Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER III.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE SUMMARY ACCOUNT OF THE THIRD WOE-TRUMPET, WHICH, AS A CHRONOLOGICAL LINK, IS GIVEN IN THE LITTLE OPEN BOOK.

I SHALL now proceed to analyse that summary account of the third woe-trumpet, which, in the way of a chronological link, is given in the little open book, preparatory to that more enlarged account of it, which is afterward given in the second portion of the greater sealed book when the prophet describes the baleful effects produced by the successive effusion of its seven constituent vials.

The second woe is past: and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly. And the seventh angel sounded and there were great voices in heaven, saying; The sovereignty of the world has become our Lord's and his Christ's': and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying: We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art and wast and art to come, because thou hast taken thy great power and hast exercised

[blocks in formation]

thy sovereignty. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath has come: and it is the season of the dead to be judged; the season also to give recompense to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to those that fear thy name, small and great; the season also to destroy them, who destroy the earth. And the temple of God in heaven was opened; and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail1.

I. We may, I think, clearly enough perceive, as I have already observed, that the summary account of the third woe, at present before us, is a kind of syllabus to the more enlarged account of it which is given in the vision of the seven vials: though, as the seventh trumpet must obviously begin to sound before the first subincluded vial begins to be poured out, the earliest matter specified in the summary account must commence with the trumpet itself; and therefore must commence before the effusion of the first subincluded vial, though it runs through the entire period of all the vials, because it runs through the entire period of their universally comprehending trumpet.

1. And the seventh angel sounded: and there were great voices in heaven, saying; The sovereignty of the world has become our Lord's and his Christ's: and he shall reign for ever and

Rev. xi. 14-19.

ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying: We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art and wast and art to come, because thou hast taken thy great power, and hast exercised thy sovereignty.

Few passages in the Apocalypse have been more generally and more thoroughly misunderstood than the present clause. By the adoption of a faulty reading, which has plainly crept into the text through the influence of an expositorial predetermination; which, however, is utterly irreconcileable with the context; and which has therefore, on abundantly sufficient authority, been judiciously rejected by Griesbach: through the adoption, I say, of this faulty reading, the passage has been very commonly supposed to intimate, that, upon the sounding of the seventh angel, the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; or, in other words, that the universal conversion of the Gentiles to the pure faith of the Gospel is effected.

When such an explanation has been taken up, the question obviously occurs: How is it possible, that the universal conversion of the Gentiles, or the inauguration of the Millennian Church, can be one of the three great woes, which are destined successively to afflict the inhabitants of the Roman earth; how is it possible, that an event, rapturously celebrated by the prophets as producing only peace and holiness and happiness, can be a woc, homogeneous

in its nature and character to the two antecedent woes of the Saracens and the Turks?

To this very natural question, Bishop Newton replies, that St. John is rapt and hurried away, as it were, to a view of the happy Millennium, without considering the steps preceding and conducting to it. Hence, though the general conversion of the Gentiles is mentioned the first in order, it is the last in accomplishment: for the anger of the nations and the destruction of those who destroyed the earth are chronologically the earliest events of the third woe-trumpet; and, when these events have occurred, then, and not till then (says the Bishop), according to the heavenly chorus, the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.

This arbitrary and unauthorised gloss will not, for a moment, stand the test of dispassionate examination.

The very principle of the gloss itself rests upon a palpably inaccurate statement. St. John, says the Bishop, is rapt and hurried away to a view of the happy Millennium, without considering the steps preceding and conducting to it. Now, in matter of fact, St. John himself, whatever allowance may be made for human infirmity, cannot be the person, who is represented as being thus unchronologically rapt and hurried away. The words are not the words of the prophet: but they are words, which he heard uttered by great voices in heaven,

immediately upon the sounding of the seventh angel. Hence, if there be any hurrying away in the case, it must have been experienced, not by St. John, but by those who uttered the great oracular voices in heaven. But such a supposition is plainly most indecorous and intolerable. Hence, let the

text mean what it may, we must view it as expressing the very first event, which occurs on the sounding of the third woe-trumpet. If, therefore, the conversion of the Gentiles be intended, the conversion of the Gentiles must be effected when the third woe-trumpet begins to sound: and thus we shall have, not only the gross contradiction of that grand and happy event being spoken of as a great woe homogeneous in nature and character to the two preceding woes of the Saracens and the Turks, but likewise the glaring chronological error of the conversion of the Gentiles being placed anterior to the fall of the Antichristian Empire.

In truth, the passage has not the slightest reference to the conversion of the Gentiles: on the contrary, it relates to what the elders immediately afterward denominate God's taking great power to himself and exercising his regal sovereignty. The two oppressive little horns of Popery and Mohammedism had long been permitted to run their career of tyranny and injustice: but the time of that judgment, which Daniel describes as beginning before the time of the end though reaching through its whole period, had now commenced'. God had

Dan. vii. 9-11, 26.

« PreviousContinue »