and earth, as it is symbolized by this temple, is also celebrated in the appropriate strains of the forty-sixth psalm: Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolation he hath made in the earth! He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth: he breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Israel is our refuge.

And again, in the fiftieth psalm, there is a similar celebration of the appearance and grandeur of Jehovah: Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens shall declare his righteousness, for God is judge himself. These prophetic strains of the Psalmist refer to the seventh trumpet age.

There is another feature in which the temple of the pro phet filled with smoke corresponds with the ancient tabernacle, and that is in the pause which the Israelites made when the cloud descended upon the tabernacle. They remained in their camp, and journeyed not until the cloud was lifted up from off the tabernacle.

I have already described the period now before us as being beyond the day of gospel effort. The gathering of the harvest will have ended when this period commences. The wine. press, the sea of glass mingled with fire, and the temple filled with smoke, all belong to this period.

This is the silence in heaven of the seventh seal. Christianity, or the spiritual Israel, pauses; its efforts to gather men to the fold of Christ have ceased; and the church stands still, and in silence beholds the works of the Lord. The church will be silent until the seven plagues of the seven angels are fulfilled. Then the cloud, or the smoke, will be lifted off the temple, when the Church of Christ will move forward

again; not as she has journeyed hitherto, buffeted by her adversaries, and struggling with powerful enemies, but she will move to her appointed station, to her heavenly Canaan.

But what is to be done during this state of quietude of the Christian Church? Much will be done. The Almighty is represented as speaking to heaven and earth, and commanding them to be still; and they shall know from his works which he will then do that he alone is God. This is the period when the angel will go forth and gather out of Christ's kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity; and when, as the Psalmist says, our God shall come and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, [mingling with the sea of glass,] and it shall be very tempestuous round about him, turning and overturning the nations that have rejected his word and despised his mercy. He will call heaven and earth to witness while he judges or justifies his people, and separates the vicious from the virtuous; vindicating his saints that have made a covenant with him by sacrifice, and denouncing his wrath against those who have hated his instruction and cast his words behind them.

In all this work the church has nothing to do; this is the half hour's silence in heaven. The cloud now rests upon her tabernacle, and she quietly and peacefully awaits in her camp the issue of the storms of wrath which shake and alarm the nations, while God is making a final disposition of his and her enemies through the ministration of the seven angels. When the seven plagues are fulfilled the smoke will leave the temple, the cloud will rise from the tabernacle, and the church will then move forward once more, and will ascend to her final state in the kingdom of God. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Such will be the glorious welcome with which Christ will then introduce his saints into the kingdom of God.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SEVEN VIALS.

We have in this chapter the account of the pouring out of the seven vials. But this is, as yet, in the future, at least as to the final efforts of those plagues or judgments, which are represented as being poured out of the vials. The final effect may not be clearly seen for a long time after the operation of the causes which will produce it have been operating. It is no one, direct, and instantaneous act of Divine Providence which is to produce the result ascribed to each vial; but probably the causes will begin in some remote circumstance of small consequence in our eyes, and will gradually produce effects of as little notoriety. But these very effects will themselves become the causes of other and greater effects, and in this way the ultimate end of Providence will be brought about. Just as the stream which takes its rise from some obscure rivulet, and meanders its way through the quiet glen, gathering, as it goes here and there, the numberless rills which fall from the hill-side, until finally they swell out into a torrent stream, forcing every mpediment, and sweeping away every obstacle.

But

Any attempt to explain fully the exact nature of those plagues might be justly regarded as presumptuous. still, from what we have already been able to gather from the teaching of our Lord, his apostles, and the ancient prophets, as well as from profane history, we may offer conjectures that will throw some light upon the subject.

The design of these plagues, or judgments, as they are also called, is evidently to break down all those institutions of

men which propagate and perpetuate ungodliness, whether they be civil or ecclesiastical governments, political or social systems.

Nothing has served to maintain a false religion in the world so much as corrupt and despotic power, whether that power be civil or ecclesiastic. In proof of this, it is only necessary to notice the spread and prosperity of the Christian religion where the people enjoy civil liberty, freedom of thought, and the free exercise of religious liberty.

The overthrow of all such institutions as obstruct the pure light of the gospel, and to punish those who obstinately adhere to them, is the work of this great day of judgment.

1. 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.

2. 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 worshiped his image.

3. 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 first verse assures us that these plagues are appointed by God alone. The angels are commanded by a great voice out of the temple, to go their ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God. God was in the temple, and it was therefore his voice that gave this command.

The first angel poured out his vial upon the earth. The term earth distinguishes mere civil or political government from that which is ecclesiastic, or, as it is frequently called, heavenly. Those civil governments are first struck, as being the chief supporters of a corrupt and antichristian religion.

The plague of this first vial consisted in a noisome and grievous sore, that fell upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image. This sufficiently indicates that the sufferers under the first vial are

to be chiefly the powers of Europe that support the temporal power of popery and its image.

A noisome and grievous sore implies a condition of painful and vexatious irritation, and fitly represents those insurrections and revolutions which break out upon the body politic, and either entirely destroy it or totally purge its constitutional corruption. These governments, then, will be either quite destroyed, or their religious principle will be entirely changed, and they will not only cease to uphold the old corrupt politico-religious system of Popery, but will become its armed enemies, and will burn it with fire, as the prophet has before said in speaking of the ten horns of the great beast.

The second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, which became as the blood of a dead man, and every living soul died in the sea.

Most commentators have considered this as a visitation upon some maritime power, and explain its allusion by the destruction of the Spanish Armada. But the sea, like everything else in this vision, is spoken of in a figurative sense, and any attempt to apply a literal meaning must utterly fail to give the true import of the text.

The subject upon which the second vial is poured out is, like the sea, immense in its extent; reaching as the sea does, from continent to continent. This is the meaning of the sea, as used here; and how very appropriate the figure is, will appear, when we consider that the papal religion, which is the subject represented, did, formerly, not only cover all Europe, but by the indefatigable labors of the Jesuits, was extended to every continent on the globe. The sea became as the blood of a dead man! When the blood has lost its vitality, it is no longer capable of supporting the functions of life, and the body dies; and because the sea became as the blood of a dead man, every living soul died in the sea!

A great multitude and variety of functionaries, spiritual and temporal popes, cardinals, bishops, monks and priests, of every order and degree, have their life in this sea, and