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This proclamation of the voice, coming from the Divine presence, (from whence these prophecies proceed, and from whence the powers and commission to the seven angels, the instruments of God's providence in the fulfilling of them, were issued out,) shews that by these successive events, the mystery of God, contained in prophecy, was finished, agreeably to a solemn assurance before given in chap. x.-An angel standing on the earth and sea, lifted up his hand to heaven and sware-ὅτι χρόνος οὐκ ἔςαι ἔτι, tempus non fore amplius, "that the time should not be yet, but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the MYSTERY OF GOD should be finished, and the afflictions wherewith the church was to be exercised, during the long continued tyranny of the MAN OF SIN, should here have a period.*

* When this apostacy was revealed to the church by Saint Paul, it was called the MYSTERY OF INIQUITY, which how well it deserves to be deemed, has been fully shewn, Yet as it was foreknown to God, and by him revealed in prophecy, in all its parts from beginning to end, and the effects resulting from it were under his supreme controul, and as it was suffered VOL. II.

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The voice out of the temple of God, which now represents the whole church, in its pure and reformed state, as under the tyranny of the apostacy and man of sin, but a small part of the church of Christ had been so represented, may also signify the unanimous opinion of the christian world, that PAPAL ROME was indeed the MYSTIC BABYLON; and that her doom has been truly such as the prophets had foretold." 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." These figures, which in the Revelation are the common emblems of great changes and revolutionary commotions, have been in part already explained in the last section. The earthquake, upon which a very particular emphasis seems to be laid by the Holy Spirit, may therefore be not only an emblematical, but a real one also; and such as will shake the globe of the earth to its very centre, since

to exist by his forbearance, for reasons to us mysterious, it is here called the mystery of God, in the sense of Amos, iii, 6,— “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it ?"

it is to be the means of opening the wide and tremendous gulph of TOPHET,* more like, from its vast diameter and circumference, to a lake of liquid fire than the crater of a volcano, the production of any earthquake the world has ever yet heard of,t

To these various effects of the seventh vial there seems to be an allusion in Isaiah xxiv. 17.-" Fear, and the pit, and the snare are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.

And

it shall come to pass that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear, shall fall into the pit ; and he that cometh out of the midst of the pit,-(or by local situation at the time escapes that catastrophe,)-shall be taken in the snare:

* "Hell from beneath is moved for thee.". Isa. xiv. 3. The terrible effects that have been produced by earth quakes at LISBON, MESSINA, in the WEST INDIES, &c. whole islands having been raised out of the sea, and others submerged under the waves, instruct us what may be expected from this ; which is to be expressive of the utter abhorrence God has ever had of the abominations of POPERY, though he reserved the judg ment upon it until now. The image given of it in Isai, xxxiv. 9, (See Sect. xv.) entirely corresponds with the idea of a lake of fire, extending several miles.

for the windows from on high are opened, (and threaten another deluge from above, while from beneath) the foundations of the earth do shake.-The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, AND THE TRANS

GRESSION THEREOF SHALL BE HEAVY ON

IT, and it shall fall, and not rise again."*. Allowing for the figurative and hyperbolical stile of prophecy, the real and prejudicial changes in the surface of the earth here foretold, will doubtless be confined to those countries where the heavy transgression that is to be thus punished, has most peculiarly prevailed. The earth here intended, is therefore to be understood of the kingdoms of the papal. spiritual empire, where "the MAN OF THE EARTH shall no more oppress."+

*Psalm cxi. 9.

Ps. x. 18. In Sect. x. p. 271, I have shewn the striking application of the whole of this prophetical Psalm to the papal tyranny, the head of that apostacy being here called “ -as by St Paul he is

WICKED, THE MAN OF THE EARTH,"

called "THE LAWLESS,- -THE MAN OF SIN."

THE

"And the great city was divided 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."-The great city means the whole ecclesiastical republic of popery, made up of many different kingdoms, and nations, and tongues,* as an ordinary city is of its different departments, Thus the dead bodies of the witnesses lay in the street of the great city three days and a half," and "there also our Lord was crucifed-all which the divine writer expressly says is to be understood in a mystical sense, as well as the various names of SODOM, EGYPT, EDOM, BABYLON, &c. by which this great city is distinguished in prophecy. After this signal act of divine justice and real AUTO DA FE, inflicted upon the city, and territories, and throne of the BEAST and his IMAGE; which involved the principals themselves in the horrible devastation; the subordinate kingdoms, which "have run to the same excess of riot,"

Rev, xvii. 15.

+ Rev, xi, 8.

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