I. The sounding of the trumpet synchronises with the coming of the Ancient of Days in the prophecies of Daniel, and the consequent sitting of the judgment to destroy the power of the little horn.

II. It corresponds with the opening of the sixth Apocalyptic seal, the great earthquake of which is the same with the earthquake of the seventh trumpet.

III. This trumpet comprises within itself the whole of the seven vials of wrath, which are the constituent parts of the third woe.

IV. The earthquake of the seventh vial is the same with the earthquake of the seventh trumpet and the sixth seal.

V. The seventh trumpet began to sound at the period of the consummation of the French revolution, in the year 1792.

To the above five propositions, which are to be found in the former editions of this work, I shall now add a sixth.

VI. The archangel who sounds the trumpet at our Lord's descent, 1 Thes. iv. 16, is no other than the seventh trumpet angel of the Apocalypse.

The truth of this appears evident for the following reasons:

First. Since in the days of that trumpet, chap. x. 7, the mystery of God shall be finished and the dead shall be judged, xi. 18, which cannot be till our Lord comes, therefore his descent from heaven belongs to the period of this trumpet: and as there cannot be two trumpets coetaneous, it must be that the

* Dan. vii. 9, 22.

trump of God, which sounds to awaken the dead at the advent, is the same seventh Apocalyptic trumpet.

Secondly. This trumpet of the archangel is called by the apostle Paul, the last trump, 1 Cor. xv. 52. Now the last trump can only be the seventh, for there is no supplement to the number seven.

COROLLARY. There are therefore, at least, two different soundings of this trumpet. The first is at the proclamation of the kingdom by the great voices in heaven, xi. 16, 17. The second at our Lord's descent to receive possession of the kingdom.

This conclusion, as to a double sounding of the seventh trumpet, is very important, towards estab. lishing the harmony of the Apocalypse. For some persons rightly conceiving that the trumpet of 1 Thes. iv. 16, which awakens the dead, is the seventh Apocalyptic trumpet, but being ignorant of the double sounding of that trumpet, and seeing from Rev. xvi. 15, that the vials are far run out before our Lord comes, have found it necessary to disjoin the vials from the seventh trumpet, making them a distinct and independent series, which, for reasons already given, founded on the comparison of chap. xi. 19, with xv. 5, 6, is quite inconsistent with the internal structure of the book. The discovery of a former sounding of the seventh trumpet, as introductory to the judgments on the nations, and to the effusion of the vials, which are the component

* This conclusion as to various soundings of the seventh trumpet harmonizes also with Joshua vi. 4. As this trumpet reaches to the end of the millennium, there may be just seren distinct blasts of it.

parts of the third woe, restores the harmony; moreover that the vials are all included in the seventh trumpet, was clearly seen, and unanswerably proved, by Mr. Whiston more than a century ago.*

I shall endeavour afterwards to prove, that the termination of the great prophetical period of twelve hundred and sixty years is also to be fixed at the sounding of the seventh trumpet. But the discussion of this point may very properly be deferred, to form the subject of one or more distinct chapters of this work, as its importance is such as to render it deserving of the most deliberate consideration. †

* Essay on the Revelation of St. John, by William Whiston, M.A., Cambridge, 1706, pp. 53—61.

I have mentioned Mr. Faber and Mr. Bicheno as concurring with me in opinion, that the seventh trumpet sounded in the year 1792. I am happy to add the testimony of another very respectable character to the same effect, whom I shall not name, as I have not received any express permission to do it, but whose name would add weight to any opinion. In a letter which I received from the person alluded to, last year, he writes as follows:-"I am fully persuaded that this is the period of the pouring out of the vials. Nor do I think, with Lowman, that they have been pouring out during the whole twelve hundred and sixty years; but that these last seven plagues all belong to the seventh trumpet, of which they are a subdivision. The seventh trumpet, therefore, seems to me to have sounded about the time of the French revolution, and to wear a double aspect: 1st, Of wrath towards Antichrist, I mean the grand Papal apostasy in all its branches; 2d, Of mercy towards the Church, and even the world; inasmuch as it was the signal of the kingdoms of the world becoming those of the Lord and his Christ.' Hence, I conceive, the period of the vials is also a period to be distinguished by the spread of the Gospel. The wall of Zion will be built, though it be in troublous times. The kingdom of Christ

CHAPTER XI.

THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON.

"AND there appeared a great sign in heaven, a "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under "her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve “stars: and she, being with child, cried, travailing “in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there "appeared another sign in heaven, and behold, a "great red dragon, having seven heads and ten "horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. And "his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven, "and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon "stood before the woman which was ready to be "delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was "born. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron and "her child was caught up to God and to his throne. "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where "she hath a place prepared of God, that they should will go on, though it be in the face of opposition. It is like the reign of David, in which the Lord prospered him whither'soever he went,' yet had he no rest. Keeping up the last similitude, I consider the Millenium as the reign of Solomon, or the period when God shall have given rest to the Church round about. Referring perhaps to that period, the reign of Christ is called his rest."*

66

The person above alluded to was the late pious and able Rev. Andrew Fuller, of Kettering, of whom a posthumous volume on the Apocalypse has since appeared.

* Isa. xi. 10.

M

"feed her there a thousand two hundred and three"score days."*

Upon the sounding of the seventh trumpet, it formed a part of the thanksgivings of the twenty-four elders, that the time was at length come "for destroying those which destroy the earth." Who these destroyers of the earth are, has not yet however been declared; but a description is given of them in the two following chapters, the twelfth and thirteenth, and it is introduced by the above vision of the woman and the dragon. The woman is, as all writers agree, the true spiritual Church of Christ, "the Jerusalem which is above, the mother of us "all." The Church is very often in Scripture represented to us under the figure of a woman, the spouse of Christ. This woman is clothed with the sun, "to denote that her spiritual nakedness is only clothed by the righteousness of Christ." She has the moon under her feet, to denote her sublime elevation above all sublunary objects. § She has a crown of twelve stars, in reference to the twelve apostles of the Lamb, who are her brightest ornaments. The woman's being with child, and travailing in birth, and paining to be delivered, describe to us, in language suited to the analogy of the symbols, the struggles of the Church, in her first and purest age, for the conversion of the Gentiles, and the persecutions she then underwent. "My little children," says St. Paul to the Galatians, "of whom I travail *Rev. xii. 1-6.

+ Gal. iv. 26.

Faber's Dissert., in loco. § Sir Isaac Newton understands the moon to be here a symbol of the Jewish ceremonies.