Such are the contents of the little book. Its seve ral chapters, running parallel to each other in point

of

earth is used as a symbol of the Roman empire pagan and papal. Upon this earth all the vials of God's wrath are poured out, whatever subsequent distinction may be made in their effusion (Rev. xvi. 1.). It is the vine of this earth that is to be gathered when her grapes are fully ripe: and it is the ripe harvest of this selfsame earth that is to be reape 1, when the time for reaping is come. Here we may note, that it is not, as in our Lord's parable (Matt. xiii. 24, 38.), said to be the harvest of a field, which is afterwards formally explained to mean the whole world: but, as the sickle is thrust into the earth to gather the vine of the earth, so is the sickle likewise thrust into the earth to reap the harvest of the earth. If then the earth mean the Roman empire in the case of the vintage, which cannot reasonably be doubted, since those that are cast into the winepress are the Roman beast, the false prophet, and the kings of that same earth, and since (according to the acknowledged principles of symbolical imagery) the vine of the earth must denote the corrupt church of the mystic Babylon, whose abominations,-whose ripe clusters of iniquity, will eventually occasion the ruin of its supporter the secular beast (Dan. vii. 11.): if, I say, the earth mean the Roman empire in the case of the vintage, must we not conclude from the almost studied similarity of phraseology used by the prophet, that the earth means likewise the Roman empire in the case of the harvest? And, if this be allowed," what idea can we annex to the reaping of the harvest of the corrupt Roman empire, which, like the grapes of that same empire, is declared to be ripe, except that of some tremendous judgment that should precede the vintage and more or less affect the whole empire? In such an opinion also I am the more confirmed by finding, that a judgment about to befall Babylon, the constant apocalyptic type of the Roman church and empire, is by Jeremiah expressly termed a harvest (See Jerem. li. 33.). This difference indeed there is hetween the two prophets, that Jeremiah dwells upon the third part of the harvest, the threshing;

of time, jointly furnish a complete prophetic history of the Western Apostasy during the whole period of the 1260 years, under all the three woe-trumpets. It principally however exhibits the corruptions of Popery under the two first woe-trumpets: the third is but briefly touched upon, and that only to prevent a break in the period of 1260 years. As the little book comprehends the whole of this period, a point which itself repeatedly insists upon*,

while St. John selects the imagery of the first part, the reaping: yet I cannot but think, that the context of both passages sufficiently shews, that a harvest of judgment, not of mercy, is iutended. The apocalyptic harvest, by being confined to the earth or the Roman empire, cannot denote either the general in-gathering of Judah and Israel, or the universal influx of the gentiles to the millennian church: and since, like the vintage, it is exclusively confined to the idolatrous and persecuting Roman empire, since in both cases the sickle is equally thrust into this empire; I feel myself compelled to conclude, that, like the vintage, it denotes some signal judgment. This judgment I suppose to be the first part of the third woe; a woe, which must be expected to mark a period in history no less striking than the successive founding of the Saracenic and Turkish empires; a woe, which is ushered in by an event no less singular than definite, the fall of a tenth part of the great Roman city, or of one of the ten original Gothico-Roman monarchies by an earthquake. This judgment in short I suppose to be the horrors of the second French revolution and its immediate consequences, commencing on the 12th of August 1792, and ushered in by the fall of the monarchy both arbitrary and limited which at that time was the only one that remained of the ten original kingdoms; a revolution, which in those consequences, or (to adopt the prophetic phraseology) during the reaping of the harvest of the earth, has been felt to the remotest parts of the Roman empire.

* See Rev. xi. 2, 3. xii. 6, 14. xiii. 5.

it was necessary to notice the sounding of the third woe-trumpet; which, like its two fellows, is included in the 1260 years*. The prophet therefore does notice it, briefly informing us that it should be immediately preceded, and as it were introduced, by a great earthquake which should occasion the fall of a tenth part of the Latin city; and that it should principally consist of two tremendous manifestations of God's wrath, two seasons of peculiar misery, the harvest and the vintage. A more particular account of these matters he reserves for future consideration under the pouring out of the seven vials: and the account itself he places, not in the little book, but in the larger book of the Apocalypse, inasmuch as it concerns not merely the western but likewise the eastern Apostasy, and affects indeed more or less even the whole world. The 15th chapter of the Revelation therefore must be considered as chronologically succeeding the 9th, the intermediate chapters being a parenthetical history of the West, and constituting what St. John terms a little book together with an introduction to it. In the 9th chapter, we have an account of the two first woes in the East: in the 15th, the prophet begins to describe the

* At least so far included, that six out of its seven vials are comprehended within the 1260 years. The last vial, or that which contains the season of the vintage, seems to be poured out as soon as the 1260 years expire; and it coincides with what Daniel calls the time of the end, or the period of God's great controversy with the nations.

effects of the last woe. Hence it is manifest, that the intermediate space must necessarily be occupied by the little book and its introduction. Let us now attend the prophet in his account of the effusion of the vials, which are all comprehended under the third woe, and which must be divided into three classes: the vials of the harvest, the intermediate vials, and the vial of the vintage.

CHAP.

CHAPTER XI.

Concerning the effects of the last woe-trumpet, the pouring out of the seven vials, and the restoration of the Jews,

1

THE prophet, having separately detailed the effects of the two first woe-trumpets in the East and in the West, and having briefly touched upon the sounding of the third, now proceeds to give us a more full account of the miseries which it should produce. For this purpose he divides it into seven periods, which he distinguishes by the pouring out of seven vials; and, to shew us that they are all comprehended under the last woe-trumpet the commencement of the blast of which he had already announced, he styles them the seven last plagues. They are in fact the same, I apprehend, as the - seven thunders, the roll of which St. John heard, when he had finished his account of the second woe-trumpet as afflicting the East. Conceiving rightly that in point of time they were the next in order to the events which he had last detailed, he seems to have supposed that they were immedi