same time, though the effusion of one commenced before that of another.

Besides the division of the third woe-trumpet into the seven vials, it is represented as comprehending likewise two grand periods of peculiar distress, figuratively termed by St. John the harvest and the vintage. The harvest occupies, I conceive, the beginning of the third woe-trumpet, or the earlier part of the last days of atheistical infidelity. It symbolizes the miseries inflicted upon mankind by the tyranny of Antichrist, and synchronizes with the first half of Daniel's account of the king who magnified himself above every god. This period comprehends the three first vials. The vintage, on the other hand, occupies the termination of the third woe-trumpet, or the time of the end. It relates to the great controversy of God with the nations, and the entire overthrow of Popery and Infidelity. This period synchronizes with the second half of Dániel's account of the atheistical king;† and is comprehended under the seventh vial, the vial, as it may be termed, of consummation. The fourth, fifth, and sixth, vials are poured out in the intermediate space between the vials of the harvest and the vial of the vintage; and the last of these three may be considered as preparing the way for the final manifestation of God's wrath. Thus it appears, that, agreeably to the analogy of the natural harcest and vintage, some time will intervene between the figurative harvest and vintage; that this time will be marked by the pouring out, at certain indefinite periods, of the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth, vials; and that at length, when the mystery of God is about to be accomplished, when the waters of the Euphrates are completely dried up, when a way has been prepared for the kings of the East, and when the great confederacy has begun to be put in motion by the secret agency of the three unclean spirits, the last tremendous vial of the vintage will be poured out at the close of the 1260 years.

Subsequent to his account of the seven vials, St. John gives us a more enlarged prophetic history of the vintage, prefacing it with a description of the scarlet whore pre

Dan. xi. 36-39.

Dan. xi. 40-45. xii. 1.

vious to her being overtaken by the judgments of God. The events, which he particularizes, are the overthrow of Babylon, the battle of the kings of the earth, and the utter destruction of the beast and the false prophet. All these events are to be comprehended under the last vial, as is manifest from this consideration. The seven vials are expressly said to be the last plagues: but, if the events in question be not comprehended under some one of them, the vials certainly are not the last plagues; because, in that case, they will be prior to those events: whence I conclude, that the events must necessarily be comprehended under some one of them. But, since the events are described as terminating the present order of things previous to the Millennium, and since the last vial of the last trumpet of the last seal cannot but be considered as the vial of consummation, the events must unavoidably belong to the last vial.

These preliminary observations being made, I shall proceed to a particular consideration of each distinct vial.

SECTION I.

Concerning the vials of the harvest.

The two first woe-trumpets described the rise of the two-fold Apostacy, Papal and Mohammedan, and the plenitude of power to which it speedily attained: the third introduces the reign of Antichrist; and, after having foretold under the vials of the harvest the miseries with which he should afflict mankind, predicts under the vial of the vintage the downfall of the Apostacy and the total overthrow of all God's enemies.

We have already seen, that the third woe-trumpet began to sound on the 12th of August 1792, immediately after the limited monarchy of France was overthrown, and when the tyrannical reign of liberty and equality commenced. This being the case, we must look for the pouring out of all the seven vials, which form so many distinct periods of the third woe-trumpet, posterior to the 12th of August 1792; observing however, that the harvest itself must be considered as commencing, not merely

VOL. II.

26

with the first vial, but with the earliest blast of the trum pet, and that the miseries previously produced by the fall of the tenth part of the Latin city may be esteemed (to make the allegory complete) the first fruits of the harvest.

“And I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth: and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image."

The earth is the Roman empire: the men, who bear the mark of the beast and worship his image, are the once superstitious, but now atheistical, members of the Latin Empire and Church: and the noisome and grievous sore, which is represented as first openly breaking out after the great earthquake which overthrew a tenth part of the city, and after the commencement of the reign of anarchy at the first blast of the third woe-trumpet, is the delusive spirit of atheism, or that gross lie of Antichrist the denial of the Father and the Son.*

Since this imagery is borrowed from natural maladies, for the right understanding of it we must consider how such maladies operate upon the human frame. As the humours then, which at length produce a sore in the body natural, secretly work for some time previous to their eruption; so the humours, which produced this figurative sore in the body politic, had long been concocting previous to its open appearance. Atheism indeed existed in the very days of the Apostles; for even then were there many antichrists, even then was the spirit of Antichrist in the world: but it began to be more systematically

This mode of expression is perfectly agreeable to the scriptural practice of describing spiritual by natural maladies. (See Isaiah i. 5, 6.) Sir Isaac Newton supposes, that " a durable plague of war is signified by a sore and pain:" and Mr. Bicheno has followed him in this opinion, applying the effusion of the first vial, which he thinks like myself was poured out in the autumn of the year 1792, to the calamities which the confederates of Pilnitz experienced from the arms of the French republic. But I cannot find, that we have any authority for annexing such an idea to the word sere. In 2 Chron. vi. 28, it is used in a general sense, including war indeed, but including likewise many other calamities. Signs of the times, Part. III. P. 166, 167.

disseminated by the dragon, that original father of all lies, when he quitted his old station in the figurative heaven of the Latin church, and took a more advantageous position upon the earth. For a season the noisome sore broke out only upon a few individuals: but, in the course of the latter half of the eighteenth century, the infernal ingenuity of Voltaire and his associates spread the poisonous humour far and wide throughout Europe. Still however we did not behold the full effect of the devil's labours upon the Roman earth. According to the sure word of prophecy, the great earthquake of the French Revolution was to take place in the year 1789, and the third woe-trumpet was publicly to introduce the anarchical principles of Antichrist on the 12th of August 1792, ere the noisome sore of Atheism broke out under the first vial. But, when that memorable 12th of August was past, and when on the no less memorable 26th of the same month an open profession of Atheism was made by a whole nation once zealously devoted to the papal superstition, then was the first vial poured out upon the earth, then commenced the eruption of the noisome sore. At this period, in consequence of the success of the French revolution, corresponding societies and atheistical clubs were every where held fearlessly and undis guisedly. All Europe seemed to have drunk deep of the cup of trembling. Scarcely a Christian was to be found within the limits of the papal Latin earth: and, in protestant countries, many, who had clean escaped from them that live in error, had been allured, through the lusts of the flesh, by vain promises of liberty, of a lawless freedom from all restraint both civil and religious, to forsake the religion of their fathers. At this period moreover, the project of converting all the kingdoms of the earth into atheistical republics framed after the model of the misshapen democracy of France, was unreservedly and triumphantly avowed by infidel demagogues, and loudly and incessantly applauded by the populace throughout the whole great Roman city. When all these signs of the times concurred together, when the poisonous humours were perfectly concocted, then it was that the noisome sore broke out. The principles of Antichrist

were now publicly developed in the face of the whole world: and, since all the prophetic periods of the Apocalypse are dated, not from the secret cogitations of the heart which are known only to the Almighty, but from some overt and prominent display of those cogitations reduced to actual practice and manifested to the eyes of all men; to what era shall we look for the first undisguised avowal of national Atheism, for the first open eruption of the noisome sore predicted under this vial, except the 26th of August 1792, on which day the denial of a God was for the first time formally established by law?

"And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea and it became as the blood of a dead man ; and every living soul died in the sea."

The pouring out of this vial immediately succeeds that of the first and it relates, I conceive, to the dreadful massacres of revolutionary France which commenced early in the September of the year 1792 ;* massacres, which, extending from the metropolis to the provinces, converted that unhappy country into one great slaughter-house. The sea symbolizes a nation in a violent state of effervescence and revolution: and, when it is said to become as the blood of a dead man, we are evidently led to conclude, that the nation thus convulsed with intestine discord is deeply stained with the blood of its slaughtered citizens. That such has been in an eminent degree the case with France, in consequence of her being infected with the noisome sore of Atheism, we have all unhappily beheld, as it were, with our own eyes. We have seen murder accumulated upon murder; and the life of man, which every civilized legislature has hitherto regarded of the utmost importance, considered as a thing of no value. Of so little consequence did it appear in the eyes of Marat, the friend of the people, that he scrupled not to assert, that, in order to cement liberty, the national club ought to strike off 200,000 heads. During the reign

The massacres, which took place before this time, are not comprehended under the second vial, because they were perpetrated previous to the sounding of the third rese trumpet on the 12th of August 1792. They belong on the contrary to the great earth quake of the first revolution, which commenced in the year 1789, and the last shock of which produced together with the downfall of the limited monarchy of France the atrocitics of the 10th of August 1792.