bolical figure he explains in another place.* Speaking of Christ he says, "Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the WINE PRESS of the fierceness of the wrath of almighty God.

It cannot admit of dispute that by the VINTAGE, in these passages, is meant some dreadful and decisive havock amongst the

rusalem Talmud, describing the woeful slaughter which the roman emperor ADRIAN made of the jews at the destruction of the city of BITTER, saith that the horses waded in blood up to the nostrils. And examples are not wanting even in the clas sical authors."

Multoq. fluentia sanguine lora.

"Their very bridles dropp'd with human blood.”

* Rev. xix. 15.

Sil. Ital, cxi. 705.

† Rev. ii. 27; xii. 5; Ps. ii. 9.-The psalmist says his rod or mace of iron will be an instrument of torture to the apostate nations, to bruise and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel.The IRON SCEPTRE Conveys two ideas,the eternity and strength of his kingdom, (Dan. ii. 44,) and the powerful effeet of his judgments upon the rebellious,

enemies of the church; and that the emancipation of the jews is closely connected with it. -For immediately after these afflictive scenes of human carnage, the usual accompaniment of similar prophecies is introduced.-Ver. 7, "IN THAT TIME SHALL THE PRESENT BE BROUGHT UNTO THE LORD OF HOSTS," -(to the common Lord and Saviour of all men, Jesus Christ, the true David, the everlasting King of Israel,) a present—“ of a people scattered and peeled,—a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden underfoot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, TO THE PLACE OF THE NAME OF THE LORD OF HOSTS, THE MOUNT ZION.".

There are allusions to this terrible act of divine vengeance upon antichristian apostacy, in many of the prophecies, under the same figure of an HARVEST; in the reaping of which, the interests and future advancement of the Israel of God, or the whole true christian church, is involved." O Judah! he hath set an HARVEST for thee, when I re

The

turned the captivity of my people."* meaning of which seems to be, that when the fulness of time shall arrive for the reconciliation of Israel, God will give some signal evidences of his restored favor to them, by conquests achieved over their original captors, or those who have taken upon themselves all the responsibility of their cruelties, (which exceeded even their commission,)† by being their persecutors even to the latter days. "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor; it is time to thresh her: yet a little while and the TIME OF HER HARVEST shall come." When the harvest is full ripe for the sickle, the reaper appointed to it will not be far behind. "Put ye in the sickle FOR THE HARVEST IS RIPE. Come, get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow, for their wickedness is great."§Here both the HARVEST and VINTAGE are included, and the explanation is also given, that it is God's vengeance upon consummate

Hosea vi. 11.

† Isai. xlvii, 6.

Jer. li. 33.

Joel iii. 13, 14; Rev. xiv, 14.

impiety, for which the predestinated agent is commissioned and urged to expedition in doing his work of death. Babylon is fallen

-is fallen, and all the graven images of her gods hath he broken to the ground. O! MY

THRESHING, AND THE CORN OF MY FLOOR-That which I have heard of the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you."

These prophecies (all of them evidently alluding to the same events, which some of them explicitly declare to be the FALL OF BABYLON and her THRESHING, or the breaking up of her confederate powers, to make way for the return of the jews, and the happy establishment of the kingdom of Christ,) are adopted by St John, as being still future in his time, and applied by him to the overthrow of the catholic apostacy; for he says, "the wine press was trodden without the city," (which intimates that it was not far from it, but in the adjacent territory of the

Isai. xxi. 9, 10.

church, or patrimony of St Peter, as it was till of late esteemed ;) " and blood came out of the wine press, even unto the horses bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs."*

To the same effect is that sublime figurative representation of Christ returning from his destruction of Antichrist, in vengeance for the long and grievous sufferings of his church, by which in his faithful martyrs he had himself been "crucified afresh, and put to an open shame," in the Egypt of the great apostacy. "Who is this? That cometh from Edom, in (blood) dyed garments from Bosrah ?This that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength." Christ is here shewn, as he is afterwards by St John in Rev. xix. 11, as a triumphant conqueror, of unrivalled might, notwithstanding the previous sufferings he had undergone, from the long prevailing warfare of the usurper Antichrist. He is also glorious in the matchless splendor

Rev, xiv. 8.-See Sect, xx. p. 47,