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 cast it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine-press was trodden without the City; and blood came out of the wine-press, even unto the horses' bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.""

Sixteen hundred furlongs is the exact length of the Holy Land, " from Dan to Beersheba." In the Old Testament, heavy judgments are called harvests, not generally of mercy but of punishment. This harvest and vintage is predicted by Isaiah and Joel; St. John arranges their predictions under the Seventh Vial; and the predictions of the Hebrew prophets and of St. John successively, relate to the last great controversy of God with His irreclaimable and antichristian enemies. These, however near we may be to the time of the end, are at this time, 1860, future; and therefore we conclude in general terms, "that since the figurative harvest is distinguished from the vintage; and since the natural harvest precedes the natural vintage; the figurative harvest must be some eminent judgment or calamity which occurs at the beginning of the time of the end, or at the commencement of the Seventh Vial; while the figurative vintage must be the concluding judgment or calamity, which occurs at the close of that period.""

Commentators are not agreed as to the harvest; but they are generally of the same opinion respect6 Rev. xiv. 14-20.

7 Sac. Cal. iii. 219.

ing the vintage, or the closing judgment on the great Midianitish Woman, or False Prophet, and the Ten Horned Beast with his confederated Horns, in the final battle, or campaign of Armageddon, under the command of the revived Seventh Head, Louis Napoleon.

The clusters of the vine which are declared to be ripe for the sickle, are the clusters of the papal Church's membership, which the angel of the Covenant is to gather and cast into the wine-press of the wrath of God, which is to be trodden without the City, or the Roman Civitas. The greater part of the North of Europe was never under the ancient Roman dominion, neither was Ireland; but as the latter is an intensely popish country, Mr. Galloway is of opinion that the wine-press will be trodden in the popish South and West of that kingdom. "Ireland," he says, "is without the City, and thither the clusters of Romanism are already gathering. There Rome meets in immediate antagonism with the greatest Protestant power in the world; there she has the opportunity of striking at the vitals of that kingdom, which has been the mainstay of the Reformation from the beginning, and the greatest obstacle to the papal projects of universal supremacy; thither the eyes of the world are turned, in expectation of great events from a people drunk and maddened with the wine of Rome's cup of sorceries, and rushing with reckless determination upon their own ruin, that they may convert their green isle into one vast field of blood; content, in the intensity of their hatred, to perish themselves, if they may but first flesh every sword to the hilt'

in the bosoms of the Saxon Protestant population."8

Since that time, the development of history has shown the above author to have been wrong; for in the famine in Ireland upwards of a million of these wretched followers of the Pope perished of hunger and disease; many thousands of them emigrated; and recently, the remainder seem to have gone to meet their fate, under the banner of the last of the False Prophets in Italy, by enlisting contrary to law, but at the instigation of their lawless priests, into the papal army.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Woe Trumpets-The Third Woe-The French Revolution -The Temple opened-Smoke prevents men's entrance into it.

AFTER having described parenthetically the events recorded in the Little Open Book, St. John returns to his original subject in the Larger Sealed Book. The first historical part of which, commenced at the birth of Nebuchadnezzar, the Golden Head of the great metallic image, in the 8 Gate of Prophecy, ii. 389-391-published 1846.

year before Christ 657, to the passing away of the Second Woe at the battle of Zenta, fought in the year after Christ 1697. The angel announced that the third Woe would come quickly. A space of more than five centuries intervened between the First and the Second Woes; but the Third Woe was to come quickly; and then the season of God's judgment commences, and will continue throughout the whole blast of that terrible trumpet. The fall of Babylon, or the Roman Church, will take place during the effusion of the Seventh Vial. On the defeat of the papal powers at Armageddon, the septimo-octave head of the Beast, with all the immense armament with which he is accompanied, together with the False Prophet, will be cast into the lake of fire. All this is predicted by St. John both in express terms, and also under the figure of a dreadful vintage of wrath; the particulars of which are as yet, 1860, in the womb of futurity ; and therefore it is not fit to indulge in speculation.

Expositors are universally agreed that the Saracens and the Turks were the first two Woes; in fact they are indisputable. They were strictly of the same nature, both being bigoted Mahometans and enemies to Christianity; and their conquests were rapid and extensive; they overran the Eastern empire, and almost extirpated the Christian Church of that wing of the empire. Whereas the Northern conquerors of the Western empire were pagans; but they were so little attached to their paganism, or opposed to Christianity, that they readily and unanimously embraced the religion of those whom they had conquered. Both the Sara

cens and the Turks detested the Gospel; and wherever they established themselves, they hated, persecuted and trampled upon all who refused to become proselytes to the Koran. Each of the two first Woes was marked with the same principles; viz., "Rapid conquest, and violent hostility to the Gospel."

66

After the battle of Zenta, A.D. 1697, when the Second Woe passed away, nothing in the military annals of Europe occurred of sufficient importance to constitute a Woe, till the year 1789, when a new and fearful period commenced, totally different from any thing that had preceded it in the annals of the world. The long cherished balance of power was destroyed in an instant; and the rise of a baleful and eccentric comet above the political horizon, formed an epoch which will never cease to be memorable in history. As a modern writer has well observed, the fall of the French monarchy was marked with all the characters of suddenness and mysterious power, which peculiarly appertain to the times of God's extraordinary visitations; and as we have since had but too much reason to know by bitter experience, the year 1789 has constituted so complete a line of historical demarcation, that what preceded that year, seems almost to belong to a different planet, from that on which were transacted the giant deeds which followed it."1

The Second Woe terminated in August, of the year 1697, and the grand French Revolution commenced according to Alison's History, on the 5th day of the month of May 1789, just 92 years after the termination of the Second Woe. This is but a

1 Sac. Cal. iii. 230.