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"And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found."-As the cities of the nations signify their political and ecclesiastical communities and governments; I conceive that islands and mountains mean states and kingdoms, considered in reference to their individuality of existence, as separate and independent principalities. If the government of a nation is overthrown, as that of France at the Revolution, the city which symbolizes it is said to fall. But if a kingdom by conquest loses its independence, and is occupied by foreign troops, then the island or mountain which represents it is said to flee away, or be removed out of its place. In this sense perhaps the mountain representing France fled away when the allied armies took possession of Paris. And in a similar manner the islands and mountains representing the greater part of the states and kingdoms of the Roman empire have fled away since the year

1792.*

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* "Sensus est communem hoc tempore et generalem fere rerum in "orbe Europæo et maxime in imperio Romanensi mystico eique subjectis regnis et rebus publicis catastrophen.”—“ Est_interim "quod hic diligenter observemus, eadem hæc verba nos jam habuisse "in prophetia sigilli sexti, quæ declarat res in fine sextæ vel in initio "septimæ periodi temporis, libro sigillorum circumscripti eventuras;

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quæque huic nostræ per omnia parallela est, et ipsum quoque "emblema hujus phialæ declarat ut modo monebam. Ibi nempe "postquam mentio fuisset facta cœli abolendi, et solis, lunæ, ac "siderum, loco suo aut statu movendorum, exerte additur, cap. vi. 14. "Et omnes montes el insulæ è locis suis motæ sunt." Quo argumento plane persuademur prophetiam sigillorum æque ac tubiciniorum "illam decurrere ad ultima ecclesiæ tempora; quia dubitari non potest, phialam hanc septimam illud nobis ecclesiæ tempus demon"strare, quod gloriosum illius statum proxime præcedet. Esse autem "eandem prophetiam hanc parallelam prophetiæ tubicinii septimi, "jam observavimus ad præcedentes hujus prophetiæ pericopas et novo argumento adstruitur ex iis verbis, quæ nunc sequuntur.

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Where are now the celebrated republics of Venice, of Genoa, and Holland? They have disappeared by being merged into other kingdoms. Where is the Germanic or holy Roman empire?-Where the ancient absolute monarchy of France? Their political forms have undergone such mutations as to render them no longer the same. Where again is the mighty empire erected by Bonaparte? It has crumbled into dust. Thus have the islands and mountains begun to flee away. But we are yet only in the midst of the earthquake, and God has in mercy granted to us a pause, before the last and most awful part of the catastrophe. This part of the prophecy will then be more completely fulfilled.

Sometimes islands and mountains, in the symbolical style, denote king's and princes. If the symbol be understood in this sense in the passage before us, then it has received its fulfilment by the overthrow of many of the ancient dynasties of Europe in the first place, and secondly by that of the princes who reigned as the vassals of Napoleon.

"And there fell upon men a great hail out of "heaven."-Hail in the language of symbols seems to denote the plague of war; and this hail out of heaven shows by what means the dreadful effusion of blood is to be effected, which forms the subject of the second and third vials; and that this is by an awful tempest of fierce and relentless wars, waged by the governments, or ruling powers of the Roman world. I need not say in what a fearful manner this has been fulfilled, in the wars which have desolated

"Estque hæc vera et certa clavis hujus libri recte interpretandi, quæ "merito magni facienda est." Vitringa, in loco.

every part of Europe since the year 1792, by the of revolutionary France.

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The effects of the seventh vial are detailed more. fully in the 17th, 18th, and 19th chapters of the Apocalypse; but as the greater part of the contents of these chapters is still future, we must patiently wait until events throw light upon them. It would seem however that under the seventh vial, the bestial empire will be moulded into that shape, which it is destined to assume before the beast and his ten kings are gathered together by diabolical agency, to the battle of the great day of the Lord. All the revolutionary changes which take place in consequence of the effusion of this vial into the symbolical air, will have a tendency to prepare the Roman empire for that last blasphemous opposition to the Lamb, in which it shall perish.* I apprehend therefore that we are not to look for any reformation in the body of the nations composing the western empire. Many individuals will probably be awakened to true repentance, by the awful signs of the times, and the preaching of the Gospel, but the great majority of the inhabitants of the empire shall wax worse and worse, and at length reach a daring pitch of wickedness, which shall draw down upon them the signal vengeance of the Almighty Word of Jehovah in the day of Armageddon. It would, I conceive, be very rash to form conjectures, with regard to the shape which the empire will assume preparatory to that event. I think however it may be gathered from prophecy, that its division into ten kingdoms will continue substantially until that time; but what

* Rev. xvii. 13, 14. xix. 15—20.

power is then to be the representative of the Cæsars, and to head the last great confederacy, seems to me to be no where declared. At the publication of the first edition of this work I indeed thought otherwise, conceiving that the power of France was to remain unbroken to the end. But events have shown that I was mistaken, and as I conceive the legitimate province of the interpreter of prophecy, is to explain prophecies already fulfilled, and not to hazard conjectures as to the manner of the accomplishment of what is future, I shall carefully abstain from all such conjectural expositions, observing only that when the beast shall be moulded into his last political shape, then I conceive the organization of that confederacy will be complete, which is to be gathered together by diabolical influence to the battle of Armageddon.

It may probably occur to the attentive reader, as an objection to the above scheme of interpretation, that the gathering together of the last confederacy to Armageddon, is to take place under the sixth vial; and that therefore it is contradictory to suppose that the confederacy is to be formed under the seventh vial. To this I answer, that there are probably two reasons why the gathering together of the confederacy to Armageddon is mentioned under the sixth vial. The first of these is, that the great battle, and treading of the winepress, are to take place in Judea; and consequently these events have a natural and close connection with the downfall of the Turkish empire, which is the subject of the sixth vial, and they come very naturally to be mentioned immediately after the fall of that power, of which

Judea is a province. The second reason is, that the waters of the mystic Euphrates are dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared, and these kings of the east are probably the converted Jews. Now there is a foundation for believing, that the object of the gathering together of the last confederacy to Armageddon, will be to oppose the purposes of God with respect to the Jews; and if so, there is the greatest beauty and propriety in that gathering together being introduced under the sixth vial, i. e. under the vial in which the way of the Jews is to be prepared. On the other hand, the organization of the confederacy is placed under the seventh vial; because it is composed of materials which could have no existence till a mighty revolution was effected in the politicoecclesiastical constitution of the Roman empire, by the effusion of the seventh vial of wrath on that constitution, i. e. on the symbolical atmosphere.* The

* It may without difficulty be shown, that Mr. Faber's scheme of the vials, which supposes their effusion to be successive, is radically deficient. Mr. Faber, like myself, supposes that a great confederacy of the kings of the western empire is to be formed under the vials, and broken at Armageddon. But his scheme does not account for the formation of the confederacy, which is itself an effect of the wrath of God poured out on the bestial empire. Now under which of the vials does Mr. Faber place this special effect of the divine wrath? As far as I understand his scheme, there is no room in it for that change in the political form of the western empire, which is to issue in the last great combination of its sovereigns against the Lamb. Indeed from Mr. Faber's scheme, as modified in his fifth edition, the French revolution, as a symbolical earthquake, is altogether excluded, though he still holds that revolution to be the third woe, and though it exactly corresponds with his own definition of a symbolical earthquake.

The scheme of the vials contained in these pages has been charged with having a tendency to introduce confusion into the Apocalyptic

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