vengeance of heaven against those, who still partook of the abominations of the apostate Roman beast, after all the warnings which they had received; and the ablest expositors of those prophecies, which relate to the corrupt tyranny of the mystic Babylon, have been children or fathers of our national Church. Of these it will be sufficient to mention the illustrious name of Mede; who, by his successful application of many of the predictions of Daniel and St. John to Popery, loudly called upon the whole world to come out of the harlot city, lest they should "drink of the "wine of the wrath of God.".

4." Here is the patience of the saints: here

are they, that keep the commandments of God, "and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice "from heaven, saying unto me, Write, blessed

are the dead which die in the Lord from hence"forth; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest "from their labours, and their works do follow "them."

Gloriously successful as the Reformation eventually was, the patience of the saints was severely exercised during its progress. It was a season of great trial and persecution: and many of them of understanding perished in trying, and in purging, and in making white, their apostate brethren *. Great was the increase which the noble army of the martyrs then received. They overcame the

* Dan. xi. 35.

dragon,

dragon, not by the arm of flesh, but " by the "blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto "death *. Hence they had need of that consolatory declaration," Blessed are the dead who "die in the Lord from henceforth." By their Preaching, the gloomy fears of purgatory were dispelled; and the pious learned to build with confidence upon the assurance of the Spirit, that, whenever they depart hence and are no more seen, "they rest from their labours, and their works do "follow them †.

II. "And I looked, and behold, a white cloud; "and upon the cloud one sat, like unto the Son "of man, having on his head a golden crown, "and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a "loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust "in thy sickle and reap; for the harvest of the "earth is ripe. And he, that sat on the cloud, "thrust in his sickle on the earth: and the earth "was reaped.

"And another angel came out of the temple "which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. "And another angel came out from the altar,

* Rev. xii. 11.

For the substance of these remarks upon the characters of the three angels,. I am indebted to Mr. Whitaker: whose mode of interpreting this particular portion of the Apocalypse I very much prefer to that adopted by Bp. Newton. See Whitaker's Comment. p. 430-436.

"which had power over fire; and cried with a "loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, "saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather "the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 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 winepress' was trodden without the city; and blood came "out of the winepress even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand. and six hundred "furlongs."

1. Having passed the epoch of the Reformation, we now advance into the times of God's last judgments upon his enemies, the days of the third woetrumpet. Two remarkable periods of the most conspicuous of these judgments, the several steps of the whole of which are afterwards described under the seven vials, are here arranged under two grand divisions, figuratively styled the harvest and the vintage. In the days of Bp. Newton, the third woe-trumpet had not begun to sound; none therefore of the vials were then poured out. Hence his Lordship justly observed, "What par"ticular events are signified by this harvest and

vintage, it appears impossible for any man to "determine; time alone can with certainty discover, for these things are yet in futurity. Only 46 it inay be observed, that these two signal judg"ments will as certainly come, as harvest and vintage succeed in their season; and, in the

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course of providence, the one will precede the "other, as, in the course of nature, the harvest S6° js before the vintage; and the latter will greatly mass the former, and be attended with a more penia destruction of God's enemies *." But, al both these signal judgments were future whp Newton wrote, it has been our lot to P hese rice of the third woe, and to behold in the ownen Revolution the dreadful scenes of the hạ . Still however a more dreadful prospect exis before us The days of the vintage are. yet ture: for the time hath not yet arrived, when the great controversy of God with the nations shail be carried on between the two seas, in the neighbourhood of the glorious holy mountain, in the blood-stained vale of Megiddo, in the land whose space extends a thousand and six hundred furlongs +.

Dissert. on Rev. xiv.

2. Such

After a long consideration of the subject, I rest in the opinion of Mede, Newton, Lowman, Doddridge, and Bengelius, that the apocalyptic harvest denotes a harvest, not of mercy, but of wrath. Mr. Mede, who has elaborately and minutely discussed the point, observes, that the idea of a hartest includes three things; the reaping of the corn, the gathering of it in, and the threshing of it; whence it is made a type in Scripture of two direct opposites; of destruction, when the reaping and the threshing are considered; of restitution and saltation when the in-gathering is considered (Comment. Apoc. in Messem.). Now the context of the apocalyptic harvest seems to me most definitely to teach us, that a harvest of judgment is intended. Throughout the whole book of Revelation, with the exception of a few passages which sufficiently explain themselves, the

earth

2. Such are the contents of the little book. Its several chapters, running parallel to each other in

earth is used as a symbol of the Roman empire pagan and pupal. 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 graves are fully ripe; and it is the ripe harvest of this selfsame earth that is to be reaped, 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 differenee indeed there is between the two prophets, that

Jeremiah