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Church being the ultimate scope of prophecy, we have no occasion to go into "the wide field of universal history*" to search for doubtful interpretations: we must confine ourselves to that portion of it which alone is connected with the Church. Accordingly we find, that no nations are particularized in prophecy excepting those with which the Church either has been or will be concerned, Moab, Edom, Amalek, Nineveh, Tyre, Egypt, the four great empires, and a yet future confederacy denominated Gog and Magog, are all very fully noticed; while the mighty monarchies of China and Hindostan are totally overlooked. Now, when we must acknowledge such to be the case with the Old Testament, why are we to conclude that the apocalyptic predictions are framed upon a different principle? and, since throughout the whole of the Revelation the Church is connected with Daniel's fourth beast or the Roman empire, why are we to suppose that that empire is never spoken of except when the ten-horned beast is specially introduced, that is to say, except during the period of the 1260 years?

The Archdeacon's interpretation of the seals I shall consider hereafter; at present I shall confine myself to that of the trumpets. The four first of these he will not allow to relate to the overthrow of the Western empire, on the ground that the subject of the Apocalypse is the fates and fortunes of the Christian Church†. But are not those fates and fortunes most closely connected with the overthrow of the Western empire ? According to the usual interpretation of the four first trumpets and the tyranny of the two beasts during the period of the 1260 years, every thing appears in strict chronological order, and the one succession of events arises naturally out of the other. St. Paul teaches es, that, when he that letted or the Western empire should be taken away, then should the man of sin be revealed. Now what is the particular portion of the Apocalypse which we are now considering, except an enlarged repetition of St. Paul's prediction? He that letted is taken away; and the man of sin forthwith rears his head:the Western empire is taken away by the operation of the four + p. 218-222.

* Pref. p. xv.

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first trumpets; and the great apostasy of 1260 days, the reign of the false prophet and his temporal supporter, shortly commences. The one is preparatory to the other: the four trumpets are merely the prelude to what may be termed the grand subject of the Apocalypse, a wonderful tyranny exercised within the Church itself by the upholders of the Apostasy, and a contemporary Apostasy in the eastern world scarcely less wonderful than that in the western. St. Paul and St. John are perfectly in unison: they alike connect the downfall of the empire with the fates of the Church. Thus, even independent of the Archdeacon's chronological arrangement, which shall presently be discussed, I see not why the old interpretation of the four trumpets, or at least the great outlines of that interpretation, ought to be rejected.

The Archdeacon however brings an argument against such an interpretation of the four trumpets from the homogeneity of all the seven trumpets. He insists most justly, that what the nature of one is the nature of them all must be: and observes that Mede, in order to make them homogeneal, interprets the fifth and the sixth trumpets as relating to the attacks made upon the empire by the Saracens and Turks, as he had already referred the four first to the attacks previously made upon the empire by the Gothic tribes. But he adds, that the seventh trumpet announces "most clearly the victory obtained by "Christ and his Church, not over the Roman empire, but

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over the powers of hell, and of Antichrist, and a corrupt "world; over the dragon, the beast, the false prophet, and "in process of time (for the seventh trumpet continues to "the end) over death and hell. If then, under the seventh "trumpet, the warfare of the Christian Church be so clearly "represented (and in this all writers are agreed), what are

we to think of the six? How must they be interpreted, "so as to appear homogeneal? Are they to be accounted, "with Mede and his followers, the successive shocks, by "which the Roman empire fell under the Goths and Vandals?

Homogeneity forbids. They must therefore be supposed to contain the warfare of the Christian Church. And this war"fare may be successful under the seventh and last trumpet,

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"when it had been unsuccessful before, yet the homogeneity "be consistently preserved. For the question is not concerning the success, but concerning the warfare. And the "trumpets may be deemed homogeneal, if they all represent "the same warfare (viz. of the powers of hell, and of the "Antichristian world, against the Church of Christ), what"ever may be the event *" That the object of the seventh trumpet is to introduce the victory obtained by Christ and his Church, and to usher in the happy period of the Millennium, few will be disposed to deny: but the question is, how is this desirable object accomplished? The Archdeacon himself allows, by the triumph of the Church over those instruments of hell, Antichrist, the beast, and the false prophet. Now, whether I be right or wrong in my own notions of Antichrist, what is this but a triumph over the Roman empire and the apostate communion inseparably connected with it? Accordingly we fiud, that the sevenih trumpet, after conducting us through six of its vials, all of which are poured out upon God's enemies, magnificently introduces under the seventh vial the judgment of the great harlot, the downfall of Babylon, and the complete destruction of the beast along with the false prophet and his confederated kings; in other words, the overthrow of the papal Roman empire both secular and temporal. How then is the homogeneity of the trumpets violated by Mede's exposition? Under the four first, the western empire falls; under the two next, the eastern empire follows the fate of its more ancient half; under the last, the revived beast or papal empire is utterly broken, and prepares a way by its overthrow for the millennian reign of the Messiah. In short, as matters appear to me, if we argue backwards from the seventh trumpet, homogeneity, instead of forbidding, requires us to refer all the six first trumpets to different attacks upon the Roman empire, the final ruin of which is ushered in by the seventh.

2. But my objection to the Archdeacon's arrangement of the Apocalypse, on which a great part of his subsequent interpretations necessarily depends, is infinitely stronger than to

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his very limited system of applying the prophecies. It appears to me to be so extremely arbitrary, and to introduce so much confusion into the three septenaries of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials, that, if it be adopted, I see not what certainty we can ever have, that a clue to the right interpretation of the Apocalypse is attainable.

The Archdeacon supposes, that the six first seals give a general sketch of the contents of the whole book, and that they extend from the time of our Saviour's ascension even to the great day of the Lord's vengeance, a description of which day is exhibited under the sixth seal*. Having thus arrived at the consummation of all things, how are we to dispose of the seventh seal? The Archdeacon conceives, that the same history of the Church begins anew under it; that the connection, which had hitherto united the seals, is broken; that the seventh seal stands apart, containing all the seven trumpets; and that the renewed history, comprehended under this seventh seal, begins "from the earliest times of Christianity, or, to speak "more properly, from the period when our Lord left the "world in person, and committed the Church to the guidance " of his apostles. From this time the first seal takes its com"mencement; from this also, the first trumpet +." Hence it is manifest, since the seventh seal brings us back, for the purpose of introducing the seven trumpets, to the very same period at which the first seal was opened, that the opening of the seventh seal synchronizes, in the judgment of the Archdeacon, with the opening of the first seal, and that the seventh seal singly comprehends exactly the same space of time as all the six first seals conjointly.

The seventh seal then introduces and contains within itself all the seven trumpets, the first six of which constitute the Archdeacon's second series of prophetic history, as the first six seals had constituted his first series; and these two serieses are in a great measure, though not altogether, commensurate; for, though they both alike begin from the ascension of our Lord, the six seals carry us to the day of judgment, whereas the six trumpets only carry us to the end of the 1260 years.

p. 135, 174, 196,

† p. 197, 200, ‡ p. 273, 274.

The

The third series is of course that of the vials, which the Archdeacon arranges under the seventh trumpet, as he had previously arranged the seven trumpets under the seventh seal. But where is the place of the seventh trumpet, and consequently. of the first vial? The Archdeacon does not, bring back the seventh trumpet and the first vial to the ascension of our Lord, as he had previously brought back the seventh scal and the first trumpet, but only to the beginning of the times of the beast, or the 1260 years; through the whole of which he supposes the seventh trumpet and its component vials to extend. He conceives however, that the sixth trumpet introduces Mohammedism in the year 606, and reaches to the downfall of Mohammedism at the close of the 1260 years. Consequently the beginning of the seventh trumpet exactly synchronizes with the beginning of the sixth trumpet; but the seventh extends beyond the sixth, and reaches, like the sixth seal and the seventh seal, to the final con summation of all things".

In brief, the chronological arrangement of the Archdeacon's three serieses is as follows. The first is that of the six seals; and it reaches from the ascension of our Lord to the day of judgment. The second is that of the six trumpets, introduced by and comprehended under the seventh seal; and it reaches from the ascension of our Lord to the termination of the 1260 years. The third is that of the seven vials, introduced by and comprehended under the seventh trumpet; and it reaches from the commencement of the times of the beast pr the 1200 years to the day of judgment.

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Now it is impossible not to see, that the whole of this are rangement is purely arbitrary, and consequently that the various interpretations built upon it must in a great measure be arbitrary likewise. The Apocalypse must either be one continued prophecy, like each of those delivered by Daniel; ia which case (with the single exception, as nearly all com mentators are agreed, of the episode contained in the little book) we must admit it, unless we be willing to give up all certainty of interpretation, to be strictly chronological: or it

p. 308, 399, 400, 491, 252–273, 274, 339, 360.

must

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