not as our ways. In regard to symbolical predictions, no professed theologian, we think, can cope with the unconscious historian in the interpretation of the past. And, after having waited for three centuries subsequently to the conclusion of them all, till Gibbon fully expounded the significancy of the first six trumpets, and also for the same long period, till, if such even yet be the proper appellation, the name of the angel of the reformation was known, it would scarcely be a demonstration of bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, were our souls to be lifted up in high speculation or bold dogmatizing concerning visions yet unexpounded by events, or were we to maintain that any peculiar mode of interpretation should be held a matter of faith, as to what shall be or what shall not be-when at the end the vision shall speak and not lie, and refute all the fallacies that marred its form, and, perhaps, at best could but mimic its effect.

In regard to the order or course of the fulfilment of predictions yet to be accomplished, respecting which the terms I come quickly augur not long delay, or comparing scripture with scripture, it may perhaps appear, from the similarity of the description as well as congruity of the time, each being unparalleled and each completing the respective vision, that the pouring out of the seventh vial, and the battle of Armageddon, to the preparation of which it is subsequent, the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the treading down of the wine-press, and the opening of the sixth vial, are all co-temporaneous. The connexion also may perhaps be established, between the pouring out of the sixth vial and succeeding visions, which succeeding events have yet to interpret.

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might

be prepared. 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. Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. 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, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city was divid ed into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God, because of the plague of the hail: for the plague thereof was exceeding great. Rev. xiv. 12.

After a description of the death and resurrection of the witnesses, it is added

The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four-and-twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, We give thee

thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and should destroy them which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail. Rev. xi. 14.

And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it 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. Rev. xiv. 19.

And I beheld, when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind: And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were removed out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond man, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? Rey, xi. 12-17.

There seems, however, according to the spirit of prophecy, to be a marked order of events between the pouring out of the sixth and this consummátion of the seventh vial. In immediate connexion with the opening of the sixth trumpet, it is recorded, as previously alluded to, p. 216, that the final judgment was first to be suspended till the servants of God should be sealed in their foreheads.

And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, hav

*

* God maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire. In his infinite wisdom and power he executeth judgment and justice on the earth, by means inscrutable to mortals. In his judgments against the Egyptians, (Ps. lxxviii. 49, 45.) "He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by sending evil angels among them. He made a way to his anger; he spared not their souls from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence." Evil angels are here associated with the pestilence. The Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, (2 Samuel xxiv. 16.), after David had numbered the people, "and there died of the people, from Dan even to Beersheba, seventy thousand men. And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough; stay now thine hand." The people died of the pestilence, but the angel was said to destroy them. When Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem," the angel of the Lord smote in the camp of the Assyrians, an hundred fourscore and five thousand, and when they arose early in the morning behold they were dead corpses," 2 Kings xix. 35. The angel mentioned in the text, may therefore denote some form of judgment. It comes not to cause, but to stay war: it is not local, or attached to a spot, like famine, but comes from a specified region, and therefore moves on like the pestilence that walketh in darkness. And of these three forms, war, famine, and pestilence, in which God pleads with all flesh, it would seem (if any) to be the last, or pestilence-which we thus see from scripture to be sometimes identified with the name, and to form the commission, of an angel, or messenger.

It descended not from heaven, like a blessing on the world;

ing the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed

but the region from which it was seen ascending, or coming from a distance, is, in one word, the east.

The com

It is also a manifest visitation of God-having the seal of the living God. It is nothing of man's creation, as either originating in their will, or dependent on their influence, or regulated by their wisdom, or controlled by their power. It has the seal of the living God, an attestation of coming from his hands. mission which it bears is from the Lord. When the prophet Gad, by the word of the Lord, said unto David, "Thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things; choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.-Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? Or wilt thou flee three years before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days pestilence in thy land? And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait; let us fall into the hands of the Lord-for his mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel." It came more immediately from the hand of God, without the instrumentality of man. And thus may the pestilence, more than less direct judgments, be said to have the seal of the living God-even as also the death which it wrought was said to be the act of an angel.

The angel, or messenger, that ascended from the east, having the seal of the living God, also cried with a loud voice-and his voice reached unto the sea. He came not unknown or unheard

he was seen in his progress ascending from the east-his voice was loud that all nations might hear, and his course was not stayed, till his influence was felt on the sea.

But the era of his coming, and the object to be fulfilled by that messenger of God, are not doubtful or undeterminate,—the one being obvious from the connexion with prophecies which mark the order of succession, and the other being expressly specified. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. The purpose for which the messenger from the east appears at the marked and critical era of his coming, when all human things on every side were threatened with universal commotion, was to stay the tempest which was ready to burst upon the earth, as by the blowing of the four winds of heaven; and the purpose also for which that tempest,