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be expected, which are abundantly predicted of the destruction of Antichrist.*

Any, who may wish to consult other prophetic passages, which are thought to relate to the battle of the great day, may turn to the following Scriptures. 2 Sam. xxiii, 6, 7; Psalm xxi, 8-12; and xxxvii, and cx; Isa. i, 24,-end, and ii, 10,— end; and xi, 4, and xiii, 6—11, and xxiv, and xxviii, 16—22, and xxxiv, 1-8, and xli, 10—16, and lix, 9,-end, and Ixiii, 1—6; and other passages noted by Dr. Hopkins, in his Treatise on the Millennium, sec. iv.

CHAP. IV.

On the Seven Apocalyptic Vials.

THAT the way may be prepared to note the prophecies relative to Antichrist, in some of the last of the vials, I shall endeavor to give an explanation of the whole of them.

We are informed, Rev. xv, 1; And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. Verse 7; And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. Chap. xvi, 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.

Also

The vial here mentioned is a plain cup, out of which to drink. (Play from Tie, to drink.) We read, Psalm lxxv, 8. In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and he poureth out of the same; but the dregs thereof all the wieked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them. Psalm xi, 6, "Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: This shall be the portion of their cup." A cup is often used in sacred Writ, to signify a portion from God, either of blessing, or of judgment. The seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, poured out from heaven to carth, are symbols of a series of peculiar judgments, which were to be inflicted upon the most notorious enemies of God on earth. Each vial being poured out by an Angel, indicates that Angels are the ministers of Divine Providence, to inflict the judgments of heaven on the enemies of the Church. The apocalyptic vials are seven. The number seven is much used in the word of God; and especially in this mystical book.

See Psalm xi, 6; Jer. xxv, 15, 17, 28; Exek. xxiii, 32 Mark xiv, 36, and x, 38; Psalm cxvi, 13, and many others.

Here are the seven seals; the seven trumpets; the seven spirits of God; and the seven vials. There were to be seven signal scenes of judgment, probably in a kind of systematic connexion, which were to destroy the enemies of the Churh, and to prepare the way for her millennial glory. And these are the seven last plagues, in which is filled up the wrath of God, which is to finish the scene with the most notorious enemies of the cause of Christ. God had been inflicting judgments on his enemies, who had attacked his Church, for many ages under the Gospel. There were the seals of judgments upon Pagan Rome; four trumpets of judgments upon Christian Rome; and two woe-trumpets of judgments on more eastern nations, as well as on Rome, in the rise of Mohammedism, and of the Ottoman empire; or in the ravages of the Saracens, and of the Turks. But these were not God's last plagues; were not comprised in the vials. The vials were to be subsequent to them, and were to finish the scene of judg ments preparatory to the Millennium. The Papal and Mohammedan enemies of the Church were to have an existence of 1260 years; and then they were to be destroyed. Accordingly, toward the close of the 1260 years, the direction is given from the temple in heaven to the seven Angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth...

It has been the opinion of some, that the seventh trumpet, or third woe, comprises all the vials; even as the seventh seal comprises all the trumpets. Whatever

plausible things may be said in favor of this, I think there are unanswerable objections against it; and that the old opinion, that the commencement of the vials was antecedent to the commencement of the seventh trumpet, will be found correct. For there can be no plausible pretence, that the third woe commenced, previously to the French Revolution. But the supposiion, that the seven vials were at that period all future; that four or five of them were accomplished on the French nation, and some neighboring nations, in less than twenty years, according to the scheme of Mr. Faber; and that none of the preceding judgments, which

had been regularly bringing down the Papal hierarchy, for several centuries, were yet to be reckoned as any part of the vials, must appear very extraordinary. Some of those preceding judgments appear to have an incontestable claim to be reckoned among the events, which were to fulfil the vials. The opinion, that none of the vials were poured out, till the revolution in France, appears, as real an extreme, as that of most of the old expositors, that the vials have been poured out through all the ages of Popery. The old scheme of the vials is as follows: That the first vial, inflicting a noisome and grievous sore, began to be poured out in the early part of the ninth century, in the contentions between the Popes and the emperors of Germany, relative to power. That the second, poured upon the sea, and turning it to blood, was fulfilled in the fanatical crusades to the Holy Land, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. That the third, upon the rivers and fountains of water, was fulfilled in the persecuting crusades against the Albigenses in the vallies of Piedmont; and in the quarrels between the ecclesiastical, and the civil powers, and their respective parties, the Guelphs and Gebelins, concerning the right of investitures: That the fourth, poured upon the sun, was fulfilled in the rivalships of different Popes, in the last of the fourteenth and the former part of the fifteenth centuries; there being two, and at one time three Popes set up at once, to the vexation of their different parties in Christendom: That the fifth, poured upon the seat of the Beast, was fulfilled in the events of the reformation under Luther: That the sixth, upon the river Euphrates, was iulfilled in the subsequent failing of the sources of Papal wealth: And that the seventh, poured into the air, is to be fulfilled in the total destruction of the Papal nations, and the enemies of the Church. But according to this scheme, why were the vials called the seven last plagues? For the first of them was fulfilled five or six hundred years before the second woe-trumpet! And indeed three or four of them preceded the second woe! If the old scheme be correct, the vials are so far from being God's last judgments on the Papal apostasy, that they were

indeed his first. They attended the very rise, progress, and highest state of the Papal power. Such a power as the Papal hierarchy, could not be expected to rise, and continue 1260 years, without some contentions and bloody scenes. But shall those contentions, which were yet consistent with the rise and zenith of the Papal power, be supposed to be the four first of the vials of the seven last plagues, which are to sweep the enemies of the Church from the face of the earth? It is incredible! It must appear unnatural, on the one hand, to apply the vials of the last judgments of God, to events, which attended the rise, and the highest state of Papal Rome; and unnatural, on the other hand, to exclude from the vials those events, which have been evidently destroying the Papal power, in a new and regular series of judgments, till we come down to the French revolution; and then to suppose à number of the vials to have been poured out almost at once.

A series of events, which were accomplished, some of thein long before the French revolution, and which were fatally disastrous to the Papal power, appear fully to answer to the description of some of the vials: While yet the events, which were consistent with the rise and zenith of that power, must be excluded from these judgments. The vials appear to contain a series of judgments, which were to commence after the second woe, peculiarly calculated to destroy the most noted enemies of the Church.

THE FIRST VIAL.

And the first went and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men, who had the mark of the Beast, and upon them who worshipped his Image. (Rev. xvi, 2.)

THE Papal Beast rose out of the earth; (Rev. xiii, 11;) out of the earthly views of the Roman Christians. The earth, in distinction from heaven, is, in symbolic language, a fit representation of an earthly, corrupt sys

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