appearing, that there would be at the time indications of the opening of Christ's Church to the world, so as it had never been opened before,' (the last previous notice about the mystic temple having been only that of St. John in his symbolic character casting out the 0 or Paganized Romanists from it,) and of God's manifestly thinking upon his covenant (his covenant of mercy to the world, and triumph to the Redeemer) to fulfil it: with one remarkable qualification however, that this consummation would not take effect until after the seven vials had been poured out, and the smoke of God's presence been manifest as taking vengeance.3-From the thunderings,

2

1 Vitringa understands as the signification of this symbol, Ist, that the nature of the true Church would be now manifested to men: 2, that there would be a confluence of the fulness of the Gentiles into it, according to the prophecy of the New Jerusalem, "that its gates should be no more shut by day."-But as it is said, "All nations shall come and worship thee," as of a thing future, and the statement added, "No man could enter till the plagues of the seven Angels were fulfilled," and moreover, in the development of the Trumpet, no vision was exhibited, or intimation given, of any great actual ingathering or confluence of nations to Christ, until after the seventh vial had been poured out on Babylon,it seems to me safest and most accordant with the prophecy, to explain this figure of the Church opening its gates to the world, during the time of the vials, in the way of invitation. Compare Isa. xxvi. 2: "Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter in : " and Psalm cxviii. 19: Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go into them and praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter."-We may observe in contrast the state of things when Ahaz prohibited God's worship; Ahaz cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem :" a state of things ended by Hezekiah, who "opened the doors of the Lord's house; " 2 Chron. xxviii. 24, xxix. 3: -also the figurative and spiritual application of the phrase made by Christ and St. Paul; Matt. xxiii. 14; "Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; Acts xiv. 27; "How he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles." Compare Zech. vi. 15, "Then they that are afar off shall come, and build in the temple of the Lord," &c.

The ancient Expositor Tichonius, I may observe, explains the symbol somewhat similarly: "In ecclesiâ incarnationis Christi mysteria patefacta sunt, et intellectum est ecclesiam esse arcam testamenti:" the discoveries of these Gospel mysteries being however supposed by him to be confined to the Church, not opened to the world. Bossuet's view is more nearly my own.

2 It is called both "the ark of God's covenant," and "ark of his strength," 2 Chron. vi. 41; as symbolizing not only his presence, but also his covenanted promise to act with might for his faithful servants, against his and their enemies. Thus when the ark of God was taken, Eli felt that Israel's strength was gone. Again it was before the ark that Dagon fell; the symbol of all idolatry falling before the Gospel.-There were in it the two tables of the covenant, or ten Commandments; and perhaps the Books of Moses. Compare Exod. xxv. 16, 1 Kings viii. 9, Deut. xxxi. 26, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 14.

3 Compare Numb. xvi. 19, 42, 45: where the cloud of God's presence appeared to cover the tabernacle; when stirring himself up to take vengeance on Korah and Israel, as well as in defence of his servants Moses and Aaron. It is

lightnings, hail, and earthquake attending, it was to be inferred that there would be some remarkable political revolution and commotions, of Northern origin apparently, (so the hail might indicate,) at the time of the seventh Trumpet's sounding; just as we inferred the same from similar elemental convulsions attendant on the sounding of the first Trumpet:a revolution and commotions that would similarly fix the character, and be but the beginning, of other commotions afterwards following under it, and which would more especially mark its consummation.'-Yet once more, the circumstance of seven new Angels from the temple being employed to pour out these vials of judgment on the apostate Roman earth, instead of the four Angels of the winds whose instrumentality had been used hitherto under the six former Trumpets, seemed to indicate that the judgments now commencing would originate from no external agency, or foreign foe, but from causes and agencies. altogether within the empire.2

2. Such were the chief circumstantials and characteristics of the seventh Trumpet's sounding, noted anticipatorily on the Apocalyptic scene: and now let the Reader, before our entering on particulars, mark well the general agreement therewith (in so far as it has been developed) of the circumstances and characteristics of the outbreak of the great FRENCH REVOLUTion.

this passage, I conceive, that is to be referred to, as the chief precedent and parallel to that before us; the immediate object here being evidently that of judgment against the enemies of his Church, and interposition with power in his Church's defence and favor. The manifestation of God's glory on occasion of Solomon's dedication of the Temple, 1 Kings viii. 11, seems to me a case less in point; though one not to be overlooked in the comparison.

1 It may be remembered that the earthquake and lightnings which preceded the first Trumpet's sounding, were explained to betoken the political revolution and wars of the Goths, on the first rising against the Romans after the death of Theodosius: the which constituted both the introduction to, and characteristic of, all the woes that followed from the subsequent Gothic invasions. See Vol. i. pp. 343, 349, 350.

2 See my observations on these four Angels of the winds, Vol. i. pp. 299, 300. The point is one hitherto, I believe, quite overlooked by commentators; but one of which the evidence approves itself to my mind; and which, if true is certainly important. I know no passage where the winds are used symbolically of destroyers coming on a nation, in which external enemies, or judgments from without, are not meant.

First, it agreed in respect to the important indication of time. For it happened just a little while only after the manifest passing away of the Turkish woe; according to the predictive declaration, "The second woe hath past; behold, the third woe cometh quickly." In proof of this fact I have already observed on a former occasion that, although the victories of John Sobieski and Prince Eugene over the Turks at the close of the 17th century were a decisive arrest of the Turkish woe,1 yet it could not then be said to have past away. After the peace of Carlowitz, however, it was evident (I transcribe from a former historic sketch)2 that decay had begun irretrievably within it. And the next great war that, after a long peace with Christendom, called it again into the battle-field,I mean that of 1770 against united Austria and Russia, -a war signalized by victory after victory on the part of the allied forces, and which was ended in the year 1774 by a peace dictated in terms by Prince Romanzoff,-proclaimed to the world in language too clear to be mistaken, that the Turkman power was no longer a woe to Christendom, but Christendom to the Turkmans. The dissolution or conquest of its empire had become thenceforth, it was evident, only a question of time and European policy. "The second woe had passed away."-This, I say, was in 1774. That same year was the date of the American Revolution as also of the ill-fated Louis the XVIth's accession to the French throne: and in 1789, only fifteen years after, the French Revolution broke out.3

;

Secondly, the French Revolution agreed also in respect of its own characteristics, with the prefigurations of the seventh Trumpet. For it was a political convulsion and revolution, so as the symbol of the earthquake indicated,* of magnitude such that the Apocalyptic prophecy

1 Rycaut on the Turkish empire says that A.D. 1697 was the epoch viewed by the Turks themselves as that of the fated limit to the extension of their empire. 2 See Vol. ii. p. 433.

3 Alison observes, i. 566, that in the year 1790, on a new attack by Austria and Russia, instantaneous destruction seemed to threaten the Turkish Empire; and that it was only averted by the intervention of England, Prussia, and Sweden. 4 See p. 287 suprà. U

VOL. III.

would have been altogether inconsistent with itself had it not noticed it-it was a convulsion of internal origin, and not, like the great judgments previously inflicted on Christendom, one that arose out of the irruption of external invading foes, from the four winds :-it was one that issued in wars long and furious in Western Christendom, agreeably with the prefiguring symbol, “ thunderings and lightnings and great hail:"-wars of Northern origin, as France was the most Northerly of the kingdoms of the Beast; and in the which they that had corrupted the earth, including both the apostate nations themselves, the Pope with his Church and Clergy, and the Turk too, (once its great corrupter and desolator,) were signal sufferers :-it was a convulsion in which the exasperated passions of men manifested themselves, with a virulence unprecedented in the world's history, against both Christ's religion, God's judgments, and their fellow-men; according to the statement, "The nations were angry, or exasperated: "--finally, it was one on the occurrence of which, and during its continuance, there were certain, separated from the Popedom and its false doctrines and spirit, (I mean specially in England,) who recognized these judgments as God's righteous retribution on his saints' enemies; and who also, deeming them that which would usher in the world's conversion, sought by missionary exertions to help forward the desired consummation: not without some manifestation of God's remembering his covenant, and in manner unprecedented hitherto removing barriers, and opening his reformed Church to the heathen world.-All this will appear hereafter more clearly and fully, as we trace out in detail the historic development of the great modern æra of the French Revolution.

CHAPTER II.

EPOCH OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET'S SOUNDING, OR FRENCH REVOLUTION.

We turn to the historic fulfilment of the Trumpet's sounding. And I think it may be well here to consider how the æra was introduced in European history, and with what anticipations or prognostications of the coming future, as well as how accomplished: the interval which elapsed between the passing away of the Turkman woe and the outbreak of the Revolution,—or from about A.D. 1774 to 1789,-having been almost marked out in the Apocalyptic prophecy as an interval for pause and looking forward, by that solemn notification, "The second woe hath past behold the third woe cometh quickly."

1. The political state of things, then, in the interval referred to, was such that the generality of observers prophesied peace and safety.-With regard to external danger, as from the irruption into European Christendom of new barbaric hordes, like the Goths and Huns, or Saracens and Turks, in ages previous, we have on record Gibbon's considerate judgment,' formed just at the time that I speak of, pronouncing its high improbability. The establishment of Russia, he observes, as a powerful civilized empire, comprehending in its rule. what was once the wilds of Sarmatia and Scythia, had contracted the reign of independent barbarism to a narrow space. The 2300 walled towns of modern Germany presented obstacles to invasion from those Eastern wilds altogether unknown in earlier ages. resisting strength of the twelve powerful though unequal kingdoms, now embraced in the European commonwealth,-states exercised in the art of war and the military spirit by the mutual but indecisive contests of rivalry, was altogether different from that of Roman

1 Decline and Fall, vi. 349.

The