lasting Sabbath,-is marked in the Apocalypse, as a time of rebuke and blasphemy against His Holy Word. Its foes will exult over it as dead'. But the Spirit of God is in it; it rises, and stands erect. They who see will fear, like the Soldiers at Christ's Sepulchre, who did shake for fear, and became as dead men; there will be a great earthquake3, as at Christ's Resurrection. And as Christ mounted on a cloud to heaven, so it will be caught up to heaven on the cloud of Christ's glory; and its enemies will see its triumph. The world will be visited with sore plagues for its contempt of Scripture. And a tenth

4

Ut Christus passus est

filii tenebrarum, scilicet infideles.-So, p. 175. die sexto, et Sabbato requievit, ita in sexto tempore Ecclesiæ complebitur passio Corporis Christi mystici, et erit, post hoc, Sabbatum gloriosum.

1 The dead bodies of Thy Servants, O God, have they given to be meat unto the fowls of heaven; the Flesh of Thy Saints unto the Beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem, and there was none to bury them. Psalm lxxix. 2, 3.

In applying the Symbol of the Two Witnesses to the Two Testaments, we may readily allow that, in a subordinate degree, it may also be accommodated to noble and pious confessors, who have maintained the Doctrine of the Two Testaments, and sealed it with their blood. Therefore we would not dispute against any who see here a prophetic history of Christian Martyrs, such as John Huss, and Jerome of Prague (see Vitringa, p. 487), and of those who fell in the massacre of Chabrières, 1545, or Paris, 1572 (ibid. 492. 497), or in Ireland, 1641, or in Piedmont in 1655, or in France in 1685.

2 Matth. xxviii. 4.

3 τῇ νεφέλῃ.

14-16.

Acts i. 9.

Rev. xi. 12. cf. Rev. i. 7; x. 1 ; xiv.

Auct. Anon. ap. Aug. " Plagæ pro contemptu Dei Testamentorum humanum genus affligunt."

5 Matth. xxviii. 2.

part of the great City will fall, as Jerusalem fell in a few years after His Ascension; and many will perish in the earthquake, and many will glorify God.

This is the Second Woe, the Sixth Trumpet, and the Sixth Seal; the Eve of the End'.

13. Thus we are brought again to the point at which the last Discourse was closed.

And now the Divine Writer proceeds a step further.

The Seventh Trumpet sounds; the last Trump. The summons of the World to Judgment; the Third or last Woe.

It is briefly announced as follows: The Seventh Angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, The Kingdoms of this World have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever2.

This carries us beyond the time of the Spiritual Armageddon to be described in the Seventh Vial 3.

Then ensues a gratulatory doxology from the Twenty-four Elders to God, for having put forth His might, and taken to Himself His power and kingdom; and because the time has arrived in which His enemies are to be put down, and the saints rewarded, and the Dead judged.

Thus, then, we are brought to the RESURRECTION

1 Rev. xi. 14.

3 Rev. xvi. 16; xix. 18, 19.

2 Rev. xi. 15.

4 Rev. xi. 18.

of the DEAD, and to the UNIVERSAL JUDGMENT of Quick and Dead.

There is no intervening Millennium.

It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the Judgment1.

Next, the Holy Place of God in heaven is opened, and there appears the Ark of the Covenant in His Holy Place 2.

Thus we are reminded again of Joshua's Victory over Jericho; in the history of which we read, Let the seven priests sound the seven trumpets, und let the Ark of the Covenant follow3.

14. Here, again, St. John pauses, as if trembling at the prospect of the dread catastrophe; and, after his usual manner, reverts to the first age of the Gospel, and begins to prophesy again.

The scene is changed. He has traced, as we have now seen, the prophetic history of HOLY SCRIPTURE. He has revealed the astonishing fact, that the World would not be thankful for that blessed gift of God; that Scripture would be treated with contumely, in the same manner as its Divine Lord. And thus he has warned the Christian not to be dismayed or

1 Heb. ix. 27. See also 2 Esdras xiv. 35.

2 Rev. xi. 19.

3

ἡ κιβωτὸς τῆς διαθήκης, Vers. LXX.

Josh. vi. 7. Let the reader

examine the sixth chapter of Joshua in the Greek version, and he will be struck with its prophetic adaptation to the Apocalypse, chapters viii. ix. x. xi.

staggered by this strange and sad spectacle, when it is displayed. He now returns to the first age of Christianity, in order to deliver a parallel prophecy concerning the reception in the world of the divinelyappointed Guardian, Witness, and Interpreter of Holy Scripture; that other blessed gift of God to man, the CHURCH of CHRIST.

He reveals to her what she herself must expect'. That Vision will next engage our attention.

Suffice it to observe at present, that the connexion of SCRIPTURE with the CHURCH had been seen in the Vision of the Olive Trees, and the Candlesticks; and thus a preparation was made for this transition from the HISTORY of SCRIPTURE to the HISTORY of the CHURCH.

And the parallel between the fortunes of SCRIPTURE and the CHURCH is marked by a chronological characteristic, as follows:

We have seen that the Two Witnesses prophesy, or preach, in sackcloth, one thousand two hundred and sixty days 2.

Similarly the Woman,—that is, the CHURCH 3,to be described in the following Vision, is in the wilderness for one thousand two hundred and sixty days *.

1 Bede ad loc. Hactenus de Angelis tubâ canentibus: Nunc recapitulat a nativitate Domini.

2 Rev. xi. 3.

3 Haymo. Ecclesia, mulier; sponsa Christi, credendo; operibus inhærendo, uxor; vocibus prædicando, mater; toties enim parit Christum, quoties officio prædicationis membra Ejus ad fidem et operationem informat. 4 Rev. xii. 6.

More will be said, in the next Discourse, concerning the signification of these numbers. In the mean time we learn, from their correspondence, that Scripture and the Church must suffer together. It is not possible to injure the one without injuring the other. They have one and the same Lord; one and the same cause; one and the same career: and as their sufferings coincide, so also will their Victory.