task the wicked are punished through the unconscious agency of the wicked; Infidelity and Anarchy have been employed to batter down the outworks of the allegorical Babylon. Yet, while the sword of God was thus going through the land, the nations were universally and notoriously angry: nor perhaps has there ever been a more remarkable season of rage and animosity, than since the commencement of the French Revolution.

This clause, like the preceding one, may be fitly considered, as extending through the periods of all the seven vials, and as reaching even to the final overthrow of the antichristian faction.

3. And it is the season of the dead to be judged.

The poetical machinery of the third woe, agreeably to the regular and conventional practice of the Hebrew Prophets when they have occasion to describe God's temporal judgment upon a wicked nation or community, is borrowed from the solemnities of the literal day of judgment at the final consummation of all things'.

Hence, with strict decorum and consistency, as the literal dead are judged at the literal day of spiritual judgment: so the figurative dead are judged at this figurative day of temporal judgment, in which the apostate Roman Empire is first summoned to appear before the tribunal of the Ancient of days'.

2

'See above book i. chap. i. § I. 13. book ii. chap. i. § II, 2.

* Compare Dan. vii. 9-11.

Such being the poetical machinery of the passage, the dead, who are now temporally judged, will denote, I apprehend, all those inhabitants of the mystical earth, whether good or bad, who are the subjects of the temporal judgment in question, whether for acquittal or for condemnation.

This interpretation, if I mistake not, is required by the decorum of the imagery. For, since, with reference to the literal day of judgment; the word dead imports universality, as to the persons who are finally judged, either for acquittal or for condemnation, in the final judgment of all mankind: so, analogously, with reference to this figurative day of judgment, the word dead must similarly import universality, as to the persons who are temporally judged, either for acquittal or for condemnation, in the temporal judgment of the Roman Empire'.

1

I prefer this exposition to that, which supposes, that by the dead are meant those who suffered martyrdom for the Gospel, and that by their being judged is intended the vindication of their cause through some eminent interposition of Providence in the punishment of their persecutors or the existing representatives of their persecutors. See Lowman's Paraph. p. 143. Cuninghame's Dissert. p. 133. 2d edit.

Such an interpretation destroys that idea of universality, which is imposed upon the word dead by the consistency of the poetical machinery.

That the idea of universality must be carefully retained, is further evident from the two succeeding clauses: for they bear exactly the same relation to the present clause, that species bears to genus.

According to my view of the present clause, the dead are first

To a certain degree, this clause may be likewise said to run through the successive periods of all the seven vials: but we may eminently observe its operation during the effusion of the second, the third, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh.

4. The season also to give recompense to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to those that fear thy name, both small and great.

Since the recompense, here spoken of as given to God's servants, is a recompense in this present world, a recompense given during the period of the third great woe and previous to the joyful period of millennian blessedness; it must obviously, mean a recompense of vengeance upon the heads of their long-triumphant enemies and oppressors. Accordingly, after the dreadful carnage which turns the allegorical waters of the Roman earth into

universally and collectively said to be judged. Afterward, in the two succeeding clauses, they are divided, into the saints who fear the name of God, and the wicked who destroy the earth.

In short, as the dead universally are the subjects of the literal future judgment: so, to sustain the decorum of the figure, the subjects universally of the figurative temporal judgment of the Roman Empire are tropically styled the dead.

Such phraseology flows, naturally and of necessity, from the poetical machinery employed by the Hebrew Prophets. If the temporal visitation of the Roman Empire be symbolised by the day of judgment; then, obviously, the persons, temporally judged in the course of this visitation, cannot but be symbolised by the collective dead. This strikes me, as being, on the principle of consistent symbolisation, the only true rationale of the peculiar phraseology here employed by St. John.

blood under the influence of the second and third vials, the avenging angel, who figuratively presides over them, is heard to say: Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art and wast and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus; for they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink for they are worthy'.

5. The season also to destroy them, who destroy the earth.

This clause, though it may be fitly viewed as including the sense of its predecessor, eminently regards, if I mistake not, the consummating period of the seventh vial. At the close of the latter 1260 years, and during that awful season of unexampled trouble which characterises the time of the end; the antichristian faction, which, under various names, had so long harassed and destroyed the Roman Empire, will itself be destroyed in the great day of Armageddon. The period of destruction did, indeed, commence at the first blast of the third woetrumpet: but its acmè will be, when the vine of the earth is gathered and cast into the great winepress of the wrath of God, when the winepress is trodden without the city, and when blood comes out of it even unto the horses' bridles by the space of that well known measure of Palestine 1600 furlongs'.

6. And the temple of God in heaven was

1 Rev. xvi. 5, 6.

"Rev. xiv. 19, 20. See D'Anville's Map of Palestine with scales of measures.

opened: and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple.

The great object of this clause, in the mechanical arrangement of the Apocalypse, is to shew, that the seven vials are all included within the period of the third woe: but so artful is the construction of that divine poem, that, what serves as a connecting link, is itself also a prediction.

In the general account of the third woe, which we are now considering, it is simply said, that the temple of God in heaven was opened, and that the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple: but, in the proëm to the seven vials, it is further said, that the now opened temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power; so that no man was able to enter into it; although open, until the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled".

To understand this very remarkable prophecy, we must call to mind, that, during the entire period of the latter 1260 years, the outer court and the holy city are given to the Gentiles; while the temple of God and the altar, which were comprehended within the inner court, are exclusively appropriated to his figuratively measured servants. Now the two faithful witnesses, we are told, have power to shut heaven or the temple that the gentle rain of

1

Compare Rev. xi. 19, with xv. 5-8: and see above book ii. chap. 4. § I. 3. (2.)

? Rev. xi. 19. xv. 5-8.

' Rev. xi. 1, 2.