Ib. Mountain-Island.] These are places of the greatest security in times of hostile invasion; the mountain is difficult of access, by reason of its height and steepness; the island, from its surrounding waters. Therefore, under these images, the securest places are represented as no longer affording safety during this dreadful visitation. *. Ver. 15. Kings of the earth, &c.] As in the description of the verse preceding, no place can afford security, so, in this, no pre-eminence in rank, power, or riches, can yield protection from the impending devastation: nor is there escape from it in any station of life: "Every bond-man and every free-man" flee before it, but in vain! Ver. 16. Say to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us.] Compare Judges vi. 2; 1 Sam. xiii. 6; Isaiah ii. 10, 19; Hos. x. 8; Luke xxiii. 30; and add to them the accounts which we derive from modern travellers, of the caves and hiding-places yet to be seen in Judæa, Arabia, &c. and this language will be found to describe a flight of the utmost terror and dismay, before a victorious enemy, who, having destroyed all the fortresses and cities, pursues the hopeless fugitives into their last places of refuge. But who is this dreadful and avenging Conqueror, before whom at this time they flee? (ver. 16.) "He who sitteth on the "Throne; and the Lamb," the Redeemer, his Vicegerent, who executes his wrathf. Hab. iii, v. 6. ↑ Go, then, thou mightiest, in thy Father's might; My Bow and Thunder; my Almighty Arms Through Pursue Throughout the whole of prophetical Scripture, a time of retribution, and of vengeance on God's enemies, is denounced. It is called "the day of the Lord;" "the day of wrath and slaughter; of the Lord's anger, visitation, and judgment;" "the great day;" "the "last day:" and whenever it is described, the signs which occur under this seal will be found, more or less, to compose its dreadful apparatus. At the same time, it is to be observed, that this kind of description, and the same expressions, which are used to represent this great day, are also employed by the Prophets, to describe the fall and punishment of particular states 'and empires;-of Babylon, by Isaiah (ch. xiii.); of Egypt, by Ezekiel (ch. xxx. 2, 3, 4. xxxii. 7, 8.); of Jerusalem, by Jeremiah, Joel, and by our Lord *: and in many of these prophecies, the description of the calamity which is to fall on a particular state or nation, is so blended and intermixed with that general destruction, which, in the final days of vengeance, will invade all the inhabitants of the earth, that the industry and skill of our ablest interpreters have been scarcely equal to separate and assort them †. Hence it has been concluded by judicious divines, that these partial prophecies and particular instances of the Divine vengeance, whose accomplishment we know to have taken place, are presented to us as types, certain tokens and fore-runners, of some greater events which are also disclosed in them. To the dreadful time of universal Pursue the sons of darkness, drive them out * Matt. xxiv. PARADISE LOST, vi. 710. † See the ingenious attempt of Grotius, in his notes on Matt. xxiv. vengeance, vengeance, they all appear to look forward, beyond their first and more immediate object. Little indeed can we doubt that such is to be considered the use and application of these prophecies, since we see them thus applied by our Lord and his Apostles *." "the One of the most remarkable of these prophecies is that splendid one of Isaiah, ch. xxxiv; the importance and universality of which is to be collected from the manner in which it is introduced: "All na"tions and people, the world and all things in it," are summoned to the audience. It represents "day of the Lord's vengeance," and the year of the recompenses for the controversy of Sion (ver. 8); it descends on all nations and their armies (ver. 2). The images of wrathful vengeance and utter dissolution are the same which are presented under this sixth seal. The hosts of heaven are dissolved; the heavens are rolled together as a scroll of parchment; the stars * See Matt. i. 22, 23. xxvii. 9. John xv, 25. xix. 36, 37. Acts ii. 20, 27. iii, 19, 22, 24. Heb. iv. 7, 8. x. 27, 37. Rom. ii. 5. Gal. iv. 24. Eph. v. 14. 2 Thess. ii. 3, &c. 2 Pet. iii. 2-14; where the prophecies of the Old Testament are applied in a more extended and spiritual sense, than in their first and primary designation. For observations on the nature of Divine Prophecy, as applicable in a double sense, which has been denied by some divines, (by Dr. Sykes and Dr. Benson, and by Collins, the free-thinker,) see Bp. Lowth, Prælection xi, and Note on Isaiah, ch. xl.; Mr. Lowth on Isaiah vii. 15; Jortin's Remarks on Eccl. Hist. p. 188-228; Serm. v. 1, 124; Sir Isaac Newton on Prophecy, 251; Bp. Hurd's Sermons on Prophecy, iii. iv. v; Bp. Sherlock on Prophecy, Disc. ii; Bp. Warburton, Divine Legation, book vi. 8; Bp. Horne's Preface to the Psalms; Jones on the Figurative Language of Scripture, lect. viii; and, lastly, a very recent publication by Archdeacon Nares, in which, with great judgment and ability, he has shewn the indubitable right and authority by which we apply the prophecies in a double sense, because they are thus applied by our Lord himself and his Apostles; (Sermons at the Warburtonian Lecture, 1805), fall, . fall, like a leaf from a vine, or a fig from its tree. And yet Idumea is mentioned by the prophet as the particular object of vengeance: such seems to be the typical completion, and primary application of this prophecy but it has evidently a more sublime and future prospect, and in this sense the whole world is its object and using the same symbols and figurative expressions with this prophecy of the sixth seal, with those of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and above all, sixteenth chapters of the Apocalypse, and with others of the Old and New Testament, it must, with them, be finally referred to the great day of the Lord's vengeance for its perfect completion. The sixth seal appears to exhibit a general description of this great day; and is illustrated by many preceding prophecies, which, having a primary reference to the destruction of God's enemies in Babylon, Egypt, Jerusalem, &c. have evidently received their partial accomplishment, yet as evidently look forward to a more full and glorious consummation. They are not become a dead letter; they unite in pointing to some grander object, which all such prophecies describe; even the universal and final overthrow of the enemies of Christ. And they encourage us to look with certain assurance to the completion of the predictions in their final sense, since we have already seen them fulfilled typically. . As our Lord, in foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem, made use of the expression of former prophets, and thus directed their application to events then to come, involving in the same prediction the vengeance to fall, not only on his enemies in that siege, but at the end of the world;" so, this prophecy of the sixth seal, published after the destruction of Jerusalem, 1 Jerusalem, yet containing the expressions of these former prophets, together with those of our Lord, seems to give clear indication of a more full and perfect accomplishment of all these prophecies. Additional light will be cast on this prophecy (which, like the other seals, is to be considered as only a general sketch and outline) by subsequent visions in this book, which cotemporize with it, and were so understood by Cyprian in the third century; who referred them, together with this prediction of the sixth seal, to their grand and final accomplishment at the end of the world*. Cyprian. ad Novat. Hær. i. PART II. SECTION IX. The sealing of the Hundred-and-forty-four Thousand, and the Presentation of the Palm-bearing Multitude before the Throne. Η Καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα εἶδον τέσσαρας αγ γέλες, ἐρῶτας ἐπὶ τὰς τέσσαρας γ vias Tus yns, xgaτέντας τις τέσ σαρας ἀνέμες τῆς γῆς, ἵνα μὴ πνίη ἀνεμα ἐπὶ τῆς ys, μnte ini Tñs θαλάσσης, μήτε ἐπὶ τῶν δένδρον. CHAPTER VII. 1 And after these things sea, nor on any tree. 1 And after these things, I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any 2 tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having |
