system of polity, which, prostituting the church of Christ to the uses of the mammon of secular power, carnalises the ministry of the gospel, defiles the altar with the brokerage of money-changers, and desecrates the sanctuary into a den of thieves,-shall escape the wrath wherewith it shall be scourged.Not one of the great corporate institutions, civil or ecclesiastical, now visible in the heaven of established power, shall survive of all the host of heaven not one star shall be left glimmering in the political firmament- -for the heaven shall depart "as a scroll when it is rolled together."

But let not the reprobate lay to their guilty souls the flattering unction that divine justice will be satisfied with the overthrow and extinction of every national establishment, or form of government, civil and ecclesiastical. We are, in the last three of the six verses, warned in the plainest terms of literal expression, that not one reprobate individual, of any rank whatsoever, from that of kings down to that of bondman emperor or serf- -shall escape the impending wrath, which, like another deluge, will threaten to be of such overwhelming desolation that every gradation of human society will tremble with the fearful question, “Who shall be able to stand?"

CHAP. VII

pertains to the fifth and sixth seals, and expanding those compendious representations of the salvation of the elect, and of the punishment of the reprobate, answers the question which concludes the preceding

chapter, who, in the day of wrath on a carnal and iniquitous world, will be able to stand?

The fifth seal relates to the portion of the elect who will have died, before that judgment on the quick and the dead, which will immediately precede the triumphant establishment of the purified church. This chapter relates to that portion of the elect who, at that awful period, will be found among the living.

The first verse exhibits four angels, holding four winds about to be let loose on the earth and the sea, to lash a guilty world with a tempest of vengeance. -Winds, blowing at once from the four cardinal points, represent the completeness of that sweeping and searching visitation which forbids to the delinquent all hope of shelter, and every possibility of refuge.

1. "And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree."

Holding the winds, that they should not blow, implies their readiness to blow, the instant they shall be let loose.

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2. "And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,

3. "Saying, hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads."

In the dreadful night wherein the destroying angel went through the land of Egypt (Exod. xii.) smiting

unto death the firstborn of every Egyptian family, the plague passed by the house of every Israelite of which the door was marked with the blood of the paschal lamb-the token, or seal, of God's covenant with the seed of Abraham.

That fearful dispensation typified the manner wherein the divine judgment will be finally executed on a guilty generation. On the reprobate will descend a tempest of wrath-in every household, not marked by faith in and love for the Redeemer, "there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”—but the plague will not touch the elect-every one of them, sealed by faith with the blood of the lamb of God, will, unhurt amid the storm, be liberated from the thraldom of carnal governments, and from the bondage of sin, and will be reserved to enjoy, under the dominion of their beloved master, the blessings of the promised land- his spiritual kingdom.

Palestine, the theatre of man's redemption, lies due east of Patmos, where the vision was exhibited to Saint John; and, of the Roman empire, the scene of the promised visitation, it is in the eastern limb. The angel of salvation to the elect is therefore beheld ascending from the east.

The remainder of this chapter represents that, out of each of the twelve tribes of Israel, there were sealed twelve thousand servants of God.

His chosen people consisted of twelve distinct tribes, united in the bond of their joint covenant with Him. In the passage now under consideration the tribes represent the several separate churches of

christendom which compose the collective church of Christ. From every one of those churches there will be a portion selected for exemption from the chastisement that will scourge the remainder. the remainder. In a preceding chapter (Rev. v. 9.) the elect are represented as blessing our Saviour, "for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation!" Who, then, in the awful time of the divine visitation on a sinful world, will be able to stand?

"The servants of our God"—sealed and consecrated to his service by faith in the blood of his lamb. They must be sealed in their foreheadsthey must not be ashamed of the cross, nor deny Christ before men, but openly, reverentially, and gratefully, profess their deeply impressed conviction of his truth, and, letting shine their good works, publicly manifest the sincerity of their profession.

CHAP. VIII.

THE SEVENTH SEAL.

THE opening of each of the first six seals was immediately followed by symbols audible and visible. The opening of the seventh seal is followed by a blank silence, wherein nothing is addressed to the eye or the ear.

1. "And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour."

That silence intimates that there is here a halt in the march of the prophetic narrative. But the nar

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rative is not concluded, nor is its continuation, like the opening of the sealed prophecies of Daniel, (Dan. xii. 9.) indefinitely postponed for the pause is restricted to "the space of half an hour." And, accordingly, the exhibition of the contents of the seventh seal commences with the beginning of the nineteenth chapter, and continues therefrom to the end of the Apocalypse. A series of intervening visions occupy the remainder of the eighth, and the next ten chapters. Those visions are so placed for the purpose of indicating that all their several terminations synchronise with the opening of the seventh seal- that is to say, with the commencement of that great consummation detailed in the sublime symbols pertaining to that seal.

THE VISIONS OF THE TRUMPETS AND
OF THE VIALS.

THE four concluding chapters of the Apocalypse, exhibiting the symbols pertaining to the seventh seal, represent the triumphant establishment of the purified church over all nations, and its blessed consequences through all succeeding ages, but give no portion of its history prior to that event, and subsequent to the rise of popery and of islamism, revealed by the opening of the third and fourth seals. The most signal incidents of that portion of ecclesiastical history are given in the visions that intervene between the first verses of the eighth and of the nineteenth chapters, that is to say, between the opening of the