CHAPTER XVI.

THIS Sixteenth Chapter is entirely a vision of those vials; in it is contained enough to appal earth-one would think, enough to shake the Antichristian world to its base. In the prelude to them we have seen all heaven solemnized, all those who were counted worthy to rise above their ingulfing billows, standing before the throne and giving glory to God. Seven vials of time! definite, mystical seven, who can fathom your awful depths? who can stand before those blasts of time, and not join in the adoration of the redeemed?" Who shall not fear thee, O Lord? for thy judgments are made manifest” (xv. 4). Oh stars of earth, angels of the Churches, ministers of God, "stewards of the mysteries of God," do you know the awful mysteries with which you are entrusted? You are called to preach not only the mystery of His grace in Christ, but the mystery of His judgments for despising Him, trifling with sin, travelling on in the broad way which leadeth to destruction, and neglecting the salvation which is in Him. "Write the mystery of the seven

stars, and of the seven golden candlesticks" (i. 20). Sin is this mystery-a disease foul and deep; God will now make it felt.

"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" (xvi. 1). We have seen in the seven Churches the voice of God was addressed to the seven angels of the seven Churches ; and in the 15th chapter we have seen the representative of the inspired penmen give to the angels of the seven Churches the seven vials of the wrath of God. Then the question still occurs, Who are the seven angels said here to pour out these seven vials? God pours the vial, it is from Him,-" Father, if it be possible, let this cup "—or vial-" pass from me." But I think by the seven angels is simply intended the messengers sent from God to proclaim these vials: thus we see the judgment and the flood proclaimed by God through Noah, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” And see the "great and marvellous" proclamation of it (Gen. vi. vii.): and of every clean beast there was taken into the ark by sevens for sacrifice, I think typical of the great sacrifice for sin, offered for the seven dispensations (vii. 2, 3, 20). And the seven days of waiting after the Lord had shut up the little Church in the Ark seemed to typify the seven periods since the Church was shut up in the Ark Christ before the great

waterfloods of time will cease (vii. 4). The 8th and 21st may seem clearly to deny any more such vials of time, but mercy through Christ is all that is implied. "The Lord smelled a sweet savour" from the seven sacrifices of Noah's altar, and it evoked the promise that in future they should be somewhat partial, and not everything smitten as then,-"When I bring a cloud over the earth, the bow shall be seen in the cloud and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth" (ix. 14-16). Noah, in the Ark borne above the flood, was a type of Christ, the bearer up aloft of the Church, one with Him; but in his drunkenness, so soon after the awful catastrophe, he was a type of the Church in her inebriation and filthiness so soon after the vial of hell poured upon her head. I have so fully gone into these chapters in my work upon the Old Testament, here I only refer you to them.

When Sodom and Gomorrah were to be destroyed by fire, God proclaimed the judgment, but He did it to Abraham and by him. And so of the destruction of Babylon, Nineveh, and all the ancient nations, they were proclaimed through the prophets. And so of the destruction, and the final destruction, of Jerusalem, they were proclaimed by the prophets. And where did Christ, in His humanity, in His distinct human nature,

learn of the vial about to be poured upon Himself? Simply from the sacred writings: Luke xviii. 31; xxiv. 46; Mark ix. 12; Matt. xxvi. 24-31. "It is written," was the stronghold of His life, of His death, and the weapon of His victory. And shall we be offended because no trumpet-tongued angel descends from heaven to proclaim these vials, because we are to receive them from the beast, or shining One, as He did? shall we incur the rebuke, "Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe?" No, let us receive, them from the Bible, and give it that place, that Divine authority in our world which God has given to it.

Finding this theory of the seven angels of the seven Churches throughout this book, I think it is carried out in the pouring out of these vials; and all that is meant is, God speaking by the Bible through the medium of His servants, when the Eternal Spirit speaks in them they are His sent ones. (2 Sam. xiv. 17-20; xix. 27; Gal. iv. 14.) The word angel seems employed by Christ in this book simply from the circumstance of His ministry superseding that of angels. (Heb. 1st and 2d chapters.) And again, the work of His servants following and being one with His,-" As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.' This may appear high ground to take, but what is scriptural is safe ground,-"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies,

Thou

that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. What is man that thou art mindful of him? hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour." (Ps. viii. 2—5.) And the apostle connected the ministry of man with that of the heavenly visitants under the old dispensation when he said, "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels (Heb. xiii. 2.)

unawares.

“And the first angel went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image" (xvi. 2). This vial was the flood; the noisome and grievous sore signified sin, the sin of which those were convicted who had upon them the mark of the beast, and who worshipped his image. Thus we see the devil set up "the golden image," the god self, from the beginning, -"fall down and worship me; and in this name we do all worship him. The plague of leprosy, the type of sin, was the root of the mind of the Spirit in—" a noisome and grievous sore," "a white reddish sore." "If the sore be white, the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare; and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean." See this loathsome disease, this extraordinary type of the more loathsome disease of sin

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