taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come: He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.' But the greatest difficulty of all, is, to account for the words from henceforth; for why should the blessedness of the dead who die in the Lord' be restrained to this time, and commence from this period rather than from any other, when they are at all times and in all periods equally blessed, and not more since this time than before? Commentators here are very much at a loss, and offer little or nothing that is satisfactory but the difficulty in great measure ceases, if we apply this prophecy, as I think it should be applied, to the Reformation. For from that time, though the blessedness of the dead who die in the Lord,' hath not been enlarged, yet it hath been much better understood, more clearly written and promulgated than it was before, and the contrary doctrine of purgatory hath been exploded and banished from the belief of all reasonable mèn. This truth was moreover one of the leading principles of the Reformation. What first provoked Luther's spirit was the scandalous sale of indulgences; and the doctrine of indulgences having a close connection with the doctrine of purgatory, the refutation of the one naturally led him to the refutation of the other; and his first work of reformation was his 95 theses or positions against indulgences, purgatory, and the dependent doctrines. So that he may be said literally to have fulfilled the command from heaven, of writing, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth;' and from that time to this, this truth hath been so clearly

asserted, and so solidly established, that it is likely to prevail for ever.

A learned and ingenious friend refers these three proclamations of the three angels to later times, and supposes that they are an immediate prelude to the fall of Antichrist and the millennium. But the clue that has principally conducted me through both parts of the revelation is following the series of history, and the successive order of events. After the description of the two beasts, secular and ecclesiastical, whose power was established according to my hypothesis in the eighth century, but according to most commentators much sooner, there would be a very large chasm without the prediction of any memorable events, if these prophecies relate to the time immediately preceding the fall of Antichrist and the millennium. What a long interval would that be without any prophecy? and how thick would the events follow afterward? for all the particulars, not only of this 14th, but likewise of the 16th, 18th, and 19th chapters, must be fulfilled before the commencement of the millennium. I can hardly frame, even in imagination, any events which can answer more exactly to these proclamations of the three angels than the three principal efforts towards a reformation. Charlemagne, Valdo, Luther, and their followers, certainly deserve, as exalted characters as are here given them: and it would be very strange that there should be so many prophecies relating to the downfall of popery, and yet none concerning the Reformation. He conceives that the church cannot be represented in such an attitude of triumph and jubilation, as it is in the former part

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of this chapter, while it is afflicted and persecuted during the reign of the beast. But the church of this period is not drawn in such an attitude of triumph and jubilation as he imagines; there are some intimations of its suffering persecution in this very chapter: and if it was as he imagines, yet why may not the true church be represented like the Apostles and primitive Christians, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,' as 'rejoicing in tribulation,' as 'exceeding joyful in tribulation,' &c. He farther conceives, that the dead are blessed from henceforth,' because they will remain a shorter time in the separate state, and be sooner raised again. But why then is not that reason assigned, but quite different ones, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them? These are reasons which hold equally good at all times, and cannot be restrained and limited to any particular time: and therefore I conceive that the words from henceforth,' relate not so much to the blessedness of the dead,' which is always the same, as to the writing and promulgating of this doctrine by Luther and the protestant reformers.

But still the voices of these three warning angels not having their due influence and effect, the judgments of God will overtake the followers and adherents of the beast, which judgments are represented under the figures of harvest and vintage, ver. 14-20. figures not unusual in the prophets, and copied particularly from the prophet Joel, who denounced God's judgments against the enemies of his people in the like terms; iii. 13. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe ; come get you down, for the press is full, the fats over

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flow, for their wickedness is great.' What particular events are signified by this harvest and vintage, it appears impossible for any man to determine, time alone can with certainty discover, for these things are yet in futurity. Only it may be observed, that these two signal judgments will as certainly come, as harvest and vintage succeed in their season; and in the course of providence the one will precede the other, as in the course of nature the harvest is before the vintage, and the latter will greatly surpass the former, and be attended with a more terrible destruction of God's enemies. It is said, ver. 20. that the blood came even unto the horse-bridles,' which is a strong hyperbolical way of speaking to express vast slaughter and effusion of blood; a way of speaking not unknown to the Jews, for the Jerusalem Talmud describing the woeful slaughters 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." Nor are similar examples wanting even in classic authors; for Silius Italicus, speaking of Hannibal's descent into Italy, useth a like expression of " the bridles flowing with much blood." The stage where this bloody tragedy is acted, 'is without the city, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs,' which, as Mr. Mede ingeniously observes, is the measure of stato della chiesa, or the state of the Roman church, of St. Peter's patrimony, which reaching from the walls of Rome unto the river Po, and the marches of Verona, contains the spaces of 200 Italian miles, which make exactly 1600 furlongs.

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CHAPTER XV.

GOD's judgments upon the kingdom of the beast, or Antichristian empire, are hitherto denounced, and described in general terms under the figures of harvest and vintage. A more particular account of them follows under the emblem of seven vials,' which are called, ver. 1. the seven last plagues, for in them is filled up the wrath of God.' These seven last plagues must necessarily fall under the seventh and last trumpet, or the third and last woe-trumpet: so that as the seventh seal contained the seven trumpets, the seventh trumpet comprehends the seven vials. Not only the concinnity of the prophecy requires this order; for otherwise there would be great confusion, and the vials would interfere with the trumpets, some falling under one trumpet, and some under another; but moreover, if these seven last plagues and the consequent destruction of Babylon be not the subject of the third woe, the third woe is no where described particularly as are the two former woes. When four of the seven trumpets had sounded, it was declared, viii. 13. Woe, woe, woe to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound.' Accordingly at the sounding of the fifth trumpet, ix. 1. commences the woe of the Saracen or Arabian locusts; and in the conclusion is added, ver. 12. One woe is past, and behold, there come two more woes hereafter.' At the sounding of the sixth trumpet, ix. 13. begins the plague of the Euphratean horsemen or Turks; and in the conclusion is added, xi. 14. The second woe