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its place in the chronology of the Apocalypse; for we have seen, that the fourth seal leads us down to the period of the great persecutions by the papal power, and that the fifth seal contains the promise of a day of retribution for the blood of the saints, when the number of those who were to die as martyrs for the faith should be completed. Having read this promise, when we afterwards peruse the account of the sixth seal, it is quite natural to apply it to the promised day of recompense, but altogether forced and unnatural to turn back to the times of Constantine for its accomplishment. Indeed, in what possible sense can it be said, that the number of the martyrs was completed in the times of Constantine, when the greatest and most bloody persecutions of the faithful disciples of Christ did not take place till about eight centuries afterwards?

The sixth seal must, therefore, be applied to that main revolution, as it is termed by Sir Isaac Newton, which is immediately to precede the establishment of the glorious kingdom of Christ upon earth.* This revolution is predicted by the prophet Daniel, under the figure of the coming of the Ancient of Days, and the sitting of the judgment; the slaying of the fourth beast, and the giving of his body to the

* "The event," says Sir I. Newton, "will prove the Apocalypse and this prophecy thus proved and understood will open the old prophets, and all together will make known the true religion and establish it. For he that will understand the old prophets must begin with this; but the time is not yet come for understanding them perfectly, because the main revolution predicted in them is not yet come to pass." Observations on the Apocalypse, Chap. I.

burning flame.

These events happen immediately before the coming of the Son of Man, with the clouds of heaven, to receive that glorious kingdom, of which we read so much in the writings of the prophets. The scene of this revolution is therefore to be sought for within the body of the fourth beast, or in those kingdoms which formed the Western Roman Empire. It is the same revolution which is again mentioned in the Apocalypse, on the sounding of the seventh trumpet,† and more particularly described under the seventh vial,‡ between which and the sixth seal there is a most remarkable similarity.

The principle of this exposition of the earthquake of the sixth seal is of a very remote antiquity. "That it predicted the great events which were to happen at the destruction of Antichrist, was the opinion of Victorinus, of Andrew, and of Arethas, whose commentaries on the Revelation are still extant. The first of these filled the episcopal See of Pettaw, in Austria, and suffered martyrdom under Diocletian; the second, about the close of the fifth century, was bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia; and the last is supposed to have been bishop of the same See in the succeeding century."S Vitringa thus quotes the sentiments of Arethas: "On considering this matter, Arethas, after saying that some interpreters refer these emblems to the overthrow of the Jewish state, excellently observes, Though it be most true that these things were so, yet they shall be more completely fulfilled at the coming of Antichrist; not in the quarter of * Dan. vii. 9-14. + Rev. xi. 19. Ib. xvi. 17-21. § Illustrations of Prophecy, chap. xxiii.

Judea only, but in the whole world. This," says Vitringa, "he afterwards confirms by the symbols of the four winds, which shall in that time concur to produce this great catastrophe of things." In like manner, the same learned writer quotes the sentiments of Victorinus, expressed in the following laconic but decisive sentence; "This is the last persecution;" by which he means the persecution of "Antichrist." Now it is well known, that the ancient fathers connected the coming of Antichrist with the last times, and imagined, that the second advent of our Lord was to take place immediately after the revelation of Antichrist. According to this view, therefore, any event which was placed by them at the coming of Antichrist was immediately and indissolubly associated, in their minds, with the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

Having thus seen, that the commonly received interpretation of the sixth seal is erroneous, and that it refers not to any thing that took place in the time of Constantine, but to the final revolution which is to precede the second advent of our Lord, I shall defer the further consideration of the first part of that seal till we arrive at the seventh trumpet, and the seven vials of wrath, in which the revolution of the sixth seal is more particularly described. In the mean while I remark, that it appears to me, that Rev. vi. 12-17, and xi. 15-19, are completely synchronical. I shall also so far anticipate the discussions which will occupy another part of this volume as to observe, that I agree with all the later interpreters of prophecy, in thinking that the seventh trumpet sounded at the era of the French

revolution. And as I have already endeavoured to show, that the earthquake of the sixth seal is the same with that of the seventh trumpet; it follows as a necessary consequence, that, if these opinions be correct, the sixth seal also commenced at the revolution in France, and the earthquake therein mentioned is to be applied to that revolution.

CHAPTER III.

THE SIXTH SEAL CONCLUDED.

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IT is manifest that the whole of the seventh chapter of the Apocalypse relates to the period of the sixth seal; for the opening of the seventh seal does not take place till the beginning of the eighth chapter. The first object to which the attention of the apostle John is directed, on the opening of the sixth seal, is, as we have already seen, a mighty revolution, which obscures the imperial power in the Roman empire, and fills its territories with blood; which hurls from their thrones the subordinate regal powers, and annihilates the political and ecclesiastical constitution, together with the whole fabric of the government, and removes the kingdoms and states of which it is composed, and finally fills the minds of the inhabitants of the empire with dismay and terror, on account of the manifest approach of the great day of the wrath of God.

It is a very natural subject of inquiry, what is to become of the Church of Christ, the collective body of those who truly fear, and love, and serve God, in the midst of the awful desolations of this seal? Are they to be overwhelmed in the common destruction?— Or is it to be with them as with the Christian Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem, and are they to be preserved from those judgments which overtake the wicked? The visions seen in the seventh chapter

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