to future ages, an 
 impressive monument of the fulfilment of the 
 prophecy. 
 
THE Frit8T I<'1VE VIALS. 275 
 
 THE FIEST FIYE VIALS. 
 
 As the opening of the seventh seal introduced 
 the seven trumpets, so the sounding of the 
 seventh trumpet introduces the seven vials. 
 The particulars we have noted above form the 
 general characteristics of that trumpet, and 
 they strikingly agree with the historical facts of 
 the French Revolution, the full details of which 
 are given under the vials : " And I saw another 
 sign in heaven, great and marvellous, — seven 
 angels, having the seven last plagues ; for in 
 them is filled up the wrath of God/' These 
 great dispensations are beautifully personified, 
 and are seen attired as priests : " And the 
 seven angels came out of the temple, having 
 the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white 
 linen, and having their breasts girded with 
 
276 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 golden girdles,"" — denoting the purity and holi- 
 ness of these events, as proceeding from God. 
 The vials of wrath are represented as being put 
 into the hands of the angels by one of the 
 four living creatures. By the living creatures 
 is symbolized, we have said, the gospel ministry. 
 AVhy is thisir agency here employed ? It was 
 not they who gave the commission to the agents 
 of Babylon's destruction ; nor was it at their 
 instigation they undertook their work ; but 
 so clearly did they perceive their character as 
 God's commissioned agents, so fully did they ac- 
 quiesce in the result of their work, and so great 
 care did they take to make it known to the 
 Church and the world that God was now pour- 
 ing out the vials of his wrath on Antichrist, 
 that it was, in a sort, as if the ministry had put 
 these vials into the hands of the angels. Such, 
 at least, may be the explanation of the symbol ; 
 for there is here no definite rule according to 
 which we might frame our interpretation. These 
 seven ministers in white vestments and golden 
 girdles await the Divine behest. A great voice 
 out of the temple thus addresses them : — " Go 
 
THE FIRST FIVE VIAtS. 277 
 
 your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath 
 of God upon the earth." The first six vials we 
 shall explain no farther than may be absolutely 
 requisite for introducing ourselves to the great 
 catastrophe of the seventh, on which we mean 
 to fix attention. 
 
 Our scheme of interpretation of the vials is 
 somewhat different from that which has hither- 
 to been given ; but we think it is more consis- 
 tent and complete. It makes the vials begin 
 at the very foundations of the Papal world, 
 and proceed regularly upward, till at last the 
 whole fabric is involved in ruin. The first stroke 
 falls upon its individual men ; the next upon its 
 nations ; the next upon its monarchies ; then 
 its great centrahzing and governing head, the 
 Popedom, is smitten ; and the last and finish- 
 ing vial is poured into its air, thus wrapping 
 the entire Papal universe in ruin. Like the 
 flood, these waters of wrath cover first the level 
 grounds and the low valleys of the Romish 
 earth ; next, the little hills are submerged ; but, 
 the waters continuing to rise, the proudest of 
 its mountains are in due time overwhelmed. 
 
278 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 " And the first went and poured out his vial 
 upon the earth ; and there fell a noisome and 
 grievous sore upon the men which had the 
 mark of the beast, and upon them which wor- 
 shipped his image/' There can be little ques- 
 tion that this noisome and grievous sore sym- 
 bolizes the infidelity and atheism of the French 
 Kevolution. It is unnecessary here to state, that 
 the infidel principles so industriously and insi- 
 diously propagated by Voltaire and Rousseau, 
 after corrupting to an unprecedented extent 
 the national morals, found vent at last in an 
 outbreak of blasphemy and crime so fearful, 
 that nothing like it is found in the history of 
 the world. " And the second angel poured 
 out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the 
 blood of a dead man; and every living soul 
 died in the sea." This is commonly interpre- 
 ted of the naval wars between Great Britain 
 and France, which immediately followed the 
 Revolution. We demur to this, because it 
 treats the " sea,'" not as a symbol, which it un- 
 doubtedly is, but as a literal term. The pe- 
 culiar significancy of the symbol lies, we are 
 
THE FIRST FIVE VIALS. 279 
 
 disposed to think, in the phrase, " it became 
 as the blood of a dead man,"' — stagnant and 
 putrid. The symbolic sea into which this vial 
 was emptied lost that free play and motion on 
 which its purity and healthfulness depended. 
 One of the first effects of the French Revolu- 
 tion on the body politic throughout Europe 
 was to induce a fatal stagnancy. Its masses 
 began to be leavened with corrupt and an- 
 archical principles, altogether hostile to the 
 free and natural working of organized society. 
 The several members of the European family 
 were disunited, and symptoms of dissolution 
 began to be apparent. Thus the blood of the 
 modern Roman empire became foul and stag- 
 nant as the blood of a dead man. " And the 
 third angel pom-ed out his vial upon the rivers 
 and fountains of waters, and they became 
 blood.""* Rivers and fountains symbolize na- 
 tions. The Popish nations of the Continent 
 were to be scourged, under this vial, with the 
 sword of war, wielded by the revolutionary 
 legions of France. It is very noticeable, that 
 the principal scenes of slaughter in these wars 
 
280 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 were the same as those that in former ages 
 had been the chief scenes of persecution, and 
 of the martyrdom of the saints. The armies 
 of Napoleon swept round the base of the Alps, 
 tracking their path in blood ; and,' passing to 
 the Rhine and the Low GWntries, where so 
 many martyrs had been slain, they there in- 
 flicted their ravages. The fearfully retributive 
 character of the vial is solemnly indicated by 
 the song of the angel of the waters : " And I 
 heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art 
 righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and 
 shalt be, because thou hast judged thus : for 
 they have shed the blood of saints and pro- 
 phets ; and thou hast given them blood to 
 drink, for they are worthy.'^ To this song a 
 response was made from the altar, the symbol 
 of martyrdom : " And I heard another out of 
 the altar say. Even so, Lord God Almighty ; 
 true and righteous are thy judgments." 
 
 " And the fourth angel poured out his vial 
 upon the sun ; and power was given unto him 
 to scorch men with fire." The common inter- 
 pretation of this vial makes the sun the sym- 
 
THE FIRST FIVE VIALS. 281 
 
 bol of but one of the kingdoms of the Popish 
 earth, namely, its leading kingdom, France. 
 We demur to this, because we conceive that 
 the vials proceed on the principle of expansion, 
 not of contraction ; that is, that each succes- 
 sive vial has a wider sphere of infliction, up 
 to the last, which embraces the entire Papal 
 system. We are disposed to regard the 
 " sun" as indicating the general monarchy of 
 Europe. If nations were the rivers of the 
 Papal world, the combined monarchies of Eu- 
 rope were its sun ; and if we look to the his- 
 tory of the event, we find that this was the 
 part of the Papal system on which the next 
 stroke of vengeance fell. In the years 1807 
 and 1808 most of the monarchs of Western 
 Europe were either dethroned, or had their 
 power greatly abridged, by Napoleon. There 
 was not a single throne which escaped the 
 shock of the revolutionary wars : " And power 
 was given unto him to scorch men with fire." 
 Terrible calamities to the men of the Papal 
 earth followed the darkening of the Papal 
 sovereignties. A tremendous conflict ensued, 
 
28 2 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 of eight years' duration, the horrors of which it 
 is impossible to describe. Not to mention the 
 many bloody fields that were fought during that 
 space, the countries which became in succes- 
 sion the seat of war were almost depopulated, 
 — so great were the ravages of the conflicting 
 hosts, who lived by a system of plunder, who 
 burned villages and towns, and slaughtered the 
 'inhabitants, so that in entire districts not a hu- 
 man being was to be seen; not even an animal, 
 except ravens feeding on corpses. Thus, " power 
 was given unto him to scorch men with fire ; 
 and men w^ere scorched with great heat, and 
 blasphemed the name of God, which hath 
 power over these plagues ; and they repented 
 not, to give Him glory." It is equally astonish- 
 ing and melancholy, that the nations on whom 
 these plagues fell remained totally insensible 
 to them in the character of judgments; evinced 
 not the smallest sign of repentance for their 
 own idolatries and impieties, or the murders of 
 their fathers, who had shed the blood of the 
 saints ; and plunged anew, as soon as these ca- 
 lamities were at an end, into all the excesses of 
 
THE FIRST FIVE VIALS. 283 
 
 their obscene atheism and gross Popish super- 
 stition. They repented not, to give God glory. 
 " And the fifth angel poured out his vial 
 upon the seat of the beast, and his kingdom 
 was full of darkness ; and they gnawed their 
 tongues for pain.'' The locality affected by 
 this vial is distinctly marked, — the seat or 
 throne of the beast ; in other words, the seven 
 hills. The last drops of that terrible tempest 
 which had burst over the thrones of Europe 
 fell upon the Vatican. After he had subject- 
 ed all the sovereigns of the West to his autho- 
 rity, the next act of Napoleon was to abolish 
 the Pope's temporal power, incorporate Rome 
 with the empire of France, and reduce the 
 Pope to a stipendiary of the State. This 
 he did in the two celebrated decrees which 
 he issued in 1809 from Schoenbrunn and Vi- 
 enna. This, as Elliot remarks, was but the 
 consummating act of a series of insults heaped 
 by the French on the Popish Church, from the 
 commencement of their Revolution. Here we 
 meet strong corroborative evidence that we 
 
284 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 were right in fixing the commencement of the 
 twelve hundred and sixty years at the promul- 
 gation of Justinian's Code in A. D. 530, which 
 gave a legal existence to the Papacy, and laid 
 the foundation for its future wealth, power, 
 and grandeur. Precisely twelve hundred and 
 sixty years after, we find that spoiling of her 
 wealth and power begin, which had been fore- 
 told by Daniel as " the taking away of domi- 
 nion from it, to consume and to destroy it unto 
 the end." Elliot has condensed into a single 
 paragraph the various acts of spoliation then 
 committed upon the Papal Church. " One of 
 the first measures of the Assembly," says he, 
 " was to abolish tithes, establishing an insuffi- 
 cient rent-charge on the State in lieu of them ; 
 a second, at one fell swoop to sever from the 
 Church, and appropriate as national property, 
 all ecclesiastical lands throughout the king- 
 dom, — lands, let it be observed, which had 
 been regarded ever before as not French pro- 
 perty only, but that of the Romish Church, 
 and as needing, therefore, the Pope's sanction 
 
THE FIRST FIVE VIALS. 285 
 
 to its alienation. Then followed the suppression 
 of all monastic houses in the kingdom, to the 
 number of four thousand; and in regard of the 
 clergy, already made pensioners of the State, 
 the substitution of popular election, for institu- 
 tion after the Papal Concordat; and the re- 
 quirement from each of them, on pain of for- 
 feiture of the pension, of a solemn abjuration 
 of all allegiance to the Pope. And then, in 
 1798, the decree issued for the abolition of the 
 Christian (or rather Romish) religion in France, 
 whereupon the churches were many of them 
 razed to the ground ; others left in partial 
 ruin ; and of the rest, shut against priests and 
 worshippers, the most sacred places defiled, the 
 treasures rifled, and the bells broken and cast 
 into cannon. So was the whole French eccle- 
 siastical establishment then destroyed. As to 
 the French clergy themselves, twenty-four thou- 
 sand were massacred, so as I have before stated, 
 with every the most horrid atrocity. The rest, 
 for the most part utterly beggared, found refuge 
 from the popular fury only by flight into other, 
 
2S6 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 and chiefly Protestant lands, bearing about 
 with them everywhere visible evidence that the 
 predicted hating, and tearing, and making 
 bare, of the great whore of Babylon, had in- 
 deed begun. Begun in France, the spoliation 
 of the harlot Church, and of its Papal patron 
 and head, spread quickly into the other coun- 
 tries of Christendom. A propagandist spirit, 
 in respect of this, as in respect of its other 
 principles, was one of the essential character- 
 istics of the Revolution ; and the tempests of 
 war gave it wings.*' 
 
 But the crowning act was reserved for 1809. 
 The resistance which the Pope ventured to 
 offer to Napoleon's views drew down upon him 
 the two decrees, to which we have already re- 
 ferred, of Schoenbrunn and Vienna. These de- 
 crees laid the Pope's temporal authority pros- 
 trate in the dust, and reduced the Eternal City 
 to the rank of the second capital of the French 
 empire. As the ancient dynasties had by this time 
 been discrowned, and the thrones of the Roman 
 world, with the exception of Austria, which had 
 
THE FIRST FIVE VIALS. 287 
 
 now become the ally of France, been filled with 
 the vassals of Napoleon, the act of the Emperor, 
 by which the power of the Pope was mortally 
 wounded, and his treasures rifled, was not Na- 
 poleon's alone, but also that of all the nine 
 kings of the Roman earth (Britain having fallen 
 as a Papal power at the Reformation) who 
 were consenting thereto, — a striking fulfilment, 
 surely, of the prophecy that the ten horns of 
 the beast should hate the harlot Church, and 
 make her desolate and naked, and eat her flesh, 
 and burn her with fire. Thus was the vial 
 poured out upon the throne of the beast. The 
 Pope replied in an excommunication which he 
 fulminated against the Emperor, and which was 
 received only with ridicule ; but the impotent 
 bitterness of this act of retaliation showed that 
 the prophecy had been fulfilled, — " And they 
 gnawed their tongues for pain." Still, no signs 
 of repentance and reformation were visible; 
 neither the Popish nations nor the Popish 
 hierarchy abandoned their impieties and idola- 
 tries ; and therefore they were scaled over, in 
 
288 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 their impenitency, to the more awful judgment 
 of the seventh vial. They who inflicted these 
 calamities, and they who endured them, united 
 in blaspheming " the God of heaven, because of 
 their pains and their sores, and repented not of 
 their deeds." 
 
THE SIXTH VIAL AND THE FROGS. 289- 
 
 THE SIXTH VIAL AND THE THREE FEOGS. 
 
 '' And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon 
 the great river Euphrates, and the water there- 
 of was dried up, that the way of the kings of 
 the East might be prepared;^ The sixth trum- 
 pet affected the same region of the earth as 
 the sixth vial,— that of the Euphrates,— by 
 which all admit the Turkish power to be sym- 
 bolized. Like a mighty flood issuing from the 
 region indicated, the Turks had overflowed and 
 desolated all eastern Christendom ; but at the 
 era of the sixth vial this flood was to recede. 
 This teaches us to turn to the East for the 
 scene of the next calamity. It is remarkable 
 enough, that no sooner had the field of Water- 
 loo given peace to Europe, than troubles broke 
 out in the Turkish empire. In 1820 the Greeks 
 
 T 
 
290 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 raised the standard of revolt against the Porte, 
 and, after a struggle of eight years, succeeded 
 in fully establishing their independence. Thus 
 were the waters of the Euphrates dried up 
 from Greece. Since the battle of Navarino in 
 1828, when the Turkish navy was annihilated 
 by the allied fleet of England, France, and 
 Russia, one disaster after another has befallen 
 the Ottoman empire. In 1829 the principali- 
 ties of Wallachia and Moldavia were wrested 
 from the Porte by Russia. In the same year 
 Algiers was taken by the French, and, from 
 being a province of Turkey, became a colony 
 of France. Next followed the great rebellion 
 of Mehemet Ali, who, though driven out of 
 Syria by the great powers of Europe, achieved 
 for Egypt a real independence, though it still 
 owns a nominal subjection to the Porte. Since 
 1820, then, how have the waters of the sym- 
 bolic Euphrates been dried up ! They have 
 receded from Greece on the west, Algiers and 
 Egypt on the south, Wallachia and Moldavia 
 on the north. And if we look to the central 
 empire, in what a state of decrepitude do v. e 
 
THE SIXTH VIAL xiND THE FROGS. 291 
 
 find it ! — a feeble government, an exhausted 
 treasury, the provinces groaning under rapa- 
 cious pachas, and the population yearly dimi- 
 nishing under the influence of tyranny, famine, 
 and plague ; so that, in the memorable phrase 
 of Lamartine, " Turkey is dying out for want 
 of Turks." The sixth angel has poured out his 
 vial, and the waters of the great river Eu- 
 phrates are rapidly drying up. 
 
 There was a special end to be served by the 
 drying up of this river, which is here intimat- 
 ed : " And the water thereof was dried up, that 
 the way of the kings of [from] the East might 
 be prepared."" All expositors of the Apoca- 
 lypse have been much at a loss to give a sa- 
 tisfactory and natural solution of this clause. 
 A¥ho are these kings from the East I How will 
 the drying up of the symbolic Euphrates pre- 
 pare their way I On what errand will they 
 travel westward? Various and contradictory 
 answers have been given to these questions. 
 We would venture to submit a new solution. 
 The symbol is taken, we apprehend, from what 
 occurred at the siege of the literal Babylon. 
 
292 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 The Euphrates was diverted from Its channel, 
 and the conquerors, who came from the East, 
 entered the dry bed of the river, and the city 
 was taken. ^Mystic Babylon is now on the 
 eve of being overthrown ; and the exhaustion 
 of the Turkish empire may open a passage 
 from the East, — from Greece, Egypt, Persia, 
 and Russia, — for the kings and armies whom 
 it may be the purpose of God to summon to 
 the scene of Babylon''s destruction, partly to 
 aid in accomplishing it, and partly to share 
 in it. An intimation follows almost immedi- 
 ately, that in the battle of that great day of 
 God Almighty, not only will the kings of the 
 Roman earth be present, but likewise the kings 
 of the whole world. It is probable that the 
 representatives of the four great monarchies, 
 so far as these are still on the earth, will be 
 assembled on that occasion, and finally destroy- 
 ed. Thus the monarch beheld in his dream, 
 that the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, 
 and the gold, was broken to pieces together, 
 and became like the chaff of the summer 
 thrashing floors ; and the wind carried them 
 
THE SIXTH VIAL AND THE FROGS. 293 
 
 away, that no place was found for them. But of 
 this we shall have occasion afterwards to speak. 
 During the pouring out of the sixth vial upon 
 the Euphrates, Europe will become the scene of 
 busy intrigue. The skies of the western world 
 are to clear up for a little space; the light- 
 nings and hail of the seventh trumpet will be 
 intermitted, and the quiet interval will be in- 
 tensely occupied by the agents of the dragon, 
 the beast, and the false prophet, who shall pro- 
 secute with incredible zeal and activity their 
 unconscious mission of bringing on the grand 
 catastrophe. " And I saw three unclean spirits, 
 like frogs, come out of the mouth of the dragon, 
 and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of 
 the mouth of the false prophet. For they are 
 the spirits of devils, working miracles, which 
 go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the 
 whole world, to gather them to the battle of that 
 great day of God Almighty.'' We determine 
 the character of these three frogs, or spirits, by 
 tracing their origin. The first issues from the 
 mouth of the dragon, which is the old serpent 
 the devil. This can be nothing else than in- 
 
294 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 fidelity, the religion of Rome in its dragon 
 form, in conjunction with its usual concomi- 
 tants, democracy, and rebellion against all au- 
 thority, Divine and human. The next issues 
 from the mouth of the beast, i. e. the seven- 
 headed and ten-horned beast. The character- 
 istic principle of this beast, as distinguished 
 from that of the false prophet, is despotism. 
 The third and last spirit comes from the mouth 
 of the false prophet, and beyond question is 
 Popery. We have no hesitation, then, in con> 
 eluding, that the three principles that are to 
 burst into wide-spread and vehement action, 
 during the brief interval of quiet in Western 
 Europe, are infidelity, despotism, and Popery. 
 This marks conclusively, we think, our own 
 times as the period to which the prophecy has re- 
 ference. It is plain that the advocates of these 
 principles were to propagate them, not by the 
 sword, but by loquacious talk ; for they are sym- 
 bolized as frogs, — stingless frogs ; a figure which 
 has been employed since the time of Cicero, who 
 applies it to the prating demagogues of his day, 
 to designate the noisy advocates of demoraliz- 
 
THE SIXTH VIAL AND THE FROGS. 295 
 
 ing principles. Who is so ignorant as need 
 to be told how rampant these three principles 
 are at this moment in every country in Europe? 
 No sooner had peace returned to the West, 
 than Popery, with prodigious effort, set about 
 repairing the calamities of the vials. She ad- 
 vanced her former blasphemous pretensions ; 
 intrigued in every court of Europe ; flattered 
 sovereigns ; pandered to the passions of the 
 people ; had her men of science for the learn- 
 ed ; her miracle-workers for the ignorant ; sent 
 missionaries into every land ; affected liberality 
 in free states, and erected the Inquisition in 
 certain despotic ones. Thus did she labour to 
 recover her ancient dominion. The spirit of 
 despotism, too, rallied from the terrible blows 
 which the French Revolution had dealt it. 
 The former dynasties were restored, and, un- 
 taught by the bitter experience of the past, 
 began systematically to act on the principle of 
 enlarging the kingly prerogative, and curtailing 
 the popular privilege. France itself was no 
 exception. There this line of policy was pursu- 
 ed, both by the elder Bourbons and the house of 
 
296 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Orleans, who have borne sway since the Revo- 
 hition. And, as regards infidelity, there never 
 was an age since the Flood in which so great a 
 proportion of the human race were disbelievers. 
 Were the great apostles of infidelity, Voltaire 
 and Rousseau, to look up from the dead, how 
 would they be astonished at the success of their 
 labours ! A whole continent converted ! For 
 we affirm, without fear of contradiction, that 
 the vast proportion of the people of Europe at 
 this moment are atheists. Their whole charac- 
 ter, life, and creed, may be summed up in three 
 words : they fear nothing, worship nothing, and 
 believe in nothing. AVith what restless energy 
 has this spirit been propagating itself these 
 thirty years past ! Agencies innumerable has 
 it pressed into its service : the journals and 
 novels of France, the poetry and philosophy 
 of Germany, the university chairs on the 
 Rhine, the academies and printing-presses of 
 the Helvetic towns, — all have been the vehi- 
 cles of conveying infidelity, under its various 
 forms of neology, socialism, communism, pan- 
 theism ; and the result that has been wrought 
 
THE SIXTH VIAL AND THE FROGS. 297 
 
 out, especially on such a groundwork as the 
 Popish mummeries had been the means of creat- 
 ing, is not surprising. Thus have these sym- 
 bolic frogs covered Europe, penetrating every- 
 where, loading the air with their croakings, 
 and polluting the earth with their filth. But, 
 though individually insignificant and base, col- 
 lectively they have been the authors of a tre- 
 mendous catastrophe. In the execution of their 
 commission, they have gathered the kings of 
 the earth and of the whole world to the battle 
 of that great day of God Almighty. This is 
 the next terrible scene that opens before us. 
 
 On the very eve of battle a solemn warning 
 is tendered. " Behold, I come as a thief;'' for 
 this event is to overtake the world with unpre- 
 cedented and startling suddenness. " Blessed 
 IS he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, 
 lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." 
 This warning plainly imports, that immediately 
 before that great day, individuals and Churches 
 should be exposed to peculiar temptation to 
 forsake their principles, here symbolized by 
 their garments. The temptation will not arise 
 
298 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 from the persecution of force, but from the 
 seduction of these three spirits. Do recent 
 events throw no light on this prediction ? Has 
 not Puseyism solicited some to part with the 
 doctrine of Christ's atonement and interces- 
 sion ? Has not Erastianism solicited others to 
 give up the headship of the Lord Jesus ? And 
 has not neology tempted others to make ship- 
 wreck of the faith altogether? A peculiar 
 blessedness will be his who watcheth and keep- 
 eth his garments. 
 
 \/ 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 299 
 
 THE SEVENTH 1T[AL. 
 
 We have contemplated the period of judgment 
 that passed over Europe, commencing on the 
 4th of May 1789, with the splendid ceremonial 
 of the assembling of the States General at the 
 palace of Versailles, and terminating on the 
 18th of June 1815, with the awful carnage of 
 the field of Waterloo. History has been guilty 
 of an untruth, if another period can be founds 
 of the same length, in which so many dark woes 
 befell the human race. But when the period 
 of judgment came to an end, it was seen that, 
 though the world had suffered much, it had 
 learned nothing. " They blasphemed the God 
 of heaven because of their pains and their soreSy 
 and repented not of their deeds." No sooner 
 had the deluge passed over, than the ancient 
 
800 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 landmarks began to be restored. " Where is 
 the promise of his coming f said the men of 
 that time ; and, concluding that all things 
 ^yould go on as before, they began to make 
 provision accordingly. Absolutism set up the 
 thrones which the revolutionary tempest had 
 overturned ; superstition purified the altars 
 which atheism had profaned; and infidelity, 
 unawed by the display which God had given of 
 his being and holiness in his judgments, began 
 again to vent its blasphemies, and propagate 
 its shallow and impious dogmas. On the same 
 stage, the same three principles which had al- 
 ready convulsed Europe, and deluged it with 
 blood, anew began to act with increased ac- 
 tivity and energy. We now behold the result, 
 — a catastrophe which, even the men of the 
 world admit, threatens to shake the globe to 
 its farthest extremities. 
 
 " And the seventh angel poured out his vial 
 into the air ; and there came a great voice out 
 of the temple of heaven, from the throne, say- 
 ing. It is done. And there were voices, and 
 thunders, and lightnings ; and there was a great 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 801 
 
 earthquake, such as was not since men were 
 upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and 
 so great." The act of the angel was followed 
 by a great voice out of the temple of heaven, 
 from the throne, saying. It is done. The mys- 
 tery of Providence is finished and disclosed ; 
 and an end is put to the sufferings of the Church. 
 This symbol, we think, intimates that the dis- 
 pensation, when it should occur, would proclaim 
 its own character and mission. The Papacy 
 would feel that the blow was a final one, and 
 lose heart and spirit ; while the Church would 
 see in it the harbinger of deliverance, and hail 
 it with a shout of triumph. 
 
 Our readers will have gathered by this time, 
 that we are disposed to view the present wide- 
 spread revolutions of Europe as the commence- 
 ment of the pouring out of this vial. Let us 
 briefly recapitulate the evidence. In A. D. 530, 
 Justinian promulgated his code, giving a legal 
 standing to the Papacy, and enacting persecut- 
 ing laws against the Church. This we have ven« 
 tured to fix on as the probable commencement 
 of the twelve hundred and sixty years of pro- 
 
302 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 phesying in sackcloth. We add twelve hundred 
 and sixty years to the era of Justinian, and are 
 brought down to 1790, the era of the French 
 Revolution. We find the Revolution abrogat- 
 ing the Justinian code, alienating to State pur- 
 poses the Church's property, and declaring the 
 temporal power of the Pope to be finally abo- 
 lished. In these events we find what appears 
 to be the termination of the twelve hundred and 
 sixty years. From the commencement of the 
 vials at the Revolution, we have traced their 
 pouring out, one by one, on evidence which we 
 think will be considered tolerably satisfactory. 
 We have seen in the actual events, as in the 
 Apocalyptic symbols, each successive wave rise 
 higher and higher, till the throne of the beast 
 itself was overwhelmed. We have next seen 
 in the history, as in the Apocalypse, the scene 
 shift to the East ; and in 1820, by the Greek 
 insurrection, the waters of the Euphrates begin 
 to be dried up. At this point we meet the ter- 
 mination of two of DaniePs chronological lines. 
 The first is that of his two thousand three hun- 
 dred days or years. Reckoning from the in- 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. o03 
 
 vasion of Greece by Xerxes, to the insurrection 
 of the Greeks in 1820 against that power, line- 
 ally decended from Xerxes, which desolated 
 Greek Christendom, we find that there are ex- 
 actly two thousand three hundred years. To 
 the twelve hundred and sixty years Daniel adds 
 first a period of thirty, and after that a period 
 of forty-five years. The first thirty, we have 
 seen, brings us down to 1820, when eastern 
 Christendom began to be cleansed of the Ma- 
 hommedan desolation ; and its cleansing is now 
 so far advanced, that Protestant congregations 
 now enjoy a legal toleration in Turkey. The 
 second of DanieFs supplementary periods should 
 run out in 1865. It might be thought that the 
 seventh vial would not be poured out till that 
 year ; but it would appear from Daniel, that it 
 must commence so as that all its plagues may 
 be finished by that time ; for the prophet makes 
 that the commencing year of a blessed epoch : 
 " Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to 
 the thousand three hundred and five-and-thirty 
 days."' Seventeen years, — the time from the 
 present date to 1865, — does not seem too long 
 
804 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 for such revolutions and changes as those com- 
 prehended under the seventh vial. But, further, 
 we have seen the western world enjoy that 
 period of repose which it is plain from the pro- 
 phecy it should do, — a peace so lengthened 
 and profound as to have excited the astonish- 
 ment of statesmen. And, in the interval, we 
 have seen the three identical spirits symbolized 
 in the Apocalypse, commence an agitation in 
 point of energy and persistency exceeding any- 
 thing ever known before. And mainly, we 
 might say entirely, through their machinations, 
 while the world was saying Peace, and its wise 
 men could see no sign of coming convulsion, we 
 have seen a terrific storm all suddenly arise, 
 darkening the whole social and political horizon 
 of Europe, and, by its lightning-wars and its 
 earthquake-revolutions, shaking it from one ex- 
 tremity to another. 
 
 " And the seventh angel poured out his vial 
 into the air." The preceding vials had affect- 
 ed each a part of the antichristian system ; but 
 this falls with destructive force upon the whole 
 of it. The first was poured upon its earth, the 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 305 
 
 second upon its sea, and so on ; but this is 
 poured into its air. The atmosphere encom- 
 passes the globe, and any derangement occur- 
 ring there is fatal to the whole earth ; so this 
 vial being poured into the air of the Papacy, 
 involved the entire system in ruin. Its earth, 
 sea, rivers, and firmament, were all smitten at 
 once ; and after a series of dreadful convul- 
 sions, its fabric was for ever dissolved. As re- 
 gards the symbol before us, we can be at no 
 loss to interpret it, seeing it has been adopted 
 into the forms of our ordinary discourse. We 
 daily speak of the social and political atmo- 
 sphere. Into the air was the seventh vial pour- 
 ed. The air is the region of electric storms : 
 accordingly, the pouring of the vial into it was 
 instantly followed by " voices, thunders, and 
 lightnings ; and there was a great earthquake, 
 such as was not since men were upon the 
 earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great.^'' 
 These are the usual Apocalyptic symbols of 
 tumults, insurrections, wars, and revolutions. 
 The great and universal changes introduced 
 by the earthquake are farther described by a 
 
306 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 reference to the islands and mountains, the 
 symbol of great and small monarchies : " And 
 every island fled away, and the mountains were 
 not found. ^' Contemporaneous w'ith the shocks 
 by which the earth was moved to and fro, the 
 mountains overturned, and the islands sub- 
 merged, a great hail poured down from the fir- 
 mament. Hail is the emblem of northern war; 
 and this hail-storm was of unprecedented seve- 
 rity, every stone being about the weight of a ta- 
 lent. This tremendous infliction, however, does 
 not induce repentance ; for " men blasphemed 
 Ood because of the plague of the hail ; for the 
 plague thereof was exceeding great.'"* Accord- 
 ingly the vial is consummated by a last and 
 awful judgment on the Papacy. In the earth- 
 quake, the great city was divided into three 
 parts, as not unusually happens to cities simi- 
 larly visited ; and the cities of the nations fell. 
 This was the immediate precursor of the de- 
 struction of Antichrist ; for it is added, " And 
 great Babylon came in remembrance before 
 God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the 
 fierceness of his wrath." 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 307 
 
 We are taught, then, to expect, at the period 
 referred to, some sudden and great derange- 
 ment of the political atmosphere of Europe, — 
 the consequence, most probably, of the action 
 of the three spirits, who will succeed in charg- 
 ing it, as it were, with the most vicious, disor- 
 ganizing, and antagonist elements which some 
 event will suddenly bring into fierce collision ; 
 and in a single day, as it were, the whole of 
 Europe, so far, at least, as it was included in the 
 limits of Pagan and of Papal Rome, will burst 
 out in violent tumults and insurrections ; that 
 these will issue in a revolution of unprecedented 
 magnitude, — unprecedented both in the large- 
 ness of its sphere and the complete and radical 
 character of its changes. All former revolu- 
 tions have implied only a change from one form 
 of government to another ; but this will involve 
 the destruction of all government together. 
 When the Chaldean empire fell, it was succeed- 
 ed by the Medo-Persian ; when that was re- 
 moved, it was replaced by the Macedonian ; 
 and when the Macedonian came to an end, it 
 was followed by the Roman. But by what will 
 
308 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 the fall of the ten Roman kingdoms be succeed- 
 ed ? By the reign of anarchy, for a short period 
 at least. The fall both of the little kingdoms 
 and the great monarchies of Europe is plainly 
 predicted in the Apocalyptic representation; 
 for John saw that in the earthquake every 
 island fled away, and the mountains were not 
 found. This revolution will be followed, or, 
 more probably, accompanied, by a war of unex- 
 ampled severity and horrors. The hail of the 
 first trumpet was fulfilled in the descent of the 
 northern nations ; the hail of the seventh trum- 
 pet, in the terrible wars of the French Revolu- 
 tion; but here we have a hail-shower whose 
 violence is more terrific, and its effects more 
 destructive still ; for every stone is about the 
 weight of a talent. This symbolic hail will fall 
 on Europe from some northern region, — for hail 
 is a northern product, — from France, or perhaps 
 Russia. Another accompaniment, or rather con- 
 sequence, of the earthquake, is the division of 
 the great city into three parts, — either the for- 
 mation of the European commonwealth, after 
 its present kingdoms are broken up, into three 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. ^09 
 
 grand confederacies, or a threefold schism in 
 the Eoman Catholic Church. This will be im- 
 mediately followed by the destruction of great 
 Babylon, whose doom is here intimated in terms 
 the partial obscurity of which imparts a ter- 
 rible emphasis to their meaning : " And great 
 Babylon came in remembrance before God, to 
 give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierce- 
 ness of his wrath;' Let us compare that part 
 of the monarch's dream of the four kingdoms 
 which synchronizes with the prediction before 
 us. Nebuchadnezzar traced the image to its ten 
 toes,— the ten kingdoms. He saw the iron, the 
 clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken 
 to pieces together, and become like the chaff of 
 the summer thrashing-floors ; when all sudden- 
 ly the winds of heaven arose, and swept away 
 its very dust. The fourth kingdom was not suc- 
 ceeded by a fifth ; nor was it removed by the 
 sword of a foreign foe : it grew weak apace ; 
 its iron became mixed with clay,— the despotic 
 with the democratic element. At last it fell by 
 internal disorganization ; and the winds of po- 
 pular fury, bursting upon it in all their force, 
 
310 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 swept its fragments away, and effaced every 
 trace of its existence. Such is the catastrophe 
 which prophecy reveals as awaiting the ten Ro- 
 man kingdoms of modern Europe. The pro- 
 phecy of Daniel synchronizes with the seventh 
 vial, and throws light upon it. The symbols 
 of the two prophecies are different, but their 
 import is most obviously the same. Both por- 
 tend an entire change in the social and political 
 fabric of Europe, — the fall of its kingdoms, the 
 extinction of its dynasties, the alteration of its 
 laws and forms of government, the abolition of 
 its offices and dignities, the dissolution of its 
 armies, the destruction of all the symbols of its 
 authority, and the obliteration even of the ter- 
 ritorial boundaries of its States. Nothing short 
 of this can fulfil the figures of Daniel and the 
 symbols of the Apocalypse. In the one we not 
 only behold the image ground to powder, but 
 its last particles swept away by the tempest. 
 In the other we see the earthquake burying 
 cities, overthrowing mountains, and agitating 
 the waters of the ocean so as to submerge the 
 islands. If figures have any meaning, these must 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 811 
 
 import the total overthrow of all the powers 
 that now bear rule in Europe, and the utter 
 extinction of the last vestige of their authority. 
 It is a new creation which the world is to under- 
 go, and dreadful upheavings and convulsions 
 will usher it in. 
 
 When we turn from the symbols of the Apo- 
 calypse to the astounding events now passing in 
 quick and startling succession across the stage 
 of Europe, we think we behold in the latter the 
 realization of the former ; — we think we hear 
 the roar of those mighty winds that are to sweep 
 away the fragments of the iron kingdom, and feel 
 the shocks of that great earthquake that is to 
 remove the mountains of European Governments. 
 If we are wrong, we ask, will the scene be more 
 dreadful when it does come, or will it bear a closer 
 resemblance to the prophecy I Here we have the 
 great voice from the temple saying, It is done, 
 in the impression, strong and deep, in which 
 men of all classes and all nations share, that a 
 new era is opening on the world. The states- 
 man, the Christian, the masses, all alike parti- 
 cipate in this feeling. That awful and unknown 
 
312 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Future discloses itself to few, but it makes its 
 approach felt by all. It is a pillar of cloud to 
 the world ; a pillar of fire to the Church. The 
 elements now dominant in society are altogether 
 diverse from those which at any former period 
 moulded its institutions or governed its affairs. 
 Thus, we lack the clue in our endeavours to ex- 
 plore the future. The conditions of the problem 
 are unascertained. Induction, analogy, and even 
 our past experience, avail us nothing. One thing 
 only do all feel and acknowledge, — that an un- 
 precedented change is approaching, and that 
 the future must be altogether different from the 
 past. 
 
 This is no vague and ungrounded impression, 
 like what has existed at some former stages of 
 the world's history, springing from the ferment 
 of men's minds, whose hopes were excited and 
 their imaginations dazzled by the novelty of 
 unwonted events. It is the legitimate conclu- 
 sion of calm reason. It rests on a basis of 
 well-ascertained facts. Its strength in different 
 minds is in proportion, not to the ignorance, 
 but to the knowledge which the person pos- 
 
THE SEYEx^TH VIAL. 313 
 
 sesses, of human society. Those who have the 
 best opportunities of making themselves ex- 
 tensively acquainted with the state of the 
 world, are those who entertain the impression 
 most deeply. Society has come to possess new 
 powers of thought, new principles of action, 
 new elements of change. We speak now more 
 particularly of that part of the world which is 
 held forth in the Apocalypse as the scene of 
 its catastrophes. In the first place, the foun- 
 dation of all obligation has been completely 
 razed in the minds of the inhabitants, gene- 
 rally speaking, of this portion of the world, 
 which, let us ever remember, is, and for the past 
 two thousand years has been, the most influential 
 portion of the world. The Pantheism which 
 in the end of the last century was confined to 
 the closets of the studious, — whose three foci 
 were Verney, Lausanne, and Clarence, — is now 
 the vulgar creed of the European masses. God 
 to them is but a principle, not a person. They 
 feel that they have no relations to Him, are not 
 accountable to Him, and have neither good nor 
 evil to hope for from Him. It is plain that in 
 
SI 4 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 minds in which this creed is entertained, all 
 sense of obligation must be at an end ; and 
 with the sense of obligation extinct, on what 
 ground can authority longer maintain itself? 
 It has lost its fulcrum, and finds itself para- 
 lyzed. It is plain that men with such a creed 
 are prepared to abolish all authority, make 
 their own will their law, and their own interest 
 their end, the very first moment they may be- 
 come sufficiently numerous and powerful to re- 
 sist constituted order with impunity. Popery 
 has been the primary agent in bringing about 
 so fearful a state of matters. The mummeries 
 of her priests prepared men to listen to the 
 impieties of Voltaire. The dogmas of atheism 
 are not more shocking to reason than those of 
 the Papacy. And as on Popery mainly rests 
 the guilt, so on her mainly shall fall the doom. 
 But along with the new mental philosophy 
 came a new political philosophy, — new theories 
 of social life,-^new opinions regarding the uses 
 and prerogatives of Government, the source of 
 power, and the extent of popular privileges. 
 The spread of these theories was powerfully 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 315 
 
 aided by those means, of recent discovery and 
 invention, for the instantaneous diffusion of 
 knowledge, — the daily journals, the clubs, de- 
 legates, university lectures, tracts, pamphlets, 
 volumes, sermons, songs. Machinery the most 
 varied and powerful was employed in the cause, 
 and wrought with untiring energy ; and con- 
 verts were made by hundreds and thousands. 
 While the two great apostles of infidelity were 
 sleeping in the catacombs of the Parthenon, 
 their disciples were traversing Europe, fight- 
 ing with the weapons their masters supplied, 
 battering down the strongholds of superstition, 
 and undermining the fabric of Government. 
 While the guardians of the old order of things 
 slept, the enemy was sowing his tares. Every 
 day recruited their numbers : numbers gave 
 them courage, and union gave them strength. 
 They saw that without them Governments were 
 weak ; they saw, too, that Governments had 
 lost them ; and they stood prepared, on the 
 first provocation, to shiver into atoms, at one 
 mighty blow, the old powerless monarchical 
 
316 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 fabrics, whose appearance was still imposing, 
 but whose real strength was gone. 
 
 Such was the position of Europe six months 
 a-go, — before the outbreak. That part of the 
 world had for ages been ruled by the twin 
 powers of superstition and force. The Conti- 
 nental nations had now completely emanci- 
 pated themselves from the restraints of the 
 first : infidelity had broken that yoke. Force 
 only remained. It was the last bulwark ; and 
 if that should give way, no human power could 
 prevent the waters breaking in. Of that order 
 of things Metternich was the type. He stood 
 between the dynasties and the democracies, — 
 the last bulwark which guarded the ever-grow- 
 ing decrepitude of the one from the ever-wax- 
 ing strength of the other. And he understood 
 his position. Hence his memorable words, — 
 ^' After me the deluge.''^ Such, we say, was the 
 position of Europe immediately before that un- 
 exampled outbreak, which has taken by sur- 
 prise those only who were unacquainted with 
 the true state of matters; and there were none 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 317 
 
 that shared so deeply in this dangerous ignorance 
 as those who had most at stake, and whose duty 
 it was to have taken measures of precaution. The 
 avalanche had gathered, and hung trembling on 
 the mountain's brow ; but, alas ! the dwellers in 
 the plain beneath lived on in profound security, 
 little dreaming that a single breath might draw 
 down upon them the thundering ruin. 
 
 But what a dark prospect does this open for 
 the future I Here is a state of society that never 
 existed before. It has found a new bond of union; 
 it avows new objects, and is armed with new 
 and tremendous powers for achieving these ob- 
 jects. How plain is it that the fate of all the 
 existing monarchies of Papal Europe is sealed t 
 There is no longer ground of any kind on which 
 their authority can be based, or their functions 
 carried on. All sense of obligation to them, as 
 the appointed conservators of order, is gone, 
 their subjects having lost all respect for the au- 
 thority of the Great Ruler ; their armies frater- 
 nize with the people; and in these circunistances, 
 their last prop having given way, there appears 
 no possibility of saving them from destruction. 
 
318 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Already we behold their power completely para- 
 lyzed ; and even where the throne is still left 
 standing, law is prostrate, and all the functions 
 of government are virtually executed by the 
 mob. But what is to take the place of those 
 empires that are now on the eve of dissolution I 
 If the Governments that already exist cannot 
 be maintained, where shall we find elements 
 for the re-construction of new ones ? The 
 causes so powerfully at work in society at this 
 moment are all of a disorganizing kind. Where 
 no riffht to exact obedience is acknowledged, 
 and no power to compel obedience exists, how- 
 ls anything bearing even a faint resemblance 
 to Government to be constructed? It is on 
 ANARCHY that Europe is at this moment drift- 
 ing. The image is in the act of being ground 
 to powder, and the mighty winds are rising in 
 their strength, to sweep from the face of the 
 earth its very particles. The shocks of the 
 great earthquake have begun, and the islands 
 disappear, and the mountains are moved out 
 of their place. 
 
 All attempts, whatever the country in which 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 319 
 
 they are now making, to restore order and 
 erect new constitutions, have only one issue, 
 and that is, greater confusion. France was 
 able in three days to abolish her monarchy; 
 but how many ages will she require, judging 
 from her present rate of progress, to construct 
 her new republican edifice? Her people live 
 in the midst of perpetual alarms ; her factions 
 are daily growing in strength and fierceness ; 
 bloody conspiracies are breaking out, and drag- 
 ging her, ere she is aware, to the brink of a 
 universal massacre. Unhappy France ! She 
 has denied the doctrine of an immortality ; 
 she has ridiculed the idea of hell ; and is there 
 no reason to fear that she is about to become 
 in her own person a proof of the doctrine 
 %vhich she has ridiculed ? Is there no reason 
 to fear that she is about to afibrd to the world 
 an awful demonstration, that whether or no 
 there is a hell hereafter, there may be a hell 
 here, — a hell upon the earth. Let the pas- 
 sions of her masses be unchained but a little 
 more, and France will be a pit of torment, — 
 one wide region of social burning and woe, set 
 
320 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 forth in the midst of Europe as a terrible sign 
 to its nations ; suffering, like Sodom and Go- 
 morrah, the vengeance of fire. 
 
 If we turn to Germany, on the east of the 
 Rhine, we find that she has not cast away so 
 completely as her neighbour on the west of 
 that river, the principles of stability and unity. 
 The Mephistopheles spirit of negation does not 
 as yet possess her to the same degree. She 
 does not only destroy ; she constructs. The 
 wide scene of disorganization she is beginning 
 to exhibit is gilded by the golden rays of the 
 spirit of German poetry. For we cannot but 
 regard as the dream of the poet, rather than 
 the sober conception of the statesman, the pro- 
 ject she is now attempting to realize, of restor- 
 ing the old Germanic empire, surmounted by 
 the crown of the Caesars. The project rises be- 
 fore us, in these days of uncertainty and mis- 
 giving, in imposing splendour, — an Aladdin"'s 
 Castle, — a palace of the Sicilian Fairy Queen, — 
 built, too, we suspect, like hers, of sunshine and 
 sea-mist. While we write, the Deputies have 
 assembled, to whom the grave task has been en- 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. S21 
 
 trusted of framing that constitution which is to 
 combine into one great empire the various Ger- 
 manic States, and, by developing their elements 
 of greatness, and concentrating their energies, 
 make them once more a unity and power in 
 Europe, — a bulwark between the absolutism of 
 the East and the republicanism of the West. 
 Are the men competent, or circumstances pro- 
 pitious I Alas ! their first meeting was passed 
 in disorder. But though the men were of ap- 
 proved political sagacity and prudence, there 
 are insurmountable obstacles in their way. 
 Every step will create rival claims, and rouse 
 conflicting interests, the adjustment of which 
 were difficult at any time, but altogether im- 
 possible at present. Who shall wear the im- 
 perial crown ? Will the Emperor of Austria 
 permit it to pass from his brow I Or will Frede- 
 rick William of Prussia, who is to bring all his 
 States within the circle of the confederation, 
 yield to the more ancient claims of the house of 
 Hapsburg ? Where shall the capital be fixed ? 
 Will Vienna and Berlin be content to descend 
 to the second rank, while Frankfort-on-the- 
 
 X 
 
322 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Maine rises at once from provincial obscurity 
 into imperial splendour ? How shall the inde- 
 pendence of the separate States be secured 
 consistently with the sovereignty of the whole ? 
 Will the anomaly offered by the composition of 
 the Second Chamber, according to which sove- 
 reign princes shall sit side by side with their 
 own subjects, form no obstruction ? Such are 
 a few of the difficulties that stand in the way. 
 They stamp the scheme with an empirical cha- 
 racter. Its realization at this moment, — when 
 the work of internal disorganization is going on 
 so rapidly, — when the waters of republicanism 
 are rising on the western frontier of Germany, 
 and the tempests of war are gathering on her 
 northern and eastern borders, — is utterly hope- 
 less. Thus, all attempts at reconstruction end 
 only in failure. The great settlements of Europe, 
 too, are disregarded. Its last treaty, — that of 
 Vienna, — has gone to the same bourne as the 
 treaties of Utrecht and Westphalia. But other 
 bonds, more powerful to conserve society than 
 the treaties of princes, have been given to the 
 winds, — the sense of obligation and the love of 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 323 
 
 order on the part of the people. Thus society 
 has lost its cement ; there is no principle of 
 cohesion in it ; and therefore there is no vi- 
 sible limit to the changes the world is now un- 
 dergoing. There is no resting-place in sight. 
 So far as the eye can reach, there is nothing in 
 prospect but change coming after change, till 
 society shall have been resolved into its ulti- 
 mate elements. 
 
 When the seventh angel had poured out his 
 vial, and the great voice from the throne had 
 announced, It is done, there were 
 
 VOICES, THUNDEPiB, AND LIGHTNIXGS. 
 
 These are the symbols of popular commo- 
 tions, tumults, insurrections, and wars. Let 
 us again turn to passing events, as affording a 
 commentary more striking and exact than any 
 which the mere imagination can supply. How 
 plain is it that the present crisis has been 
 brought on by the action of the three prin- 
 ciples indicated in the prophecy, — Absolutism, 
 
324! THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 Infidel Democracy, and Popery ! Both the 
 long previous preparation and the ultimate out- 
 break have been their work. Since the close of 
 the last war, these three principles have been 
 fiercely struggling for the ascendancy in every 
 country of Europe. Indeed, the history of 
 Europe since 1815 is but the history of the 
 progress of these principles. The civil war in 
 Switzerland last autumn was occasioned by the 
 intrigues of these identical parties, — the com- 
 munists, the oligarchists, and the priests. 
 Equally easy is it to trace the operation of 
 these principles in the late terrible convulsion 
 in France. The policy of the Court, guided by 
 the Romish party, which aimed at restoring to 
 the Bourbon throne the full despotic sway wield- 
 ed before the first Revolution, came into collision 
 with the growing democracy of the country ; and 
 in that collision the monarchy was lost. And 
 when the Revolution came, it found the whole 
 of Europe prepared. The change had been al- 
 ready wrought, and needed only such an event 
 as that of the 23d of February to reveal it. 
 Does any man imagine that these old dynasties 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 325 
 
 and empires could have been shattered in a day, 
 and changed like the scenes in a pantomime, if 
 all had not been ready beforehand? Surely 
 no. In these sudden and astonishing changes 
 we behold the mighty effects which have follow- 
 ed the mission of the three frogs. 
 
 Another striking coincidence is the fact 
 that the present convulsions have followed an 
 interval of profound quiet. It is plain from 
 the prophecy, that such an interval would pre- 
 cede the pouring out of the seventh vial. After 
 the calamities of the first five vials, and during 
 the pouring out of the sixth, the western world 
 was to enjoy repose. This is apparent from 
 the following considerations. The scene of the 
 sixth vial is the Euphrates ; implying a re- 
 moval of judgment from the West. The suc- 
 cessful execution of the mission of the frogs, 
 too, demanded the cessation of convulsions, and 
 especially those of war. Moreover, the warn- 
 ing, " Behold, I come as a thief,'' implies that 
 the eff'usion of the seventh vial should take the 
 world by surprise. Men should be dreaming 
 of a long continuance of prosperity and tran- 
 
f?26 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 qiiillity, when all suddenly the plagues of the 
 consummation should overtake them. How 
 confidently were we reckoning on a long peace 
 when these troubles broke out ! And, so far as 
 human foresight could reach, the expectation 
 appeared to be well founded. The generation 
 had not yet passed away who had witnessed 
 the horrors of the last war, and, before plung- 
 ing into a new one, were likely to inquire whe- 
 ther they would reap more profit from it than 
 they had done from that which preceded it. 
 The warriors and statesmen were still alive who 
 had sworn to wreathe with myrtle the sword of 
 Waterloo. We possessed other and stronger 
 guarantees of tranquillity. Peace was multiply- 
 ing her trophies ; commerce was enlarging her 
 field of operation ; the intercourse of nations, 
 daily extending, was strengthening the feeling 
 of amity and the bonds of concord. The press 
 was forming a public opinion strongly adverse 
 to war. It is not many months since the pro- 
 found tranquillity of the western world, and the 
 probable continuance of that tranquillity, were 
 proclaimed from the thrones of England and 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 327 
 
 France on almost the same day. Yet all these 
 securities have been found of little avail. The 
 affairs of Europe have become complicated be- 
 yond the hope of human solution. There have 
 been tumults, insurrections, conflicts, all over 
 the Continent. War has broken out in several 
 of its countries, characterized by a peculiarly 
 fierce and sanguinary spirit. The shocks of 
 earthquake -revolution have followed each other 
 with astounding rapidity; and the firmament is 
 already darkened by the impending horrors of a 
 European war, — the gathering of the symbolic 
 hail-storm which is to fall on men, every stone 
 about the weight of a talent. 
 
 It is farther remarkable, that the part of the 
 system afi*ected is precisely that on which the 
 vial was to be poured, — the air, the political 
 and social atmosphere. The plagues of the 
 last and consummating vial were not to take 
 their rise from wars of conquest, like the 
 plagues of the preceding vials : they were to 
 spring immediately out of a sudden and awful 
 derangement of the political firmament. How 
 manifest is it that this is the origin of the trou- 
 
328 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 bles in which Europe is at present involved ! 
 Not from without have come the evils with 
 which all its countries are at this moment af- 
 flicted. They have arisen from within ; they 
 have had their birth in the vitiated state of 
 moral and political feeling. Though the ele- 
 ments of plague had been cast into the natural 
 atmosphere, the contagion could scarce have 
 spread more instantaneously and universally. 
 On the 2.3d of February the revolution broke 
 out at Paris ; and before the 5th of March, 
 every country lying between the Atlantic and 
 the Vistula had, in a greater or less degree, 
 been revolutionized. Although the outbreak in 
 France had impregnated the whole atmosphere 
 of Europe with the principles of revolution, the 
 effect could not have been more striking. The 
 contagion crossed the Alps, and gave additional 
 urgency to demands which had already begun 
 to be made by the Italian principalities for 
 constitutional rights. It passed the Po, and 
 penetrated the very stronghold of European 
 despotism. Metternich fled before it, leaving 
 the once powerful empire whose policy he 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 329 
 
 had so long guided, a prey to terrible cala- 
 mities. It descended the Rhine along its en- 
 tire course from the mountains of the Black 
 Forest, stirring its dukedoms and electorates 
 into tumult and insurrection. It struck east- 
 ward into the very heart of Germany, still 
 producing, wherever it came, the same commo- 
 tions,— voices, lightnings, and thunders. The 
 great kingdom of Prussia felt its shock, and 
 has well nigh been prostrated before it. Its 
 force was spent only when it had reached the 
 Russian frontier. Providence had said to it, 
 " Hitherto, but no farther ;" and here, accord- 
 ingly, its progress was arrested. It will not 
 cross the Vistula ; for Russia forms no part of 
 the Romish earth, and Providence has reserved 
 this powerful kingdom, it would appear, for other 
 purposes. We see, then, the unprecedented ex- 
 tent of the movement. On almost the same day, 
 the various nations inhabiting from the hills of 
 Sicily to the shores of the Baltic have met, to 
 discuss the same grievances and urge the same 
 demands. They did not act by concert; nothing 
 had been arranged beforehand ; none were more 
 
330 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 astonished at what was going on than the actors 
 themselves in these scenes. One mighty in- 
 fluence had moved the minds of an hundred na- 
 tions, as the mind of one man ; and all obeyed 
 a power which every one felt to be irresistible. 
 Although the angel had poured his vial of re- 
 volution literally into the air, could the result 
 have been more astonishing ? 
 
 It is one leading excellency of the symbols of 
 the Apocalypse, that they so truthfully depict the 
 event, that they possess a self-evidencing or self- 
 interpreting power. The event forcibly suggests 
 the symbol to the mind. Thus, in tracing the 
 history of the trumpets, as given by Gibbon in 
 his " Decline and Fall,"' how often do we find 
 the historian selecting the precise metaphors to 
 depict certain events, which had been previously 
 employed for the very some purpose in the Apo- 
 calypse. Some of these have been incidentally 
 alluded to in the course of our exposition ; but 
 the instances are numerous. We find the same 
 fact occurring in the history of the vials, as given 
 by Sir Walter Scott, in his " Life of Napoleon."" 
 Neither Gibbon nor Scott meant to illustrate 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 331 
 
 the predictions of the Apocalypse; nor have we 
 reason to think that they borrowed their figures 
 from the symbols of that book, or were even 
 aware that these symbols had been applied to 
 the events about which they were occupied ; 
 but such is their truth to nature, that these 
 two great masters of metaphor could find no 
 imagery more appropriate for describing these 
 events than that very imagery which the Spirit 
 of God had previously employed in predicting 
 them. This undesigned but striking coinci- 
 dence between the figures of history and the 
 symbols of prophecy is evidence of a peculiarly 
 satisfactory kind, that we are correct in our in- 
 terpretation of the trumpets and vials. But 
 every day is furnishing evidence of the same 
 kind, that we are correct also in our interpreta- 
 tion of the seventh vial. In the comments of 
 the daily journals we are constantly meeting the 
 symbols of the Apocalypse. The drama now in 
 progress far transcends the apprehension of 
 journalists, both in its character, and in the im- 
 portant issues it is destined to work out ; but 
 the unconscious selection of the symbols of the 
 
332 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 seventh vial to depict the events of our times 
 is only on that account the more striking and 
 valuable. Thus we find the leading journal of 
 Europe, in an article published in its columns 
 in the end of March, tracing all the explosions 
 of our times to the very quarter from which we 
 are taught to expect the voices, lightnings, and 
 thunders of the seventh vial. Speaking of Aus- 
 tria, it says, — " It is by no means unlikely that, 
 in the present state of national feeling in many 
 of the provinces, and in the electrical condition 
 of the political atmosphere all over Europe^ the 
 fall of the central authority, which has so long 
 contrived to neutralize their conflicting tenden- 
 cies, will be followed by a series of local explo- 
 sions.'' 
 
 The voices, thunders, and lightnings of this 
 vial were to be followed by a 
 
 GREAT EARTHQUAKE, 
 
 *' Such as was not since men were upon the 
 earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great/* 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 333 
 
 We are thus taught to expect, at the era of the 
 seventh vial, greater changes than any that ever 
 passed upon the world. There was an earth- 
 quake when the sixth seal was opened, — the 
 fall of Paganism; there was an earthquake 
 when the witnesses arose at the Reformation ; 
 there was a great earthquake when the seventh 
 trumpet was sounded, — the first rise of demo- 
 cracy in the old world ; but the earthquake of 
 the seventh vial is unequalled since men were 
 upon the earth. Other revolutions altered the 
 framework of government : this will, for a short 
 period at least, abolish it. Other revolutions 
 strongly affected society : this will change the 
 character of society. Here, again, we find that 
 passing events furnish incomparably the best 
 commentary on the prophecy. There never 
 was a revolution since the beginning of time 
 whose causes were so deep-seated as that now 
 in progress in Europe ; and the effects that are 
 sure to follow it will therefore be great and 
 durable beyond all former example. The up- 
 heavings with which the whole of the Continent 
 is agitated come from the very bottom of society. 
 
334 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 The changes we have seen are not the produc- 
 tion of an agency that operates only on the 
 surface : they are the growth of feehngs and 
 views with which the whole of European society 
 is leavened. In truth, the change has been 
 going on for a century. It was begun by the 
 infidel writers of France, who sowed industri- 
 ously the seeds which they knew would yield 
 mighty revolutions to the world, after they 
 should have gone to their graves. It next 
 passed into opinion. And now it has com- 
 pleted its third and great stage, and stands 
 before the world ixfait accompli. History does 
 not furnish an example of such another revolu- 
 tion, — a revolution which has advanced gradu- 
 ally, yet irresistibly, from its first principles, — 
 which has moulded opinion for itself, — which 
 has never advanced a stage till it had first pre- 
 pared its ground, — which has required a cen- 
 tury for its growth, and, now that it is fully 
 developed, has changed the aspect of the world ; 
 for its effects cannot be confined to Europe, but 
 must extend to the farthest verge of civilization. 
 We are accustomed to speak of three French 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 335 
 
 revolutions ; but, in truth, the great movement 
 in that country, though it has had three noted 
 manifestations, is but one, and is truly Euro- 
 pean in its character. This movement was 
 stopped for a while by the great war which 
 followed its first outbreak ; but no sooner was 
 that war at an end, than the movement began 
 again to progress. It is bearing the world on- 
 ward to a new and untried era. Its course is 
 entirely in the hands of God; and lies as far be- 
 yond man''s control, as does that grand move- 
 ment of the sun and planets which is every 
 hour advancing our system upon some un- 
 known point in space. It is beyond question 
 the great agent by which the fourth and last 
 monarchy of Daniel is to be broken in pieces. 
 And we see it executing its mission with irre- 
 sistible and uncontrollable force, — abrogat- 
 ing the laws, abolishing the very forms and 
 symbols of authority, and grinding to powder 
 the framework of the iron kingdom of Rome ; 
 prostrating thrones; extinguishing dynasties; 
 crushing altars and priesthoods; driving into 
 exile princes and nobles ; pouring contempt 
 
3S6 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 upon the policy of statesmen and the strength 
 of armies ; rocking the chair of St Peter itself, 
 and filling its occupant with inconceivable grief, 
 perplexity, and dismay ; and evoking against 
 the seven hills, whose thunders were wont to 
 shake the world, the mighty winds of popular 
 rage, w^hich threaten every moment to sweep 
 in their fury, from the face of the earth, that 
 awful throne which has so long enslaved and 
 desolated it. Who can doubt, although he 
 may be unable to tell how many shocks may 
 yet follow, or how long these awful convulsions 
 may continue, that this is the " mighty*" and 
 '' great'"* earthquake ? 
 
 Let us take a brief survey of the changes 
 which this third and grand development of 
 revolution has already achieved. We look for 
 the governments, the laws, the armies, which 
 have borne sway in Europe for the past fifteen 
 hundred years, and which existed, apparently 
 in all their strength, when the current year 
 opened, and find that they have been shivered 
 by a tremendous blow, and driven away as chaff 
 before the tempest. Ere the French Revolu- 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 837 
 
 tion was a month old, it had effected an en- 
 tire change upon the aspect of Europe. The 
 events of centuries were crowded into as many 
 days ; one astounding change followed another 
 with a rapidity which dazzled the imagination ; 
 and the occurrences of yesterday gave place, in 
 the astonishment of men, to that caused by the 
 more surprising intelligence of to-day. Defy- 
 ing the checks of power, and transcending the 
 anticipations of even the most sanguine, the 
 great movement went on, gathering momentum 
 as it proceeded, and levelling to the dust all 
 the barriers of a venerable despotism. Let us 
 follow its course, and mark its changes. In 
 certain of the Italian principalities some po- 
 pular concessions had previously been made. 
 To these it communicated permanency, and 
 still farther enlarged them. It extorted reli- 
 gious freedom from the bigoted monarch of 
 Sardinia ; it emancipated the duchies lying at 
 the base of the Alps, — Tuscany, Modena, Par- 
 ma ; and lifted the long proscribed Walden- 
 ses to an equality with their countrymen in 
 eivil and religious rights; it excited the wealthy 
 
 Y 
 
838 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 province of Lombard}', — which, like Issachar 
 of old, seeing that rest was good and the land 
 pleasant, had couched down between the two 
 burdens of Rome and Austria, — to rebel 
 against at least the latter yoke ; it gave a 
 new impulse to the war of independence in 
 Sicily ; above all, it told Pius the Ninth that 
 he could no longer deal in sham reforms, and 
 no longer amuse his subjects with verbal con- 
 cessions, and constitutions on paper, but must 
 begin in good earnest the work of reform, by 
 bestowing real and substantial privileges on 
 the Roman people. We may instance the 
 Neapolitan constitution as an example of those 
 granted by the chief native princes of Italy. 
 The King is vested in the executive power ; 
 but no act of his can have force unless coun- 
 tersigned by a Minister. There are two Cham- 
 bers, — one of Peers, and another of Deputies. 
 The members of the former are nominated for 
 life ; those of the latter are chosen for a term 
 of five years. The number of Deputies is in 
 the ratio of one for every forty thousand souls, 
 and they are chosen by the citizens possessing a 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 339 
 
 certain amount of income. The Ministers of the 
 Crown are subject to impeachment before the 
 Chamber of Deputies, and to judgment by the 
 Peers. The citizens are declared equal before 
 the law; their dwellings are inviolable; and the 
 press is free. In the other States, the consti- 
 tution, in its political machinery, resembles the 
 Neapolitan. In Tuscany and Piedmont it is 
 more liberal, securing freedom of commerce 
 and toleration of all religions. But its great- 
 est achievement awaited it on the east of the 
 Po. Austria had been the key-stone in the 
 arch of Continental despotism ; and when Aus- 
 tria fell, the fabric of European feudalism be- 
 came a mass of crumbling ruin. The vast 
 change which the revolutionary spirit effected 
 on this country may be conceived of from the 
 single fact, not to dwell on other particulars, 
 that universal suffrage was immediately esta- 
 blished, and full liberty was given to all the 
 subjects of the empire to worship according to 
 their conscience ; and that, too, notwithstand- 
 ing that the power of the aristocracy, and the 
 wealth and pride of the Romish hierarchy, had 
 
340 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 continued, up to the present time, to be far 
 greater in Austria than in any other country 
 of Europe. North of the Alps the effects of 
 the great Revolution were just as palpable as 
 on the south of these mountains. It awoke 
 the spirit of the Germans, long repressed, and 
 recalled the memory of their ancient liberties 
 and their past renown ; it darted a ray of 
 light between the dark clouds which have long 
 rested above the land of Huss ; it gave a free 
 government to priest-ridden Bavaria ; it gave 
 constitutional privileges to the numerous duch- 
 ies that girdle the Black Forest, long enthral- 
 led by petty tyrants. In the electorates on 
 the Rhine it produced popular demands, which 
 were instantly followed by popular concessions. 
 In the great empire of Prussia, and in the 
 neighbouring kingdoms of Hanover and Sax- 
 ony, it made its power equally felt. In the 
 former kingdom, a momentary indecision of 
 the monarch served only to render more ap- 
 parent the force of the movement. In Berlin 
 barricades arose, blood flowed, and the popu- 
 lace, triumphing over the throne, were able to 
 
THE SEVENTH A'lAL. o4)l 
 
 dictate their own terms. Thus, in the short 
 space of a single month, it changed the condi- 
 tion of every country lying between the Straits 
 of Messina and the shores of the Baltic. It 
 created, in fact, a new Europe. It established 
 in all its countries, by concession at least, the 
 three great bulwarks of civil liberty, namely, 
 constitutional government, trial by jury, and 
 the right of public meeting. In the rear of its 
 political changes it brought likewise vast social 
 and moral meliorations. It rent asunder the 
 chains that bound the press ; it abolished the 
 lines of custom-houses with which Europe was 
 crossed and recrossed in all directions; and it 
 swept away the restrictions employed to fetter 
 the truth ; thus giving to the nations an un- 
 restricted commerce, the free diffusion of know- 
 ledge, and liberty to proclaim the truth. It 
 may be some time before the people of Europe 
 are in a condition to profit from these altera- 
 tions, and it is even possible that new obstacles 
 may come in the room of those that have been 
 swept away ; but it is scarce conceivable that 
 the restrictions on trade, literature, and reli- 
 
342 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 gion, framed in a dark, ill-informed, and super- 
 stitious age, will ever again be generally re- 
 enacted. 
 
 For some weeks after the breaking out of the 
 Revolution there appeared ground to hope that 
 the Governments of Europe might be amended 
 without being destroyed. The changes de- 
 manded were constitutional in character, and 
 moderate in degree ; they were prosecuted by 
 peaceable means, and conceded, in almost every 
 instance, as soon as asked for. When all had 
 been granted that was sought, men believed that 
 farther demands would cease to be urged, and 
 that princes and people would unite in putting 
 to the test of actual working the new constitu- 
 tions. But this hope has not been realized. It 
 has been found impossible to stay the progress 
 of change. All attempts at the reconstruction 
 of order have been manifest failures. The hope 
 that authority and rule might be preserved must 
 now be given up. The Revolution has passed 
 the Rubicon; and the terrible fact stares us in 
 the face, that it is on anarchy that Europe at 
 this moment is drifting. We speak not of 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 343 
 
 the confusion and misrule into which its little 
 princedoms have fallen : its greatest monarchies 
 are breaking up ; its oldest statesmen are non- 
 plussed ; and its mightiest thrones are power- 
 less. There is a moral decomposition going on? 
 everywhere : authority is prostrate ; laws are 
 violated with impunity ; and from the Atlantic' 
 to the Vistula kings are little better than cap- 
 tives, and the mob is the sovereign. In the 
 train of these political evils has come a host of 
 commercial and social mischiefs. The ordinary 
 business of life is to a great degree suspended, 
 — commerce paralyzed, — trade and manufac- 
 tures at a stand-still, — the exchequers wofully 
 impoverished, — the lower classes discontented, 
 and at war with those above them, — the upper 
 classes terrified, and without confidence in the 
 future, — the towns swarming with barricade- 
 heroes, the country with rural marauders, — and 
 the masses everywhere ripe for any mischief. 
 
 What a picture of dislocation and ruin does 
 France present ! Look at that once powerful 
 kingdom, — the eldest horn of the beast, and 
 one of the chief agents in the slaughter of the 
 
344 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 witnesses, — and see how God is avenging the 
 blood of his saints, for the smoke of her tor- 
 ments is ascending up day and night. Her Go- 
 vernment is unable to guarantee safety of life 
 and property ; her Assembly, instead of grap- 
 pling vigorously with the evils that surround it, 
 is torn by faction, and passes its time in inde- 
 corous and tumultuary debates. National bank- 
 ruptcy advances with rapid strides ; the expen- 
 diture of the monarchy exceeded its income by 
 two- thirds of a million of francs; but the excess 
 of the Republic is not less than two millions 
 over its revenue. The citizens live amidst per- 
 petual alarms, — iras inter et timores, — and are 
 harassed by never-ceasing calls to military 
 duty. Fearful rumours and terrible threats 
 distract the minds of men, which are still far- 
 ther agitated by conspiracies, having avowedly 
 for their object the confiscation of all the pro- 
 perty in the kingdom, and the surrender of the 
 upper and middle classes into the hands of 
 the ruffians and malefactors which infest the 
 country. We know not, indeed, what can ar- 
 rest the progress of France towards such a ca- 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. S45 
 
 tastrophe, unless a special interposition of Pro- 
 vidence. 
 
 If we turn to Austria, we find a gigantic wreck 
 where this magnificent empire once stood. The 
 Emperor has fled to the Tyrol, whither he has 
 been followed by a frightened herd of arch- 
 dukes and nobles. The dying embers of Tyro- 
 lese loyalty have been unexpectedly fanned by 
 this mark of royal confidence ; and it is just 
 possible that the zeal of these mountaineers 
 may bring upon the fallen empire the horrors 
 of a civil war. While we write, Vienna is filled 
 with barricades, and fresh concessions are de- 
 manded, which will most probably be yielded ; 
 and the same work of confusion commenced in 
 Vienna which is now in progress in Paris. Aus- 
 tria, the successor of the Germanic Caesars, has 
 gathered under her eagle, men of every race, — 
 the industrious and enterprising Lombard, the 
 acute Illyrian, the stately Hungarian, the me- 
 ditative German, the persevering Bohemian, 
 the fiery Pole. She has drawn her riches from 
 the flourishing trade of Lombardy, the waving 
 harvests of Galicia, the rich pastures of Bohe- 
 
346 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 mia, and the wealthy mines of Carinthia and 
 Hungary. But the fall of the central authority 
 has set loose all these various nations, and dried 
 up all these sources of wealth. The provinces 
 are breaking away from the empire ; and Aus- 
 tria now exhibits a chaos great in proportion to 
 her former grandeur. 
 
 In Italy disorganization has not proceeded 
 to the same length, only because its progress 
 meanwhile is arrested by the war with Austria ; 
 but dissensions are rife throughout the Penin- 
 sula. A sanguinary war is raging on the Po, 
 brought on by the ambition of King Charles 
 Albert, who hopes that Milan will place her 
 iron crown upon his head. The revolting mas- 
 sacre at Naples has broken up the ill-omened 
 league between the Pope, Albert of Sardinia, 
 and Ferdinand of Naples, and complicated still 
 farther the affairs of Italy. Rome itself has 
 become the scene of tumult. The Jesuits, 
 with their famous general Roothann, have been 
 expelled. • The cabinet has been purged of 
 ecclesiastics ; and though the Pope is still suf- 
 fered to hold the rank and titles of Sovereign 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 347 
 
 of the Roman States, he has been completely 
 shorn of the sovereign power. He has had 
 the perplexing alternative proposed to him, of 
 drawing the sword against those whom he calls 
 his children, or abdicating the throne of the 
 Quirinal. Were the kings to look up who 
 were compelled to bend their necks to the Gre- 
 gories and Hildebrands of the middle ages, how 
 would they grimly smile to see the foot of the 
 Roman mob upon the neck of Pius ! 
 
 If we turn to Germany, the prostration of 
 authority and the decomposition of society are 
 as great almost as in France and Austria. 
 The King is distrusted ; the Ministers are un- 
 popular; the constituent Assembly is distin- 
 guished only for its incapacity, and is miserably 
 inadequate for such a crisis as the present. 
 The laws of Prussia have been virtually repeal- 
 ed ; and the edicts that now govern the empire 
 are to be learned from the inflammatory placards 
 that cover the streets. In Berlin the Ministers 
 have been obliged to open the arsenal, and dis- 
 tribute arms to the workmen, by whom they 
 may soon be employed against the very authority 
 
3)^ THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 that bestowed them. Commerce is stagnant ; 
 and the resources of private wealth are daily 
 diminishing. Swarms of beggars infest the 
 towns, and enter dwellings to demand rather 
 than beg alms ; and bands of ruffians traverse 
 the country, committing pillage and massacre, 
 and setting fire to the castles of the nobles 
 and the seats of the landed proprietors. The 
 agents of revolution, or rather destruction, are 
 active and sleepless. The youth of the uni- 
 versities and the orators of the clubs are con- 
 tinually inflaming the passions of the populace 
 by their communist doctrines. The same re- 
 ports reach us from every town and village of 
 Germany. The Germans speak of unity. It 
 is not the reign of unity that is commencing, 
 but that of total, consummate, and universal 
 disorganization. The shocks of the great 
 earthquake are continued ; the islands flee 
 away, and the mountains are not found. 
 
 We think, then, that we have evidence to 
 satisfy us that we are arrived at the breaking 
 up of the image, — the final dissolution and 
 complete removal of the ten kingdoms of the 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 849 
 
 modern Roman world, foretold by Daniel. And 
 if, as is generally admitted, the present Euro- 
 pean Governments cannot be longer maintain- 
 ed, or rather restored, — for they are already 
 prostrate, — it is plain to demonstration that 
 the final doom of the Papacy is at hand. This 
 may be inferred with certainty from the predic- 
 tions both of Daniel and of John. The fourth 
 monarchy was not succeeded by a fifth, but 
 by the kingdom set up by the Grod of heaven ; 
 which implies the fall, along with the fourth 
 monarchy, of all tyrannical Governments and 
 idolatrous Churches. But may not that mo- 
 narchy be prolonged under a different form of 
 government ? Nob a few expect Europe to be- 
 come republican. Others look for the forma- 
 tion of one or two great monarchies under 
 adequate military and political talent, which 
 the convulsion is to call forth. May not the 
 Papacy link itself on to the coming republic or 
 the coming monarchy, and so recover its as- 
 cendancy ? These anticipations receive no 
 countenance from facts. The moral elements 
 on which all Governments must be based do 
 
350 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 not exist at present in Europe. The political 
 creed of its masses, as we have already said, is 
 communism, and their religious creed is athe- 
 ism ; and till the Continent has undergone a 
 vast moral change, we do seriously believe that 
 no Government of any sort, not even a republic, 
 can be carried on. We may appeal to France. 
 Her example shows that it is something much 
 beyond republicanism into which the western 
 world is sinking. But when we turn to pro- 
 phecy, we are certainly informed that the present 
 Governments cannot be succeeded by others, — 
 that Europe cannot become a congeries of re- 
 publics. The image was smitten upon its ten 
 toes; and its fragments, so far from becom- 
 ing re-united, became as the chaff of the sum- 
 mer thrashing-floor, and the wind carried them 
 away, — a striking symbol of the change now 
 in progress, — no union of the ten kingdoms into 
 one or two great monarchies. In the Apoca- 
 lypse we are told that the beast that emerged 
 from the flood of the Gothic invasion should, 
 in its eighth head and ten horns, go into per- 
 dition ; and in full accordance with that inti- 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 351 
 
 mation, the kings appear with the beast and 
 the false prophet, on the last scene of Babylon's 
 destruction. 
 
 At what an awful crisis are we arrived ! If 
 we are right in our interpretation, what vast 
 changes, what fearful calamities, is the present 
 generation destined to witness and endure ! We 
 can look for no pause in present convulsions : 
 on the contrary, we must expect that they shall 
 go on, till authority has been utterly prostrated, 
 and society utterly dissolved, and Papal Europe 
 has been sacked and pillaged, and become one 
 wide social conflagration, with the smoke of its 
 torment ascending up day and night. Now is 
 come the " time of trouble" foretold by Daniel, 
 " such as never was since there was a nation, 
 even to that same time." These are the days 
 of vengeance spoken of by our Lord, — the time 
 when God shall assemble all the heathen to be 
 judged. Now is come " the time of his wrath;" 
 and now is to be spread " the supper of the 
 great God," to which all the fowls that fly in 
 the midst of heaven are invited. The time of 
 forbearance with the Papal nations is ended, 
 
352 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 and a judicial period has commenced, — short, 
 but awful. God will reckon with the world be- 
 fore passing to a new dispensation, and avenge 
 all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, 
 from the martyrs that fell under Pagan Rome, 
 to those that perished upon the gibbets of Scot- 
 land, or were shot on her mountains, and now 
 sleep amid the green slopes of the Pentlands. 
 The first effect of the great earthquake was 
 
 THE TfilPAPiTITIO}^ OF THE GREAT CITY. 
 
 By the great city, we have already shown, is 
 meant that mixed system of civil and ecclesias- 
 tical polity of which the Pope was the directing 
 head. This city, then, was co-extensive with 
 Papal Europe. The various countries were the 
 several quarters of that city; the capitals of the 
 nations were its streets; Rome was its forum, or 
 broad place. In the earthquake of the seventh 
 vial it is to be rent into three parts. Its States 
 will break loose from their present arrangement; 
 and, in violation both of European treaties and 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. SoS" 
 
 of national organizations, they will form them- 
 selves into three great confederacies. What, 
 doubtless, will facilitate this tripartition, is the 
 fall of " the cities of the nations." By this we 
 are most probably to understand the fall of 
 the different national polities throughout Pa- 
 pal Europe. Like the parent polity of Rome, 
 these are partly civil, partly ecclesiastical r 
 they are the same in organization and charac- 
 ter with hers : she is the metropolitan, they 
 are the provincial cities of the Papal empire. 
 But then they will come to an end. The king- 
 doms of the Papal earth being blended to- 
 gether, three great confederacies will stand up 
 in their room. If we turn to Europe, we see 
 all its States at present in motion, preparatory, . 
 doubtless, to this new arrangement. Germany 
 is dissolving ; the provinces of Austria are 
 breaking loose ; the Italian principalities are 
 forming new combinations ; and a new ar- 
 rangement of the European common\\;ealth 
 may be formed at any hour. If we confine our 
 view within the strict limits of the Roman 
 earth, we see already three grand divisionPy 
 
354 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 though not as yet well defined. The various 
 kingdoms of Western Europe are now arrang- 
 ed under three heads, — France, Italy, Austria. 
 It is natural to expect that this division should 
 have reference to the three spirits that go forth 
 to bring on the conflict. Now, such is the moral 
 aspect borne by the tripartition which present 
 convulsions have made in Papal Europe. The 
 region north of the Alps is the representative of 
 infidelity and democracy ; that south of the 
 Alps represents the Papacy ; and that east of 
 the Po, absolutism. This leaves Belgium and 
 Spain out of view ; but it is not improbable, that 
 as the convulsions go on, these countries will 
 fall in with one or other of the divisions, — 
 Belgium with France possibly, and Spain with 
 Italy. We leave Britain out of view also, for 
 another reason : it fell, as a Papal kingdom, at 
 the Reformation. 
 
 This tripartition of the great city will be the 
 immediate precursor of Babylon's doom. " And 
 great Babylon came into remembrance before 
 God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of 
 the fierceness of his wrath."' Her plagues will 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 855 
 
 begin with the convulsions of the earthquake ; 
 they will continue during the political changes 
 by which the present order of things in Europe 
 shall be brought to an end ; and so soon as 
 the various national Governments of Europe 
 have been abolished, and the tripartite division 
 of the Roman earth completed, the final stroke 
 will fall on the Papacy. The words, " came 
 in remembrance before God,^' are associated 
 with one of the most terrific judgments of 
 early times. Similar language was used by 
 God with reference to Sodom, on the eve be- 
 fore that awful morning when He rained fire 
 and brimstone upon it from the Lord God out 
 of heaven. The division of the great city into 
 three parts will mark the very eve preceding 
 the conflagration of the mystic Babylon. On 
 the next morrow shall her plagues come. Will 
 the fire in which she shall be consumed be lite- 
 ral fire? Such is the opinion of many expo- 
 sitors of name ; and their views receive coun- 
 tenance, as they suppose, from the fact that 
 the whole country of Italy is volcanic. They 
 think it not impossible that its now extinct 
 
856 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 craters may burst anew and simultaneously 
 into action, and convert the Peninsula, from 
 the base of the Alps to the Cape of Sparti- 
 vento, into a lake of fire. We are disposed to 
 regard the fire and burning, under which the 
 last judgment of the Papacy is set forth, as 
 symbolic ; and that this symbol is selected to 
 denote the peculiar severity of her plagues, and 
 the utter consumption and annihilation which 
 they will produce, — it being the property of 
 fire to annihilate that on which it preys. It 
 will form a more striking demonstration of the 
 baleful nature of Popery, as well as of the wis- 
 dom and justice of her great Judge, that her 
 final calamities should grow out of her crimes, 
 — that the connection between the two should 
 be manifest to the whole world, — that the pas- 
 sions of the European nations, whom she has 
 so long retained in ignorance and slavery, and 
 robbed both of their temporal wealth and their 
 eternal salvation, roused by the recollection of 
 her numerous thefts, idolatries, and murders, 
 should burst their chains, and be directed like 
 burning fire against her. Of this sort was the 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. boj 
 
 eating of the harlot's flesh, and the burning of 
 her with fire, by the kings of Europe, after the 
 first outbreak of the French Revolution. When 
 authority shall be prostrate, and the popular 
 vengeance comes to rage without restraint, what 
 more likely than that the same scenes will be 
 enacted over again? The pillagings, massa- 
 crings, burnings, the destruction of property, 
 and the general proscription that fell upon the 
 Popish hierarchy, may again be inflicted upon 
 them, but in more terrible measure. Nor would 
 we deny that the rage of the elements may 
 combine with the fury of man, to give addi- 
 tional terror to the scene, and to make still 
 more visible the hand of God in the awful 
 plagues of her ruin. Of this we are certainly 
 informed, that these plagues shall come unex- 
 pectedly, when the words are in her mouth, 
 *' I shall not be a widow f — that they shall 
 come suddenly, " Alas ! alas ! that great city 
 Babylon, that mighty city ! for in one hour is 
 thy judgment come ;" — that they shall be irre- 
 trievable, " As a millstone cast into the depths 
 of ocean, so shall Babylon with violence be cast 
 
358 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 down, and shall rise no more ;" — and unprece- 
 dentedly awful, exhibiting in point of horror 
 the full realization of what Babylon and So- 
 dom, in their fall, exhibited only in type, and 
 forming an anticipation of the terrors of the 
 judgment-day. 
 
 But we submit whether the fires that are 
 to consume the Papal earth be not already 
 kindled. So at least it appears to us. Eu 
 rope is rapidly becoming, from one extremity 
 to another, a scene of social burning. Every- 
 thing is consuming, just as if the fire were an- 
 nihilating it. Law, order, the power of princes, 
 the dignity of thrones, the estates of nobles, 
 the w-ealth of merchants, industry, trade, con- 
 fidence, tranquillity, — all are tending as rapid- 
 ly to nought as if a devouring conflagration 
 were raging from side to side of Europe. And 
 we behold, moreover, both the kings of the 
 Papal earth and the false prophet enduring 
 torment in this lake of fire. What poignant 
 grief and bitter mortification are theirs at this 
 hour ! Stript of their power, their wills coerced, 
 their state and prerogative insulted, — obliged to 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 359 
 
 enact laws which their subjects frame, to pa- 
 tronise reforms which in their heart they detest 
 and abhor, and to flatter the humours of the 
 canaille of their capitals, by whom they are ruled, 
 — where shall we find a figure better adapted to 
 express sufferings like these, than that here em- 
 ployed, — a man tormented in fire I Such at this 
 moment is the condition of all the ecclesiastical 
 and secular powers of the Continent, from Paris 
 downwards. The passions of the mob, so long 
 prostituted by these parties to their own pur- 
 poses, and made the instruments of their crimes, 
 are now become the flames in which they are 
 tormented. 
 
 But we are taught to expect from the pro- 
 phecy that a combined effort will be made by 
 these parties, together with their adherents, 
 who will be numerous to the last, to extricate 
 themselves from this tormenting thraldom, and 
 to recover, by a bold and decisive stroke, their 
 former position. Or, it may be, they are preci- 
 pitated in conflict on other parties, to whom this 
 political movement is distasteful, and who are 
 led to employ their serried strength in putting it 
 
3G0 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 down. In this way is brought on the grand ca- 
 tastrophe, which is exhibited in the Apocalypse 
 under two symbols, — the battle of Armageddon, 
 and the treading the wine-press of the fierceness 
 of the wrath of Almighty God. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the events we have 
 described, and introductory to the closing scene, 
 there appears 
 
 AN AXGEL IN THE SUN. 
 
 Chap. xix. 1 7, 18, " And I saw an angel stand- 
 ing in the sun ; and he cried with a loud voice, 
 saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of 
 heaven. Come, and gather yourselves unto the 
 supper of the great God ; that ye may eat the 
 flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the 
 flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, 
 and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of 
 all men, both free and bond, both small and 
 great.*" By this angel is plainly symbolized 
 some agency, having its head-quarters at some 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. ^61 
 
 conspicuous and commanding position, and act- 
 ing upon the whole of Europe, or perhaps even 
 more extensively, and thus bringing on the final 
 conflict. We have already found, in the inter- 
 pretation of the vials, that by the sun of the 
 Papal system is symbolized the general monar- 
 chy of Western Europe. This sun had been 
 smitten by this time, and virtually abolished in 
 the tripartition of the Papal earth. Whatever 
 shall come in its room, — whatever shall be the 
 leading one of the Papal countries, and virtu- 
 ally the ruler of them all, and especially the 
 source and centre of that movement which shall 
 issue in the great changes of that epoch, — must 
 be held to be symbolized by this sun. Looking 
 at the relative position of the Continental king- 
 doms, we are disposed to think that France is 
 here meant ; and by the angel that was now 
 seen in this sun, French propagandism. From 
 France the other countries of the Continent re- 
 ceive both their political and religious ideas. 
 She is the grand focal source of Continental 
 democracy and infidelity. She avows it as her 
 peculiar mission to revolutionize Europe. She 
 
362 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 discovers ideas and frames model institutions for 
 the world. She stands forward as the soldier 
 of democracy, calling on other nations to follow 
 her example, and offering to lend them her 
 sword, should that be necessary to achieve 
 their emancipation. Not only so ; she sends 
 agents into every country to sow revolutionary 
 principles. In the end of last March we were 
 told, that on the same day one propagandist 
 party had left Paris for Savoy, another for 
 Spain, a third for Belgium, a fourth for Ger- 
 many, and a fifth for Poland. To her agency 
 it was believed to be owing that fresh out- 
 breaks took place on the same day, — the 15th of 
 May, — in the three main capitals of the Conti- 
 nent, — Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. Thus, France 
 makes it her vocation to begin and to advance 
 throughout Europe, those great movements 
 which are destined to issue in a last and tre- 
 mendous conflict between despotism, supersti- 
 tion, and infidelity, and the destruction of all 
 three, each by the hand of the other. 
 
 This angel in the sun cried with a loud voice, 
 >' saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 363 
 
 heaven, Come, and gather yourselves unto the 
 supper of the great God." " The fowls that 
 fly in the midst of heaven""* is a new symbol. 
 Some suppose that regular armies are meant. 
 The figure scarcely suggests that. The fowls 
 that fly in the midst of heaven seldom do so 
 in marshalled bands, but in straggling flocks. 
 They do not follow a leader, or are subject to 
 command; but each directs his course according 
 as he is lured by the scent of prey. We are 
 disposed to think that certain parties to arise 
 at that epoch, are here symbolized, — parties 
 holding loose and obscene principles, of preda- 
 tory habits, and spurning the restraints of law. 
 The doctrines of Socialism^ or, as they are term- 
 ed abroad. Communism^ would lead, if carried out, 
 to all that the symbol suggests. The angel in- 
 vites them to a well-furnished banquet, — " that 
 ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of 
 captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the 
 flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, 
 and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, 
 both small and great,"" The various classes 
 
S64 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 into which European society is at present di- 
 vided, from monarchs down to citizens and 
 persons in menial condition, are here enume- 
 rated. Their flesh is to be given as a repast 
 to these symbolic fowls. By flesh we are to 
 understand their lands and wealth ; and who 
 knows but that a righteous Providence may 
 have decreed that this shall be the latter end 
 of those dignities, estates, and revenues, which 
 have so long been prostituted to the support of 
 despotism and Popery, — even a universal pil- 
 lage ? The changes now in progress have only 
 to proceed a little farther, and the parties in- 
 dicated above would enjoy unbounded license 
 to carry their principles into effect, and the 
 terrible consummation which seems here to be 
 prefigured would be reached. 
 
 But while the body of the beast is to be cast 
 into this symbolic devouring flame, a special 
 judgment is reserved for the leading men among 
 his adherents, including his secular and ecclesi- 
 astical heads. That judgment is exhibited first 
 under the symbol of the 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 3G5 
 
 VINTAGE. 
 
 In the land of Judea, the vintage followed 
 the harvest, after an interval of about three 
 months. So the symbolic harvest of the Apo- 
 calypse comes first, and the vintage succeeds. 
 The harvest symbolizes the destruction that is 
 to overtake the secular institutions of the Ro- 
 man earth, and was fulfilled, we are of opinion, 
 in the wars of the first five vials, which aff^ect- 
 ed mainly, though not exclusively, the Popish 
 thrones and nations. These have had a short 
 term added to their existence, but not in their 
 former power, and are reserved, evidently, that 
 they may figure, as foretold, on the last scene 
 with their companion the false prophet. The 
 vine being the symbol of a Church, the vintage 
 must necessarily symbolize mainly, though not 
 exclusively, the judgments that await the ec- 
 clesiastical institutions of Papal Christendom. 
 At this epoch destruction will fall on the cor- 
 rupt Churches of the Latin earth, though not 
 on them alone, but also on all their supporters, 
 
366 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 whether individuals or bodies corporate. It is 
 very noticeable that the symbols now become 
 full of a blessed meaning to the Church. " And 
 I looked, and, behold, a white cloud, and upon 
 the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, hav- 
 ing on his head a golden crown, and in his hand 
 a sharp sickle,'' chap. xiv. 14. The term " Son 
 of man,'' applied to the person who appeared 
 to John enthroned upon the white cloud, leaves 
 it undoubted that this is the Saviour. How 
 different his present from his former appear- 
 ance ! Then he was encompassed by dark 
 clouds, his feet were as pillars of fire, and a 
 rainbow was on his head ; all denoting days 
 of darkness, — a mysterious and trying path to 
 be trodden, in which the Church should have 
 need to keep hope alive by recalling God's co- 
 venant with her. But now He is surrounded 
 by symbols of gladness, prosperity, and vic- 
 tory ; He sits upon a white cloud ; on his head 
 is a golden crown ; and in his hand a sharp 
 sickle, the instrument of judgment. But why 
 did Christ appear at this moment ? He is seen 
 sitting in judgment upon his great enemy, — 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. .367 
 
 presiding over his final destruction ; and thus 
 the last act, as well as all the preceding ones, 
 is seen to be his doing, and the end of this 
 great drama is connected in a striking manner 
 with its beginning. The moment to thrust in 
 the sickle and reap the vine of the earth is an- 
 nounced by an angel which came out from the 
 altar, even the angel which had power over fire, 
 that is, whose duty it was to keep alive the 
 altar-fire, and take care of the ashes of the 
 sacrifice consumed in that fire. This is a sym- 
 bol full of meaning. It plainly indicates that 
 the reaping the vine, and the treading it in the 
 wine-press, is to be viewed as a sacrifice to jus- 
 tice. But what sin had rendered necessary 
 this great expiatory judgment ? This, too, is 
 plainly shown in the symbol. The angel from 
 the " altar" indicates, as the procuring cause 
 of this vengeance, the slaughter of the witnesses. 
 So early as the opening of the fifth seal, in the 
 third century, the cry of martyrs had arisen 
 from under the altar : " How long, Lord, 
 holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge 
 our blood on them that dwell on the earth I 
 
368 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 And it was said unto them that they should 
 rest yet for a little season, until their fellow- 
 servants also, and their brethren, that should 
 be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.'' 
 This points to a second company of martyrs 
 to be slain before the blood of those that fell 
 under Pagan Rome could be avenged, namely, 
 the martyrs under the Papacy. But now the 
 roll of martyrdom has been completed, and 
 there is nothing to prevent the infliction of a 
 full measure of vengeance. Accordingly, the 
 terms in which the pouring out of the third 
 vial is described announce that the deferred 
 vengeance had commenced. " They have shed 
 the blood of saints [the primitive martyrs], and 
 of prophets [who prophesied twelve hundred 
 and sixty days in sackcloth], and thou hast 
 given them blood to drink."' The song of the 
 angel, too, on occasion of this commencing act 
 of retribution, refers us back to the invocation 
 of the souls beneath the altar, seeing it turns 
 on the same divine attributes : " Even so. Lord 
 God Almighty, true and righteous are thy 
 judgments." An awfully judicial character, 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. S69 
 
 then, shall belong to the epoch of the vintage. 
 Its vengeance will be on a scale commensurate 
 with the blood Rome has shed, reaching back 
 to the earliest days. " And in her was found 
 the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all 
 that were slain upon the earth." " Thrust in 
 thy sharp sickle," said the angel, " and gather 
 the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her 
 grapes are fully ripe." We call attention to 
 the reason assigned for reaping now : " her 
 grapes are fully ripe." This has been common- 
 ly referred to the sin of the Roman Church as 
 being filled up. We apprehend it refers to a 
 change that is to take place within the Church, 
 analogous to that which the vine undergoes 
 when it is ripe. When may a corrupt Church 
 be said to be ripe? Just when the natural 
 issue or fruit of her false faith has been fully 
 developed. And what is the natural fruit of a 
 false faith I The destruction of faith altogether, 
 — downright infidelity or atheism. Whenever 
 the false faith of the Church of Rome shall 
 have passed, in the majority of cases, into in- 
 fidelity, then the vine of the earth will be fully 
 2 a 
 
^ S70 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 ripo. This appears to fix the prophecy in its 
 reference to our own times ; for, on the testi- 
 mony of all who have had access to know, the 
 superstitious faith of the Popish nations has 
 undergone precisely such a change as we have 
 •indicated. If the vine is allowed to overpass 
 the period of its maturity, it becomes unfit for 
 the wine -press. An analogous necessity exists 
 for gathering the clusters of the mystic vine, 
 now if ever. Twenty-five years hence, if the 
 influences at present in existence continue to 
 operate. Popery will have rotted away, and 
 perished in its excessive maturity, and scarce 
 anything will remain to be gathered and cast 
 into the wine-press. Hence the urgency of the 
 command, "Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and 
 gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for 
 her grapes are fully ripe."' 
 
 It is especially worthy of remark, that the 
 four leading idolatries are in precisely the same 
 condition in this respect. Their false faith has 
 passed, to a greater or less degree, into no 
 faith. When the sap of superstition flowed 
 freely in the veins of these mighty trunks, the 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 371 
 
 firm hold of the soil taken by their roots, and 
 the gnarled strength of their boughs, enabled 
 them to bid defiance to the storm; but now, 
 drained of their sap, the first breeze that sets 
 in threatens to rend their mouldering stems in 
 pieces. Hinduism is passing into scepticism, 
 and totters to its fall. Mahommedanism has 
 become a thing of decent observances, alto- 
 gether devoid of the fiery zeal and proselytiz- 
 ing spirit that made it once formidable. Juda- 
 ism has relinquished its peculiar glory and hope, 
 and now awaits the advent of no other Messiah 
 than a political enfranchisement. Popery itself 
 has become infected with infidelity, and is rot- 
 ten to the very core. Thus it is plain, if soma 
 speedy and powerful interposition do not arrest 
 or change the current of present tendencies, 
 that we are on the eve of the reign of universal 
 scepticism. How exactly does this correspond 
 with the predicted character of the age when 
 the Son of man shall come ! " When the Son 
 of man cometh, shall He find faith on the 
 earth T 
 
 The vine of the earth being ripe, the sharp 
 
^2 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 .sickle is thrust in, and her clusters are gather- 
 ed. The gathering of the vine may possibly 
 symbolize the drawing together into one place 
 the adherents of the Papacy, so that judgment 
 may be executed upon them without compro- 
 mising the safety of others. The vine being 
 gathered, it is cast " into the great wine-press 
 of the wrath of God. And the wine-press was 
 trodden without the city, and blood came out 
 of the wine-press, even unto the horse bridles, 
 by the space of a thousand and six hundred 
 furlongs." In scriptural times and countries 
 the wine -press w^as placed without the city. 
 So this symbolic wine-press is trodden outside 
 the mystic city. We are taught to look, — so at 
 least it would seem, — beyond the limits of the 
 Latin earth, for the scene of this final judgment. 
 The *' blood" indicates slaughter ; and the di- 
 mensions of the wine-press are such as to show 
 that the slaughter will be tremendous. The 
 blood that filled it was found, when measured, 
 to extend sixteen hundred furlongs, or about an 
 hundred and fifty miles. If one side of the 
 wine^press only is denoted, the area would be 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 873 
 
 enormous, and the slaughter fearfully great ; 
 and even though we should understand all the 
 four sides as included in this measurement, the 
 catastrophe would be unspeakably awful. This 
 is about the breadth of Italy ; and not a few 
 have fixed on the Oampagna as the fated spot. 
 Some stress may be laid on the circumstance 
 that the term " great"" is here dropped, which 
 in other parts of the Apocalypse is usually pre- 
 fixed to " city," when the Papal system, in all 
 its extent of territory, is meant, as " great 
 Babylon,'' " the great city."' This makes it 
 not wholly improbable that, though the wine- 
 press is trodden without the city, that may not 
 mean beyond the limits of the Papal territory, 
 but outside the literal city of the seven hills. 
 If the territory around Rome should become 
 the scene of the vintage, then that judgment 
 would accord, as regards its locality, wuth that 
 of the third vial, which fell mainly on those 
 very spots where the blood of the martyrs had 
 been shed. Others look to Judea as the lo- 
 cality indicated; and it is worthy of notice, 
 that the length of that country, from Lebanon 
 
374 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 to the southern boundary of the tribe of Judah, 
 is about an hundred and sixty miles. This 
 opinion receives some countenance from certain 
 prophecies of Daniel, which we are now to con- 
 eider. The standard employed to gauge the 
 depth of the blood reminds us that horsemen 
 are to be present on the scene ; and this, again, 
 of the second symbol under which this great 
 judgment is held forth, namely, 
 
 THE BATTLE OF AEMAGEDDON. 
 
 " They are the spirits of devils working mi- 
 racles, which go forth unto the kings of the 
 earth, and of the whole world, to gather them 
 to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. 
 And he gathered them together into a place 
 called, in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon." 
 In all probability, the kings of the Roman 
 earth, at the instigation of Rome (for it is just 
 that their final destruction should come from 
 her w^hom they have so long supported), will 
 adopt a line of policy opposite to that of the 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 875^ 
 
 kings beyond these limits ; and thus a con- 
 flict involving the whole civilized world will be 
 brought on. On one battle-field they will all 
 meet, with their armies ; and there the judg- 
 ments of God will overtake them, which they 
 will become the instruments of wreaking on one 
 another. It is remarkable that a Hebrew name 
 is given to this field, which certainly gives some 
 countenance to the idea that the conflict will 
 take place on Jewish soil. We find numerous 
 and not obscure allusions scattered throughout 
 other prophets, of this great battle and terrible 
 day of wrath. It is to this epoch, we are of 
 opinion, that the close of Daniel's last prophecy 
 has reference. By far the most probable inter- 
 pretation of chapter xi. is that which makes it, 
 from the thirty-first verse downwards, — " and 
 arms shall stand on his part,'" — apply to the Ro- 
 man power. At the thirty-sixth verse the Anti- 
 christ is introduced : — " And the king shall do 
 according to his will.**"' At the fortieth verse 
 commences the epoch of his fall : — " And at the 
 time of the end [the period of the seventh trum- 
 pet] shall the king of the south [Egypt, the 
 
S76 THE SETENTH VIAL. 
 
 kingdom of the Ptolemies, lying south of Ju- 
 dea] push at him ; and the king of the north 
 [the power at that time occupying the kingdom 
 of the Seleucidse or Syria] shall come against 
 him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with 
 horsemen, and with many ships ; and he [not 
 the king of the north, but the king against 
 whom the other two make war, namely, the 
 Antichrist] shall enter into the countries, and 
 shall overflow and pass over. He shall enter 
 also into the glorious land/' Till a few months 
 ago, such a movement as that here indicated 
 was altogether improbable ; but now it is not 
 difficult to perceive how it might be brought 
 about. Both France and Italy are now fully 
 committed to the grand revolutionary move- 
 ment. The Pope is not less so ; and, as by far 
 the most sagacious and crafty of its chiefs, he 
 is likely to continue at its head, for better or 
 w^orse, till it end either in unprecedented tri- 
 umph or unprecedented disaster. But in the 
 prosecution of this movement, nothing is more 
 probable than that he and his allies will be 
 brought into collision with the serried strength 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 377 
 
 of the east of Europe and Asia, including Tur- 
 key and Egypt. Russia, the Porte, and Mehe- 
 met Ali, are, we know, watching the movement 
 with anxiety, and are busy raising armies and 
 forming camps to meet it. France will be ne- 
 cessarily compelled, in the prosecution of her 
 avowed mission of revolutionizing the world, to 
 progress eastward. Both France and the Pa- 
 pacy have already turned their eyes on Pales- 
 tine, as desirable on many grounds, — to cripple 
 England, check Russia, and to possess a central 
 point, whence they might diffuse their political 
 and religious institutions over the East. We 
 have seen of late years how the Papacy has 
 made use of the arms of France to advance its 
 own projects in distant regions. Why may it 
 not use the arms of the Republic, professedly 
 for the spread of Republican institutions, but 
 in reality for the extension of Papal rule ? 
 Were such an expedition to be set on foot, the 
 present alliances of France in Africa would 
 enable her to draw contingents from the very 
 tribes mentioned in the forty-third verse : "And 
 the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his 
 
S78 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 steps.'** In this way the Papal standard, In 
 conjunction with that of the revolutionized 
 kings and kingdoms of Western Europe, may 
 come to be planted " between the seas, in the 
 glorious holy mountain'*'* of Judea, and there be 
 met by the combined armies both of Western 
 Asia and Eastern Europe. The exhaustion of 
 the Turkish power has prepared the way both 
 for the entrance of the western revolutionary 
 powers into the East, and the advance of the 
 horsemen and ships of Russia and the chariots 
 and horsemen of Persia against them. That 
 the prophecy refers to the epoch of the seventh 
 vial, appears not only from its occurring " at 
 the time of the end,'*"' but from what is added, 
 namely, that then there shall be a time of 
 trouble such as never was since there was a na- 
 tion, and at that time DaniePs people shall be 
 delivered. In other prophecies there is a re- 
 ference to a gathering of all nations on the 
 mountains of Israel, in connection with the final 
 destruction of God's enemies, and the deliver- 
 ance of the Jews. Ezekiel, xxxviii. 2, — " Son 
 oC man, set thy face against Gog, the land of 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. S79 
 
 Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tu- 
 bal, and prophesy against him, and say. Thus 
 saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, 
 Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal : 
 and I will turn thee back, and put hooks into 
 thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all 
 thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them 
 clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great 
 company with bucklers and shields, all of them 
 handling swords : Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya 
 with them ; all of them with shield and hel- 
 met : Gomer, and all his bands ; the house of 
 Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his 
 bands : and many people with thee. Be thou 
 prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all 
 thy company that are assembled unto thee, and 
 be thou a guard unto them." Gog and Magog 
 are generally interpreted to apply to the an- 
 cient Scythians, or modern Tartars, from whom 
 the Turks are descended. But there is no rea- 
 son why we should not also include the more 
 northern branch inhabiting Russia, — Rosh, — as 
 forming part of this confederacy. It is plain, 
 from the terms of the prophecy, that the Jews 
 
S80 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 are previously to be restored to their own land 
 in an unconverted state, for their conversion is 
 predicted as a result of the destruction of their 
 enemies, and the glorious deliverance wTought 
 for them : " And I will send a fire on Magog 
 [the Turks and Russians], and among them 
 that dwell carelessly in the isles [the Euro- 
 pean nations] ; and they shall know that I 
 am the Lord. So will I make my holy name 
 known in the midst of my people Israel ; and I 
 will not let them pollute my holy name any 
 more : and the heathen shall know that I am 
 the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.'" When 
 other nationalities are being restored, it would 
 not surprise us to find such a scheme broached 
 in reference to the Jews. Their troubles since 
 the present commotions began have been great 
 in various places ; and should these increase, 
 they are likely to think of a return to Pales- 
 tine. Republican France would, in her pre- 
 sent humour, readily promote such a scheme. 
 She might find political reasons for doing so. 
 Through the Jews she might hope to curb the 
 ambition of Russia, and hold the key of the 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 581 
 
 East. And there would certainly be greater 
 propriety in the long-predicted return of the 
 Jews being effected at last through an infidel 
 rather than a Christian nation. But whatever 
 the power that shall lend its aid to accomplish 
 the return of the Jews, it is certain that im- 
 mediately subsequent, an unexampled gathering 
 of the nations from the North, the East, and the 
 West, shall take place in that land, for hostile 
 purposes ; and there, on the same day and the 
 same scene, vengeance shall overtake the Papal, 
 theMahommedan,and the despotic powers. The 
 imagery employed by Ezekiel and Joel to depict 
 this awful event is so similar to that of the Apo- 
 calypse, that we are inclined to think they re- 
 fer to the same event, namely, the battle of the 
 great day of God Almighty, — the awful tragedy 
 of blood, in which the history of the great per- 
 secuting powers, Popery and Mahommedanism, 
 with all their supporters, is destined to close : 
 " And it shall come to pass at the same time 
 when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, 
 saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come 
 
SS2 TIIE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 up in my face." " And I will call for a sword 
 against him throughout all my mountains, saith 
 the Lord God : every man's sword shall be 
 against his brother. And I will plead against 
 him with pestilence and with blood ; and I will 
 rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon 
 the many people that are with him, an over- 
 flowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and 
 brimstone." " And thou. Son of man, thus 
 saith the Lord God ; Speak unto every feather- 
 ed fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assem- 
 ble yourselves, and come ; gather yourselves on 
 every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for 
 you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains 
 of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood. 
 Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink 
 the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, 
 of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them 
 fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till 
 ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, 
 of my sacrifice w^hich I have sacrificed for you. 
 Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses 
 and chariots, with mighty men, and with all 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL. 383 
 
 men of war, saitli the Lord God. And I will 
 set my glory among the heathen, and all the 
 heathen shall see my judgment that I have exe- 
 cuted, and my hand that I have laid upon them. 
 So the house of Israel shall know that I am the 
 Lord their God from that day and forward." 
 Joel, chap, iii., " Proclaim ye this among the 
 Gentiles ; Prepare war, wake up the mighty 
 men; let all the men of war draw near; let them 
 come up : beat your plowshares into swords, and 
 your pruninghooks into spears : let the weak 
 say, I am strong." " Let the heathen be waken- 
 ed, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat : 
 for there will I sit to judge all the heathen 
 round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the har- 
 vest is ripe : come, get you down ; for the press 
 is full, the fats overflow ; for their wickedness 
 is great." " The sun and the moon shall be 
 darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their 
 shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, 
 and utter his voice from Jerusalem ; and the 
 heavens and the earth shall shake: but the 
 Lord will be the hope of his people, and the 
 
384 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye 
 know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in 
 Zion, my holy mountain : then shall Jerusalem 
 be holy, and there shall no stranger pass through 
 her any more."" 
 
THE HARPERS, &c. 385 
 
 THE HAEPEKS BY THE SEA OF GLASS. 
 
 We are unwilling to drop the curtain on this 
 dark scene. Therefore we turn, before leaving 
 this grand Apocalyptic history, to another of 
 its visions. While the scenes of destruction 
 we have described are going forward, another 
 company is seen, occupying a place of safety, 
 and singing songs of victory. Chap. xv. 3, 
 " And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled 
 with fire ; and them that had gotten the vic- 
 tory over the beast, and over his image, and 
 over his mark, and over the number of his 
 name, stand on the sea of glass, having the 
 harps of God.'" This vision synchronizes with 
 that of the seven vials : for these white-robed 
 harpers by the glassy sea are seen by John 
 immediately after the emergence from the tem- 
 
 2 B 
 
386 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 pie of the seven angels with the seven last 
 plagues. We are to conceive of the song of 
 the harpers as commencing when the vials be- 
 gan to be poured out, and going on during all 
 the period of the vials, so that its melody would 
 be heard during the pauses of the storm, if not 
 also at times mingling with its thunders. They 
 are described as they who had gotten the victory 
 over the beast, which marks them out as the 
 Protestant remnant, who, having escaped the 
 pollutions of Popery, are now preserved by 
 God from its plagues. They stand on, or by, 
 a sea of glass, having the harps of God. This 
 brings vividly before us those glorious transac- 
 tions of which the Red Sea was once the scene. 
 Guided by the pillar of fire, the tribes had 
 passed safely through its depths, and, standing 
 on its brink, the vast assembly burst out as 
 one man into a triumphal hymn, which swelled 
 along the shores of the gulph, and rose loud 
 above the thunder of the surge that over- 
 whelmed Pharaoh and his host. It is from 
 this scene that the symbol before us is bor- 
 rowed : and it tells us that it is another such 
 
THE HARPERS, &c. 387 
 
 deliverance that awaits the Church, and an- 
 other such catastrophe that shall overwhelm 
 her foes. If, as some believe, and as is exceed- 
 ingly probable, there was spread out before 
 John a miniature of the Roman earth all the 
 time these visions were going forward, then 
 it is possible that the apostle may have seen 
 the very locality the harpers were to occupy. 
 Taking this vision in connection with the fall 
 of the tenth part of the city at the Reforma- 
 tion, Mr Elliot points pretty distinctly to Bri- 
 tain as the spot in q^uestion, and the " glassy 
 sea" as the narrow channel which separates 
 the Popish continent from the isle of Pro- 
 testantism. But though British Protestants 
 doubtless form the main division in this army 
 of harpers, we must not exclude others. In 
 all the Popish countries are littk companies of 
 Protestants, whom we are disposed, we think 
 on good ground, to rank among these harpers. 
 The calmness of the sea, — for its surface is of 
 glassy smoothness, — is a general figure denoting 
 their safety and tranquillity. But the sea is 
 mingled with fire, the symbol of judgment ; im- 
 
388 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 plying that, though protected wonderfully by 
 the providence of God, awful calamities should 
 prevail around them. Indeed, when we reflect 
 on what is passing at this hour, we are almost 
 tempted to think with Mr Elliot that a par- 
 ticular locality is denoted by the symbol, and 
 that that locality is Britain. When we con- 
 trast our own tranquillity with the alarm, tur- 
 moil, and convulsion, into which the Popish 
 earth has been thrown, whose inhabitants have 
 literally no rest day nor night, the majestic re- 
 pose of Britain has all the moral effect of a noble 
 hymn sung to God, who is thus separating " be- 
 tween the precious and the vile,"' and bearing 
 testimony before the world to the value of his 
 truth. " And they sing the song of Moses the 
 servant of God, and the song of the Lamb." 
 As the tribes halted on the shore of the Red 
 Sea, and sang the song of Moses, so the New 
 Testament tribes, when mystic Egypt shall be 
 destroyed, at the same time that they look 
 back on ancient songs, will sing those of the 
 new dispensation, celebrating the power and 
 faithfulness of the Moses who has led them 
 
THE HARPERS, &c. S89 
 
 through the sea, even the Lamb. The leading 
 note of their song is given : " Great and mar- 
 vellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty."*' 
 Such is the first ascription. When the mys- 
 tery of Providence shall be finished in the 
 destruction of Antichrist, and the Church 
 shall view the beginning in the light of the 
 end, the obscurity and apparent confusion and 
 contradiction that now appear to mar the 
 scheme will be rolled away, and she will be 
 left in amazement at the grandeur of the work, 
 and the power of the Workman. " Great and 
 marvellous" she shall see the one to be, and 
 the other she will acknowledge to be indeed 
 the " Lord God Almighty .'' " Just and true," 
 continues these harpers, " are thy ways, thou 
 King of saints." A grand discovery of moral 
 principles awaits the world in this catastrophe. 
 It is to form the last and crowning step in the 
 long demonstration of the eternal rectitude of 
 God's procedure. And when this step shall have 
 been accomplished, the completeness of the 
 whole proof will be clearly seen, and its irre- 
 sistible force universally acknowledged. " Just 
 
390 THE SEVENTH VIAL. 
 
 and true," shall the Church say with one voice, 
 " are thy ways, thou King of saints." Not the 
 Church only, but the nations generally, shall be 
 deeply impressed with a sense of the justice 
 and truth of God. Accordingly the song of the 
 harpers concludes with an anticipation of the 
 immediate approach of a better dispensation. 
 " Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify 
 thy name l for thou only art holy : for all na- 
 tions shall come and worship before thee ; for 
 thy judgments are made manifest. The grand 
 principles which enter into the right constitu- 
 tion and the proper government of human so- 
 <jiety being demonstrated in these awful scenes, 
 — taken in connection with all that went before 
 since the rise of Popery, — and the world being 
 now put fully in possession of them, we have 
 reason to think they will never again be lost. 
 We cannot conceive of the knowledge of the 
 «ix primary mechanical powers being lost. The 
 mechanist and the artizan will proceed on these 
 principles till the end of time. The law of 
 gravitation, and the other fundamental laws of 
 science, being now fully established, will con- 
 
THE HARPERS, &c. 391 
 
 tinue, through all time, to form the base of all 
 the reasonings and discoveries of philosophy. 
 Why should not moral truth, if once fully dis- 
 covered and clearly demonstrated, be retained, 
 by the help of the Divine Spirit, with equal per- 
 manency ? The grand fundamental laws of 
 moral and religious truth, though the first in 
 importance, have been the last to be discovered : 
 nor till the awful scenes of the seventh vial shall 
 have been completed, will these great principles 
 be fully evolved, and the world generally brought 
 to the knowledge of them. But having come 
 into full possession of them by painful experi- 
 ence, w^e have reason to think they will not again 
 be lost, but will continue henceforward to mould 
 the character and regulate the actings of so- 
 ciety, both in its corporate capacity and its in- 
 dividual members. The reign of these princi- 
 ples will constitute the Millennium. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 MILT.KIl A>fD FAIRI-V, PRINTKRa, KDI.VEURGH, 
 
7