Word. Its foes will exult over it as dead *. But the Spirit of God is in it; it rises, and stands erect. They who see it will fear, like the Soldiers at Christ's Sepulchret, who did shake for fear, and became as dead men. It will be caught up to heaven on the cloud of Christ's glory; and its enemies will see its triumph. And there will be a great earthquake §, as at Christ's Resurrection; and a tenth part of the great City will fall, as Jerusalem fell in a few years after His Ascension; and many will perish in the earthquake, and many will glorify God.

This is the Second Woe, the Sixth Trumpet, and the Sixth Seal; the Eve of the End ||.

Thus we are brought again to the point at which we closed our last discourse.

And now the Divine Writer proceeds a step further.

The Seventh and last Trumpet sounds: this is the third and last Woe.

It is briefly announced as follows: The Seventh Angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The Kingdom of this World has become the

The dead bodies of Thy Servants, O God, have they given to be meat unto the fowls of heaven; the Flesh of Thy Saints unto the Beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them. Ps. lxxix. 2, 3.

+ Matth. xxviii. 4.

TvEpéλn. Rev. xi. 12. cf. Rev. i. 7. x. 1. xiv. 14—16. § Matth. xxviii. 2. || Rev. xi. 14.

Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever*.

This carries us beyond the time of the Spiritual Armageddon to be described in the Seventh Vial f.

Then ensues a gratulatory doxology from the Twenty-four Elders to God, for having put forth His own might, and taken to Himself His power and kingdom; and because the time has arrived in which His enemies are to be put down, and the saints rewarded, and the Dead judged ‡.

Thus, then, we are brought to the Tribunal of Christ.

There is no intervening Millennium.

It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the Judgment §.

Next, the Holy Place of God in heaven is opened, and there appears the Ark of the Covenant in His Holy Place .

Thus we are reminded again of Joshua's Victory over Jericho; in the history of which we read, Let the seven priests sound the seven trumpets, and let the Ark of the Covenant follow**.

*Rev. xi. 15.

+ Rev. xi. 18.

Rev. xvi. 16. xix. 18, 19.

8 Heb. ix. 27. See also 2 Esdras xiv. 35.

|| Rev. xi. 19.

**KIẞWTOS Tns dialкns, Vers. LXX. Josh. vi. 7. Let the reader examine the sixth chapter in this Greek version, and he will be struck with its prophetic adaptation to the Apocalypse, chapters viii. ix. x. xi.

Here, again, St. John pauses, as if trembling at the prospect of the dread catastrophe, and, after his manner, reverts for a time to a former position, and begins to prophesy again.

The scene is changed. He has traced, as we have seen, the prophetic history of HOLY SCRIPTURE. He has revealed the astonishing fact, that the World would not be thankful for that blessed gift of God; that Scripture would be treated with contumely, in the same manner as its Divine Lord. And thus he has warned the Christian not to be dismayed or staggered by this strange and sad spectacle, when it should be displayed.

He now returns, to deliver a parallel prophecy concerning the reception in the world of the divinelyappointed Guardian, Witness, and Interpreter of Holy Scripture; that other blessed gift of God to man, the CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

He reveals to her what she herself must expect *. That Vision will next engage our attention.

Suffice it to observe at present, that the parallel between the fortunes of Scripture and the Church is marked by a chronological characteristic, as follows:

We have seen that the Two Witnesses prophesy, or preach, in sackcloth, one thousand two hundred and sixty days. Similarly the Woman, that is, the

Bede ad loc. Hactenus de Angelis tubâ canentibus: Nunc

recapitulat a nativitate Domini.

+ Rev. xi. 3.

Church *,-to be described in the following Vision, is in the wilderness for one thousand two hundred and sixty days t.

More will be said, in the next Discourse, concerning the signification of these numbers. In the mean time we learn, from their correspondence, that Scripture and the Church must suffer together. It is not possible to injure the one without injuring the other. They have one and the same Lord; one and the same cause; one and the same career: and as their sufferings coincide, so also will their Victory.

*Haymo. Ecclesia, mulier; sponsa Christi, credendo; operibus inhærendo, uxor; vocibus prædicando, mater; toties enim parit Christum, quoties officio prædicationis membra ejus ad fidem et operationem informat.

+ Rev. xii. 6.

LECTURE IX.

REV. xii. 1.

There appeared a great Wonder in heaven; a Woman clothed with the Sun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve Stars.

A WOMAN is seen clothed with the Sun, treading on the Moon, and crowned with twelve Stars. This is the CHURCH*, the Bride, the Queen at Christ's right hand t, clad in the robe of Christ's righteousness ‡, surviving all the changes § of Earth, and having her brows encircled with the starry diadem of Apostolic Doctrine and Discipline. This is her crown of

Aquinas ad loc. Luna, rerum temporalitas, quæ subjacet

mutationi sicut Luna.

Psalm xlv. 10.

See the excellent Scholium of Methodius in Cramer's Catena ad Apocalyps. p. 352.

§ Primas. ad loc. Ecclesia Christo induta calcat mundi mutabilia. Aquinas ad cap. xii. Ecclesiæ est indumentum et ornamentum Christus. Rom. xiii. 14, Induimini Jesum Christum.

Haymo ad loc. Corona stellarum xII. i. e. XII Apostolorum, qui sua prædicatione tenebras infidelitatis fugant et lumine