rise to a great height in any city or kingdom, especially when they are enacted and enforced by law, are a fufficient reafon for the total deftruction of that city or kingdom, must be equally evident to every person who hath a just sense of good and evil, of the nature of the moral government of God over the world, and of that of ftates or collective bodies of men in this world.

CHAP.

CHA P. XIX.

VISION XII.

Verses ft, 4th. AND after these things

I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, faying, Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power. unto the Lord our God: For true and righteous are his judgements; for he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his fervants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rofe up for ever, and ever. And the four and twenty elders, and the four beafts fell down, and worfhipped God that fat on the throne, faying, Amen; Alleluia.!

The events predicted in this chapter fhall im mediately fucceed those which have been foretold in the preceding one. They relate to the triumph

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of the Chriftian church, which cannot precede, but muft immediately fucceed the final overthrow of Papal Rome.

John heard a great voice of much people. In the original, it is, "He heard as it were a great "voice of a great multitude." It is the fame word (xes) which in chap vii. 9. is tranflated multitude, and the fame perfons are fignified by it in both places; even the church of Christ, in its enlarged ftate, after the downfall of Rome, when the Jews with the fullness of the Gentiles fhall be brought unto it.

This great multitude fhall be in heaven; that is, in the Chriftian church. This great multitude fhall then give praise to God, as expreffive of their triumph and joy. They shall begin their fong with the Hebrew word Allelujah, which fignifies, praise God; to fignify that then the Jew and the Gentile fhall unite in worshipping God in the fame church. They fhall then praise God as the Lord, the fupreme Ruler of the universe, and as their God, whom they only have worshipped and served. To God, in these characters, they afcribe falvation, because he fhall then work out a wonderful and complete deliverance for his church from Rome and all her other enemies-glory, because the nature and manner of that deliverance fhall illuftriously display the glory of God, even the united luftre of all his perfec

tions ;-honour, because it shall then fully appear that he is the proper object of all honour, reverence, and worship, and because men fhall then worship him with filial honour and affection: Mal. i. 6. "A fon honoureth his father. If then I be a "father, where is mine honour? faith the Lord of "hofts;"--and power, because the omnipotence of his power shall then appear in the total over. throw of all those boasted powers, by which Rome and all the other enemies of his church had fo long attempted in vain to deftroy her.

The reafon and occafion of that joy and triumph are the final judgement or overthrow of Papal Rome. She is described here by the fame charac ter which is given of her in chap. xvii. 1, 2. By thefe judgements fhe fhall be punished for cor. rupting the Roman empire with her fuperftition and idolatry; and for fpilling the blood of those who are the fervants of God, who in matters of religion had worshipped and served God only, and had obeyed God rather than man, whenever their commands came in competition with each other.

Thefe judgements are called true, because the event fhall then clearly fhew that they exactly correspond to the predictions of God by the mouth of his prophets, particularly of Daniel, of Paul, and of John ;-and righteous, because they shall exactly correfpond in kind and degree to the crimes of Papal Kome. Since Rome fo keenly attempted

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attempted to overthrow that church of Chrift which is the kingdom of God, is it not right that her church and kingdom, fhould be overthrown? As Rome, in fo cruel, unjuft, and profufe a manner hath fhed the blood of faints, it is right that in her overthrow the blood of her citizens fhould be fhed; not by the brethren of these faints, but by wicked men, who, without intending it, fhall act as the executioners of the fentence of that God who hath faid, "whofoever theddeth man's "blood, by man fhall his blood be fhed." As that idolatry, and perfecution were committed by Rome, in its collective capacity as a ftate, and flowed from the very conftitution of the Papal hierarchy, it is right that that kingdom fhould be punished for them in its collective capacity, by the disgraceful and final overthrow of its conftitution of church and ftate in this world. For it cannot exist, and consequently cannot be punished in that capacity in a future state. In a future ftate, every individual perfon muit anfwer for his own conduct to the righteous and final Judge of the world, and among others every individual in the Papal empire must answer for bimfelf. Then the moft ftrict juftice fhall be administered to every None thall fare better nor worse than he ought to do, every circumstance of his fituation, and every quality in his character, being exactly weighed.

The