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} OE, LECTURES ON THE BOOK OP REVELATION.
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i

The Rev. John Cumming, D.D., is now the great pulpit orator of London, as Edward Irving was some
twenty years sinre. But very different is the Doctor to that strange, wonderfully eloquent, but erratic
man. There could nut by possibility be a greater contrast. The one all fire, enthusiasm, and semi-
madnoss ; the other a man of chastened energy and convincing calmness. The one like a meteor,
'. flashing across a troubled sky, and then vanishing suddenly in tho darkness ; tho other like a silver
star, shining serenely, and illuminating our pathway with its steady ray. He is looked upon as the
great champion of Protestantism in its purest form.
His great work on the " Apocalypse, ".upon which his high reputation as a writer rests, having ai-
' ready reached its fifteenth edition in England, while his " Lectures on the Miracles," aud those on !
; " Daniel," have passed through six editions of 1000 copies each, and his " Lectures on the Parables"
; through four editions, all within a comparatively short time.

I^ralgpik Jikfc|tx

LECTURES

BOOK OF REVELATION.

fiot 3n'm.

BY

THE EEV. JOHN" CAMMING-, D.D.
MINISTER OF TEE SCOTCH NATIONAL CHURCH, AUTHOR OF LECTURES ON THE MIRACLES,
PARABLES; DANIEL, ETC. ETC.

iven so, come%Lord Jesus."
Rev. xxii. 20.

PHILADELPHIA:
LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON.
1855.

TO THE
HONOURABLE ABBOT LAWRENCE.
Dear, Sir:
I am sure you will pardon the freedom I have used of dedicating
the first American edition of this work to you. My publishers in
form me that they have been requested to issue an edition of this
volume in America. I regard this as an opportunity of expressing
a conviction shared and felt by the good and great of this country,
how much they appreciated your presence in London as the repre
sentative of your magnificent nation, and how deeply — I may add,
universally — they regretted your departure. We never had so popu
lar, and so esteemed a minister from America, or one who has done
BO much to leave lasting and elevated impressions of his countrymen.
I have, perhaps, a greater reason for dedicating this work to you.
You were a stated worshipper within the walls of the church in
which it is my privilege to minister ; and of all the varieties of class
within its walls you were not the least known, esteemed, and re
spected. I state these facts as in some degree an apology for this dedica
tion. I do not expect that you will agree with all I have written in
this volume ; but you know so well that I am one with you in essen
tial truths, that you will easily pardon any difference you may dis
cover in subordinate matters.
The more I read of your country the more I admire its greatness.
Should it please God to keep Britain and America, as mother and
daughter should be, of one heart, even if, in some things, they should
entertain different opinions, we shall, in God's strength, be able to
beat back from our free shores the tide of superstition and iron des
potism that now rises and rolls its waves against them.
I. have the honour to be,
With great respect and esteem,
Very faithfully yours,
JOHN CUMMING.
London, 1853. 1* 5

PREFACE
TO THE TWELFTH EDITION.

I am requested by the publisher to prefix a few words
to the Twelfth Edition. It is matter of deep gratitude to
God, that he has been pleased, in his gracious providence,
to give so great and so general acceptance to this volume,
bearing many traces of imperfection, but still reflecting
many faithful and precious truths.
Testimonies have reached me from the continent, and
from America, to its extensive usefulness. From many
quarters at home, accounts have come to me of its being
singularly blessed in the conversion of some, and the com
fort of others. Nothing has occurred to lead me to
modify, except occasionally in word, the conclusions I
have endeavoured to unfold.
I hope to publish soon some Expository Discourses on
the Book of Daniel, which will not only strengthen the
positions maintained in this work, but also unfold the
wonderful harmony subsisting between Daniel and John,
who, like the two lips of an oracle, proclaim the same
Lord. May it please God richly to bless his own truth, and
hasten to his suffering and expectant Church that "glo
rious appearing," which is alike her prayer and her hope.
June, 1850.

PREFACE
TO THE TENTH EDITION.

When these Lectures were committed to the press, I
had no idea that the interest expressed by those who heard
them delivered would extend to so many others beyond
their circle. The volume has attained a very large circu
lation indeed, and has excited, as numerous letters ad
dressed to me show, very general attention. It is to me
matter of unspeakable gratitude to God, that I have been
led and enabled to direct the stirring truths contained in
the Apocalypse toward the personal and practical instruc
tion of hearer and reader, and that wherever these Lec
tures may be perused, the reader shall not lay them down
without having been often and earnestly reminded of his
responsibility and obligations before God.
The year 1848, that followed that which was occupied
in their delivery, has presented a visible commentary op
the predictions of the Apocalypse, and proved, by terrible
facts, how just and true are the principles of interpretation
so ably and so conclusively established by Mr. Elliott in
his noble and precious work.
I am truly grateful for the numerous favourable reviews
of these Lectures in the periodicals of the day. The only
unfavourable notices I have met with, are, — one long and
elaborate critique in "Woolmer's Exeter Gazette," one of
the organs of the Tractarians ; in which the writer accuses
me of hostility to certain principles which the articles and
homilies of the Church of England denounce as Popery, i

8 PREFACE TO
but which he and his friends believe to be catholic veri
ties : the other, in "The Free Church Magazine," in which
I am very summarily dealt with, and am charged, without
proof adduced, with every sort of sinister end and aim and
motive in preaching them, while the principles and texture
of the work, which is, after all, the only legitimate subject
of criticism, are left untouched.
"With these two exceptions, the "Apocalyptic Sketches"
have been favourably noticed by the Press ; and the topics
they treat of, so emphatically sustained by facts from
Rome — Berlin — Paris — Vienna, have been urged on the
attention of all.
My Lectures on the last two chapters of the Apocalypse,
which I think descriptive of the millennial age, are now
complete, and will, I trust, cast some new light on subjects
somewhat difficult, or at least place in new points of view,
and at new angles, duties and privileges and hopes long
cherished in Christian hearts, and frequently and fully
taught in the word of God.
In the course of 1849, if the Lord spare me, I hope to
deliver and publish a series of Lectures on the Seven
Churches ; the Apocalyptic addresses to which are so re
plete with warning, instruction, correction in righteousness,
and encouragement specially fitted for the times — the un
precedented times in which our lot is cast.
My conviction has grown in strength, that the main
views enunciated in these Lectures are true. If so, how
solemn is our position! how loud a call to missionary
effort — to personal devotedness — to spiritual-mindedness !
I have paid special attention to the various efforts made,
from several quarters, to overturn the principles of inter
pretation laid down by the author of the Horse. One
party, the majority of which is attached to what are called
Tractarian principles, oppose the whole chronology of Mr.

THE TENTH EDITION. 9
Elliott, and attempt to show that days and years and
months, as used in the prophecy, are to be understood
literally. Their reasoning- appears to me singularly incon
sistent and inconclusive. It seems to me to involve a
principle of interpretation, which, if carried out consist
ently, would render the Apocalypse a mere kaleidoscope —
full of varied shapes and colours, but destitute from first
to last of any coherency, harmony, or order.
I have also minutely examined the strictures of Dr.
Keith. Apart from the spirit in which they are written,
and the very improper motives and conduct so frequently
and so undeservedly ascribed to Mr. Elliott, I have no
hesitation in stating my conviction, that a more complete
failure to overthrow the principles of interpretation set
forth by the author of Horse Apocalypticse never came
from the pen of man. And if any one desires to see it
sifted and utterly disposed of, let him read Mr. Elliott's
reply, entitled Vindicise Horarise.
But why should Dr. Keith or any other Christian be
come angry because another interpreter takes a very
different view? Is it not possible to differ, and boldly
express that difference, without indulging in severe and
acrimonious .language ? It is not our interest that is at
stake — it is the honour of our Lord: and, surely, the
"truth in love" is our right course in handling so sacred
and so solemn a subject.
In discussing all denominational differences, and still
more in discussing theories of prophetic interpretation, it
becomes us to show to a world which exaggerates the
former and sneers at the latter, that truth is our aim and
end, and that love is our temper.
May it please God to pour out His Spirit upon us all yet
more abundantly, to His glory, and to our growth in grace.
April, 1849.

PREFACE.

When these Lectures were begun in Exeter Hall, during
the period occupied in the enlargement of the church of
which the Lecturer is the minister, not a few predicted that
the author would be led into rash and questionable theories
in investigating a subject confessedly beset with difficulties.
But by the blessing of God, and the exercise of caution and
prayerful study, all has ended more than satisfactorily.
The unprecedentedly large masses of persons of every de
nomination, and of no denomination at all, who overflowed
the spacious Hall in which they were delivered, and the
growing attention excited in the minds of these audiences,
and the saving, and he may be allowed to add, very-striking
impressions, made on unconverted minds by the means of
the solemn truths they heard, are all signs and tokens that
call for humble gratitude to God.
Numerous requests were made for their publication. A
short-hand writer was therefore engaged, who took down a
verbatim report of every lecture. These reports, often
very imperfect, the author has corrected ; and though the
Work is not all he could desire, it will yet be found a sub
stantial summary of his discourses on the Apocalypse.
Already £180 and upward have been realized by the
sale of these Lectures, which the author has devoted to the
Church Building Fund; and by means of this sum, and
another placed in his hands, he has paid for every thing
in the shape of ornament, such as it is, in the church in
Crown Court, and thus the donations of the congregation
have been expended exclusively for the mere enlargement
of the building.
It is the earnest prayer of the Lecturer that these and
all his labours may redound to the glory of God, and to
the good of souls.
March, 1848. 10

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.
PAGffi
Apocalyptic Sketches  fiev.i. 1-3  13
LECTURE n.
The Gospel according} to the Apocalypse  Bev.i.5, %...... 29
LECTURE HI.
The Opening op the Seven Seals  Bev. iv  41
LECTURE IV.
God's Sealed Ones  Bev. vii  57
LECTURE V.
The Four First Trumpets  iJev.viii  71
LECTURE VI.
The Fifth Trumpet; or, Saracenic Wo  ifev.ix.1-11,  86
LECTURE VII.
The Sixth Trumpet; or, Turkish: Wo  Bev.ix. 12-21...... 100
LECTURE VIII.
The Reformation  Bev. x. 1-4  119
LECTURE IS.
Martin Luther,  Bev.x. 5-11  144
LECTURE X.
The Two Witnesses  -Ren. xi. 3-12  166
LECTURE*XI.
The Two Witnesses; their Ascension  Bev. xi. 11-14  191
LECTURE XII.
The Church in the Wilderness  ..,  Eev. xii. 1-17  209
11

12 CONTENTS.
LECTURE XIII. PAGB
The Followers of the Lamb  Bcv.xiv.l~5  233
LECTURE XIV.
The Faultless Congregation  Bev.xW.5  248
LECTURE XV.
The Wild Beast Rising from the Sea  .Reti.xiii  266
LECTURE XVL
The Wild Beast from the Sea  Bev. xiii. 6-18  286
LECTURE XVII.
The First Vial  iJe». xi. 14-19 ; xvi.l, 2  313
LECTURE XVIII.
The Second, Third, and Fourth Vials  Bev.x.vi.3-9  332
LECTURE XIX.
The Fifth Vial  Bev. xvi. 10, 11  349
LECTURE XX.
The Sixth Seal  '.  Bev. xvi. 12-14  363
LECTURE XXI.
The Three Unclean Spirits  Bev. xvi. 13-15  379
LECTURE XXIL
The Seventh Vial  Bev.xvi. 17-21...... 401
LECTURE XXIII.
The Chubch dueing the Effusion of the Vials  Bev. xi. 15;
xiv.6, 7; xv.2-4  419
LECTURE XXIV.
Christ's Second Advent; Pee-Millennial. Bev. xix. 11-21 ;xx. 1-3  436
LECTURE XXV.
The Signs of the Second Advent  Bev. xvi. 5  453
LECTURE XXVI.
Abstract of Lectures  Bev. xvi. 15  475

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.

LECTUEE I.

" The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto
his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified
it by his angel unto his servant John : who bare record of the word of God,
and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed
is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep
those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand." — Bevela-
tion i. 1-3.
The members of my own congregation may recollect that some
time ago I began a series of addresses, explanatory of the struc
ture, the principles, and the objects of the Apocalypse. I then
stated, what I tell you now, that in these expositions I shall pro
duce little that is original, less that is brilliant — but I trust much
that is really profitable. A great deal has been written upon this
book; much very foolishly — more very rashly — nothing, how
ever, in vain; but recently, and especially in the pages of Mr.
Elliott's Morse Apocalypticse, one of the ablest productions on
this s.ubject, increased light has been reflected on the pages of the
Book of Revelation. I tell you, candidly, that I shall beg and
borrow from the book of Mr. Elliott all I can ; and I ask you not
to acquiesce in his interpretation, because he is a learned man,
nor in my opinion, because I agree with him ; but receive only
what seems to you to be the just exposition of the words of the
Holy Spirit of God.
The name applied to this book is instructive, though I must
say not a few Christians practically interchange it with another
name of opposite import. The first half of the one name is like
that of the other in sound — but the whole meaning of the one is
diametrically opposite to that of the other. One is the Apo
crypha, which means what is hidden — the other is the Apocalypse,
- 13

14 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
which means what is revealed and made known. The Apocrypha
is the title given to those books which are adopted by the Church
of Koine, of human origin, and of no value in deciding what is
truth; the Apocalypse is the name of the divine and inspired
book made known to John in Patmos. On the Apocrypha I am
silent, or speak only to condemn it ; on the Apocalypse I would
that I were far more learned and eloquent, in order that I might
adequately illustrate and recommend it.
The words which are rendered in our version, " the revelation
of Jesus Christ," have been misapprehended. It does not mean
the revelation made by Jesus Christ, but the revelation of Jesus
Christ himself. In other words, it does not mean Christ the re
vealer, but Christ the revealed ; a revelation, or apocalypse, or
portrait of Christ, which was communicated by Christ to John
the seer, in Patmos. And that I am correct in this interpretation
will be plain, I think, to your comprehension, from passages
where the original word occurs — and the word apocalypse occurs
very frequently in Scripture; but unhappily, in our admirable
translation — justly the subject of almost universal eulogy — there
is a change of rendering, though there be none in the original.
For instance : in , the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the first
chapter, at the seventh verse, it is in our version — ¦" So that ye
come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Je
sus Christ." Now in the original it is — " waiting for the apoca
lypse of our-Lord Jesus Christ." Again : in the Second Epistle
to the Thessalonians, the first chapter, at the seventh verse, you
will find another rendering, but it is still the same original word :
"And to you who are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord
Jesus shall be revealed from heaven." It is, literally translated —
"in the apocalypse of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven."
Again : in the First Epistle of St. Peter, the first chapter, and
the seventh verse, and also at the thirteenth verse, we meet with
the same word, but again differently translated. And here I
may remark how great a pity it is that the same word should be
the subject of a variety of translations. If it had been trans
lated in one way throughout the New Testament, it would have
made the beauty and the force of the meaning of the Spirit of
God evolve more vividly. We read, in the First Epistle of Peter,

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. 15
the first chapter, and the seventh verse — "That it might be
found unto praise, and honour, and glory at the appearing of
Jesus Christ." In the original it is — " in the apocalypse," in the
revelation "of Jesus Christ." And, in the thirteenth verse of
the same chapter — "Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober,
and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you
at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Here again it is in the ori
ginal — " in the apocalypse of Jesus Christ." And in. all these pas
sages it means, not a disclosure, or revelation, or manifestation
made by Christ, but made concerning or of Christ. In other
words, the title of this book is not Christ the revealer, but Christ
ths revealed ; and this revelation of Christ, we are told, was also
given by Christ to John his servant, in the isle of Patmos.
This book, then, is an inspired portrait of the Son of God ; it
is, if I may use the expression, the epiphany of Jesus — the full
description of his personal glory, to which prophets and martyrs
looked forward with waiting hope^an apocalypse so brilliant that
the sight of the Jew was dazzled by its distant splendour, so
much so that he could not see the intervening valleys of Geth-
semane and Calvary, through which -Christ had to pass, in order
to emerge and inherit his predestined glory. Very beautifully,
therefore, the book begins — "Behold, he cometh with clouds,
and every eye shall see him ;" and very appropriately this book
closes — "Surely, I come quickly: Amen. Even so come, Lord
Jesus." It begins with his advent, and ends with it. That sub
lime, sustaining, and precious hope was in the eye of the holy seer
when he sat down to receive and record its bright visions, and the
same hope is in his eye when he kneels down at the close and
cries, " Come, Lord Jesus." He had seen and leaned on the bo
som of the Sufferer, and he longs to see and reign with his risen
and glorified King. May we also sympathize with him, " whom
having not seen, may we love ; and in whom, though we now see
him not, yet believing, may we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and
full of glory."
The distinction between the revelation of Christ in the Apoca
lypse, and the revelation of Christ in the Gospels, is briefly this :
the Gospels represent Christ the sufferer — the Apocalypse depicts
Christ the conqueror. The Gospels detail " his agony, his cross,

16 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
his passion, his bloody sweat," — the Apocalypse describes his
throne, his " many crowns," and prostrate saints adoring and say
ing, " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in
his blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto our God, to
him be glory and honour and blessing." In the Gospels we see
the shadow of the cross, deep, dark, and palpable to all — in the
Apocalypse we behold the lustre of the crown shining forth in
unearthly brilliancy. In the Gospels we have Christ a priest at
the altar — in the Apocalypse we see Christ a king upon his
throne; in the one we have Christ in the robes of Aaron — in the
other we have Christ in the royalties of David ; in the first we
behold Christ the sacrificing priest, the atoning victim — in the
second we discover Christ with the " many crowns" upon his
head, "Lord of lords, and King of kings." Thus, then, the
Gospels reveal Christ amid the associations of Calvary — the Apo
calypse reveals Christ with all the accompaniments of glory;
each in its place, each for its object, is the revelation, or the apo
calypse of Christ.
The language in the passage I have selected for exposition,
discourages and discountenances the very popular, but I humbly
conceive very erroneous idea, that we are not to study, and that
we cannot possibly become acquainted with things predicted, but
not yet performed. Most men say, " Things performed we may
study and improve ; but things predicted we have nothing to do
with, except to lay them aside on the shelf; and wait till their
actual performance casts its light upon them, and thus shapes the
dim prophecy into history." But certainly this idea is not sanc
tioned in the passage I have selected for exposition ; for this reve
lation was sent to Christ's servant John, " to show unto his ser
vants things that shall come, to pass." It does not read thus —
"to show unto his servant John," but, "to show unto his ser
vants;" the word is in the plural number; that is, to all Chris
tians. To show them what ? Not merely the things which have
already come to pass, but " things which must shortly come to
pass ;" not the facts of the past only, but the events of the fu
ture also. Now the popular idea is, that these predicted things
we ought not to attempt to interpret, and that it is only performed
things that we ought to endeavour to profit by. The statement

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. 17
here, at least, conveys no such impression. It implies that things
predicted, or foreshown, are to be studied, because for this very
end they are inspired, and that they may, though dimly pud
darkly as through a glass, be understood by the servants and
people of God. Daniel explained to the captives in Babylon fu
ture things, and thus comforted them with consolations drawn not
from past records, but unfulfilled prophecies. Now, comfort can
not be extracted from the unintelligible. Our blessed Lord mi
nutely predicted to his apostles the destruction of Jerusalem ;
and he told them how they were to conduct themselves in the
prospect of that destruction. He showed them that responsibili
ties were incurred by their knowing things not yet fulfilled ; and
the apostles, we read, and the Christians who fled to Pella, under
stood and believed the prophecy, and escaped the ruin, having
done well in taking heed to the prophecy, that shone as a light in
a dark place. It is surely very remarkable, and instructive, too,
that one office of the Holy Sphit of God — an office that cannot
be explained on the popular presumption We have alluded to — is,
that " he will show you things to come ;" and the apostle Peter
tells us, in his Second Epistle, the first chapter, at the nineteenth
verse, that there is " a sure word of prophecy, unto which we do
well to take heed, as to a- light shining in a dark place;" and we
are told also, in the third chapter, at the first verse — " This
second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both which I
stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance : that ye may
be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy
prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the
Lord and Saviour : knowing this first, that there shall come in the
2ast days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where
is the promise of his coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the crea
tion." We are told by the apostle Paul, that " eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man
the things which God hath prepared for them that- love him."
That is future. But he adds — " But he hath revealed them unto
us by his Spirit ;" teaching us, therefore, that things which are
not yet disclosed as come to pass, are things that we may study.
They may not be essential to our personal safety, but they may
2»

18 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
contribute to our spiritual comfort, and to the glory and honour
and praise of God. Why did the Jews, we may ask, reject the
Messiah as the sufferer ? Just because they neglected the study
of unfulfilled prophecy. And may not we also be found neglect
ing privileges, if not despising duties, when we make the Book
of Revelation that book which we rarely read in our families, or
study in our closets, or patiently listen to, when expounded and
explained from the pulpit by the ministers of Christ ?
It was not so in olden days : for this book was a favourite
study with the early Christians. The martyrs of the first three
centuries found springs of comfort in the addresses to the seven
churches, which refreshed their souls as with the dews of heaven
amid the flames. The Reformers derived from the Apocalypse
the most condemning verdicts on the great Western apostasy, and
from its description, as from a full and exhaustless arsenal, they
drew forth the weapons with which they smote and overthrew the
great Dagon of the West with the most complete success. This
holy book seems to me to be a lamp, which sheds light on the his
tory of the last nineteen hundred years, casting illuminating rays
into all their perplexing and perplexed events. It shows us Christ
in the world as well as in the church — ordering and restraining
the will of kings and the acts of empire, and educing glory to his
name and prosperity to his church from the wrath of his bitterest
enemies. In the next place, the Apocalypse, or Book of Revelation, is
stated, at the beginning of the first chapter, to have been written
under the inspiration of the Spirit by John, who testified of the
Word of God. There can be no doubt that this was John the
evangelist; his testimony was emphatically that of "the Word;"
his Gospel is peculiarly the Gospel of " the Word made flesh."
The very commencement of his Gospel is — " In the beginning was
the Word;" and the close of his Gospel is — " These are written,
that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ;
and that believing, ye might have life through his name." That
holy name gives music to every sentence, weight to every word,
and fragrance to every sentiment in that wonderful production,
the Gospel according to John. And Wetstein and Lardner, two
distinguished critics upon the original, as well as on the contents

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. 19
of the Scriptures, have selected about thirty or forty texts from
the Apocalypse, which contain words and phrases and forms of
expression that are almost identical with those used in the Gos
pel, — thus proving that the same John who wrote the Gospel was
the writer of the Apocalypse ; and such differences of style, as
unquestionably do occur, are to be explained and accounted for
by the difference of the subjects, and perhaps also of the time.
The Gospel was written by John sixty years after the death and
resurrection of Jesus, and was, if I may so speak, a cool and dis
passionate retrospect and record of that sublime biography ; the
Apocalypse, on the other hand, was written the very moment its
truths were taught and its visions made known — the instancy and
splendour of the scene making the deeper impression on the heart
of the seer, and originating more expressive words. Hence the
Apocalypse contains an. eloquence of language, a grandeur of
thought, and a magnificence of style, which certainly are not
approached by the more prosaic and historical narrative of the
Gospel. This difference, however, is, as we have said, easily
accounted, for ; the subject and date will explain the simplicity
of the narrative of the one, and the sublime and poetic ecstasy of
the other.
The time at which the Apocalypse was written, was about the
year 97. John was banished to Patmos by the emperor Do-
mitian ; and if we had no other evidence that it was during the
reign of Domitian, we have it in the fact that he was the first
Roman emperor who adopted that modft of -punishment. But
John's banishment from his earthly home lifted him nearer a
heavenly one. He was condemned and banished by a king that
died, that he might be favoured and comforted by " the King of
kings," that liveth and reigneth for ever. An inner radiance was
poured into his spirit, that more than compensated for his external
night. God thus gives his people in all their trying circumstances
compensatory elements. In the' history of his church, he often
makes afflictions beautiful, by weaving through them the rainbow
of his mercy and love. He thus made barren Patmos a scene of
manifestation of far richer glories than Tabor. He can make the
tents of Mesech and the tabernacles of Kedar repose in a sunshine
more glorious than ever fell on the towers of Salem. God's She-

20 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
chinah often illuminates the desert. Daniel beheld in Babylon
bright visions he saw not elsewhere; John, in Patmos, saw a
glory he never witnessed in Jerusalem ; John Bunyan, in his
lonely prison, had dreams and visions, approaching in their purity
and splendour to apocalyptic scenes ; and Martin Luther, during
his confinement in Wartburg, translated the Scriptures, and had
the enjoyment of a freedom and repose to which thousands out
side were strangers. It is the heart, not the house, that makes
home. And thus, while the afflictions of God's people abound,
their joys abound also. " The cloud that is darkest, is fringed to
their eyes with beams of celestial lustre, and crushing calamities
unbosom by degrees their latent mercies ; and those who have
been in the deepest affliction, have been the first to exclaim, each
as he emerged from its depths — " It is good for me that I was
afflicted." This book has been recognised as canonical in every age of the
Christian church. I will quote only one or two references, but
these will sufficiently vindicate it. Perhaps you are aware that
the Church of Rome has made the frequent objection, that we
Protestants are indebted to her decision for the possession of the
Apocalypse at all. They say, the Apocalypse was not admitted
by that .church by any public act, or by any synodical decision,
till the fifth, if not the sixth century. But if this be true, instead
of proving that the Church of Rome has great credit, it rather
reflects upon her the greatest discredit — for it shows how sleepy
that church must have been, how blind her vision, how forgetful
of her duties, seeing that, by her own confession, she failed to
recognise as canonical a divine book during six centuries in suc
cession. Does it not also show how much more trustworthy is
private judgment than ecclesiastical decisions, seeing fathers and
writers and doctors saw the inspiration of the Apocalypse, and
pronounced it to be divine, while the Church of Rome did not
know that it was part of the sacred canon at all ? For instance :
Ignatius, one of the earliest of the Christian fathers, who lived
in the year 107 — that is, just ten years after John wrote the
Apocalypse — quotes several passages from this book, thus proving
it was in existence in his day. Polycarp, a father and martyr,
who lived in the year 108, when he was brought to the fagot to

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. 21
be consumed in the flames, offered up the prayer used in the
eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation, at the seventeenth
verse — " We give thee thanks, Lord God Almighty, who was, and
is, and is to come." After him, Irenseus, whose name is asso
ciated in its import with peace, and whose writings contain some
beautiful appeals on its behalf, quotes portions of the Apocalypse,
and adds the interesting - statement, preserved in the writings of
Eusebius, that John wrote it at the latter end of the reign of Do-
mitian, when in exile at Patmos. Justin Martyr, who lived in
the year 140 — that is, forty-three" years after the Apocalypse was
written, not only read it, but wrote an explanation of it. And
Eusebius, in the fourth century, and Jerome, the most learned of
all the Latin fathers, likewise quote it as. a portion of the inspired
record, and record their reflections upon it." It is, however, only
just to add, that some divines of the fourth century rejected the
Apocalypse, on the ground that it contained, as they alleged,
prophecies of what they erroneonsly believed to be a carnal
millennium; just in the same way as some Christians still argue,
that the Bible cannot be God's word, because it contains truths
that cross their prejudices, or lay on them duties which they
decline to fulfil, or unfold the mere outward drapery of stupendous
mysteries, which angels cannot soar to, and which the human
imagination cannot of course comprehend. But to argue in this
way is to argue most illogically. The divinity of the book rests
upon its own basis ; the explanation of the book is to be decided
on just and proper principles.
I must notice here, that there is a special benediction pro
nounced upon those who read it. Many people say — " Oh ! the
Revelation is full of dark things we ought not to meddle with."
But what does the Spirit of God say? "Blessed is he that
readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep
those things which are written therein." • Shall we say it is wrong
to read what the Spirit of God has thought it right to record ?
Shall we say that the difficulty of interpreting the book is#a reason
why we should not even read, still less try to understand, what
the Spirit of God has inspired? Shall we hold it perilous to
study what the Holy Spirit has pronounced it blessed to read, and,
by fair inference, possible to understand ? We may read it in a

22 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
presumptuous spirit — that is sinful; but to attempt to under
stand it, in a reverent and prayerful spirit — that is blessed. Lay
aside the presumption that dictates as eternal truths its own
hasty conclusions ; but do not give up the prayerful study and
perusal of the book, on the very vestibule of which the Spirit of
God has written — " Blessed are they that read and hear the words
of this prophecy." Far be it from me to couceal, that there is
an awful and a solemn anathema pronounced upon all who shall
attempt to subtract from or add to "the things that are written
in this book." At the close of it, it is said — " If any man shall
add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that
are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from
the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his
part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from
the things which are written in this book." This is an awful
announcement, which ought to solemnize the mind of every
student of it : but if it be perilous to misinterpret it, can it be
safe not to read it at all ? Would not the legitimate conclusion be,
not to lay it aside, because there is an anathema on him who per
verts it, but to open the book, and .diligently study it, and pray
for the Spirit of God to enlighten our minds, and lead them to a
sober and true exposition ? and then we shall be lifted from the
anathema that descends upon the wilful misinter'preter, and shall
be placed under the blessing that lights on him who reads and
understands it.
I regard this book, not as a dark and inexplicable hieroglyphic,
which it is humility and duty to leave unopened, but as a light
that shines on the dark and troubled waters of time — those waters
over which the church of the redeemed is ploughing her arduous
and perilous way ; not like a light upon the stern, leaving useless
brilliancy in her wake, but a light upon the prow, showing before
the beacons it is our safety to avoid, and the course it becomes
our duty to pursue, till that day break upon the waste of waters,
when the great Pilot himself shall enter into the vessel, and say
to the stormy waves around it, " Be still," and guide her to a
haven of perpetual peace.
Now, while I feel that there is much, in the past history of the
interpretation of this book, to make us cautious and prayerful, I

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. 23
still think there is nothing to warrant neglect. Edward Irving,
one of the most gifted minds, but all but fatally shipwrecked, it
is true, grafted upon this book the most extravagant and mon
strous delusions ; and because he left behind him explanations as
unsound as mischievous, it is argued, that we should not attempt
to study and understand where so gifted, a genius has failed. But
it seems to me that misinterpretation in the past, instead of being
a reason for neglect, is only a new reason for more prayerful and
earnest efforts after just and proper interpretation for the future:
Abuse is not certainly a reason against use ; past error in the
pursuit of truth does not make future success impossible ; and
may it not be true, that the failures of former expositors shall
prove the surest pioneers of success on the part of those that fol
low ? Every ship that is wrecked in our Channel serves to show
to succeeding navies the safe course they are thereafter to pursue.
It is thus that the failures of gifted minds who have preceded us
as interpreters, will help us to make nearer approximations to a
clear exposition of that beautiful and holy book, which the Spirit
of God has written for our learning. If the people would study
the Revelation more, their ministers would be likely to indulge
in fancies less. It is because you know so little about the book,
that ministers have been suffered to make so many misinterpreta
tions of its meaning. Study well its history and contents, ponder
prayerfully its predictions, and your knowledge will be the best
check upon the imagination of the ministers- Light in the pew
necessitates light in the pulpit. The Bible in the hands and
hearts of the people is the surest guarantee for truth from the
lips of the preacher. I know that some excellent Christians en
tertain the notion, that their personal salvation is all they have
to. do with. Far be it from me for one moment to undervalue
the necessity of a deep and solemn interest in our personal ac
ceptance before God. What shall it profit a man if he should be
able to explain all the mysteries of the prophets, or gain the
whole world, and inflict on his soul that loss which never can be
retrieved? But, my dear friends, while this is true, and ought
to be felt to be true, are we to forget that there is an end even
higher than the safety of the soul — not, indeed, in reference to
us, but in reference to God ? The glory of God is the end of the

24 APOCALYPTIC -SKETCHES.
universe, and ought to be the first aim of intelligent creatures.
If I address members of other communions, let me lay before you
a piece of splendid philosophy, as well as true 'theology, by telling
you the first question and answer contained in the catechism
which our Scottish children are taught from their earliest in
fancy. " What is the chief end of man ?" Not to save himself :
that is not said. " The chief end of man is to glorify God, and
to enjoy him for ever." We are called on to consult the glory
of God first, and our salvation next. Yet it is in the pursuit of
the former that we never can lose the latter. And while, there
fore, our personal acceptance before God is an essential thing,
which no interest can be a substitute for, which no duty can
supersede, we must recollect that if God has revealed a book
to evolve his glory, it is not for man, surely not for a Christian,
to say, " I have no interest in that glory, nor shall I take any
part in making the meaning of the mysteries which reflect it in
telligible to others."
There are various classes of interpreters, who take different
views of the Apocalypse. One class consists of Professor Lee,
one of the best Hebrew scholars in England, and Moses Stewart,
an able scholar in America, who believe that the whole of the
Apocalypse was fulfilled in the first three or four centuries of the
Christian church. This belief I think as untenable as it is ab
surd. Let any person read the Apocalypse, not in the light of
criticism, or with the opinions of learned men, but in the -exercise
of his own unbiassed judgment, and he will see there are pro
phecies which have not been performed, visions of glory which
have never dawned upon our world, and scenes to be realized, and
circumstances to evolve, and dates to be reconciled, of which
there is no trace of fulfilment in the past, and certainly no ap
pearance in the present.
There is another class of interpreters, however, who take just
an opposite view from that of those to whom I have alluded :
these consist of Burgh, Todd, and Maitland — studious and learned
men, who believe, that with the exception of the first three chap
ters, not one single particular of the rest of the Apocalypse has
yet been fulfilled. Moses Stewart and Dr. Lee believe that it was
all compressed within the first three or four centuries ; Burgh,

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. 25
Todd, and Maitland believe that it must all be compressed into
the last three or four years of the Christian era.
There is another class, represented by Mr. Birks, an able and
acute writer on the subject of prophecy,' and Mr. Elliott, (in his
Horae, which will occupy a place, in reference to unfulfilled pro
phecy, that Newton's Principia has occupied in reference to
science,) and many other living ministers of the age, who believe
that much of the Apocalypse has been fulfilled, but that much
more remains yet to be fulfilled ; and that it is our duty to re
view the first, that we may see light shed on the history of the
past; and to study the second, that we may learn duties, responsi
bilities, and privileges, in the prospect of what is yet to come.
I may mention, that some of one class especially, known by
the name of Futurists, (that is, persons who believe that the
whole of the Apocalypse yet remains to be fulfilled,) are actuated
in their views by strong sympathy with Romish tenets — I say so,
because it is obvious from their writings, that some of those
(though not all) who believe the Apocalypse will be fulfilled en
tirely in the future, have adopted that reasoning because they
love and would justify the Chureh of Rome. It 'has been the be
lief of the soundest divines, since and before the days of Martin
Luther, that the Babylon delineated there — the woman stained
with crimes and intoxicated with the blood of the saints — is the
great Western apostasy ; but these Tractarian Futurists do not
like this interpretation; it is fatal to their views; it rebukes
their sympathies ; they cannot, however, get rid of the book, and
therefore they have tried to get rid of the interpretation^ and thus
be left free to welcome Rome as their sister, and proclaim the
Vatican as " Christ's holy home." But it must be evident that
all such reasoning is false in its premises, and must therefore be
pernicious in its conclusions. And I do hope, if you will give
me your patient attention, in the course of a few succeeding Sun
day evenings, that you will be satisfied that the main views of
Mr. Elliott — I do not say all — are as rational as they are scrip
tural and instructive.
In expounding this book, I must beg to suggest some neces
sary cautions. We must not seek to be explicit in that which
God's Holy Spirit has been pleased to leave dimly revealed.

26 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Rash hands must not tear, but sacred hands must reverently
draw aside the apocalyptic vail ; we may not " rush in where
angels fear to tread;" we must not dogmatize where the Spirit
of God has not spoken decidedly ; we must be content to be
ignorant in many places, thankful to be instructed in others, and
patient students throughout the whole.
There is one most important point I wish to impress upon you,
and it is this : we must not do as Edward Irving did — pronounce
our views of unfulfilled prophecy to be among the very essentials
of salvation ; we must not give the least countenance to the idea,
that the great truths of evangelical religion are at all to be placed
in the same category with any theory of interpretation of unful
filled prophecy. The first seven seals may or may not refer to
the decline of the Roman empire ; but there is no doubt that
" the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin :" the seven
last vials may or may not have been begun at the French Revo
lution ; but it is indisputably true that " Christ is the propitia
tion for our sins." The first may be true ; the last must be true :
the first is revealed in symbols ; the last is clearly brought to
light. We may use per adventures when we speak of our view
of things that are in the future; we must use none when we
speak of vital and essential truths. I will allow you to differ
from me in explaining prophecy— I will allow you to reject my
expositions of the Apocalypse, as far as its symbols are involved ;
but I cannot for one moment consent that there should be any
question whether my Saviour be God, or whether his " blood
cleanseth from all sin," or whether his righteousness be my only
covering, his sacrifice my only trust, his cross the only founda
tion of my safety, and his crown my happy and imperishable
hope. All that I say on unfulfilled prophecy may be wrong —
what I praach of the gospel I know to be true : " I know whom
I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed to him against that day."
But we are not less earnestly to study the future as far as we
are invited to do so; just as the pious Jews read their prophecies
of a suffering Christ, we Christians should study the prophecies
of a coming and a glorified Christ. The Jews were taught to look
through prophecies to a Christ who was to come and suffer —we are

APOCALYPTIC. SKETCHES. 27
taught to look for the same Christ in glory. We are taught to
take a retrospective view of his sufferings, and a prospective view
of his glory ; and as the believing Israelite was cheered by the
prospect of the Saviour's advent, as his sacrifice, so the pious
Christian, with his foot upon the cross, and his eye upon the
throne, ought to be cheered, sustained, and comforted by the
prospect of his Saviour, who is to "come again the second time,
without sin unto salvation, unto all them that look for him."
Sound thoughts on prophecy would seem to me to be especially
useful in the day in which our lot is cast. Mr. Faber, Mr.
Elliott, Dr. M'Neile, Mr. Bickersteth, the most eminent of those
who have directed their attention to the subject, believe that 'we
are upon the verge of the last days. Nor do appearances con
tradict their views. All moral, social, and political parties are
broken and torn asunder, in order, I believe, to make room for the
advent of more glorious things, the triumph of more precious
principles : and those will not be least blessed, who shall be found
at that day with their loins girt and their lamps burning.
But while discoursing upon prophecy, I must not omit to
define the characters that prophecy should interest. I wish not
to gratify the curiosity of the unconverted, but to comfort the
hearts and instruct the minds of the people of God. You who
are strangers to the gospel, have yet to learn 'its alphabet; you
must have your souls cleansed in Christ's atoning blood, before
you may venture to anticipate his presence as with joy.
Let me ask you, then, Are you among the people of God?
Have you gone to the Saviour, in the depths of your conscious
ruin — in despair of salvation from any other source, and cast
yourselves at his feet, and asked for mercy and forgiveness gratis,
through his precious blood ? Those to whom John wrote the
Apocalypse, and whose perusal of it he especially desired, are
those, we are told in the very chapter from which my text is
taken, who sing — "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from
our sins in his own blood, unto him be glory for ever and ever."
Can you say so ? Can you say — " That Saviour is mine ; that
sacrifice is mine, and forgiveness for its sake 1" If the great
changes predicted in the Apocalypse do not overtake us, we may
be called upon to see personally, each for himself, a change as

28 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
great. Were that beating heart to stand still, were death to lay
his hand upon you this night, were the summons to be issued
from the throne — " Cut him down !" — let me ask you, my dear
brother, my dear sister, would it be well with you 1 Is all right
between God and you ? Do politics interest your affections ? Do
the affairs of your household absorb all your thoughts ? Does
mammon occupy your affections ? And have you never sat down,
and in the calm and solemn light of eternity asked your con
science that question, to which you must one day and ought now
to give an instant response — " Am I still ' dead in sins,' or am I
' a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ?' "
My dear brethren, I hope no one in this vast assembly is
hoping that all is right because he has been baptized, or is a mem
ber of a Christian church. My dear friends, do you, can you
think that baptism gives to all its subjects new hearts? Can
baptism give you that divine life, without which you must die
for ever ? I believe, that those who think so, misapprehend al
together man's state by nature. If man's state were a mere
swoon, or a mere faint from the influence of sin, then a little
water sprinkled en his brow by a minister of Christ from the bap
tismal font "might • resuscitate him; but man is "dead in tres
passes and sins ;" and nothing hut that voice which shall echo at
the last day through the sepulchres of the dead, can quicken that
soul which is " dead in trespasses and sins." Be not deceived.
Pause and ponder. " Christ and him crucified," the ground of
your acceptance ; the Spirit and him sanctifying, your fitness for
heaven ; justification by faith alone, the article of a standing or
a falling church ; regeneration by the Spirit of God, the article
of a living or a dying church ; our personal safety — our accept
ance before God — our title to heaven, and our fitness for its enjoy
ments, — are matters of instant and overwhelming interest. No
inquiries into unfulfilled prophecy may be made apologies for in
difference here. Whether in the pages of the evangelist, or in
those of the seer, it is "the pure in heart" only that "see God."
Christians only can understand the Apocalypse ; for them it was
written. All other attempts by any besides to interpret must end
in fanaticism or folly.

29

LECTURE- II,
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE APOCALYPSE.
" Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and
hath made u^ kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and
dominion for ever and ever." — Bevelation i. 5, 6.
Some have objected to all expositions of the Apocalypse, as if
such were not preaching the gospel, nor useful and instructive to
those that hear them. This is grievous misapprehension. What
ever God has written is surely entitled to our study, as it was
meant for our good, and cannot be otherwise than useful, to those
for whose learning it was inspired : " all Scripture," says the
apostle, "is profitable." The Apocalypse, so-far from not being
the gospel, is replete with its most precious truths, is inlaid with
the testimony, fragrant with the excellence, and illuminated with
the glory of the Son of God. It refers backward to the Man of sor
rows, and looks forward to the throned Lamb. Christ is its alpha
and omega, and the testimony of Jesus its woof and warp. But for
the sake of them, who shrink from expositions of this book, who
look at the Apocalypse through the mists of prejudice, the mis
apprehensions of ignorance, or any other similar cause, I will
address myself this evening to the task of showing how full, how
clear, how beautiful is the gospel according to the Apocalypse.
Leaving my text, which is an epitome of the gospel, I request
your attention to such passages as these — Rev. v. 9. " Thou art
worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof, for thou
wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of
every kindred, and tongue, and nation." This is surely the very
music of Calvary floating down from heaven, and breaking on our
ears — shall I rather say our hearts, this evening in Exeter Hall.
This text alone is ah epitome of the gospel. Rev. v. 12. —
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and
3«

30 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
blessing" — words that come like the chimes of the waves of that
sea of glory that spread out their waters about the throne of God,
and reflect its glory.
Rev. vii. 13. — "What are these which are arrayed in white
robes, and whence came they ? These are they which came out
of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the
throne of God, and. serve him day and night in his temple."
This is an apocalypse of heaven — the character of its tenantry,
and the way to reach it. Rev. xiv. 13. — "And I heard a voice
from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead that
die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they
may rest from their labours ; and their works do follow them."
This is the trumpet of jubilee sounding in the grave, the finger
of God writing their epitaphs on the pious dead — the gospel trans
figuring, by its presence, the very ashes of the dead. Rev.xxi.
6. — " I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the
water of life freely."
Rev. xxii. 17. — " And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst
come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life
freely." Here is the gospel call as unequivocally stated as in any
part of the New Testament. „
Thus, in no portion of the Bible are the grand characteristics
of Christianity more frequently or fully stated. The drapery of
the throne does not conceal the Lamb that is in the midst of it ;
and the intense splendour of the " many crowns" that are on the
brow of " the King of kings," does not dim or conceal that cross
on which he hung in agony as the " Man of sorrows."
These passages which we have quoted are like stars in the apo
calyptic firmament, of greater or lesser magnitude, each shining
in the light of the Sun of righteousness : these are fragments of
the rich and beautiful embroidery on the mystic vail, significant
of yet richer excellencies beyond it ; these are snatches, mellowed
but not spent in their transit from the skies, of the awful and
solemn harmonies that break and roll before the throne of God.
But in all Christ is all. The Apocalypse is the record of what
Christ is and does, since he ascended from the earth, and a cloud

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE APOCALYPSE. 31
received him out of sight. It is the history of his post-resurrec
tion glory. It is an illuminated commentary on Zech.. vi. 13 :
" He shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest
upon his throne ;" a Priest to offer sacrifice for our guilt — a King
to rescue us from our enemies, and subdue us to himself; a Priest
to expiate our sins — a King to extirpate them ; a Priest to take
away the guilt of sin — a King to break its power; a Priest to
pardon — a King to purify ; a Priest to give a title to heaven — a
King to create fitness for it. As a Priest he makes it possible for
God to pardon us — as a King he makes us willing to receive that
pardon ; as a Priest he restores us to the Divine favour — as a
King he communicates to us the Divine image ; the majesty of
the King tempered by the mercy of the Priest, is the light he
lives in : and the Book of Revelation is the holy window through
which we see these things — the contents and the inmates of the
upper sanctuary. It is not less necessary that we should see
Christ a King than Christ a Sufferer. I cannot but add, also,
that this book contains the history of .the doings •of Christ in all
places ; of his presence also, and evidence of that presence every
where: It is a reflection of the panorama of seven thousand
years, on the concave of the sky, and the revelation of its con
nection 'with Christ. It shows him to be in the history of nations,
the change of dynasties, the eclipse of kingdoms, the wreck of
empires — restraining, overruling, directing, sanctifying. Josephus
becomes unconsciously the chronicler of his presence in the fall
of Jerusalem ; and Gibbon, in spite of himself, the faithful wit
ness of his interposition in the decline of the Roman . empire.
Wheresoever the ploughshare of Vespasian tore, or the cimeter
of the Moslem mowed, or the foot of the Goth trod down, —
wheresoever the persecutor drove the Christian, from Pella to the
Cottian Alps, — wheresoever the wild beasts devoured or the flame
consumed, — wheresoever the crescent waxed or the cross waned,
— where Trent thundered its anathemas and Luther echoed his
protests, — in the Sicilian vespers — at the massacre of Bartholo
mew — on the pavements of Smithfield — in the French Revolution
— on the field of Waterloo — in all facts — in all occurrences —
Christ was and is; and this sublime book is the evidence that it
is so.

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
s," is the ascription written in my
text. Who can this be, who to John was so plainly familiar,
and yet so great and so glorious that he omits even his name, as
if no one could mistake him, as if every reader must instantly
apprehend him ? No angel in heaven, nor ancient patriarch, no
apostle nor king can this be. None of these had love to dare,
nor strength to do what is here ascribed to " him." He must
have been man, for he had blood to shed; he must have been a
man of sorrows, for he shed that blood. This Christ was, — man
in all that the word comprehends, in its infirmities, and tears,
and trials, and sorrows. Sin he had not, for it is no part of hu
manity — it is its disease, its corruption, and from this he was in
finitely distant. He was man, but holy man; a suffering, but
from first to last a sinless man ; but he must also have been God.
The fact that he laid down his life voluntarily implies this. No
creature has his life at his own disposal : a creature giving up his
life unbidden would be a suicide. Besides, were Christ not God,
what he has done would go far to make every creature worship
him as God ; for he that redeems, and pardons, and saves me,
and at such an expenditure as that of Calvary, must gather to
himself my adoration, my trust, my love. I cannot but worship
him who saves me from eternal perdition, and lifts me to eternal
joy. If Christ be not God, the foresight of this tendency would
have filled the apostolic epistles with warnings against the idola
try which would have inevitably and justly become all but the
universal worship of Christians. But he is God as truly as man ;
worship and confidence are his due, just as much as they are our
sacred duty.
" He loved us," and this antecedently to our loving him ; his
love to us originated our love to him, as the sound creates its
echo. How great, how sovereign that love which lighted upon
us, in whom there was nothing to attract, deserve, or retain it ;
but, on the contrary, much to provoke, weary, and repel it I He
loved us, in spite of what we were, not because of what we were;
not on account of excellencies in us, but to create excellencies
that were not in us. Man loves, because he sees something in
the loved to attract his affections — God loves, in order to create
in the loved something to retain his love. It is this that makes

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE APOCALYPSE. 33
our conscious debt to. grace exceed all computation, and defy all
repayment. We may conceive- the intensity of this love by num
bering, and estimating, if we can, the difficulties through which
it had to wade. He had to save sinners, not in spite of the law,
but according to the law, to show God's law righteous while it
condemns, and righteous still while it acquits ; God true while he
stands by his testimony, " the soul that sins shall die ;" and no
less true while he makes real his declaration, " he that believeth
in the Son of God hath everlasting life;" — God just while he
justifies the ungodly, and holy while he takes sinners to his bosom.
These are some of the seeming impossibilities that love had to do
¦ — the innumerable contrarieties it had to reconcile — the infinite
obstructions through which it had to work its way, to reach us.
The height from which it came is the throne of Deity ;' the depth
to which it descends is the ruin from which it plucks us; its
breadth is the earth which it circles as with a zone, and its length
from first to last is Eternity.
" He washed us from our sins in his own blood." This is the
scriptural phrase employed to denote his atoning expiatory suffer
ings. Nothing else but the life of the Son of God" expended on
the cross could insure the forgiveness of the least and fewest of
these sins of ours. No other element had virtue. No voice
from height or depth in the universe could say, with authority, to
the least transgressor, " thy sins be forgiven thee." No fasting,
mortification, or penance, or absolution of the priest,.-or indulgence
of pope or jubilee, ever approached the inner seat of the soul's
disquiet ; none of these rise high enough to reach God, or descend
low enough to reach us. The accusations of conscience in the
midst of all these " refuges of lies," outnumber its excuses, and
the law of God, in spite of these and thousands more, will ful
minate and make felt its lightnings. Nor does sin ever exhaust
its penalties, and thus render forgiveness unnecessary, and the
shedding of that blood uncalled for. A convict banished for a
definite period, exhausts his sentence, and thus becomes free ; but
were that convict to commit, in the course of his exile, a new
crime, a new sentence would fasten on him, and add to the years
of his banishment ; we sin while we suffer, we add to our punish
ment by adding to our guilt, and thus, by the very nature and

34 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
necessity of the case, sin is an eternal evil — never working out
its cure, but ever its perpetuity; it is a self-generating evil —
eternity does not exhaust it, it adds to it. An atonement was-
essential to our restoration; without shedding of blood there
could be no remission of sins — and what an atonement ! it has
touched the deep spot of anger in the bosom of God, and, de
scending along its dark line to its utmost havoc and curse, it has
rescued, reconciled, restored us. Christ pardons us while we sin,
and draws us off while he pardons alike from the love and prac
tice of sin.
It was his own blood that made this atonement, and it alone.
No other element mingled with it, nothing could heighten its
value — it needed nothing. He trod the wine-press alone. He
suffered alone, and his suffering was sufficient. He obeyed alone,
and his obedience was .all that was required. His is all the merit
of the process, and therefore all the glory of the result. He paid
all we owed to God, and purchased more than God owed to us.
He began it in the manger, and finished it upon the cross. He
humbled himself to merit, and he is exalted to bestow salvation.
What depth of dye must there be in sin ! what intensity of evil
in that terrible monosyllable ! what concentrated poison, seeing
no less illustrious a victim, no less costly a price was required for
its expiation, and no less precious a thing than the blood of Christ
could wash it away. Tremble at sin. Plague, pestilence, and
famine are nothing to sin. These scathe the body, it blasts the
soul. These have but a temporary effect, while sin creates an
eternal wo. But through Christ I am washed from my sins by
that precious blood, alike from their curse, their condemnation,
and all their penal consequences. The law remains in all its
force, its sacredness, and its stability, and yet it has no hold of
me. All my guilt is put away, all my demerits are cancelled,
and from no spot in the wide universe can a sentence of condem
nation come upon me, or the thunder of a violated law smite me.
But I see in the atonement of Jesus not merely a channel for the
efflux of the love and forgiving mercy of God, but a standing
proof of that love, its measure, its exponent, and representative.
It not only shows me that God can forgive me consistently with
all his attributes, but also that he delights to do so. Hence what

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE APOCALYPSE. 35
this sacrifice expresses, is as precious as what it does. It is evi
dence to me that my salvation is not a mere provision for a bare
escape from punishment, but the proof of the existence of a love
in God. my Father that longs to embrace me. It meets precisely
what I need — it supplies what I long and thirst to know. I re
quire to know, in order to have peace,' not only that God shall
not punish me, but that he will love me — not only freedom from
the curse, but friendship with God. I cannot be happy with
mere safety. I require reconciliation. I cannot consent to enter
heaven, and spend its cycles as- a pardoned ^convict, tolerated,
spared, but no more — I long, I pant to be there, an adopted son.
I feel that God must not only let me go, but take me back, ere I
can be happy. I must be placed, not merely beyond the penalties
of the law, but beneath the love of God. I require to .be raised
higher than pardon, justification, and sanctification ; I must not
only pass the tribunal of the legislator ; I cannot rest till I re
pose in the bosom, or rest amid the sunshine of the reconciled
countenance of my Father. „-I see all this embodied, expressed,
and secured in the atonement of Jesus. It is not only the way
to heaven, but the measure and the pledge of the welcome that
awaits me there. It is -thus I hear richer music in the words,
"It is finished," than I ever heard before. Now can I say and
sing with an emphasis I never felt before, " Unto him that loved
me, and washed me from my sins in his own blood ; to him be
glory and dominion for ever and ever."
But safety from the curse and reinstatement in the love of God
does not exhaust the destiny that awaits the children of God.
He that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
makes us kings and priests unto God. It is not enough to save
us — to love us. He will also dignify us. The safety of the par
doned, the joy of the restored, the adoption of sons, are heightened
by the superadded dignity of kings and the sacredness of priests.
The crown of beauty and of empire we lost in Adam, is restored
in Christ. " Ye are- a chosen generation, a royal priesthood."
Paradise regained, includes man's sovereignty restored. How
precious that sacrifice, which not only saves from destruction, and
restores to love, but lifts also to a dignity beside wliich all earthly

36 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
royalty is but a gleam on the troubled waters of earth ! We are
kings, hid it may be, but true and real.
We are also made priests. " Ye are a royal priesthood." If
priests, we must have sacrifices : what are these ? " To do good,
and to communicate, forget not ; with such sacrifices God is well
pleased." "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye pre
sent your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service." Our altar is no perishable
one; "we have an altar of which they have no right to eat,
which serve the tabernacle." " By Him let us offer the sacrifice
of praise to God continually." Thus Christ is the eternal altar
that sanctifies all that is laid on it, the widow's mite, the royal
dowry, and the angel's anthem. Man shall once more be replaced
in his pristine position, as the priest of the world,- — the eye of
the earth, to see above it that innumerable host in the over
shadowing sky, the sentinels and outposts of which only we now
catch a glimpse of, and God throned in the midst of them ; the
ear of earth, to hear the voice of God, — the mind of the earth, to
know God, — the heart of the earth, to love him ; and all this that
he may be the priest of the earth, to" devote, in ceaseless offering,
all its treasures to him whose will called them into being, and,
like the priests of Levi, to have no portion save God, the portion
that includes all besides. To him who thus loved us, we give all
the "glory."
Ours is the enjoyment of the blessing. His is the glory; this
is the light of heaven, this the language of the redeemed, the
key-note of their songs, the expression of their inmost hearts.
Not one voice in that innumerable multitude will be lifted up in
praise of itself; were there such a voice, it would be intolerable
discord. All the inhabitants of heaven feel that they can never
overpraise " Him who loved them, and washed them from their
sins in his own blood." There are no Socinians in heaven, for
all there adore and worship the Lamb. Nor are there any Ro
manists there, for the undivided glory is given to him who sits
upon the throne ; all tribes, and nations, and people, and tongues
are there, but in virtue of the sacrifice of Jesus ; circumstantially
different as tongue and tribe can make them, essentially one, as
the blood of Christ alone can constitute them.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE APOCALYPSE. 37
Dwellers on the Mississippi and Missouri, and in the back
woods of Canada, and the prairies of the West, are there. Mil
lions from the Andes, and the isles of the Pacific, from the moun
tains of Thibet, and the cities of China, from every jungle of
India, and from every pagoda of Hindostan, the untutored Arab,
and the uncultivated Druse, and the "tribes of the weary foot,"
the children of Salem are there, and Abraham, and Job, and
Isaiah, and John and Peter, and Augustine, and Wickliffe, and
Luther, are there also, and many we in our uncharitableness, or
bigotry, or exclusiveness, or ignorance, excluded from heaven,
will be there also ; and our sires, and sons, and babes, and parents
will be there, completed circles, never again to be broken ; and
their united voices will give utterance to their deep and enduring
gratitude : " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins
in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God,
even the Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever,
Amen." Dear brethren, do not say the Book of Revelation is not the
gospel. John and those associated with him show their sense of the
obligations and mercies of which they are the happy recipients,
by ascribing unto the Fountain of them" all " the glory and the
dominion for ever." We thus show our gratitude on earth by
ascribing audibly to our Eternal Benefactor the glory of all. We
cannot be silent even in this world, as the children of such and
so countless benefits. We will not consent to wrap our blessings
in a napkin, or bury them in oblivion. We are not so unaffected
by them that we can easily forget them, nor so ashamed to ac
knowledge them that we shall refuse audibly to proclaim them.
While we never forget on earth the sins by which we have dis
honoured God, we can never forget the rich grace in the exercise
of which he has most graciously forgiven them. The recollec
tion of the former will keep us truly humble, and the recollection
of the latter will preserve us eminently thankful. It is related
that when the Greeks heard that the Macedonian invader was
overthrown, a whole nation raised to the skies so loud a shout,
amrrjp, o-ajTrjp, Saviour ! Saviour ! that birds upon the wing
dropped down- Fable should become fact in our cage. They
i

38 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
felt such overpowering gratitude at a temporal deliverance : what
gratitude ought we to feel, what songs ought we to raise in order
to express our obligations to him that "loved us and washed us
from our sins in his own blood \"
Of this we may be assured, that unrecognised blessings are
always unprofitable ones. What is nothing in our eyes exercises
no sanctifying influence on our hearts : slighted mercies provoke
the sharpest judgments. God will no more endure»his kindness
to be slighted than his holiness to be trodden under foot, and
hence he will not be a long or a quiet possessor of blessings, if it
be possible to be such a possessor, who does not acknowledge
them. But it never can be the characteristic of a Christian to be
loud in asking, .and dumb in acknowledging ; to recognise God
when we are in want, and to forget God when we are full — to be
Christians when prayer is our duty and privilege, and atheists
when praise becomes us. The gospel unvailed in the Apocalypse
teaches us far different things. Saints on earth and saints in
glory audibly express the gratitude they deeply feel, in ceaseless
songs : " Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in
his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and
his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever,
Amen." John had so impressive a recollection of mercies, that
he reverses the Tisual order, and begins, as embodied in the text,
with praise and ends with prayer, as in chap. xxii. 20, " Even so
come, Lord Jesus."
Brethren, it is one thing to learn that the gospel is contained in
the Apocalypse ; it is quite another to feel its transforming power
in the depths and recesses of our own souls : we may pass to the
very outermost darkness of hell, versed in all the visions of the
seer of Patmos, — we may perish from the midst of Apocalyptic
studies. The only thing that can save us, is the application of
atoning blood to our hearts and consciences ; and the only evi
dence of its realization is found in the peace, and purity, and joy,
and hope, which grow and bloom in that heart which the blood
of the Lamb has sprinkled, and the Spirit of the Lamb has taken
possession of. I cannot for one moment conceal from you, that
there is no room for you to entertain questions in prophecy till
you have first opened your heart to the personal reception of him

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE APOCALYPSE. 39
who is the only Saviour. Yet some repudiate the name and gos
pel of Christ, and live as if Calvary and Gethsemane, and judg
ment and eternity, were dreams and phantoms, and not the mosi
solemn realities that history records, or the universe unbosoms.
" There is none other name given among men whereby we can be
saved.'J " No man cometh to the Father but by me." " Except
ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." Some neglect the gospel :
they admit it is true in words ; they deny it in their life and
practice. This is emphatically criminal. It is worse than re
jecting — it is insult added to infidelity : it virtually says, " That
which engaged the wisdom and expressed the mercy of God — that
which necessitated the atonement and all its awful accompani
ments is not worth our attention." " How shall we escape if we
neglect so great a salvation !"
Some abuse the gospel. Because grace abounds they think sin
may abound also : this is grievous perversion. Some obscure the
gospel ; they mingle with the truth the traditions of men : this is
very sinful, and very mischievous. It is brightest in its own ori
ginal lustre, — it needs no ornament from without. But others em
brace, admire, and love it, — celebrate the love they respond to,
and spread according to their means, among others, the blessings
they have tasted themselves. Every Christian becomes a mis
sionary. It is, indeed, utterly impossible that any can taste the
blessings of the gospel of Christ, and fail to make efforts corre
sponding to his means, to circulate the tidings which have sounded
so musical to his ear. He feels that he has the unction of the
saint only that he may enter on the duties of the servant. The
moment he ceases to be a steward for others, that moment he
ceases to act like a son of God. Grace, like the human heart,
ceases to live the instant it ceases to circulate. It is, in its
essence, diffusive, — it has no sympathy with selfish monopoly, —
it glories in self-sacrifice, — it grows by giving,— like the widow's
cruse of oil and barrel of meal, it increases ever as it is expended :
till none become so rich in grace as they who have spread around
them, with the most unsparing liberality, its glorious treasures.
The labours of the living, and of those who have preceded us to
immortality and glory, will not be lost : " the seed they sowed, and
watered with their tears, cannot die. Tokens of these ultimate

40 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
triumphs are already looming into view. In many a land the
altars of paganism are crumbling to ruins, and the shrines of
Popery parting with their remaining meretricious splendours.
The cloisters of the priest, and the alhambra of the Moslem, will
soon hear the voice of the Son of God. Christianity is on her
colossal march. Her sentinels are awakened by the first rays of
the approaching sun. The song that has been sung by the few
by the rivers of Babylon will, ere long, be sung by a mighty
multitude whom no man can number : " Unto him that loved us
and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us
priests and kings unto God and his Father, unto him be glory and
dominion, for ever and ever. Amen."
Brethren, do not say the Apocalypse is not the gospel. The
name of Christ lies under every symbol, and the blood of the
everlasting covenant gives its colouring to every truth. It may
happen that where the gospel, as uttered from the lips of the
Man of sorrows in the streets of Jerusalem, has not been pro
ductive of its just effect, the same gospel sounding forth from the
Lord of glory, wearing many crowns, and seated on the throne of
the universe, may create deep, saving, and indelible impressions.
We thus pray. We patiently wait.

41

LECTURE III.
THE OPENING OF THE SEVEN SEALS.
"After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven : and tho first
voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me ; which said,
Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hpreafter.
"And immediately I was in" the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in hea
ven, and one sat on the throne.
"And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and
there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
"And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the
seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment ; and they
had on their heads crowns of .gold.
"And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and jthunderings and voices j
and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the
seven Spirits of G-odr j
"And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in '
the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of
eyes before and behind.
"And the first beast was like z, lion, and the seeond beast like a calf, and
the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
"And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were
full of eyes within : and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy,
Lord G-od Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.
"And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to him that sat
on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever,"
"The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and
worship him' that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the
throne, saying,
"Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou
hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." — Re
velation iv.
John sees "a door" in the walls of heaven, and through that
door he "beholds, and in this chapter describes, its interior glory.
He witnesses there in that vast panorama the dawning scenes of
centuries to come, each century sweeping past in solemn pro
cession. First, however, he unvails the heavenly state just as he
sees it. Foremost in the scene he "beholds the Son of Grod ar
rayed and radiant with his evangelical glory; the sardine or co-
4*

42 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
lour of flesh indicating his humanity as the visible shrine of
Deity, and the rainbow, — that thing woven out of sunbeams and
raindrops, — smiles and tears, he recognises as the emblem of a
covenant in all things ordered an(^ sure; the predominating
green, the colour that prevails in creation, because softest and
most suitable to the eye, indicates the softening influence of the
humanity of Jesus on the rays of the otherwise inapproachable
glory that shone through it. This in fact is the character of
heaven. The crown of Jesus is visible in the subduing light
of his cross — his very throne of glory lies in the light of Cal
vary, and Paradise regained wears still in heaven the aspect of
Gethsemane. Four living creatures, (£->a,) improperly translated
"beasts," (which last is the proper rendering of dypta, a word
that occurs in subsequent parts of this book,) and four and twenty
elders are revealed to John in the celestial scene.
The four living creatures, it is probable, refer to the Jewish
church, and are meant to personate it, as seems to be indicated
by their respective Jewish characteristics. The twelve tribes
were arranged, in their marching, into four divisions, and each
division had its appropriate symbol. Judah and his two tribes
had the symbol of a lion; Reuben and his two, that of a man;
Ephraim and his two, that of a bull; Dan and his two, that of
an eagle. The four and twenty elders very probably represent
the Gentile church, being in no respect signalized by Levitical
symbols. At all events the two parties, the living creatures and
the elders, are of the Redeemed church, and not angelic beings,
as is obvious from their anthem, chap. v. 8, 9 — "And when he
bad taken the book the four living creatures and four and twenty
elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps
and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints,"
or holy ones, i,e. of themselves; "and they sung a new song,
saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals
thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy
blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
and hast made us unto our God kings and priests : and we shall
reign on the earth." These worshipping ones, evidently a com
pany of redeemed gathered from the church below, are also re
presented as casting their crowns before the throne. This is

OPENING OP THE SEALS. 43
evidence, by an expressive action, of their conscious obligation
to Him that loved them. They see on each crown the image of
the Lamb and the superscription of his name, and each gem
seems to them- radiant with his lustre, and this fact gives em
phasis to every feeling and eloquence to every song. The sins
of the lost will never be over-punished, and the mercies of the
saved will never be over-acknowledged. The former will never
cease to blame themselves. The latter will never cease to praise
the Lord. The "seven Spirits" referred to in verse 5, and likened
to seven lamps of fire, are apocalyptic representations of the Holy
Spirit of God. The number seven is employed in Scripture as
the numerical representative of perfection. Thus, the seven
churches represent the one universal visible church ; and in the
use of this- number there seems to be a usage borne out by cor
responding analogies in the material world. All know that seven
colours are the component elements of pure light; and seven
notes is the range of the musical scale; and thus the sacred
symbol may be laid in the nature of things.*
It may here too be proper to answer the question, why symbols
are employed, when abstract and naked ideas might have been
set forth. Symbols are the most1 permanent exponents of thought,
as well as universally intelligible, because the- great facts and
leading phenomena of creation are the same in all countries and
in all ages, and convey at the same time most vividly, as well as
most intelligibly, universally, and permanently, the truths of
which they are the vehicles; but, in fact, there was a necessity,
as far as we can see, for the use of symbols in the divine book
that describes the future. If utterly unintelligible, they would
have been useless either as prefigurations of truth or evidences
by comparison of its fulfilment, and if too obvious, they would
have interfered with the responsibility of man and the freedom
of the movements of the world. They are perfect, just as the
Holy Spirit has given them.
The inspired seer then gives his vision of the book with seven
* The seven Spirits are quoted by Romanists in defence of angel worship.
But Augustme, in his exposition of Psalm cl., and Gregory Nazianzen, in his
forty-first Oration, and Ambrose, on Luke, Book IX., all apply the passage to
the Holy Ghost or Septiform Spirit.

44 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
seals, in chap. v. 1-7. "And I saw in the right hand of him
that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside,
sealed with seven seals. And I saw a Btrong angel proclaiming
with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose
the seals thereof? And no man in heaven nor in earth, neither
under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.
And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and
to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders
saith unto me, Weep not : behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda,
the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose
the seven seals thereof. And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of
the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders,
stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven
eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the
earth. And he came and took the book out- of the right hand
of him that sat upon the throne."
This chapter opens with an account of the mysterious book,
which contained things to come, that is, things subsequent to the
date of the apocalyptic vision. The explanation of its being
written "within" and "without" is ascertained by a reference to
the structure of the ancient book or volume. It was a skin of
parchment, with a roller at each end. The reader having read
the writing on the skin in the part between the two rollers, un
wound a portion from the left-hand roller, and after reading it,
wound it on the right, and when the whole of one side had thus
been perused in successive portions, he turned toward himself the
opposite ends of the rollers, and wound and unwound as before,
till all the manuscript on the other side had been likewise read.
The book seen by the seer and thus constructed, had seven seals
attached to it — seals, that serve to indicate that they were secret,
and also seals, to indicate that they were to be broken or opened.
Each seal was the compendium of a distinct prophecy of events
aud circumstances to evolve. Various theories have been given
byway of explanation; the most celebrated are those of Cun
ningham of Lainshaw, and Elliott. The first six seals contain
the history of the temporal glory and decline of Rome Pagan,
the most illustrious empire of the ancient earth. This is my
strong, and I think demonstrable conviction. The first six trum-

OPENING OF THE SEALS. 45
pets, which are comprehended in the seventh seal, contain the
desolation of Rome Christian by the Goths, the Saracens, and the
Turks. The first six vials, which are comprehended in the se
venth trumpet, embody the events that occurred subsequent to
the breaking forth of the great European revolution in 1793.
Thus the twenty-one apocalyptic symbols, the seven seals, the
seven trumpets, and the seven vials, represent in succession the
progress of the church along the obstructions of time, her vicissi
tudes of experience, her trials, her-cruel mockings, her perils, and
her final triumph and permanent prosperity, contemporaneously
with overwhelming judgments on the nations, and on the apostasy.
John says, verse 4, "I wept much, because no man was found
worthy to open and to read the book."- The sacred seer thus
showed an earnest and anxious desire to understand unfulfilled
prophecy, and thereby to learn things that were to come. Such
desire was not sinful, nay, within the proper limits, it was as
dutiful as it was blessed. If no symbol had been exhibited sig
nificant of events to come, he would have had no right to inquire,
"for secret things belong unto the Lord." But as a symbol was
shown him, it was the instinct of nature and the evidence of
grace to seek reverently and humbly after its significance, for
"things revealed belong to us and to our children;" but we are
not left to conjecture on the nature of this curiosity, for one of
the elders showed it was lawful when he said unto him, " Weep
not, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath pre
vailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof;"
and on John looking up, he saw "in the midst of the throne a
Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes,
which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him
that sat upon the throne." Thus, Jesus of Nazareth, the Saviour
of sinners, in the exercise of his prophetic office, represented by
seven eyes, the great symbol of omniscience, and by the seven
horns, the symbol of omnipotent power, and in virtue of his per
fect atonement and its perpetual efficacy as " the Lamb slain,"
broke the seals, and opened the book, and unvailed for us its
wonderful contents. He is now as ever the Lion of the tribe
of Judah, that is, strength and royalty, power and jurisdiction

46 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
combined. He is now also as ever the root of all being, the
fountain of all life. He is seated on the throne : but even the
lustre of that throne cannot conceal the lowliness and loveliness
of the most interesting spectacle in glory, the Lamb .slain. The
word keyayidvov, here rendered "as it had been slain," means
literally killed in sacrifice, and as if just newly so killed, and con
veys beyond the power of English to express the continual fresh
ness and applicability of the atoning and expiatory efficacy of the
blood of Christ, and teaches us the precious truth, that there is
the same virtue in the atonement this very moment as there was
when that atonement was first made. Years do not waste its
virtue, and the successive millions that have drawn from it do not
exhaust its fulness. When the Lamb had thus taken the book,
and stood ready to open it, the four living creatures and the four
and twenty elders, being designed to represent the first-fruits and
precursors of the redeemed in glory, sang a new song with harps,
and golden vials full of incense, which are the prayers of, hte
rally, the holy ones, that is, themselves; and they sang a new
song, (v. 9,) saying, "Thou art worthy to take the book, and to
open the seals thereof, for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us
to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people
and nation." And the angels also took up the flying strains and,
according to their experience and nature, sang, ten thousand
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands being their num
ber, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and
riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and
blessing; and every creature in heaven, and on the earth, and
-under the earth, and such as are in the sea, added, Blessing, and
honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the
throne, even unto the Lamb for ever and ever." There was dis
played on this august occasion, on Christ's part, a new manifesta
tion of his character, a new evolution of his glory; and they that
beheld it, in order to express the all but inexpressible feeling
stirred within them by that new and glorious apocalpyse, sang a
new song — its theme, atoning blood — its key-note, redeeming
love — its harmony, the sustained and blended voices of adoring
spirits — and the choir that sang it, the redeemed tenantry of
heaven and earth, the angels of the sky, and the grateful inmates.

OPENING OF THE SEALS. 47
of the ocean and the air. Thus it is now, and thus it will be for
ever. The songs of psalmists praise him — the harps of prophets
praise him — the. records of evangelists and the eloquence of
apostles praise him — the seals, the trumpets, and- the vials praise
him — the glorious company of the apostles praise him — the
goodly fellowship of the prophets praise him — the noble army
of martyrs praise him — the past, the present, and the future
praise him — all things bear the impress of his love — exhibit the
evidence and the influence of his wisdom and the inspiration of
his power, and become the organs of the ceaseless manifestation
of his glory.
. Chap. vi. begins with the opening of the first seal, "And I
saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it
were the noise of thunder, one of the four living creatures, say
ing, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse ; and
he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him,
and he went forth conquering and to conquer." The first four
seals have one great characteristic in common, viz. the symbol of
a horse. It is the basis of each. This must indicate something
which they share in common. Is there any clue to the solution
of this symbol suggested by its historical, or national, or local
import ? There is. Almost every nation has some emblem as its
national exponent and characteristic. Thus the thistle is the
symbol of Scotland; the rose, of England ; and the shamrock, of
Ireland. These are the national hieroglyphs. Were any one to
write an apocalyptic history of Ireland, for instance, during the
last twelvemonths, he would probably write, that the shamrock
lost much of its verdure, and ultimately withered and died in the
autumn of 1846, but that it recovered all its pristine beauty
in the course of 1847 ; and no one acquainted with the literal
historical facts would be likely to mistake the meaning of such
an allusion. Now the horse was strictly a national emblem of
Rome, as the thistle is of Scotland, the rose of England, or the
lily of France, or the shamrock of Ireland. Medals are still in
existence with alto-relievo figures of the horse, and the word
Roma inscribed below. The Romans also called themselves
Gens Mavortia, that is, the people of Mars; and the horse, in

48 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
their mythology, was sacred to Mars.* Thus, therefore, there
can be little doubt, that the four first seals refer to and represent
the Roman empire in its pagan state. The colours of the horses
point out successive stages of prosperity, suffering, conquest, or
decay — the riders on the horses represent the agents employed to
bring about its various phases or conditions — and the crown, the
bow, and the balance represent the class, or family, or nation, to
which these agents respectively belonged. By adhering to these
very natural explanations, we shall be able to open up much that
would be otherwise enigmatical, if not impenetrable, and to show
consistency where all would be confusion.
The colour of the first horse — viz. white — indicates a state of
prosperity, victory, and expansion, as the characteristic of the
Roman empire during the period comprehended in this seal.
White is the common symbol of prosperity; and in triumphal
processions the Roman horses were covered with white. The
meaning of this symbol is therefore plain, and its application
obvious. Now, was there any period beginning at the date of
this vision, signalized by such marked prosperity as is here
symbolically set forth ? There was. During the reigns of
Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, and the two Antonines, a period com
mencing A. n. 97, and closing A. d. 180, the Roman empire
experienced a condition of almost unclouded national prosperity :
Trajan's victories were so numerous and splendid that he was
called the Roman Alexander ; and Trajan's column stands to
this day, a retrospective monument of the splendour of his reign.
Gibbon, in this, as in most other instances, unconsciously and
undesignedly furnishes in his history evidence of the truth of
prophecy. "The empire," he says, "was governed by wisdom
and virtue, unstained by civil blood, undisturbed by revolution.
The period when the human race was most happy extended from
the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus." The
crown upon the rider's head indicates that imperial agency was
the source of this state of happiness ; and that we are right in
fixing the era indicated by this seal in the first and second
centuries, is made still more clear by referring to the original
* Fuit equus Marti saeor propter usum belli, et quotannis ei Romae im-
molabatur. — Facciolati,

. OPENING OF THE SEALS. 49
Greek word here translated crown, oricpayos, (Stephanos,)
wreath, or laurel crown. The SidS7j,aa (diadema) was not worn
till centuries afterward, and the allusion therefore to the laurel
crown, and not to the diadem, is corroborative evidence of the
correctness of the chronology, or periodal history, illustrative of
this seal. Li the rider's hand was a bow, a symbol which long
perplexed apocalyptic commentators. Mr. Elliott alone seems to
have reached the true solution of it, and on the same pervading
principle on which he has so consistently prosecuted his re
searches, viz. that the symbols were always selected with a refer
ence to the age, the country, or the manners and customs of the
people. Crete was the chief ancient place that was celebrated
for the manufacture of bows ; so much so; that Cretan bows were
as popular in Rome as Sheffield cutlery or Staffordshire earthen
wares are throughout Europe. One proof of the meaning of the
bow employed as a symbol is found in a Greek epigram on a
female,, with an explanation which assigns her a magpie to denote
her loquacity, a cup her drunkenness, and a bow to show that she
was a Cretan by birth. As.if to exhibit the perfect minuteness
of the apocalyptic symbols, and still more to confirm the justice
of our reference of this seal to the period we have fixed, we are
informed in history, that on Nerva's accession there was intro
duced a new dynasty to the imperial throne. Nerva* was the
first emperor of Cretan family and origin, and his immediate
successors were Cretan also.
"And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second
beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse
that was red, and power was given to him that sat thereon to
take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another ;
and there was given unto him a great sword." (Ver. 3, 4.) In
this seal, also, the Roman empire (the horse) is the subject of
description. Red is the popular and all but universal symbol of
bloodshed. The sword, when presented to any one within a
circuit of a hundred miles of Rome, at the era referred to in
this seal, was equivalent to his appointment or investiture to
be pretorian prefect. This, therefore, would indicate that the
agency employed under this seal was pretorian. " Killing one
* Quid enim Nerva Cretenei prudentior ? — Aurelius Vict.
5

50 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES:
another" is the language of civil war. The peace taken from
the earth has in the original the definite article, and this shows
that the commission issued to the rider was to take away the
peace that was created or prevailed during the first seal. Is
there any thing recorded in history which exhausts and illustrates
these symbols ? We appeal to Gibbon. He shows that the bright
and happy era which we have just referred to was succeeded
by intestine and incessant civil wars. Dion Cassius calls it
" a transition from a golden to an iron age." The pretorian
guards, under their chief, murdered nine Roman emperors in
succession ; and during a period of sixty years, that is, from the
close of the first seal, a. d. 180, to the close of the second seal,
A. D. 240, they exercised exterminating cruelties, and created
a Roman reign of terror. Gibbon writes, " Their licentious fury
was the first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman
empire." "And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third
beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse,
and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And
I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, saying, A
measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for
a penny, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." (Ver. 5, 6.)
The Roman empire is again the subject of this scenic or choro-
graphic description. " Black" is the all but universal emblem
of mourning and distress. The language used implies a state of
want, famine, and oppression. The caution, " hurt not the oil
and wine," ought to be translated, " hurt not with regard to the
oil and the wine," that is, be just in selling these commodities to
the poor. Give them proper measure, the worth of their money;
a caution that would naturally be urged during a state of national
penury. The balance shows that the proconsuls, or provincial
governors, were the agency employed on this occasion to bring
about this state of destitution, " a balance" being a proconsular
ensign, as is evident from the fact, that proconsular coins are
still extant, having struck upon them a balance and an ear of
corn. At the close of the events described in the preceding
seal, Caracalla enforced, and the provincial governors carried into
effect, the most grinding taxation, and plunged the empire in

OPENING OF THE SEALS. 51
widespread ruin. Formerly only one of the three commodities,
wheat, oil, and wine, was exacted for -the emperor and court.
Now, all three were exacted — the national finance was exhausted —
commerce was stagnant, and agricultural depression descended
to its lowest point ; and Gibbon refers to the edict of Caracalla
as of peculiar importance in its effect on the decay and exhaustion
of the empire.
" And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice
of the fourth beast say, -Come and see. And I looked, and
behold a pale horse : and his name that sat on him was Death,
and Hell (or properly, Hades, or the Grave) followed with him.
And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the
earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death,
and with the beasts of the earth." (Ver. 7, 8.) This seal almost
explains itself. It represents Death riding rough-shod over the
length and breadth of the empire, mowing down its population
in successive thousands, and Hades, or the Grave, following at
his heels, to receive the victims as they fell; and here again
history casts its light upon prophecy, for it was during this seal,
that is, from A. d. 248 to A. D. 268, that there occurred the
most terrible contemporaneous combination of sword, famine, and
pestilence that was ever visited on a guilty population. Gibbon
thus describes it : — " The empire approached dissolution, every
province was invaded by barbarous military tyrants. There was
general famine — a dreadful plague, so that 4500 persons died
each day at Rome." And still further, to show the minute and
scrupulous precision of the apocalyptic symbols, a heathen writer
states that " the wild beasts invaded the cities, as the natural
consequence of the decay of man."
"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the
altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and
for the testimony which they held : and they cried with a loud
voice, saying, How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not
judge and avenge our blood on them that' dwell on the earth ?
And white robes were given unto every one of them ; and it was
said unto them, that they should rest- yet for a little season,
until their fellow-servants, also and their brethren, that should
be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." (Ver. 9-11.) This

52 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
seal comprehends, as its language plainly enough proves, the era
beginning at the close of the third century, justly and universally
called the Era of the Martyrs. The Christians were slaughtered
in, vast numbers— their blood was poured out like that of vic
tims at the foot of the altar, and there, like Abel's, it sent
its piercing cry to the heavens, saying, " How long 1" The
churches were overturned, the congregations scattered ; their
Bibles burned ; the holiest and best " tortured, not accepting
deliverance." The Jewish religion was tolerated at Rome,
because it was designed for Jews only ; the Egyptian religion was
tolerated for an analogous reason : but the' Christian was pro
scribed as religio illicita, and on the ground that Christians de
clared that their faith was not for a province, a country, or a
continent, but for the wide world. It was the missionary
character of the early Christians that provoked their murderers
and precipitated their martyrdom. To the cry of these martyrs
in their agony a response was given from on high. They
received " white robes," the evidence of acquittal and justifica
tion before God ; and they were told that they must rest
until subsequent martyrs, the victims of anti-Christian, that
is, Papal, persecution, the complement of the noble army,
should be numbered with them, that both might thus rejoice
together. " And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo,
there was a great earthquake ; and the sun became black as
sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars
of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her
untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the
heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every
mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the
kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and
the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman,
and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks
of the mountains ; and said to tho mountains and rocks, Fall on
us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne,
and from the wrath of the Lamb : for the great day of his wrath
is come ; and who shall be able to stand ?" (Ver. 12-17.) This
language unquestionably implies the occurrence of a vast revo-

OPENING OF THE SEALS. 53
lution on the scene of the events and facts represented by the
previous seals. Strong as it is, it cannot describe the day of
judgment ; for the sequel, as well as the whole chronology of
the Apocalypse, disproves this. Is, then, the strong language
employed in it capable of application to any less momentous
occurrence? We think it is.. Certainly, similar language is
applied in Scripture to less important events. Thus, Jeremiah,
in chap. iv. 23, 24, describes Jerusalem under judgment : — " I
beheld the earth, (viz. Judea,) and, lo, it was without form and
void ; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the
mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved
rightly." (Ver. 28.) " For this shall the earth mourn, and the
heavens above be black." (Ver. 29.) "They shall go into the
thickets, and climb up upon the rocks." And in Hosea, (x. 8.)
the following language is thus used to describe the judgments
pronounced upon Israel :— " The thorn and the thistle shall come
up on their "altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover
us ; and to the hills, Fall on us." We may, in fact we must,
therefore, apply the language of the sixth seal to some great
revolution less conclusive than the final judgment. That revo
lution we believe to have been the final downfall of paganism,
and the adoption of Christianity by the emperor Constantine, in
the fourth century. Our chronology also confirms this applica
tion. We can scarcely conceive a transition more stupendous.
The champions of paganism, Maximin, Galerius, and Dioclesian,
were crushed. Its sun set, its stars were quenched, its firma
ment covered with blackness; and before the majestic progress
of the Christian religion, lifted from the depths of depression to
the very highest platform of imperial grandeur and national
power, literally and truly, the opposing kings, and generals, and
soldiers, and freemen, fled. Christianity reigned at that day
without a rival. Whatever opinion may be formed of the
national recognition of Christianity by Constantine ; whether it
be thought to have been wrong in principle, and injurious in
its effects, or the reverse, (and this point has nothing to do with
my present position ;) it must be admitted, that his conversion
to a faith which all his imperial predecessors proscribed and
persecuted — the detested cross glittering on the helmets, en-

54 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
graven on the shields, interwoven on the banners, and placed on
the top of the Labarum of the empire — was a revolution, at
least not unworthy of the vivid and expressive language applied
to this seal by the Apocalyptic seer. These seem to me
rational, consistent, and historical illustrations of the symbols
referred to. I have read nothing at all tending to disprove my
interpretations. But I cannot let you depart this evening without exhibiting
what is suggested by the subject — a distinguishing doctrine of
the gospel of Jesus. John saw, it is said, what the blood of the
everlasting covenant alone had created — " a door in heaven."
What door was this ?
Not, surely, our primeval innocence ; for " all have sinned ;"
" there is none righteous, no not one." Not our sufferings ; for,
in tears, in trials, in martyrdom, in death, there is no atoning
virtue. Not our own deeds; for by deeds of law, however
excellent and self-sacrificing in themselves, no flesh can be
saved. Not baptism; it admits to the visible, not to the spiritual
church. Christ alone is that door. "I am the door." "I am the
way." "No man cometh unto the Father but by me." He is
"a new and living way." He satisfied the exactions of law,
bare all the penalties of sin, and removed from between me and
my reconciled God every interposing obstruction, and bears me
upward to his presence. It is through Him that we can see or
anticipate any thing in the future.
By that door, thus revealed in every page of Christianity, there
is the only egress for the love of. God. The atonement is not
the creation of a love that was not, but purely an egress for a
love that was and is — for mercy to forgive, grace to help, and
peace to keep us. That door, too, is ingress for us, as well as
egress for God. By- it, our prayers, our praises, and our souls
may rise and enter into the upper sanctuary, and hold communion
with Deity. We enter now by faith ; we shall enter by-and-by
in fact. They who have already entered have washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They
now stand before the throne, and serve him day and night; they
see the Lamb in the midst of the throne; they celebrate his

OPENING OF THE SEALS. 55
praise perpetually, and dwell in that glorious land, to delineate
the features of which, the seer, in chap, xxi., exhausts all poetry
and borrows all imagery, and, after all, helps us to see it only
through a glass, darkly.
This way oi access is free to all. No toll may be exacted by
priest or pope of any of its pilgrims ; it is above all price ; it is
without money and without price.
It is wide enough for all. You need not try to make room for
yourselves by pushing aside your nearest neighbour. None are
excluded who do not exclude themselves. . None fail who really
try. " Strive to enter in," for one day it will be shut to you for
ever. Sometimes God shuts it to some even on earth, as when
He says, "He is joined to idols; let him alone." ''My Spirit
will not strive with him any more."
To all who have not entered by this door in life, it is shut at
death for ever. (Matt. xxv. 11-13.) "Afterward came also
the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us. But he
answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not.
Watch, therefore." And, (Luke xiii. 24,) " Strive to enter in
at the strait gate : for many, I say unto you, will strive to enter
in, and shall not be able. When once the Master of the house
is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand
without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord ! Lord ! open
unto us ; and he -shall answer and say unto you, I know you not,
whence ye are."
Have you entered in ? Have you crossed that threshold which
separates the sons of God from the children of time? Do not
postpone this momentous question. Heaven and hell are sus
pended on the answer. On'this side are "the mount that might
be touched, and that burned with fire, and blackness, and dark
ness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice
of words ;" scenes so awful that the meek Moses could not endure
them.. But on the other side, to which I invite you, are "Mount
Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and an innumerable company of angels, and the general assembly
and church of the first-born .which are written in heaven, and
God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect,

56 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
and Jesus the 'Mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of
sprinkling that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel.
See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." Cross the boundary.
Do not hesitate. All heaven welcomes you. Neither earth nor
hell can hold back the willing soul.

57

LECTURE IV.
GOD'S SEALED ONES.

" 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.
"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,
" Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have
sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
"And I heard the number of them which were sealed : and there were sealed
an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of tho children of
Israel.- " Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben
were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.
" Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Neph-
thalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed
twelve thousand.
" Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi
were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve
thousand. " Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Jo
seph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed
twelve thousand.
" After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number,
of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne,
and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands ;
"And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
" "And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and
the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
" Saying, Amen : Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and
honour, and power, and might, be unto, our God for ever and ever. Amen.
" And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are
arrayed in white robes ? and whencB came they ?
"And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are
they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES
56 yi'herefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night,
ajft his temple : and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun
light on them, nor any heat.
" For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall
lead them unto living fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes." — Revelation vii.
It would appear that soon after the temporary peace that fol
lowed the powerful patronage of the truth by Constantine, and
even during the sunshine of that unexampled patronage, new and
electric clouds were gathering on the horizon of the Roman
world, and preparing to explode and devastate the Roman earth.
The prey was there, and the eagles were hovering near it. Cor
ruption was in the heart, and iniquity stained the hands of the
nation, and therefore the denounced and corresponding judgments
were converging upon it. And accordingly the vision discloses
to us four angels commissioned to restrain the impending storm,
or keep back the menaced and deserved judgments, till another
angel, according to his mission, seals the, servants of the living
God — that is, sets them apart, as chosen and precious, and pre
serves them from the desolations that were about to descend on
the unsealed, because guilty ones. Now, in the order of the
chronology which we have pursued in our discussion of the mean
ing of the seals, and in ascertaining what takes place immediately
after the opening of the sixth, is there any record of any judg
ment threatened about this time, and seen to be ready to light
upon the empire, and scourge its guilty inhabitants ? Again, we
refer to Gibbon, who says, "The threatening tempest of barba
rians which so soon subverted the foundations of Roman great
ness, was still repelled or suspended on the frontiers." This is
the language that just translates the apocalyptic symbol. Now,
these judgments, restrained by the angels, or, as interpreted by
Gibbon, " suspended on the frontiers," are embodied and let
loose in the symbols called the trumpets, which we will explain
in our next. But the preliminary question naturally suggests
itself, What were the sins or demerits of the church, now so
prosperous, or of the empire, now so dutiful, to all appearance,
which provoked so unsparing judgments ? All seems tranquillity

GOD'S SEALED ONES. 59
and peace, and religion throned and visibly triumphant. We
shall discover the cause of these judgments partly from history,
and partly from the characteristics of the sealed ones, which last,
by implication and contrast, reveal to us the errors and apostasies
of the church of Constantine, the peculiar excellencies of the
sealed disclosing the peculiar sins of the unsealed. The truth is,
the church suffered more in the sunshine of the royal countenance
than amid the blaze of burning fagots : the persecution of the
heathen did not injure her so much as the patronage of the pro
fessing Christian. In the one case, she grasped her white robes
more closely around her; in the other, and in unsuspecting mo
ments, she let them go. Forgetting that this world was not her'
rest, she laid aside, in the intoxication of her visible prosperity,
her diadem of beauty, her raiment of victory — parted with her
eyesight, and put on the livery of Cassar, and ground at his mill
a miserable drudge ; and all the seeds of the apostasy predicted
in the Scriptures, and sown broadcast by Satan in the days of
persecution, shot up, under the imperial patronage, into a disas
trous and rapid harvest, After the adoption of Christianity by
Constantine, the profession of the gospel became fashionable; it
was the religion of the court, the aristocracy, and the higher
classes of society ; its creed was no longer a loss, but a profit ; the
principles that once preceded their earnest advocates to prison, to
the stake, and to the wild beasts, now paved the pathway to ho
nour, office, and preferment. Christianity, in short, became a
qualification for office, a recommendation to Caesar, a passport to
honour. The catacombs in which the early Christians had wor
shipped in silence and secrecy heretofore, and in which, as re
corded by Dr. Maitland, they had left so many inscriptions that
demonstrate the primitive character of Protestantism, were now
exchanged for magnificent cathedrals ; the tombs around which
the persecuted clustered, as the only unmolested places on the
earth in which they could worship the God that made it, were
abandoned for temples towering to the "skies; the earthen vessels
used heretofore in the celebration of the communion, were dis
placed by golden and silver chalices; ceremonies became out
wardly splendid ; the once lowly ministers of the cross became
the companions of kings, and mitres adorned with precious stones

60 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
covered those heads that were recently exposed to winds and
rains, and all the elements of heaven. The baptismal font was
surrounded with innumerable candidates, drawn to it rather by
the prospect of temporal preferment than by attachment to Chris
tian truth, and the visible church at length rose above the state,
and dictated terms to the monarchs of the world, little remember
ing that such a height was real depression. Medals were struck
with the image of the phoenix, as the symbol of the rising pros
perity of the Christian church ; and the enthusiasm felt by Chris
tians was almost unbounded. Mistaking the spiritual character
of the church of Christ, and identifying its earthly grandeur with
its real success, they believed that the millennium had at last
dawned upon the world ; , and even in more modern times, such
writers as Grotius and Hammond, and even the venerable mar-
tyrologist Fox, were so struck with the visible prosperity of this
era, that they have recorded their conviction that the reign of
Constantine was the realization of the millennium of the Apoca
lypse. Eusebius, an historian of the age, thus writes of the
church of his day : — " It looked like the very image of the king
dom of Christ, and altogether more like a dream than a reality.
What so many of the Lord's saints and confessors before our time
desired to see, and saw not, and to hear, and heard not, that is
now before our eyes. It was of us the prophet spake, ' The wil
derness shall rejoice, and the solitary place blossom as the rose;'
whereas the church was widowed and desolate, her children have
now to exclaim to her, ' Enlarge thy borders, the place is too
strait.' The promise is now fulfilling. ' All thy children shall
be taught of God, and great shall be the peace of thy children.' "
All this was grievous misconception, as we shall presently see.
The great multitude consisted of mere professors, or embryo
Papists. It was not the millennium, as Eusebius dreamed, but
the mystery of iniquity ripening and maturing. What we call
Puseyism in the nineteenth century, was the predominating reli
gion of the fourth. And this explains the reason of Tractarian
sympathy with the fourth century. Almost every element of
Popery was in full action, the apostolic church had become to a
great extent apostate, the fountain of living waters had been re
nounced for the broken cisterns of the church, and having lost

GOD'S SEALED ONES. 61
the Sun of Righteousness, the ministers of that day were walking
amid sparks of their own kindling. The first seed of the apos
tasy was the universal perversion of the sacrament of baptism,
and the invention. of new ceremonies in the celebration of it — it
was now understood to require a priest (lepeuq) to administer it.
The very loftiest epithets of excellence and virtue were used to
describe it: it was called " the Lord's mark," " the illumination,"
" the preservative," " the investiture of incorruption," " the sal
vation." Cyril, an eminent father of that day, thus defines it : —
" Baptism is the ransom to captives, the remission of offences,
the death of sin, the regeneration of "the soul, the garment of
light, the chariot to heaven, the luxury of paradise, the gift of
adoption." New and superstitious rites were added to ifj : at one
time the baptized turned to the west while the priest uttered the
accustomed exorcism ; . at another time, he turned to the east, to
receive the light of the Holy Spirit. He was then clothed in a
white dress, received a crown of victory, and was enrolled as one
of the elect; and all Christians, by being baptized, were pro
nounced saints, believers, elect; and such was the universal con
fidence in the regenerative efficacy of this sacrament, ex opere
operato, that vast numbers of converts, in order to enjoy the
world as long as they could, delayed it to the hour and agony of
death, and then were baptized as their passport to heaven.
Among others was Constantine^ as is shown by a medal with the
relievo of that illustrious personage, bearing the inscription,
"Natus baptizatus ;" that is, born again by baptism. In fact,
this beautiful initiatory ordinance had ceased to be what its
Divine Author had constituted it, and instead, it had been cari
catured into an amulet — an exorcism — a potent chemical drug
that served as an antidote to sin, and a specific for regeneration.
Milner, the historian, justly remarks of this period, " There was
much outward religion, but the true doctrine of justification was
scarcely seen ; and real conversion was very much lost, and exter
nal baptism placed in its stead." Tradition and the doctrine of
reserve had superseded Scripture, and overlaid the distinguishing
truths of the gospel. Human priests, and spurious propitiatory
sacrifices, and ecclesiastical altars, and processions and ceremonies,
constituted the only visible Christianity from A.D. 324 onward
6

62 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
to a.d: 395 — the period during which the sealing by the angel
takes place. Satan had succeeded in corrupting what he could
not extirpate; and out of an amalgamation of paganism, Ju
daism, and Christianity, had concocted a system too unholy to be
of heaven, and too subtle to be of earth— his own masterpiece,
Popery. This state of things provoked the judgments that were
only suspended in the hands of the restraining angels, until the
process which we now proceed to describe was accomplished.
This sealing was the election of the faithful few who were to be
spared the calamities that were to fall fast on all besides — the
selection of a church from the midst of a church — the numbering
of the spiritual Israel, in order to be marked by God with that
more precious than paschal blood, which would shield them from
the judgments inflicted by the Goth, and save them from the
contamination of the prevailing apostasy, originated and matured
by Satan. Sealing implies the fact of their secrecy — they were
God's " hidden ones ;" " the world knew them not ;" their " life
was hid with Christ in God;" the springs of their joy, their sor
row, their hope, their happiness, were such as the world did not
understand, and a stranger could not intermeddle with. This
sealing implies also their safety. They were set apart for God, to
be preserved to his kingdom and glory, and they were taught and
enabled to sing while they were sealed, " There is no condemna
tion to us who are in Christ Jesus." v Satan hath sought to sift
us, but our great High-Priest has prayed that our faith fail not.
" Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall tribula
tion, or affliction, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through
him that loved us."'- This sealing also implies property in the thing
sealed. We seal only what is our own. These were not their
own : they were bought with a price — the precious blood of a
Lamb without spot or blemish. And lastly, we seal only what is
of value. Worthless things are not fit for being sealed; but
these were God's "jewels," his "portion," his "inheritance."
Though the language employed be Jewish, yet they who were
sealed were not literal Jews, but Christian believers. They were
Gentile Christians, described in similar language in other portions
of Scripture, such as, "If Christ's, then Abraham's seed;" and

GOD'S SEALED ONES. 63
again, " Peace on all the Israel of God ;'' and again, to be " with
out Christ," is spiritually equivalent to being " aliens from the
commonwealth , of Israel." Thus, Jewish phraseology is em
ployed to describe Christian character. And the tribe of Levi
is enumerated with the rest to show that there is no distinctive
sacrificing priesthood under the evangelical economy, but that all
are kings and priests unto God. It was first "the few" chosen
out of " the many called" — the God-baptized selected from the
man-baptized — the baptized, with the Spirit from the multitude
baptized with, the water only. .While we are not to pronounce
where God has not definitely spoken, we cannot but notice here,
and indeed throughout the Scriptures, the intimation of the mul
titude of, the perishing — the paucity of the saved. Yet we must
not, with the Antinomian, lessen those few, or, with the latitudi-
narian, unscripturally augment them. Let this alone be our per
sonal feeling and resolve, if two only shall be saved, I will try
to be one ; and let us not judge after the senses — never let us
forget thut circumstances sometimes conceal far more beautiful
and holy characters than we are disposed to think. There are
dim and distant stars lighting up their own orbits, though we
see them not; and there are flowers in the regions of perpetual
snow, unknown, untrodden by the traveller's foot, but seen by
God and executing their mission there. The most precious gems
can be reached only by rending the rocks that bury them, and
kingly eyes alone can prize them when they are brought to light.
The character of the apostasy of the Constantine era is discovered,
as I have said before, by the complete antagonism of their features
to the characteristics of the sealed ones, who are described from
verse 14 to the close of the chapter. Did great numbers rush
to the baptismal font for baptism? The God-sealed were "a
great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations,
and kindred, and people, and tongues." Did the baptized
receive white garments? These sealed ones were "arrayed in
white robes." Did the former receive crowns and palms ? These
latter had fadeless palms and crowns of glory. Were the first
purified in the waters of baptism ? These last had " washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Did the
first come forth from the Constantine prosperity and visible

64 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
splendour? The second came "out of great tribulation."
Were the former in the outward visible church? The latter
were in the inner church or true holy place. Thus, each clause
that describes an excellence of the sealed ones, reflects its light
on a corresponding corruption of the unsealed or apostate. At
this very period, a noble specimen of the sealed ones was allowed
to come within the horizon, as if to indicate by the constrast the
character of the age, viz. Augustine, bishop of Hippo. He is
revealed specially as an instance. He was converted, A. d. 385,
by the ministry of Ambrose, and appointed to his office, A. D.
395. The doctrine on which he most frequently and eloquently
expatiated, was the doctrine of election, or the sovereignty of the
grace of God. He describes, in fact, that very process, viz.
election, which was the distinctive process of his age ; his " City
of God" was written to show the distinction between true Chris
tians and. the merely baptized. True Christians he calls "the
elect Israelites," " God's sealed ones," the 144,000 : as if the
prophetic language of the Apocalypse was felt by Augustine to
be descriptive of the Christians indeed of his day, and as if he
felt he was raised to extend it by his mission, as well as to call
attention to the distinguishing work which Christ was then
carrying on. The enlightened evangelical views embodied and
eloquently enforced in the writings of Augustine were very much
the means, in the absence of Scripture, of perpetuating vital
truth through the dreary ages of the history of medieval Europe.
Luther, an Augustinian monk, owns his obligation to Augustine;
Pascal and Quesnel derived their purest light from his lamp; and
in that long chain of faithful witnesses which connects the Pro
testantism of the 19th century with the Christianity of the first,
Augustine was not the least resplendent link, or least effective
conductor of true evangelical religion.
In reading the beautiful characteristics and consummation of
the sealed ones which follow in this chapter, one can sympathize
with the poetic sensibilities of Burns, who said he could never
read this passage without tears. Its poetry must touch where
its vital and sanctifying power may be unfelt. In this bright
Apocalypse of the safety of the saints on earth, and their happi
ness in heaven, it is worthy of remark, there is not one touch

GOD'S SEALED ONES. 65
on character or feature local, sectarian, or national; as if it were
designed to condemn and crush, by the contrast, the predomi
nating feeling of the fourth century, which made the chair — the
church — the ceremony, every thing, — and vital religion nothing.
Has this vision no lesson for us also? If we will only look
through the door which John saw open in heaven, we shall see
this at least, that the questions about which Christians quarrel
on earth are not known in glory; that subjects that have agitated
men's passions in the church below, are not even mooted in the
church above; and names that have filled the wide world with
their sound are hushed beside the Throne of God. What fierce
sectarians have been proud of is there seen to have evaporated
as worthless. What millions undervalue is there seen to endure
for ever.
Those revealed in this vision appear to have shared in little
of the prosperity of the Constantine era; for it is said, they
came out of great tribulation. Some had pined in dungeons, or
perished in the devouring flames ; others had died in exile, or
had been devoured by the wild beasts : their blood had tinged
every river, and their ashes had been strewn over every acre of
the earth ; all elements of power, charged with all fiendish pas
sions, had been let loose upon them. Many, too, in the midst
of the Constantine prosperity of the church, had endured in pri
vate a life-long martyrdom from friends and relations, unseen by
the world, but no less real and painful and true. All, however,
came out of it, and came to heaven, and are there now, and ever
will be. They were not born in .heaven like the angels,' but
introduced into heaven as saints. Is there not something of
the character of Constantine Christianity visible in our day ?
Abounding formalism, — fashionable religion, — growing apostasy,
— increase of ceremony, — and sympathy with Rome, are tokens
and signs too palpable to be overlooked or mistaken : and if it be so,
the sealed ones of the nineteenth eentury will also have to taste the
tribulation which was meted out to the sealed ones of the fourth
century, and that too very soon. In such tribulation, however,
the serenity felt within will lighten the darkness that, closes from
without — the inner light turns into rainbow glories the outer
tribulation; the hardest storm is always the shortest; and all

66 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
tribulations, however numerous or severe, are left at the threshold
of heaven. The waves of this world's troubled sea scarcely kisa
the shores of eternity. All the tribulation, however, that we
feel in our course to glory, we learn from this passage, is not the
cause, but the concomitant only of our salvation. The ground
of the acceptance of these martyrs was not their own tears, or
sufferings, or excellencies. The tears of repentance are beautiful
and holy — the fruits of a pure life fair and precious — but to
trust in the one or in the other as the foundation of our hope, is
to turn the fragrant blossom into corruption, the delicious fruit
into instant decay, and our holiest ornament into shame. Nor
was it their own blood that placed them there. These saints were
martyrs, and if ever human blood had virtue to expiate sin, that
blood was theirs, but it had no expiatory virtue; they neither so
believed nor so suffered; it was not the blood they shed for
Christ, but the blood which Christ shed for them, that saved
them ; his sufferings alone are expiatory, his soul alone was made
an offering for sin — in him alone we have redemption, through
his blood — he drank the cup alone, he trod the wine-press alone;
he suffered alone, he conquered and rose alone; man had no part
in his sufferings, and man can have no share in the glory that
results from them. The special virtue here attributed to that
blood is that of cleansing or pardoning. The stain of sin was
so deep that nothing short of this could expunge it, and its
heinousness'so great that no other could pardon it, while the
extent of its efficacy is still to-day so boundless, if we have
recourse to it, that though our sins be as scarlet they shall be as
wool, and though they be like purple they shall be as snow. It
is not venial sin only, or original sin only, or actual sin only, but
all sin from which it cleanses. 1 Cor. vi. 9—11 gives the cata
logue of those who had felt its virtues, and had been justified
and sanctified. These saints in heaven, it is obvious, must
personally have had recourse to this sacrifice, for it is said "they
washed their robes." Bread must be eaten before it can nourish
us; the provision is not enough unless we personally apprehend
it. Christ's death must be personally received and rested on by
faith in order to be our life. The sole cause of the introduction
of these saints into glory was this great fact, for it is added,

GOD'S SEALED ONES. 67
" therefore are they before the throne." It was not their election
from eternity, however true thisrmay have been, but their accept
ance of the Saviour's sacrifice that is here declared to have con
stituted their right to heaven. How beautiful too are the features
of the worship of these glorified ones : it is unsuspended by the
calls of Caesar, or the wanderings of the heart, or the "frailties
of humanity; it is presented "day and night," and by a beauti
ful paradox, "they rest," and yet "they rest not." It was a
united worship, for all nations, and kindreds, and tongues were
there. There was no strife in their hearts, and therefore no dis
cord in their songs; there is a greater, mixture in heaven than
there is this evening in Exeter Hall., Adam, Abel, Noah, Abra
ham, Moses, Isaiah, John, Peter, Augustine, Martin Luther, and
innumerable others, constitute that celestial choir, and contribute
to its ceaseless harmonies. They "stand," the true attitude of
praise, as if conscious they were welcome, and yet they give the
glory to the Lamb, as conscious they deserve nothing; and they
"stand before the throne of God," to show that they may enter
where the high-priest alone, and none besides, entered once a
year, even the Holy of Holies. But While they have thus the
position of priests and the palms of conquerors, they are not dis
charged from the duties of servants, for "they serve him day and
night." Dependency is the order of heaven, it ought to be the
law on earth, as it is of the very essence of the creature. But
while they thus praise and serve the Lamb on their part, "he
dwells among them," like the Shechinah of old, and feeds them
with the hidden manna, and refreshes them from fountains of
living water, and all tears are not only wiped away, which might
leave it possible for them to flow .again, but they are, as the
word means when translated literally, wiped out; as if to teach
ns, that not only the marks and channels of tears shall be blotted
out, but that the very springs and fountains of them shall be
utterly and for ever annihilated.
In contemplating these magnificent pictures of the better land,
are we not sometimes tempted to exclaim with David— "Oh that
I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at
rest. Lo, then would I wander far off; I would hasten my
escape from the windy storm and tempest." David felt what

68 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
we feel more or less, that there is no spot between the nadir and
the zenith, or from the polar snow to the equatorial sunshine, in
this nether world, which we can pronounce to be our rest. All
creation is too poor to make the soul rich, and too low to make
it happy. Satiety produces new restlessness, and the song of
flattery soon becomes hackneyed; and fairest spots, by enjoy
ment, lose their charms. The culminating point of the soul's
happiness is the throne of Deity alone ; and if we have any fore
taste or earnest within us of heaven, it will increase our desire
to meet and mingle with those sealed ones whom the Lamb leads
to living fountains of waters. In that land there will not only
be no tears, and no spring or fountain of tears, but there will be
nothing to excite them. There will be no sickness, for "the
inhabitant shall not say, I am sick ;" and there will be no more
death, for the last enemy is destroyed: and standing on the
shores of that peaceful sea, we shall strike a nobler than Miriam's
harp, and celebrate the utter destruction of all that denies or
grieves the sealed ones of our God and his Christ.
Amid that throng, not only will the illustrious names we have
enumerated appear in robes of shining glory, but those too we
loved and laboured to retain yet a little longer on earth, will also
meet us there. Our relatives in eternity outnumber our relatives
in time. The catalogue of the living we love becomes less, and
in anticipation we see the perpetually lengthening train of the
departed ; and by their flight our affections grow gradually less
glued to earth, and more allied to heaven. It is not in vain that
the images of our departed children, and near and dear ones, are
laid up in memory, as in a picture gallery, from which the cease
less surge of this world's cares cannot obliterate them : they wait
there for the light of the resurrection day, to stand forth holy,
beautiful and happy — our fellow-worshippers for ever.
There, too, distracting and perplexing doubts and cares, the
cold and chilling shadows of which fall so often on the sunniest
soul, shall have disappeared for ever. We are here too remote
from the Sun of Righteousness, to be wholly rid of them. But
there we are in the presence of Christ himself, who is light, and
no dim smoke darkens the rays of that glory, and no exhalations
rise and rest upon that clear, beautiful, and illimitable horizon,

GOD'S SEALED ONES. 69
All those disputes that agitate the church die the instant they
touch the confines of glory. Bitter controversies are unheard —
angry expressions are alien to the language of heaven ; and amid
the swell of perpetual anthems and hallelujahs, not the least rich
is the harmony of kindred hearts and accordant spirits.
All temptations, and the very tempter himself, are removed to
the distance of infinitude from the confines of glory. There are
neither fears within, nor fightings without. There is neither the
poverty which is a burden, nor the wealth which is a snare—nor
the smiles which sting — nor the applause which poisons. Want
shall not tempt to do wrongly, nor passion provoke to act rashly.
There will be no fear, because no possibility of falling. There
will be, in one word, perfect satisfaction — that which the heart
of every man yearns for on earth, and of which the Christian's
heart alone enjoys a prelibation and foretaste : — " when I awake
I shall be satisfied;" " we shall be like him, for we shall see him
as he is ;" — all vails rent — all glasses broken — all clouds' scattered,
and the faint twinklings of night lost in the effulgence of eternal
noon. The river of life shall flow through us for ever. "Now,
Lord," we may well pray, " lettest thou thy servant depart in
peace." "I desire to depart and be with Christ."
In order to reach this state of felicity, and be for ever with
those sealed ones, and the Angel of the Covenant who seals them,
we must renounce all right or title, or merit in ourselves, and all
hope- of purchase, at any price, that man, priest, or pope can pay;
— the price is the precious blood of the Lamb. In Christ alone
is our right to heaven — our hope of glory— our certainty of ac
ceptance. He seals or sets apart for heaven those only who have
washed their robes and made them white in his blood. -This is
God's own immutable arrangement. No other way leads to those
"living fountains of waters." No other name has power. We
must be in him on earth, in order to be with him in heaven.
Unless we realize here that communion of our spirit with Christ's"
spirit — directly, and not indirectly only through the medium of
truth — unless we become one with Christ as really as we are one
in nature and responsibility with Adam — unless we are ' wholly
represented in and by Christ here, we cannot expect to reign and
rejoice with him hereafter.

70 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Let us study the lineaments of the coming glory, as these are
revealed in the blessed Bible. The most effective way to dis
lodge an evil, or inferior preference, is to bring the heart into
contact — with a higher and holier, that is — with heaven. The
sun shining puts out the fire; so the lustre and overpowering
glory of the home of the sealed ones will so pale all that man
thinks magnificent, that we shall thirst for that day which knows
no night, and to be one of those of whom it is written — " These
are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day
and night in his temple, and he that sitteth on the throne shall
dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst
any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them,
and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
Brethren, what evidence without — what consciousness within
have you of a share and interest and lot with this illustrious
throug. ¦ All its virtues, its attributes, its fruits, are this day
freely offered you from the throne of God. Christ invites, be
seeches you through his ministers, to flee from that alienation and
state of wrath in which sin has plunged you, and to lay hold on
that sacrifice of unchanging efficacy — that ransom of infinite
virtue, than which there is no other passport to everlasting glory.
You are not mere auditors of these truths this evening, having no
interest at stake. That book which decides all disputes, and dis
closes all responsibilities, points to us as vitally concerned in
these momentous questions, that we are lost by nature and perish
ing from the earth every instant, and that our restoration to the
friendship of God and to the hopes of heaven is suspended on
our reception or rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are
within either of two attractions. We are the subjects of one or
other of two processes. We are still sinners by nature or now
saints by grace. Where and what are you ? Answer it to your
own consciences — answer it to that God who is greater than
conscience.

71

LECTURE V.
THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPETS.
" And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven
about the 6pace of half an hour.
" And I saw the seven angels which stood before God ; and to them were
given seven trumpets.
"And another angel came and stood at .the altar, having a golden censer;
and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the
prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
"And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints,
ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.
"And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast
It into the earth : and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and
an earthquake.
" And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to
sound. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood,
and they were cast upon the earth : and the third part of trees was burnt
up, and all green grass was burnt up.
" And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning
with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood ;
" And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life,
died ; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven,
burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and
upon the fountains of waters ;
". And, the name of the star is called Wormwood; and the third part of tho
waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they
were made bitter.
"And'the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten,
and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third
part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for'a third part of it> and the
night likewise.
"And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven,
saying with a loud voice, Wo, wo, wo, to the inhabiters of the earth "by
reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to
sound !" — Bevelations viii.
It is here stated that there had been silence in heaven during
the space of half an hour. It is obvious, that this silence must
be that which existed during the restraint of the impending

72 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
storms intrusted to the four angels, as I described in the previous
lecture, when, in the language of Gibbon, " the threatening
tempests of barbarians were repelled or suspended on the
frontier." This was a solemn pause — an opportunity of repent
ance — a respite of judgment, but was unheeded by those who
were most deeply interested. To be able to estimate the length
of time contained in an Apocalyptic half-hour, we must bear in
mind, that all the visions embodied in the Apocalypse, extending
from the year 97 to 1800 years and upward, passed in choro-
graphic procession before the eyes of John in the course of the
Lord's day, that is, in the course of a. period of twelve literal
hours. That Lord's day was a miniature chronology of the
world. If this be as we have stated it, then each hour of the
12 hours constituting the Lord's day from suurise to sunset,
would be the exponent of 150 years, and half an hour of 75
years, or thereabouts. If this calculation be an approximation
to the truth, as we think it is, there will be found recorded in
the pages of history, a respite, or repose, of 75 years, about the
time indicated by that point in the chronology of the Apocalypse,
at which we have arrived. Accordingly we find, that from the
final triumph of Constantine to the invasion of the empire by
Alaric, that is, from A. D. 324 to 395, there intervened the repose,
or rather suspension of judgment, so dramatically embodied in
the clause, " there was," or rather there had been, " silence in
heaven for about the space of half an hour."
There is then seen by the Evangelist, before the sounding of
the trumpet, another angel, who stood at the altar, having a
golden censer, offering incense with the prayers of all saints
upon the golden altar, which was before the throne. That this
angel is the Angel of the everlasting Covenant, the Son of God,
the great High-Priest, there can scarcely be a doubt; for, first,
he occupied the holy place which the typical high-priest alone,
under the Jewish economy, might approach — and in the next
place, he had a golden censer, which was the distinctive possession
of the high-priest, the other priests having silver ones; and in
the last place, none but He, who^is God as well "as man, could
have received and have offered up the prayers of all saints, of any
one period, or of all ages upon earth, or have rendered them

THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPETS. 73
acceptable through the incense oMiis priestly intercession. There
is no proof here of the propriety of angel worship. If we read
the description here given, in the light of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, we shall have no doubt. ' -
I stated in a previous lecture, that the characteristic features
of the sealed Or selected thousands, pointed out, by implication
and by contrast, the prevailing features of the apostasy, peculiar
to that day. The prominent truth was then, as it is now, the
correlative of the prevailing error. We may, therefore, fully
expect that the portrait of truth with which this chapter begins,
is designed and fitted to reflect its light upon the corresponding
errors and corruptions of the era. Now, the two great truths
set forth in this exhibition of Christ at the altar, are, first, his
one perfect propitiatory -sacrifice, once for all, by which alone
there is forgiveness and remission of sins, here symbolized by
Christ, at the brazen or sacrificial altar; and, secondly, the no
less vital doctrine of the prevailing and perpetual intercession of
Christ, in virtue of which he saves to the uttermost all that
come unto God by him, represented by the golden altar of incense.
Were these two doctrines, then, at all obscured, perverted, or
denied, during this period ? were, the peculiar heresies that impugn
them prevalent? these two great truths were all but eclipsed,
and in this eclipse began the development of the features and
elements of the rapidly maturing apostasy. This is an historical
fact. The period specified, viz. about a. d. 395, was notorious for
the proposal and adoption of new ways of propitiating God, alien
and contrary to the truths revealed in the gospel, and utterly
inconsistent with the doctrines of the cross, as well as by the
invocation of saints and relics, as if these were endued with
meditorial and intercessory virtue. The great and perfect
sacrifice of Calvary was superseded by spurious offerings ; and the
intercession of the great High-Priest, the only intercession in the
skies, was lost sight of, and the worshippers implored and leaned
on the so-called intercessions of saints. "The Ante-Nicene
Christians," says Waddington, "shrank from idolatry, but in
A. D. 395, there was the stupid veneration of bones and relics,
and prayer was thought, never so efficacious as when offered at
the tomb of a saint." Gibbon says, "a profane spectacle sue-

74 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
ceeded to the pure and spiritual worship of the Christian
congregation ; the smoke of incense, the glare of lamps ' and
tapers, and prayers directed to the bones and ashes of saints."
So popular was this miserable declension from true Christianity,
and so truly debased were priests and people both, that the
monks earned a livelihood by gathering and hawking the reputed
relics of p'seudo saints ; and the misguided people parted freely
with liberal sums of money, in order to possess the alleged
depositaries of awful and saving virtues. The mystery of iniquity
rapidly approached its predicted maturity. Antichrist loomed
into" view. In the words of Coleridge, "the pastors of the
church had gradually changed the life and light of the gospel
into the very superstition they were commissioned to disperse,
and thus paganized Christianity in order to christen paganism."
Human sufferings were substituted as propitiatory sacrifices for
the sufferings of Christ, which alone, by their very nature, are
truly expiatory and vicarious — human merits took the place and
were associated with the infinite perfection of. his righteousness,
and the supposititious prayers of glorified martyrs were- had
recourse to instead of the mediation of Him who ever liveth to
make intercession for us. With few exceptions, the Fathers of
this century were tainted by the predominant Puseyism. Even
Jerome, the learned and talented advocate of presbytery as the
primitive government of the church, was utterly corrupted by
the contagion of the almost uuiveral apostasy, and became the
eloquent and strenuous, and very often the acrimonious advocate,
not only of the monkery he personally practised, but of the duty
and -advantage of the worship of saints and of the virtues of
relics, the ubiquity of which, in the fury of his fanaticism, he did
not hesitate boldly to maintain. Augustine and Vigilantius,
the former in the main truly evangelical, and the latter empha
tically Protestant, were the two most brilliant exceptions, and
were apparently raised up amid the almost universal declension
to uphold and maintain the glory of Christ, as Priest, and
Sacrifice, and Altar, as before. The first stood up, especially,
for the Sovereignty of God on the one hand, and for that
regenerating work, which is exclusively the prerogative of the
Holy Spirit, on the other. Very beautifully, therefore, as if in

THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPETS. 75
the conscious discharge of the duties of his special mission, does
Augustine now write, a. d. 400 : "Whom shall I look to as my
mediator ? shall I go to angels ? . A mediator between God and
man must have the nature of both. The true Mediator, whom
in thy secret mercy thou hast shown to the humble, the man Christ
Jesus, Jiath appeared as Mediator between , mortal sinners and
the immortal One — that by his Divine righteousness he might
justify the ungodly. How hast thou loved us, 0 Father, in
delivering up thy Son for us; for when He, our Priest and
Sacrifice, was subject to death, well may my hope be strong in
such an intercessor." This was indirect but powerful refutation
of error. So beautifully applicable is Augustine's theology to
that age.
We learn from the facts of this period, that, it is impossible to
be morally neutral. Apostasy from truth is necessarily the
adoption of falsehood ; the egress of the one is, of necessity, the
ingress of the other ; the soul, like nature, abhors a vacuum ;
we have- not a choice between the reception of truth and
remaining indifferent or passive ; our choice really lies between
the reception of truth and the reception of a lie — it is now, as
it always has been, Christ or Antichrist, the gospel or the
apostasy. " He that is not with me is against me." There
never has been in the history of the past, nor will there ever be
in the arrangements of futurity, any position of real indifference,
with respect to truth and error, or of absolute neutrality, with
respect to Christ and Antichrist. We must either hate the gos
pel as the most detestable imposture, or we must love it with all
the energies of our heart. In the presence of the stupendous
facts it asserts, and in the hearing of its demand of instant
decision, it is impossible to be neutral. True religion, from its
intrinsic importance, demands our intensest love ; and a false
religion, from its mischievous effects, our intensest hatred. Our
only safety against the intrusive influence of deadly error, is
pf ofounder appreciation of eternal truths. We .need to know and
feel this in these days.
We now come to an analysis of the Trumpet Symbols enu
merated in this- chapter. It will throw some light upon this
remarkable imagery, if. we ascertain the uses of trumpets- under

76 APOCALYPTIC sketches:
the Levitical economy. These were, 1st, To proclaim the Sab
baths, the various festivals, and hours and occasions of thanks
giving and praise. 2dly, To announce and give the signal for
the forward movements of the camp in the wilderness; and 3dly,
To proclaim war against the enemies of Israel. These were
substantially the moral ends of the sounding of the trumpets
in this book. To the one hundred and forty-four thousand, the
sealed, and pardoned, and sanctified ones, the representatives of
the children of God, the true Israel, these trumpets proclaimed
prosperity, peace, and perpetual progress. To the Apostate
Church, they sounded the tocsin of battle, the clang of con
flict, the approach of judgment, defeat, destruction. And as the
seven trumpet-blasts, on seven successive days, preceded the de
struction' of Jericho, so these seven trumpet soundings precede
the destruction of its great antitype, the Apostasy.
In order to explain the allusion in this, and in succeeding
chapters, to "the third part of the earth," and "the third part
of the sea," and " the third part of the rivers," and " the third
part of the sun," I may state, what will again serve to illustrate
the minute accuracy of the Apocalyptic allusions— that in the
time of Constantine, the Roman empire was divided into threo
great sections : to Constantine was assigned Gaul, Spain, Britain,
Italy, Africa — to Licinius, the Illyrian Prefecture — to Maximin,
the Asiatic Provinces and Egypt; each section had its share of
the Mediterranean, and its frontier river, the Rhine, the Danube,
or the Euphrates — the four first trumpets apply to the western
third pf the empire, and proclaim the awful and deserved judg
ments that fell successively upon it.
The first trumpet sounds, and the following is the dramatic
picture of its effects : a storm bursts on the western division of
the empire — sweeps over Italy — darkens the gigantic Alps, and
lowers upon the peaks of the Apennines — Gaul and Spain are
desolated by it—" blood," that is, life, perishes— what was the-
garden of the Lord before it becomes the blasted desert behind
it. This storm was the incursion of Alaric and the Goths on
the Roman provinces in a. d. )196. This Gothic chief started
into prominence like a supernatural meteor, as if he had
descended from the clouds, or emerged from the deep. He

THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPETS. 77
was inaugurated by the Gothic chiefs as king of the Visi-
Goths, by being seated or throned upon a shield, an inaugura
tion truly explanatory of his mission ; as if aware of what lay
before him, he told a monk that he felt a secret and preter
natural impulse, that impelled his march to the gates of Rome.
Onward therefore he moved forthwith like the storm-cloud,
portentous and desolating, borne by a force not his own;
havoc and destruction in his path, victory in his van, and ruin
in his rear. The capital was soon reached, and his firebrands
were seen blazing amid the proud palaces of Imperial Rome;
and the "consuming flames of war," writes Gibbon, "spread
from the banks of the Rhine over the seventeen provinces of
Gaul" — and the scene of peace and prosperity was changed
into a desert. " This passage of the Rhine," adds Gibbon,
" by the Vandals, may be considered as the fall of the Roman
empire." It was during this period, from A. d. 400 to a.' d.
410, that the xVpostate Church, true to its character, had re
course, in litanies, processions and other public exhibitions, for
safety and protection, to the intercession of patron saints; This
added to its sins, but not to its deliverance. Alaric soon ac
complished his mission, and ceased when it was done. The last
echoes of the first trumpet died on the desert air, and Alaric
died also, and was buried as strangely and as speedily as he was
throned. A sepulchre was dug for him by Roman prisoners in
the bed of a river, and the Vandal chief was laid in it, adorned
with the richest spoils of Rome, while the prisoners who dug it
were instantly killed, lest they should disclose the secret of his
resting-place. How complete is the coincidence between the
storm-cloud careering on the winds', and leaving desolation behind
it, and the course of the northern Goth, stamping the traces of
his presence in desolated fields, smouldering ruins, and widows
and orphans. Is not the coincidence so strong as to justify the
application, were there even no other grounds than the compa
rison ? ~
The second trumpet sounds, and a new storm sweeps over
the Mediterranean Sea, and convulses the islands that slept
peacefully on its boson. A volcano or burning mountain falls
amid the waves, the Adriatic boils from its depths, the whole
7*

78 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
coast of Africa is lashed with intermingling flames and floods,
ships are set on fire, and blood is shed. This imagery is used by
Jeremiah, when he likens Babylon to a burning mountain, just
as the former imagery of the first trumpet is employed by Isaiah
to describe Shalmaneser and the Assyrians. Have we then an
explanation of this trumpet in the facts of history chronologically
and pictorially true ? We have. Geneseric appears upon the
stage, the equal of AxARIC, and falls like a burning mountain
upon those very shores and islands, which his predecessor
Alaric had spared — he and his Vandals crossed the African
sea — laid siege to Hippo, the city in which Augustine laboured,
who, as if to present us with evidence of the faithfulness of God
to his promises, was removed by death, about that time, to the
white-robed company in glory, that he might be spared from
witnessing or being injured by the devastations that followed.
Hippo, his bishopric, and Carthage, were taken by the Goth
and burned, the Vandal fleet swept the Mediterranean, — its
isles were subjugated — its coasts ravaged — and its people put to
the sword. Perhaps it may illustrate the all but unearthly
character of Geneseric, if we quote the question put to him by
his pilot. What course shall I steer ? The reply of the chief
was, " Leave that to the winds, they will transport us to the
guilty coasts whose inhabitants have provoked the Divine jus
tice." Twice the Romans mustered all their war ships to destroy
him, and twice he annihilated them ; and this he did, as if
to prove his being the agent intended by the Spirit, chiefly by
sending fire-ships into the midst of their fleet. He was the
great destroyer of the sea, his march was on its waters, its bo
som was his battle-field, the chimes of its waves the sounds that
summoned to the battle. " He spread desolation," says Gibbon,
" from the Columns of Hercules to the mouths of the Nile ;"
and having finished the work assigned him under this trumpet,
he also dies, and disappears from the scene, and lives only on
the page of history to attest the truth of the predictions of
Christ. The third trumpet sounds — a burning meteor descends and
lights upon the rivers, and springs, and fountains of the earth —
it sweeps along the Danube and the Teiss, poisoning their waters,

THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPETS. 79
and spreading incalculable mischief wherever the glaciers melt
at the breasts of the parent Alps, and pour down their waters on
the valleys below.
Was there any calamity about A. D. 450 corresponding to, and
sufficient to exhaust, the imagery here employed ? At this very
time arose Attila, commonly called the Scourge of God, fierce,
powerful, indomitable — his subject princes deemed him super
natural — barbarous kings, says the historian, would not presume
to gaze with steady eye on what they deemed his divine majesty.
Attila and his victorious Huns moved along the Danube, depopu
lating and wasting its banks; they next poured down the Rhine,
leaving its fair valley a scene of havoc and wo — reducing to
ashes Strasburg, Worms, Spires, Mentz, Treves. After having
thus burned. up the rivers, he pushed his victorious forces toward
the fountains contiguous to the Alps. . Pavia, Verona, Mantua,
Milan, successively were imbittered with wormwood, and were
made to drink waters of gall, and were scorched and destroyed
by the heat of this " great star, burning as a lamp." . Suddenly,
and apparently without cause, he returns, recrosses the Danube,
and is struck dead with apoplexy — the meteor, having done its
work, was quenched, and its last lurid rays mingled with the
expiring echoes of the third trumpet.
The fourth trumpet sounds. — The Western empire has been
desolated by land, by sea, and along its rivers — but its sun; and
moon and stars were still shining. Suddenly one-third of each
of these luminaries is darkened, and the whole firmament over
that third is covered with blackness. How was this fulfilled ?
Thus : The Roman empire had lost its provinces, its maritime
possessions, its armies and navies, and, all the sinews of its
strength — but it still retained the titles and insignia of sove
reignty, it had the outward splendour without the solid founda
tions of a nation. One other blow, and only one, was required
to be struck to complete the entire desolation of the Western
third — the work was to be done^-the workman was at hand.
Odoacer, one of the chiefs of Attila, starts suddenly into
prominence — marches at the head of the Heruli into the very
heart of Italy, and commands that the office of Roman Emperor
of the West shall be abolished, and the last shadow of departing

80 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
sovereignty— Romulus Augustus — a name that ominously em
braced those of the founder and of the greatest ruler of the
empire, abdicated without an - attempt at resistance, and the
imperial insignia were transferred to Constantinople, and the
Emperor of the East exercised the sovereignty thenceforth.
Thus one-third of the Imperial Sun was extinguished, and after
senators and consuls had twinkled for a little, a night of dark
ness and of unparalleled calamities fell upon the mistress of the
earth — the queen of nations — the persecutor of the saints. Its
foundations, righteousness and truth,- perished, and it fell.
Romans ruined Rome — moral disease marked out the pathways
along which the Goths, the Huns, and Vandals converged and
marched to the capital, and reduced that great empire to a
wreck. After these four trumpets had sounded, and between the fourth
and the fifth- — a wo is pronounced from heaven, and is heard
by the inhabitants of the earth — the hearts of the nations
responded to this cry of wo, and almost universal presentiments
of its approach were felt and expressed. Of this we have abun
dant evidence in the writings of the Fathers, who almost univer
sally expected about this time the end of the world — they
believed that St. Paul's prediction, 2 Thess. ii. 3, referred to the
rise and development of Antichrist — and that the expression
"he who lets," described the Roman sovereignty and empire as
the only obstacle to the development of that apostasy, and this
antichristian apostasy they thought would immediately precede
the destruction of the earth. Tertullian writes, "The end of the
world is kept back by the intervention of the Roman empire."
Jerome cried, from his monastery, "The Roman world rushes to
destruction — the hinderance to Antichrist's way is removing."
Martin of Tours said, " Antichrist is already born :" and when
John the Faster, of Constantinople, assumed the title of Uni
versal Bishop, Gregory declared, that "he who did so is the
forerunner of Antichrist." In a Missive, then the most public
document in the world, Gregory expressed his conviction that
the last judgment was at hand; earthquakes and plagues desolated
the earth, and in one, at Constantinople, 10,000 are stated to
have died daily; and a writer — Procopius — quoted by Gibbon,

THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPETS. 'gj
says that one hundred millions were exterminated in the age of
Justinian, by plague and pestilence "and famine. Thus the
angel proclaimed from heaven, Wo ! wo ! wo ! and Fathers, and
Popes," and Earthquake, and Plague, responded amid the smoulder
ing ruins of the empire, Wo ! wo !' wo ! A wo was pronounced
from heaven, and humanity recognised in its denunciation the
voice of God, and expected if and trembled. Nor-was it a small
portion or prelibation of the coming, wo, that Antichrist was now
completely developed. Purgatory, private confession, the worship
of relics, the merits ancLmediation of saints, were now recognised
doctrines. The Bishop of Rome assumed the name of " Vicar of
Christ," that is, called himself Antichrist, a word which does not
mean opposed to Christ, but in the room or place of Christ. The
approach of this Apostasy was worthy of the name of Wo, for
never did so colossal a wo oppress the earth, or wear out its inha
bitants. What happy hearts1 has it blighted! what fair lands
has it spoiled of beauty ! what wars has it kindled ! what -mur
ders has it committed, yea, and consecrated also ! what martyrs
has it made ! what souls has it slain ! Assuming the name of
Christ, it has done the work of Satan; calling itself Christian, it
has perpetrated under the shadow of that name, the most terrible
evils; pretending to set its affections above the world, it has lived
and laboured only to subjugate the world to its ambition. I
have seen the eagle rise and soar with outstretched wing, until
he seemed to touch the firmamental ceiling, and bathe his plu
mage amid sunshine — it seemed as if his heart was set on some
thing beyond the sky, and" his eye kindling to catch a vision of
it; but, in reality, his heart and eye were riveted upon the prey
or the quarry that lay below1; so has it been with Antichrist —
he seemed to aim at heaven only to enable' him to possess more
surely the earth.
The fifth and sixth trumpets I will postpone to a future discussion.
Meantime let us learn from all this, that no one in the history
of the earth appears, or speaks, or acts at random. All are
under the overruling direction of God. Kings, and emperors,
and great captains, and sagacious statesmen, take, as they ima
gine, their own way, and in the end each is seen to have been
the unconscious agent of the purposes of God : the leaf that falls

82 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
from the tree, and the monarch that is smitten from his throno,
the^storm that howls amid the mountains or sweeps the earth,
and the tide of war that devastates an empire, are all ,sent, or
suffered, and superintended by God. Chance is the great atheistic
monosyllable.. It is the atheist's creed, his worship, his God;
but it has no place in the Christian's Bible, and it ought to have
none in a Christian's heart. Providence and Revelation equally
proscribe it.
How uncongenial to the world is the gospel of Christ ! Perse
cution and persuasion have been employed against it by turns.
The bribe of the statesman and the bayonet of the soldier have
been had recourse to in turns, in order to crush it; but it has risen
from every conflict radiant with greater beauty: the hundred
hands of infidelity cannot destroy it; the branch of the oak may
as, soon be broken by the wasps, that settle on it, or the rock be
uprooted by the sea-birds that caw above it, as Christianity be
put down by its opponents, or finally and fatally betrayed by its
professed friends. The church may be in danger, but Chris
tianity never; the chapel may be deserted, but Christ will have a
people; the minister may become apostate, but Jesus Christ
remains the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever; the earthern
vessel may be broken in shivers, but its precious contents will be
unscathed, and its fragrance spread only the wider.
In sunshine, and in storm, by night and by day, through good
report and through bad report, the great mission of the gospel
has been carried on with various success. Its sacred banner has
been borne by saints and martyrs, with the wind and against the
wind, from the Jordan to the Tiber, the Thames, the Nile, and
the Mississippi. Its glad sound has been lifted up and heard on
the sea-waves, amid the noise of cataracts, and the tumults of the
people ; the communion table has been spread in all places of the
earth; and the baptismal font has been filled from all waters,
from the fountains of Nubia, and from the roaring geysers of
Northern lands. And, wherever that blessed gospel has been
received in simplicity, it has achieved the most beneficent results.
It has no sooner laid its consecrating hand upon the poor, than
they have felt unspeakably rich. It has no sooner touched the
shackles of the slave, than, disenthralled and unfettered, he has

THE FOUR FIEST TRUMPETS. 83
stepped into that freedom' with which the truth makes free.
Crushed and controverted as it has been at every step, it has
dotted, the broad earth with holy temples as with stars, and made
them the rallying plaees for the overburdened hearts and the
shattered hopes of the children of, men. In spite of fierce op
position, it has been woven into' the literature of nations, and
into the languages of the earth. At this day it gives some of its
colouring to the conversaziones of coteries, and to the talk of the
streets. It still enters palaces with the majesty of a queen,- and
descends into cottages with the cordiality and kindness of a mo
ther or a sister. It mingles with our griefs, and waits upon our
sicknesses. It hallows the ties of marriage, and mitigates the
separation and the' sorrows of the grave. It is the joy of the
good, the strength -of the feeble, the hope of the wise, the glory
of saints — and, blessed be God, it shall know no end; its "silver
cord" never shall be loosed, its "golden bowl" shall never" be
broken. Beneficent as the gospel is, it is painful to learn that its least
victories have been the fruits of tears and suffering. It "came
by blood," and by blood it has been perpetuated. But it has
been found, as it has been clearly showfa in every cycle of its
progress, that the truths thus written in blood have been more
widely read, as well as more enduring, than if engraven with the
point of -a diamond on the rocks of every quarter of the globe.
From Pope Pharaoh to Pope Pius IX. — from the College of Baal
to that of the Congregation of Sacred Rites at Rome — from the
massacre of the innocents at Bethlehem to that of St. Bartholomew
and the Sicilian Vespers — the meek-hearted followers of the Cross
have been "sawn asunder," and burned, aud endured "cruel
mockings;'-' but all this and incalculably more persecution has
failed to arrest its progress. It has rather fanned its hallowed
flame. It has blown far and wide the ashes of the martyrs over
many a land, there to take root and grow up and bear Cadmean
harvests of yet more holy, more undaunted men.
Philosophy, with its cobwebs, tried to perplex its witnesses;
and 'Power, with its weapons, strove to extirpate them. Vial
after vial was poured out upon. the meek confessors of the Chris
tian faith, constituting a series of successive persecutions, unpa-

84 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
raileled for cruelty in the history of mankind. But the death
of the martyr was not the destruction of his creed. On the con
trary, his blood fell as dew upon the truth, and made it flourish
the more. The air became as the trumpet of jubilee, and the
winds of heaven as winged angels, wafting the tones of the gos
pel from sea to sea. Opposition served only to brighten the hal
lowed lights, or to concentrate their scattered rays into an intenser
focus.; rendering more visible, and thereby more glorious, the
sainted ones that suffered — and more monstrous still the surround
ing grim and spectral superstitions of the earth. The gospel, in
spite of , opposition, was eventually throned above the Caesars.
„ The trees, of the forest have fallen, but the Vine brought out
of Egypt has been rooted by the tempest. Its branches have been
swept by successive storms, and its boughs have been hewn and
trodden down by the Cains, and Herods, and Neros, and Hilde-
brands of the earth; but, like the banyan tree, it has only mul
tiplied its roots and spread the more. The philosophical mytho
logies of Greece, and the warlike rites of Rome, have passed
away; the priesthood of Levi and the fiamens of Quirinus have
retired from their altars, and the wide earth scarcely renders back
one echo of their voices; but the gospel endures — nay, it flou
rishes, deriving fresh strength from the wrecks of error, and new
beauty from the contentions of truth.
In the worst of times, and in the most terrible apostasy, God
has a people. In the most unfavourable circumstances, and in
the least suspected ages, they are and have been found; bleak
indeed must that desert be in which there is no oasis, and Alpine
snows must have more than Alpine cold amid which no floweret
blooms; we may not see them, but God does; and even we, dim
as our vision is, if we will only look below the turbid and agi
tated surface, shall see a silver stream that^flows onward in
beauty and in splendour to the main. We see at every stage
of the providential dealings of God, punishment seizing on priest
and people the moment they apostatize from the gospel of Jesus.
We have, in those early instances in the history of Europe, a
rehearsal on a greater or smaller scale of the future history of
Christendom — we have the lesson writ on ruins, on battle-fields,
that it is an evil and a bitter thing to depart from God.

THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. 85
What a monument of this truth has Britain been ! When the
continent of Papal Europe was overrun by the ruthless conque
ror — when its cities were turned into barracks for his troops, and
its cathedrals into stables for its cavalry; when national destruc
tion swept them with its besom, England was spared, like Judah
amid the tribes. Pestilence, famine, war, lowered in the far dis
tant horizon, but dared not converge. She alone prospered.
Her sun set not. Her renown went forth among the nations.
The sword- that was invincible everywhere had no edge when
lifted up against her. This was owing to nothing but her Pro
testantism ; her recognition of the God of truth — her grasp of the
Bible — her prevailing protest against Popery, were her strength,
her glory, her palladium, and her shield. Let us be faithful,
even, if all around should become apostate — let us cleave to truth,
even if kings should come down from their thrones to patronize,
and prelates from their palaces to consecrate a lie; and when
other Alarics and Attilas shall come forth at the bidding of God,
to scourge the apostate, either we shall be preserved amid the de
solation, or, like Augustine, we shall be removed from it to the
realms of eternal peace. Our only safety is our highest duty.
Faithfulness to truth is our only defence : we are here for this
end. To protest against error — to stand up for the gospel — to
spread it at all sacrifice — to be pioneers, and thus prepare the way
of its progress, if we cannot be missionaries and preachers — to
be the salt that unobtrusively leavens, if we cannot be the lights
that visibly illuminate — to have 'no aim paramount but the glory
of God — this is Christianity; this is privilege; thi3 is peace.

86

LECTUKE VI.
OR, THE SARACENIC WO.
"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the
earth : and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
" And he opened the bottomless pit j and there arose a smoke out of the pit,
as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by
reason of the smoke of the pit.
"And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them
was given power, as the scorpions pf the earth have power.
"And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the
earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree ; but only those men who have
not the seal of G-od in their foreheads.
"And to -them it was given that they should not kill them> but that they
should be tormented five months : and their torment was as the torment of a
scorpion, when he striketh a man.
"And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall
desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
"And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared- unto battle;
and on their hqads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the
faces of men.
"And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth
of lions.
"And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound
of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
"And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails :
and their power was to hurt men five months.
"And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit,
whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath
his name Apollyon." — Revelation ix. 1-11.
The great body of professing Christendom had become more
and more almost entirely apostate ; its career was retrograde every
hour, its corruptions rose to the heavens, and the successive Gothic
judgments had failed to exert upon the system any purifying
power, or upon its agents and emissaries any awakening impres
sion. Grod, therefore, according to a plan frequently illustrated
in the history of his dealing with churches and nations, as may

THE FIFTH TRUMPET. 87
be seen in Amos iv. 6-12, proceeded with other and more start
ling judgments to smite them yet more severely.
Accordingly, we read in the passage we have quoted the history
of one of the most overwhelming woes that had yet fallen upon
apostate Christendom — a wo big with exterminating calamities —
menaced long, and long disregarded. It descended on the sound
ing of the fifth trumpet, and may be ascertained by analyzing
the peculiar hieroglyphic, or Apocalyptic symbols, used to de
scribe it.
These symbols, as Mr. Elliott has shown, are invariably to be
explained on the principle of local, historical, or national allusion.
This, in fact, is the key to all the symbols of Scripture. The
fig-tree and the vine, for instance, are the emblems of Judah ;
the. reed and the crocodile, of Egypt ; the willow denotes Baby
lon, the wild- ass Ishmael, the eagle Edom, and the ship Tyre. It
is by following out these precedents of interpreted symbols already
set us in Scripture, that we arrive at a consistent exposition of
the. symbols used in the Apocalypse.
The composite character of the locust creature employed in the
description of this wo, violating, as it does,, all the facts of natu
ral history, shows plainly that it is a symbol, and as such is to be
explained. The locust symbol indicates that the invader of the
guilty lands marked out for punishment would rush forward in
countless swarms, after the manner of locusts. The horse-like
appearance denotes that the invading forces would consist mainly
of hordes of cavalry. The lion-likeness intimates their daring
and irresistible ferocity, and the scorpion sting, which does not
kill the sufferer, indicates the torment they would inflict on those
whom they would not be allowed to destroy. The locality from
which they would come is plainly shown to be the East. Thus,
in Exodus, tenth chapter, thirteenth verse, it is written, " The
east wind brought the locusts" into Egypt from Arabia; and
Volney, the skeptic historian, states that locusts come constantly
from the deserts of Arabia. And in Judges, sixth chapter, fifth
verse, the name Arbah for a locust, is plainly associated with the
name Arbi, an Arab, when it is stated that they, the Arabs, came
as locusts for multitude.
Thus, then, by carefully attending to these allusions, we arrive

88 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
at the conclusion — a conclusion borne out by Scripture usage and
unquestionable historic facts — that the invading hordes of cavalry
commissioned to execute the judgments of God upon apostate
Christendom, would come from Arabia; in fact, one of the emis
saries of the wo, the scorpion, is invariably traced in Scripture to
Arabia, as when Moses says, " the wilderness," i. e. the Arabian
wilderness, " where are fiery serpents and scorpions." The horse
is regarded in this, and I believe in every modern country, as
peculiarly Arabic. The whole zoology of the sjgnbol is therefore
purely Arabian ; but superadded to these nationally characteristic
symbols, are certain other features, which more minutely and
clearly specify, the people and the nation referred to. They are
represented to have " faces as men," " the long hair of women,"
" breastplates," and " crowns" adorned with gold upon their
heads; that is, the courage "and the aspect of the man, the effemi
nacy of the woman, invulnerability in battle, and continuous
victory. That the Goths are not included in this symbol, must
be obvious from the fact that the Romans described them as
having woman-like faces, from their practice of shaving the upper
lip ; that the parties alluded to were neither Greeks nor Romans,
is equally apparent from the circumstance that they wore long or
woman-like hair, a feature abhorrent to Greek and Roman cus
toms. We are, therefore, directed to a totally different race, a
race, too, that meets and fulfils the symbol perfectly. Pliny de
scribes the Arabs as wearing the moustache on the upper lip,
having long hair ancbcrowns, or turbans, on their heads. In the
Antar, an Arabic poem, belonging to the age which we are now
describing, we have frequent mention of the long hair of the
Arabs streaming from beneath their turbans ; and the Arabs have
a proverb at this day descriptive of themselves. " God has be
stowed four things on the Arabs : their turbans for diadems, tents
for walls and houses, swords for entrenchments, and poems for
laws ;" and the Koran specifies the breastplate as one of God's
gifts to the Arabs.
The Abyss is used in the Old and New Testament scriptures to
describe the region of the lost, as might be shown by a reference
to a variety of texts. The smoke that emanated from it describes

THE FIFTH TRUMPET. 89
some deadly error, or false religion, that should spring from its
very depths, and darken the atmosphere of heaven.
Let us then inquire, if at the opening of the seventh century
there arose any false system of religion, that, like a smoke from"
the bottomless abyss, darkened the light of Christendom ; and if
there issued from the midst of this smoke, saturated with its
principles, hordes of Arabs,- who desolated the Roman earth with
a new and more terrible wo. In this very century/ Mohamme
danism appeared in Arabia ; that terrible smoke which darkens
still so large and so beautiful a portion of the earth — a system
replete with fanaticism-, fraud, sensualism, pride ; which crushes
wherever it conquers, and has extinguished the energy, the life,
the freedom of every country of which it has taken possession.
And it was after embracing the tenets and imbibing the spirit of
this false superstition, that the Saracen hordes of cavalry issued
in propagandist swarms with the fierceness of lions, and the fleet-
ness of horses, and the stings of scorpions, upon guilty Christen
dom ; they were resolved on victory or death ; for in the one
case, they anticipated license upon earth ; and in the other, sen
sual indulgence as the reward of their exploits, in heaven. " The
religion of Mohammed," says Hallam, "is essentially a military
system ; the people of Arabia found in the law of their prophet,
not a license, but a command to desolate the world."
" The Arabs or Saracens," says Gibbon, " had languished in
poverty and contempt till Mohammed breathed into those savage
hordes the soul of enthusiasm." Schlegel, who was at once the
philosopher and historian, in true apoealyptic terms, called Mo
hammedanism " the infernal spirit" (smoke from the bottomless
pit) " that produced that antichristian combination of spiritual
and temporal authority." The two great principles explained in
the Koran and embodied in the Mohammedan creed, which have
always exercised a powerful influence on Mohammedans, are pre
destination or fatalism, and the promise of special sensual enjoy
ment to those who should fall on the field of battle. To a sensual,
and yet daring race, these were resistless stimulants, and, exer
cised and roused to the very highest pitch, of enthusiasm, they
fell upon a race obnoxious to them from their difference of creed,
s*

90 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
and given up by God on account of their unrepented and unfor-
saken iniquities.
What remarkably identifies the symbol in the text with the
people to whom we have applied it, is the commission to hurt
" only those men which have not the seal of God in their fore
heads." Mohammed himself told his followers that their mission
was to execute judgment against the idolaters of the earth, and
specially against the Christians of the Roman empire, who, by
their worship of the Virgin Mary, even in. the judgment of Mo
hammed, had become idolaters. Gibbon also states, that the Chris
tians of the seventh century had "relapsed into the semblance of
paganism, their public and private vows were addressed to images
and relics that disgraced the temples of the earth, and the throne
of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, saints, and
angels, the objects of popular veneration." Thus the skeptic his
torian attests the apostate character of those the false prophet
believed himself commissioned to punish. It was also commanded
them, we read, that " they should not hurt the grass of the earth,
neither any tree." This was almost verbatim the commission
given to the Saracens ; for the Caliph, in conformity with the pre
scription of the Koran, issued this order, " Destroy no palm-trees,
nor any fields of corn, cut down no fruit-trees." And in this
respect, the conduct of the Saracens presented a favourable con
trast to the practice of the Goths, who invariably destroyed every
trace of vegetation, and left what was a garden in their van, a
desert in their rear.
The chief and originator of this system is described, in the
commencement of the chapter, as a star fallen from heaven, — a
symbol which accurately describes the social and political position
of Mohammed. Afirmamental star in prophecy denotes a civil or
ecclesiastical ruler ; and a fallen firmamental star, a ruler who
has been degraded, or in some other way, in person or in his
dynasty, has lost his dignity and rank. Mohammed was of a royal
house, the descendant of a princely race — the governors of Mecca;
but on the death of his father and grandfather, he was left a
destitute orphan, lie was thus a star dropped from the firma
ment, the place of dignity and lustre, and fallen to the earth, the
scene of degradation.

THE FIFTH TRUMPET. 91
That a star thus denotes a ruler will be obvious from such
passages of Scripture as Num. xxiv. 17 : " There shall come a
star out of Jacob ;" and Isaiah xiv. 12 : " How art thou fallen
from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning I" and in Antar, the
ancient Arabic poem, to which allusion has been made already, it
is, written : " The chiefs were stars in the eyes of the beholders."
Mr. Elliott, to whom I am so deeply indebted, thus remarks on
this application : " Mohammed was by birth of' the princely house
of Koreish, governors of Mecca. Originally the principality had
been in the hands of the Jorhamites. But one of the Koreish
had bought from them the key of the Caaba, and that which went
with the key, the principality of Mecca, which from him descended
lineally to Mohammed's grandfather, and was in fact in his hands
at the time of his grandson's birth. Now this principality and
government was one of no small eminence among the Arabs."
" Of the many small states into which Arabia was divided at this
time, most seemed to have looked up to Mecca," says Hallam,
" as the capital of their nation, and chief seat of religious worship."
Gibbon writes," The tribe of Koreish, by fraud or force, had
acquired the custody of the Caaba. The sacerdotal office de
volved, through four lineal descents, to the grandfather of Mo
hammed ; the family of the Hashamites, whence he sprang, was
the most respectable and sacred in the eyes of their country."
" Mohammed was educated in the bosom of the noblest race of his
country." " The grandfather of Mohammed, and his lineal ancestors," says
Gibbon, "appeared in foreign and domestic transactions as the
princes of their country." " They were," writes Mr. Elliott, " in
the view of the Syrian Greeks, as among the stars in the horizon
of the political heaven. But just after his birth his father died,
and very soon after his grandfather also, and the governorship
of Mecca, headship of the tribe, and keys of the Caaba, passed
into the hands of another branch of the family. His- prospects
of greatness seemed all blasted by their deaths. He found him
self, so he recounted his own history afterward, a neglected and
destitute orphan ; though by birth a star in the horizon of the
political firmament, he was now, at the opening of the seventh cen
tury, a star falling' to the ground, and must so have appeared to

92 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the Romans and Syrians, when in the character of servant of the
widow Cadijah he came to traffic in the markets of Damascus."
It is in referring to this very period of his life, that Mohammed
observes, "Cadijah believed in me, when men despised me; she
relieved my wants, when I was poor and persecuted by the world.""
I have thus fortified, as strongly as possible, this historical fact,
not because I have any doubt or difficulty about it, but because
it has been least attended to, and by some previous interpreters
of the Apocalypse it has been utterly misapprehended. Thus
drawn from the archives of history, it presents itself as the thing
contemplated in Apocalyptic prophecy, and not only solves a diffi
culty, but presents an additional corroborative proof of the minute
accuracy of the predictions of the Spirit of God.
Mohammed was no ordinary man. Like Marius amid the
marshes of Minturnae, he cherished the most ambitious designs ; he
had lost the key of the Caaba, or the holy place of paganism, but
soon received another key of another place from the father of lies.
Brooding over his decay, he retired to the cave of Hera, three
miles distant from Mecca, and from it, as if from the orifice of the
bottomless abyss, he enunciated his mission. He had no sooner
done so, than he was denounced and driven from Mecca, by the
ruling powers and popular influence, as an impostor, but after
"an exile of seven years," says Gibbon, "the fugitive missionary
was enthroned as prince and prophet of his native country. It
was then that he assumed to have the key of God, and made it
to the Islamites what the cross was to the Christians." And as a
memorial of the identity of fact with Apocalyptic prediction, the
gate of justice of the Moorish Alhambra has a key in alto-relievo on
the very centre of its arch, a standing symbol of Mohammedanism.
The ignominious expulsion or flight of the false prophet from
Mecca is now canonized by Mohammedans as the Hegira, from
which they date their history, as we date ours from the birth of
Christ. Mr. Elliott adds, " The very emblem of the key, here figured
as given to Mohammed, might almost seem to have been selected in ~
allusive contrast to its counterpart in the Koran. In the latter,
the key of God is asserted to have been given to the prophet;
that which was to open to believers the portals of the true religion

THE FIFTH TRUMPET. 93
and of heaven. Hence it, was borne by his followers subse
quently, at least by those of them who achieved the Western con
quests of Islam, even as the holy cross -by Christians, as both a
religious and a national emblem, and the, sculpture on the proud
gate of justice in the Moorish Alhambra still retains and exhibits
this symbol. But the Apocalyptic vision more truly represented
it as the key of the abyss, and the smoke which rose from the
abyss on his opening it as the fumes and the pestilential darkness
of hell."
The Koran itself constantly refers to the key of God, which
opened to Mohammedans the gates of the world and of religion.
" Did not God," it is written in the Koran, " give to his legate
the power of heaven which is above, and fire which is beneath ?
with the key did he not give him the title and power of a porter,
that he may open to those whom he shall have chosen ?" ,
Mr. Elliott gives in his first volume an- engraving of the arch
of the gate of justice in the Alhambra, with the key on the key
stone. Here, again, we have fresh evidence of the microscopic
accuracy of the Apocalypse. Facts occur as if just to explain it.
Men act as if they meant to fill up its magnificent outline, and
the Koran of the Moslem and the pen of the skeptic turn com
mentators on the book which neither of them believe.
At this very age, then, we find that a vast body of Saracens,
inspired by the dogmas of Mohammed, burst upon Western
Christendom, and inflicted on its guilty people the most deso
lating judgments ; and we shall see, by an impartialreference to
their history, .the completest evidence of the fulfilment of the
Apocalyptic prediction. In the year. 629, the Saracens first
issued from the desert; and in a.d. 636,-they came down upon
Damascus and Jerusalem, like a resistless and overflowing tor
rent; and before a.d. 637, a Mohammedan mosque was built
upon the very site of the ancient temple of Solomon, and the cry
of the Muezzim was heard where the voice of inspiration had
been uttered before — the crescent waved victorious over Egypt,
Spain, Persia, and India. In ten years — that is, from A. d. 634
to A. d. 644, the Saracens reduced 3060 cities, destroyed 4000
churches, and raised 1400 mosques ; and, as if to show haw truly
the punishment they inflicted was as the torment of a Scorpion

94 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
when he striketh a man, and that " in those days shall men seek
death and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall
flee from them," the Christians they spared were tormented with
the most cruel and protracted oppression — their rites were
mocked at, their worship degraded, their persons assailed, and in
sults, without ceasing, were heaped upon their churches, and the
common language addressed to them was, " Ye Christian dogs, ye
know your option — the Koran, the tribute, or the sword I"
" The bitter contempt and hatred flowing out from the Moslem
faith toward them could not but be felt perpetually. It was
marked in the very terms of appellation — Christian dogs and in
fidels. The enactments of the capitulations granted them were
then every-day remembrances of it. Deprived of the use of arms,
like the Helots of old, and with tribute enforced as their annual
life-redemption tax — with a different dress enjoined them from
their masters, and a more humble mode of riding — an obligation
to rise Up deferentially in the presence of the meanest Moslem,
and to receive and gratuitously entertain, for a certain time,
whosoever of the Moslems, when on a journey, might require it —
such were the marks of personal degradation ordained in the capi
tulations. And then, in token of the degradation of their reli
gion, that to which, notwithstanding all their superstitions, they
clung with fond attachment, there was the prohibition to build
new churches, or to chime the bells in those retained by them, or
to refuse the admission of the scoffing Moslem into them, though
they regarded his presence- as defilement. Add to this, the in
ducements to apostasy to Mohammedanism, operating to an incal
culable extent on the young and thoughtless in families more es
pecially, and then the penalty of death against those returning to
the Christian faith — the insults, moreover, to Christian females,
and a thousand indefinable injuries and oppressions ; and how
could it be but that the bitterness of their lot should be felt, and
the poison rankle within them, even as it was in other days with
the Jewish captives in Babylon ? ' And in those days shall men
seek death, and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and
death shall flee from them ;' as it is said of the Jews in Jeremiah
viii. 3 : ' And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the

THE FIFTH TRUMPET. 95
residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in
all the places whither I have driven them.' "
It is next stated that they had a king over them — a charac
teristic which seems to denote that they never renounced, in the
countries they invaded, their allegiance to him who gave them
their religion and their laws : this was fulfilled, in fact, and con
stitutes a peculiar, feature of Mohammedan conquests. The
Goths and Vandals left their own religion behind them, and em
braced the principles and practised the worship of the country
they invaded; but the Saracens carried with them the Koran,
the embodied spirit of their prophet and king, and having de
stroyed all the existing, laws and usages of the conquered, they
substituted their own, and insisted on their universal and un
qualified observance. So minute is the prediction ! so true to it
is the history !
There was, however, a limit to the action of this wo. It was
sent, as the imagery of the fifth trumpet plainly implies, not to
annihilate, but to ". torment" the apostate Christians of the Ro
man empire ; hence, wheresoever the Saracens attempted to ex
ceed the limits of their mission, they were foiled — a restraining
and coercive power, unseen, but felt, kept them back. Gibbon,
ever the impartial but undesigned commentator on the Apoca
lypse, makes the remark — "The calm historian must study to
explain by what means the church and the state were saved from
this impending and inevitable danger;" and Hallam observes,
" These conquests are less perplexing than their cessation." The
solution of the otherwise inexplicable mystery is, that- God, who
sent them to inflict the judgment, had limited alike the time and
the place of its operation : twice they tried to destroy Constan
tinople, and twice they failed ; once they made an incursion into
France, and if it had fallen before their arms, Europe had fallen
also ; and, humanly speaking, the mosque would now have occu
pied in England the site of the Christian temple, and the Dervish
of the East the place of the Tractarian of the West. The Franks,
however, under Charles Martel, called " the Hammer," repulsed
them; and, says the historian, Europe owes its existence, its re
ligion, and its liberty, to his victory. We shall see, also, that
not only the range, but the period of the duration of this wo is

96 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
distinctly fixed in the Apocalypse. They were to torment for five
months — that is, 150 prophetic days, or 150 literal years. Let
us now see if the chronology of history sustains the prediction in
the Apocalypse. In 612, Mohammed first proclaimed his mis
sion : — "Who," said he, "will be my vizier?" Ali replied,
" 0 Prophet ! I am the man ! Whoever rises against thee, I
will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, and rip
him up !" This date was, therefore, the commencement of the
Saracenic invasion.- After Mohammed had thus appointed one to
begin that terrible course of ruthless and inexorable proselytism,
which imparted to that system its temporary success, and after
the conquests and occasional repulses which we have described,
the dynasty of the Ommiades was supplanted in the caliphate by
the dynasty of Abassides, in 755 ; and the caliphate, heretofore
so powerful, from its unity, was rent in twain, and the dynasty
of the East became the antagonist of that of the West. Another
capital, Medinat al Salem, or the city of peace, farther eastward
of Christendom, was selected, A. D. 862, and there the turbaned
locusts settled. " The Colossus," says Sismondi, " that had be
stridden the whole South, was broken ; and this revolution did
more for the deliverance of Europe from the Mussulman arms
than even the battle of Poictiers." " War," says Gibbon, " was
now no longer the passion of the Saracens : there the luxury of
the caliphs relaxed the nerves, and terminated the progress of the
Arabian empire."
" Thus, then, far east in Bagdad," writes Mr. Elliott, " after a
brief temporary -splendour and revival into military enterprise and
success, from 781 to 805, under the reigns of Mohadi and Ha-
roun Al Rashed, we must think of the once terrible power of the
Saracens as declined and declining, luxury and licentiousness
working their usual sure process of decay with both prince and
people, and the fervour of religious fanaticism passed away. At
length, in the year 841, the reigning caliph, distrusting the mar
tial spirit of the Arabs, hired a band of 50,000 Turkmans from
beyond the Oxus, to be the support of the caliphate at Bagdad ;
and these, acting precisely the same part as the Roman pretoiian
guards before them, revolted against, insulted, humiliated, and
deposed the caliph, and so, in this case too, became a further and

THE FIFTH TRUMPET. 97
powerful accelerating cause of their sovereign's downfall. At
length, as the tenth century opened, the Fatimites, descendants
of. that Ali, Mohammed's, first vizier, of whom we have spoken,
and of his wife, Fatima, Mohammed's favourite daughter, asserted
their rightful claimg, not to independent political sovereignty
only, but even to the caliphate itself. In the prosecution of this
claim, they reduced Africa, Egypt, and Syria, and from Cairo, as
their capital, became known as the third" caliphate of Islamism.;
thus more and more dismembered, the Abassidean caliphate at
Bagdad more and more languished, until the Persian independent
Moslem dynasty of the Bowides, interposing on occasion of the
factions then prevalent; advanced to Bagdad in the year 934,
stripped the caliph of his secular office and supremacy, and re
duced him to his spiritual functions as chief pontiff of Islamism,
the mere phantom. thenceforward of departed power." Thus we
have clearly marked the rise and fall of this power.
From A. d. 612, the date -of its rise, to A. D. 762, the date of
its decay, is a period of one hundred and fifty years, or precisely
the five prophetic months, or five times thirty prophetic days, that
is, literal years, of the Apocalypse. These strikiiig coincidences
are surely not accidental. Gibbon had his mission, and that mis
sion an important one. He is the reluctant commentator on the
Apocalypse — the register of its prophecies fulfilled — the lasting
evidence that God's .word, which he denounced as false, is true.
These coincidences are so remarkable from first. to last, that
we cannot fail to recognise in them new evidence of the inspira
tion of Scripture, new proofs "of the divinity of its predictions
and the unity of God's plans. The historic keys, presented by
the infidel historian, so exactly fit the prophetic, wards, as de
scribed in the Apocalypse, that we are compelled to infer connec
tion, adaptation, and design. The- pen of truth records the pre
diction, and the finger of Providence translates it into fact; and
the .skeptic, ignorant of the one, but struck by the startling mag
nificence of the other, writes it down on the lasting tablets of
history ; and thus, were we to be asked to select the most im
pressive witness, to the truth and reality of the text, 'I Holy men
of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," we would

98 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
select Volney as the evidence of the inspiration of Isaiah, . and
Gibbon as the best evidence of the inspiration of the Apocalypse.
The same God, we also learn, who is revealed in the Bible, is
felt in Providence, and heard and seen in history. The shortest
text, and the longest chapter, -the most precious promise, and the
most startling threatening in the Bible, are alike inspired by God.
So in the .history of the world, the minutest incident, and the
most momentous revolution — the sparrow's flight, and the angel's
worship, are alike under the cognizance, subject to ,the control,
and associated with the ultimate purposes of God. All the
action of Providence, notwithstanding its apparent antagonism, is
reajly the continuous carrying out of the plans, predictions, and
purposes of God. God pronounced the character of the future,
and promotes what he has predicted without ceasing.
The little flock, the church of Christ, we see has outlived all
trials, and survived all shocks, and has given evidence at- every
stage of its history and development, that the gates of hell shall
never prevail against it. The church may be in danger, the
chapel may be deserted, the ministers of both may become apos
tate, but the everlasting gospel survives, makes ,the tomb of all
the platform on which it concentrates its force, that it may rise
and soar with the speed and splendour of an ^angel's wing.
Christ remains the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His
church shares in his glory. Let us always distinguish between
the truth of Christ and the smoke that darkens it, or the apostasy
that overlays it — the one goes, the other abides. The inex
perienced .eye, seeing the drift resting on the mountain top, con
cludes that it is part of. the mountain itself; and when the "wind
sweeps the drift away, the unpractised spectator is apt to imagine
that part of the mountain is gone^but it is not so ; it still
stands, to attract from the clouds that sweep over it the blessings
which they bear, and to send them, down its sides to refresh and
moisten the drooping heath-bell, and to form streams which glad
den, as they go, a thousand valleys, and sweep onward to the
main. Thus superstitions, and apostasies, and errors, and contro
versies rage within and without, and all around the sides of the
mountain of the Lord's house, and dart their lightnings, and emit
their thunders, but they do not make nor unmake the mountain ;

THE FIFTH TRUMPET. 99
its glorious summit rises high above the tumult, and burns with
perpetual sunshine, and all night long is visited by troops of stars.
Heaven and earth may pass away ; the grass may wither, and the
flower may fade ;¦ but the word of the Lord endureth for ever ;
and this_is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.
In conclusion, let me ask all of you, are ye members of this,
the only true church ? . Have you any part in the blood of the
eternal covenant ? Are you united to Christ ? Have you any
share in that blessed gospel which is adapted to the ignorance of
man, illuminating it, to the guilt of" man, expiating.it,' to the
alienation of man, removing it ? " Be ye reconciled unto God,"
is its bidding. " God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish,
but have everlasting life," is its blessed revelation. " He that
believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but the wrath of God
abideth upon, him," is its solemn reiterated warning, To be ig
norant of the meaning and the mysteries of the Apocalypse, is
to be without the enjoyment of a great privilege; but to have no
interest in- Christ, no experience of the efficacy of his atoning
sacrifice, is to have no real peace upon earth, no sure prospect of
happiness in heaven ; but, on the contrary, a fearful looking for
of fiery indignation.- "See, then, that ye refuse not him that
speaketh'; for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on
earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from" him
that speaketh from heaven."

100
LECTURE VII.
THE SIXTH TRUMPET; OK, THE TURKISH ¥0.
" One wo is^ast ; and, beholdj there come two woes more hereafter.
" And the sixth angel sounded-, and I heard a voice from the four horns of
the golden altar which is before Ood, -
" Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels
which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
"And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a
day, and a" month, and a year, for to slay the tbird part of men.
"And the number of the army of the horsemen "were two hundred thousand
thousand : and J. heard the number of them.
" And thus I saw the horses in ' the vision, and them that sat on them,
having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of
the horses were as the heads of lions ; and out of their mouths issued fire and
smoke and brimstone.
"By these three was the third part of jnen killed, by the fire, and by the
smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.
"For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were
like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt
/'And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet
repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils,
and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither
can see, nor hear, nor walk :
" Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their
fornication, nor of their thefts." — Revelation ix. 12-21.
I must, in the. present instance, be allowed again to express
a sentiment which I have endeavoured before to inculcate, viz.
that there must be drawna broad and palpable line between those
great evangelical truths which are clearly and plainly revealed to
us, and those views of prophecy, fulfilled or unfulfilled, which are
subjects of a probability more or less high. I wish you clearly
to understand, that when I tell you there are- acceptance and
forgiveness in the name of Christ only, I enunciate a proposition
which is far above the region of dispute; but when I express an
opinion that the seals describe the Roman empire, or that the
four first trumpets describe the Gothic eruption, or that the fifth
trumpet' is the epitome of the Saracenic wo, or that the sixth is

THE SIXTH TEUMPET. 101
the history of the Turkish wo or invasion, I convey views about
which good men have differed in times past, on which Christians
may still differ, but respecting which it appears to me to be the
duty of the minister of Christ to give, at least, the result of his
own researches, or the expression of his own sober mind. You
will, therefore, bear in mind that my views of prophecy may be
erroneous, but my expositions of the great tenets of the gospel are
true as. God's word and lasting as his throne. My exposition of
the Apocalypse may be disputed, and I beg of you to canvass it,
if you will do so, in a Christian spirit, and as- becometh the
gospel of Christ; but my oonvictions" of evangelical and Bible
religion I hold are so clearly and so plainly unfolded in the pages
of the word of God, that he who doubts is lost, and he who hears
and receives may rejoice in hope of everlasting glory.
In my last lecture I" explained the fifth trumpet, and endea
voured to identify the Arabs of history with the locust symbols"
which are here so minutely described. I expressed my con
viction that the fifth trumpet describes the judgments executed
on apostate Christendom by the irruption of the- Saracens. I
showed yourthe striking identity between the Apocalyptic symbols
used and the facts of history as recorded. Mohammed I identified
with the star fallen from heaven. A star is the symbol of a
prince, a ruler,. or a king; a fallen firmamental star, a discrowned
ruler. -Thus Mohammed was of royal ancestry — of the royal but
decayed house of Mecca, a prince without a sceptre — a monarch
without a throne. He' was thus a fallen firmamental star. To
him was given a hey — a key he thought to open heaven, but
God says to unlock the bottomless pit. In this we have another
evidence of the complete identity between the facts of history
and the symbols of the Apocalypse: a key is one of the great
characteristic ensigns of Mohammedanism ; so much so, that on the
principal arch of the court of justice, called the Alhambra, there
is the figure of a key in alto-relievo, as-the great symbol or
characteristic mark of the Moor to this very day. I explained
how Mohammedans, being likened to the smoke of a great
furnace, darkening the sun, coming up out of the pit ; and the
Mohammedanism or Saracens,, who embraced his system, being
likened to locusts overspreading the whole earth ; I showed you

102 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
that the symbol is plainly Arabic : when we speak of the rose,
we refer to England ; or of the thistle, we refer to Scotland ; so
in the Apocalypse, when symbols are used they have some
national or characteristic allusion. - The locust is used, as I
showed you, to describe the Arab, and as 'this reference denotes
that like locusts they will come in swarms, so when we refer to
history, we find that such was the fact. Then " it was com
manded them that they should not touch the grass of the earth,
neither any green thing, neither any tree." There is a precept
of Mohammed in the Koran and an express order of the caliph,
that they, the Saracens, should not touch grass, nor green trees,
nor any thing of the kind. The Goths left what was the garden
of the Lord before them, a desolate wilderness behind them ;
but the Mohammedans, wherever they invaded, left the green
things undismantled, and the green trees undestroyed. I then
referred to the crown on their head, which seems to signify the
turban which was worn by the Arabs. I also referred to the fact,
that "they had hair as the hair of women;" it is still the
characteristic of the Arabs, the long black hair hanging down
upon their shoulders ; and I cited instances to show that there
is a'national characteristic to explain that they had faces as the
faces of men. Now theGoths were noted, and upbraided by the
Romans, for having faces of women, because they removed the
hair from the upper lip; the Arabs are recorded in history as
having the faces of men, from their retaining it ; which was
regarded as the symbol of manliness.
I now enter npon the passage I have selected for this evening's
exposition, viz. the sounding of the sixth trumpet, or what is
called the second wo.
First of all, you will notice that a voice came " from the four
corners of the .golden altar that is before God, saying to the
sixth angel, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great
river Euphrates." Now you cannot have forgotten what I
explained on a previous occasion, that where there is a voice
emitted, or a scene witnessed of this description in the Apoca
lyptic firmament, we find ' it- has an allusive reference to a
corresponding but contrasting scene just then actualized on earth.
The truth that is proclaimed from heaven indicates the cor-

THE SIXTH TRUMPET. 103
relative error contemporaneously held on earth. The doctrine
that is inculcated above is thus allusively an emphatic protest
against the heresy taught below. A voice is heard on this
occasion proceeding from the horns-of the golden altar. Who
alone, let me ask, had a- right to be there ? The high-priest
alone, in the Jewish dispensation, and only once a year ; and so
our High-Priest, the Great Antitype, is there for ever, to make
intercession, for us. The doctrine, therefore, here taught in the
Apocalyptic heaven, is the atoning sacrifice on earth and priestly
intercession of Christ before the throne in heaven, and this is
the great - doctrine, therefore, to which there is here conveyed
allusion, as being explained away, merged, or corrupted in the
visible church. We have an illustrative instance of this allusive
reference in such a passage as this : — " The voice of thy brother's
blood crieth unto me from the ground:" that is, the cry of the
innocent involves and silently utters the crime of the guilty.
We therefore presume, from this disclosure, that at this period
Christendom increased in its apostasy from this vital truth —
that it still continued to corrupt, beyond all other doctrines, the
great doctrine of' the atonement, and of the priestly intercession
of the Son of God, by errors grafted on them. This was the
sin of the church, and therefore the corresponding judgment is
sent, and is thus described.
The moment that the sixth trumpet, sounded, we are told that
the four angels were loosed from the Euphrates. Now these four
.angels are referred to in chapter seven as the tempest-restraining
angels. The judgments which they were commissioned to execute
had been going.on under the previous symbols. But at Bagdad
on the Euphrates, these ceased, for there^the Saracenic empire
was rent in twain, and the conquests of the Moors ceased; and
there, consequently, the angels paused in. their dread work and
were bound. A commission was given to those four angels to
arise from this spot where they were bound, and to let loose a
new judgment. Do we then find at that period in our Apocalyptic
chronology at which we are arrived, after the Sara'cens had passed
away, and the Crescent had ceased for a while to be dominant,
and Christendom had experienced a momentary pause in its tor
ments, that there was any fresh invasion of Christendom after

104 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
this respite : — any facts, in short, embodied in the historic page
which coincide with the symbok'made use of in the Apocalypse ?
I think we do. The invasion thus set forth was that of the Turks.
Togrul Beg was declared to be head of the Turkish empire, and
the protector and governor of Mecca. He forthwith declared
war. against Christendom — in other words, the instant the sixth
trumpet sounded the four angals were let loose, and judgments
immediately followed. The Turks, we are told, invaded Christen
dom, and commenced a war against it, under Alp Arslan, called
the valiant Lion. He crossed the Euphrates in the year 1063,
at the head of immense masses of Turkish cavalry. He carried
victory in his van and havoc and destruction in his rear. He en
compassed Constantinople. It did not fall, because its, day was
not yet come, but its monafch, Alexius, felt his weakness, trem
bled on his throne, and called upon the Christian nations of the
West to join with him to repel the invaders. We read that it
was Only the crusades, which occupied the whole attention of
Christendom, that as providential means prevented the ruin of
Constantinople,- which was the queen and mistress of the East,
as, previous to her fall, Rome had been the mistress of the West
ern empire. Though the Turks failed in this, theyprofitably
employed the interval in recruiting and consolidating their power.
Hence at the end of the 14th century, after the crusades and all
their glory had passed away, we read, that the -Turks, thus re
cruited, again crossed the Danube, and fell on Constantinople;
and Gibbon, the historian, makes the remark, that for the first
time in the history of Europe, " Constantinople was surrounded
both on the Asiatic and the European side," by the forces of the
Turks, led by the Sultan Hunkiar, whose name in the Turkish
language is, literally, the slayer of men; as if to describe his
mission to be "to slay the third part of men," as it is declared
and defined in the Apocalypse. Mark the expression, too, which
js here used, "the number of the army of the horsemen were
two hundred thousand thousand." Now you will recollect the
Gothic forces consisted chiefly of infantry, but it was the great
military characteristic of the Turks that their main force con
sisted of cavalry. It is said, by Gibbon himself, that at this
time myriads of Turkish horse crossed the Danube, and swept-

THE SIXTH TRUMPET. 105
and overspread the whole length and breadth of the Grecian em
pire. It is added here, by St. John, "I heard the number of
them." Now whenever an expression of this kind is used in the
Apocalypse, it means that some public testimony was emitted;
and in this case it intimates that there was some public declara
tion' of the vast number of the invading forces. Accordingly we
read, that not only Peter the- Hermit, but the patriarch of Jeru
salem, trembling for the safety of the sacred capital and its illus
trious remains, sent a petition through Western Europe, imploring
and entreating-its princes to send forces to his aid: "for," said
he, "we call for help : the forces of the Turks are more numerous
than the forces of the Saracens : they already devour the whole
world by anticipation.''
In order still further to identify "the historic illustrations, that
I have referred to, let us notice what is said in verse 17. It is
there stated — "I saw the horses in tho vision, and them that sat
on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brim
stone: and the heads of the horses-were as the heads of lions;
and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
By these three was the third part of-men killed, by the fire, and
by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their
mouths." These symbolsJong perplexed commentators upon the
Apocalypse. It was difficult to determine what was their mean
ing. It is, however, ascertained to be a symbol which, like" every
other symbol of the sacred book, has its fixed and definite historic
meaning. Now I do not assert that the exposition I give is in
fallible and beyond dispute; but I do assert that the coincidence
between the fact I am now about to state, and the 'symbol that is
employed, is so vivid and remarkable, that* there is- the best pos
sible ground for the assumption that it is the solution of the diffi
culty. The symbols here employed, are fire- and smoke and
brimstone, and these are specified as the Turkman's weapons of-
destruction. Now the period at which we have arrived, as I have
told you, is the close of the 14th and the commencement of the
15th century. The symbol we are opening up is that of the
Turkish ijruption on apostate Christendom, in order to punish it
for its sins, and to execute the determined judgments of' God.
Was there any thing new or peculiar in the arms they employed ?

106 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
was any new implement introduced by them into the warfare?
have we, in contemporaneous history, anyone fact that, in the
least degree, seems to correspond with the characteristic terms
used on this occasion ? Let us consult history. We read that
in the siege of Constantinople, the last stronghold of apostate
Christendom, the fall of which^was the most dreadful calamity
to the East, as the fall of Rome was the most disastrous to the
West, new elements of destruction we're recently introduced in
war — that gunpowder and cannon were employed: and it was
only by their instrumentality that this illustrious city was reduced
to ruins. At all events, this is the first Apocalyptic scene at
which this new invention could- be specified. Gunpowder Is as
signed traditionally a very early date, but really it was only re
cently introduced into war, and, employed to batter down cities
and fortifications. The sultan, on this occasion, hearing that a
founder of cannon had deserted from the enemy, put the question
to him, " Canst thou found a cannon large enough to batter down
the walls of Constantinople ?" — and in the course of a few months
a whole park of artillery were- pouring death and destruction on
the devoted walls of that illustrious Eastern capital. And so
much-did this' fact strike Gibbon, (and Gibbon, I have told you,
was not the' least desirous of explaining the Apocalypse, for he
did not believe the Gospels, much less the Apocalypse ; indeed I
am doubtful if he ever believed in any thing but the greatness
of his own genius, or eared for aught but the flattery and incense
which he required to be offered to it,) that he states, in his history
of the siege of Constantinople — after giving an account of that
mysterious mixture of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal — that
"fortifications that had stood for ages against the Goth, the Hun,
the Vandal, and the Saracen, now fell before the mighty power
of cannon." Constantinople fell amid the groans of the Chris
tian and the shouts of the Moslem, and the Empire of the East
set never again to rise. Now I do not say that this is an infal
lible exposition of the Apocalyptic statement. But I do say that
at the period of historic narrative at which we have arrived, and
with consistency arrived, there is such a minute coincidence be
tween the historic fact and the Apocalyptio symbol, taking into
consideration the chronology of that event as the consistent chro-

THE SIXTH TEUMPET. 107
nology of the Apocalypse, that we cannot resist ¦ the conclusion,
that the invasion of the Turks was the wo that immediately fol
lowed the sounding of the sixth trumpet.
In order- still more fully to identify this historical fact with the
symbol, I must direct your attention to another allusion contained
inverse 19: "For their power is in their tails: for their tails
were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them .do they
hurt." The same expression is used of .the Saracens', who em
braced the same religion — namely, Mohammedanism, that their
power (fqooaia, jurisdiction, authority) was in their tails. Now
this has long been regarded as an all but inexplicable symbol,
and has greatly embarrassed many commentators on the Apo
calypse. A crown is the symbol of a conquering monarch — this
symbol we can easily understand. A "diadem is the symbol and
seal of a peaceful monarch — and this also we can understand.
A sword,-.as we saw before under one of the seals, is. the express
symbol of a military prefect — this is perfectly natural. The
balance, as we also saw under another seal, is the symbol of an
administrator of justice : but -the' tail — and not the tail of the
majestic lion, but of the Arab horse — what can this be the sym
bol of ? how can we explain it? The solution has been found.
It is recorded in' history that one ofrthe Turkish chiefs "had lost
his standard in the battle, and that on. discovering his loss he cut
off the tail of the horse on which he rode, "mounted it on a pole,
and announced to the Turks that it was to be the standard of their
nation, and round it thenceforth they rallied to the havoc. and to
victory. From that moment the horse's tail became the most
distinctive official symbol of the" Turks; so much so, that at the
present day it is the very word for honour and power: the num
ber of tails a Turk has is the expression of the amount of official
power to which he is raised. A pasha of one tail is of the lowest
rank — of two tails, higher — and a pasha of three tails- is a still
higher rank. The fact fulfils the prophecy. The coincidence
between this feature in' Turkish history and the Apocalyptic sym
bol is striking. It is so startling, so unexpected," as to afford the
strongest possible presumption, that the symbolof which I am
speaking • is fulfilled and explained by the historic facts I have
now quoted.

108 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
It is added, in, the next place, and f'with these they do hurt."
Here our translation is at fault; the word translated "hurt" is
aSuouot, and its meaning is not so much to hurt in the sense of
inflicting pain on the body; but to deal unjustly, to act unjustly
— not to rule righteously — not to distribute even-handed justice
to others. ' I need not quote the proverbial tyranny of sultans, I
need not refer to the barbaric proscriptions of their pashas; tra
vellers fail fully to enumerate the -cruelties and oppressions en
dured by those under their yoke; and inflicted for no other reason
than that the former have power, and the latter profess a different
religion. The meaning is 'plain, this "tail"" is the exponent of
Turkish rule, and as such is the symbol of injustice, instead of
being, like the rose of England, the symbol of justice, impar
tiality; and truth.
We have also stated here the period during which this wo was
to last. It is said, they "were prepared for an hour, and a day,
and a month, and a year," that is to say, from the period when
the Turks departed from Bagdad- on the Euphrates, crossed that
river, and subsequently the Danube, to the time when the last
groans of the Christians of Constantinople mingled with the ex
piring echoes of the sixth Apocalyptic trumpet. The' whole pe
riod, from the going forth of the Turks at Bagdad to the fall of
Constantinople, includes the Apocalyptic period expressed in the
words, an hour, a day, a month, and a year. Now it has been
clearly established, and indeed can be proved, as I shall hereafter
show you in these lectures,' from a reference to Daniel, and other
no less conclusive evidence, that a prophetic year may be taken
at 365J prophetic days, or literal years. The prophetic month is
30 prophetic days, or 30 literal years; a prophetic day is one
literal year. And thus s.daym the Apocalypse means a year; a
year signifies 365} such prophetic days, or literal years. And
using this explanation,, you will find that the hour, the day, the
month, and the year, are thus exactly met; and, within a day,
describe the period which-extends from the time when the Turkish
forces left Bagdad on the Euphrates, till the time that Constanti
nople/ fell, and all the grandeur of the East set in gloom and dark
ness, which has not yet been dissipated. We find 365} years -|-
a month or 30 years -j- a day or 1 year -f- an hour or 15 days,

THE SIXTH TRUMPET. 109
make 396 years and 106 days. Now the time when the Turks
left Bagdad was A. D. 1057; the time when Constantinople fell
under their arms was A. d. 1453; the former period commencing
January 18th, and the latter period ending on May the 29th,
that is, 396 years and 106 days : the dates thus recorded in his
tory correspond precisely with the prophetic period which we have
here specified in the Apocalypse. And it is thus more decisive
evidence that our identification of the sixth trumpet with the
Turkish invasion and the fall of Constantinople, is a great and all.
but indubitable fact.
The two capitals of Christendom had fallen : the church in each
had become apostate : churches as corporate bodies cease to -exist
in eternity, and therefore they are' rewarded or punished upon
earth. If there be one fact more striking than another in the
history of the past, it is this, that whenever a nation has patron
ized the great Western apostasy, it has been judged, and invaded,
and punished as it is recorded in the Apocalypse. I should look
upon it, my dear friends, as a less ominous symptom of national
ruin, that a nation should persecute the truth than that it should
patronize the superstitions of Rome. . The first would only stir
up the Christians that remain to the crisis — eonseerate their ener
gies, and excite them to a more spiritual confidence in their prin
ciples — their heavenly patronage — their Bible promises : but ^he
last would not only corrupt or divide, but would draw down the
judgments of God upon them that thus apostatized from Him.
I have now to refer to the effects of these judgments on the
apostasy during the Middle Ages.
I have, on previous occasions, referred to a work in which the
author holds, that the ages that I have pronounced to be those
of accumulating and unrepented superstition were the ages of
Faith. The author makes this statement : one of the most
learned and able of the Fathers flourished in the 12th century;
and he argues that the age which produced such a man as Ber
nard, could not be a dark .or a barbarous one: Suppose that
Bernard was all that he describes him to have been — that he was
most eloquent and most devoted— that he was, notwithstanding
his superstition, an intellectual phenomenon — suppose he was
all that his eloquent advocate describes him to be ; must we con-
10

110 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES!
elude, as he argues, that those ages that gave birth to such a
man cannot have been dark ones ? Might we not turn round
upon such a reasoner and say, if, because the Middle Ages gave
birth to St. Bernard, we are to conclude that they were ages of
faith and light, surely the age that originated a Milton must be
pre-eminently excellent and worthy of all praise ? Yet, if you
ask a churchman, such and so high as the author of this reason
ing is, what was the characteristic of the age from which John
Milton sprang, you will find by his description of it that he
must either praise the Puritans, or cease to have confidence in
his own reasoning.
-It is also argued that all the most beautiful cathedrals ori
ginated in these ages ; and that the ages which produced such
magnificent buildings could not have been either barbarous or
dark. Canterbury was built in 1023 ; York minster in 1193 ;
Winchester in 1099.; Lincoln cathedral in 1188 : the argument
is, that, if such monuments as these appeared in those ages, they
could have been neither dark, barbarous, nor uncultivated ages.
The answer is, these beautiful cathedrals, could they become ani
mated and vocal, would many of them tell most terrible tales of
their origin. They would speak of the plundered widows and
bereaved orphans, who wept over the stones of which they were
composed' — they would speak of the blood that was shed, in order
that the gold with which they were raised might be procured —
they would speak of the fell superstition out of which they
sprang — they would speak, too, of the damning marks, of that
very church, which taught that, to build a cathedral or to found
a monastery, was better than "to do justly and love mercy."
Suppose that these cathedrals are, as they are, most beautiful,
are they evidence of the existence of real religion at the time ?
Are architecture and-orthodoxy twins ? Siamese twins — insepa
rable ? One rejoices when these edifices are consecrated again
by the accents of truth. And I pray, and none can pray more
fervently than I do, that for ages and centuries yet to come, they
may resound with the word of truth — with the voice of multi
tudes crying, from their inmost hearts, " Thou art the King of
glory, 0 Christ." But I can tell you, my dear friends, of a tem
ple more glorious and beautiful than York minster, or Canter-

THE SIXTH TRUMPET. Ill
bury. I will not take you to St. Pefer's, when illuminated for
some flte with its all but innumerable lamps ; I will not take
you to Antwerp, or Brussels, or Paris, or to any other city of
architectural and cathedral monuments ; I will rather take you
to some sequestered glen in the midst of that land, the heather
of which is now trodden by the footstep of our sovereign ; I will
take you to that lowly cottage which has only turf for its cover
ing, and a few rude stones for its walls, into which all the winds
of heaven can blow, and the rain and the snow may penetrate —
but into which, such is the reality of British freedom, even the
queen cannot enter without its owner's permission — I will take
you to that peasant's cot ; I will introduce you into it at even
tide, and, if you are a member of the Church of England, you
will hear prayer far more impressive than yours, justly called by
Robert Hall the most beautiful of uninspired composition. His
prayers, rise from the very depths of his soul, the language is
severely simple — the things he asks, grand and glorious beyond
conception — as he prays for a blessing upon himself, and upon
his children, and his children's children, unto the third and fourth
generations. My dear friends, that is a more beautiful temple
than the cathedral of Canterbury, or the minster of York ; for
that man is a temple of the Holy Ghost : God dwells in that
man's heart, inlays it with holiness, and sheds over it the kin
dling rays of a eelestial splendour. That temple is the product
of Protestantism : the cathedrals of Canterbury and York —
though now turned to holier uses, were nevertheless the product
of a religion that sprang not from heaven — it is too corrupt for
that; it came not from man — it is too subtle for that; but it
came from Satan — it is' the masterpiece of Satan — the great
apostasy foretold of God.
I will now endeavour to show you what was the result of
these judgments on the apostate church on which they fell. That
church, as I have told you, was scourged by the Goth, the Hun,
and the Saracen : it was all but exterminated by the Turk ; but
was any sanctified result produced on it ? No, alas ! for it is
here stated, (ver. 19, 20,) " The rest of the men which were not
killed by these plagues yet repented not of the work of their
hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold,

112 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood : which neither ca&'
see, nor hear, nor walk : neither repented they of their murders,
nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts."
In other words, the statement here is, that these judgments did
not soften them. God punished the apostate church, but they
remained apostate still. It is here said they " repented not of
the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils."
The word devils* is in this place mistranslated ; the word in the
original is BatpAvta, demons, which means what the Greeks under
stood by demons, the glorified spirits, or supposed to be glorified
spirits, of dead good men. The word used for the devil, is al
ways StdftoXoq, or Satan, or some such expression. The expres
sion Saqiovta strictly intends not fallen angels or devils, but
spirits of dead men separated, from the body, though it be ap
plied figuratively to Satan in some few passages. And therefore
it is here said that they worshipped the spirits of dead men, which
was one cause of the infliction of these judgments ; and after
the cessation of the judgment they continued to do so still. To
show they so worshipped before, and continued to do so after, I
will refer to the seventh. General Council, (and every Roman
Catholic in Christendom subscribes to that council,) namely, the
second Council of Nice, A. d. 787, which passed the following
law : " We honour ^and worship the image of the humanity of
the- Saviour, and of our Lady, the' Holy Mother of God." Actio
iv. And again, the same council says : " For the honour ren
dered to the image is transmitted to the prototype, and he who
worships the figure worships the substance of that which is re
presented by it." Actio vii. And these laws, old as the eighth
century, are still put in practice by the Church of Rome. It is
altogether a mistake to say that the Romish religion is a novel
religion : it is a very old religion; but -my objection to it is that,
old as it is, it is not old enough. Ours is the pure religion of
the apostles : Popery is the religion of the fathers. Ours is the
religion of the Bible— of the first age of Christianity : Popery
is the religion concocted out of paganism, by the imaginations
of men semi-pagan, and inspired and directed by Satan. I hold
• See Hes. Op. 121. Plat. Pkredon, 108 B. iEschylus calls the deified
Darius iaifiav.

THE SIXTH TRUMPET. 113
in my hand a book referring to the 13th century, which presents
a practical exemplification of the worship of demons sanctioned
by the second Council of Nice/ to which I have referred. This
book is one of great value : it is called the " Psalter of the
Blessed St. Bonaventura." This Bonaventure was one who flou
rished during the time when the judgments of God were thus
inflicted upon the apostate church : he brings into practical de
velopment in worship the principles laid down by the second
Council of Nice. To do so he took the Psalms of David, and
wherever in any psalm the word " Lord" or " God" occurred, he
expunged it, and substituted for it the name of the Virgin "Mary.
This document I hold now in my hand. I will give you a spe
cimen of it, just to show you that, during the judgments that
descended upon it, the apostate church repented not of its worship
of demons, or departed spirits, but persisted in its idolatry still.
For instance, Psalm xix. is, "The heavens declare the glory
of Mary ; and the perfume of thine ointment is diffused among
the nations. Pant after her, ye lost sinners, and she shall lead
you to the haven of indulgence. * * * Let the heaven of hea
vens praise her, and let all the earth glorify her name." Psalm
xcv. " Oh come, let us sing unto our Lady ; let us heartily re
joice in Mary, the queen of our salvation. Let us come before
her presence with thanksgiving ; and show forth her praise with
psalms. Oh come, let us worship and fall down before her : let
us confess our sins unto her with tears." Psalm li. is, " Have
mercy upon me, 0 Lady; who art called the Mother of Mercy,"
and so on. The 23d is, " Our Lady-is our shepherdess," &c.
And, lest this should not be strong enough, there is given that
sublime hymn, the Te Deum, subjected to the same process :
" We praise thee, 0 Mary; we acknowledge thee to be the Vir
gin," and so on. He then proceeds with the Litany, not so
treated generally, in the same manner. " 0 God the Father,
have mercy on us. 0 God the Son, have mercy on us. 0
God the Spirit, have mercy on us." And then he goes on to
say, "Be propitious to us, and spare us, 0 Lady, from all
evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of
the devil, and from thy wrath, " and from the torments of
the damned, deliver us, 0 Lady." I remember when I heard
10*

114 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the Liturgy of the Church of England for the first time, I at
tended an English parish church, where the minister did not
intone it as Puseyites do, nor read it as others frequently do, but
prayed it as Christians should do. I remember when he came
to one part of that sublime Litany, my heart was touched, and
my taste, as that of every one who has any must be, was grati
fied. The passage was this : " In all time of our tribulation ; in
all time of our wealth ; in the hour of death, and in the day of
judgment, good Lord, deliver us." I felt this alike comprehen
sive, scriptural, and beautiful ! But how was I horrified when 1
found it thus parodied by a canonized Roman saint : " In all
time of our tribulation, &c, good Lady, deliver us." I have
quoted Bonaventura, born in the 13th century, a Roman cardinal,
to show that this apostate church repented not of the worship of
demons.- This is the evidence of it. But I am sure that most
of those whom I am now addressing will say, surely the Church
of Rome, which talks now so loud, as in the case of Pius IX., in
defence of all political reform, must in the 19th century repu
diate a document that reflects disgrace on the church, and dis
credit on its canonized or sainted defender. Not at all, she has
done no such thing. In the service of the Church of Rome
there is a collect, (and that collect is used once a year,) in
which the worshipper prays that he may be instructed in the
doctrine of -the blessed St. Bonaventura. But you ask, is
there any modern and accessible . republication of this Psalter ?
With some care, and some trouble, I have procured ten successive
editions of this very Psalter, published under the auspices of
Gregory XVI. One edition, now before me, is dated 1836 ; the
last edition that I have been able to procure, is dated 1844 ; and
the Psalms, and the Te Deum, are blasphemously translated into
Italian, and used by the laity of the Romish Church, just as I
read them to you from the Latin edition which I now hold in my
hand. I have also a French Te Deum, addressed to the Virgin,
published under the sanction of the Archbishop of Paris. If
this theology was infallible in the 14th, of course it is infallible
in the 19th century : adopted once as orthodox, it can be re
jected never; for the Church of Rome stereotypes her produc
tions, and shows that, as far as doctrine is concerned, she is

THE SIXTH TRUMPET. 115
unchanged, and unchangeable. I could produce innumerable
and recent proofs of the awful idolatry of the Romish Church.
In all her superstitions, idolatry, tyranny, cruelty, and pro
scription, there is no change for the better. She has not, there
fore, even yet repented of the worship of demons. The streets,
cathedrals, and- churches of Belgium, I can state from personal
knowledge, are painful proofs of this.
But the description in this passage indicates that the moral
state of the church was no better. Let any one read the decrees
and accompanying discussions of councils, that were assembled,
among other things, to investigate the crimes of the priests, and
he will have no difficulty in seeing the fulfilment of this pro
phecy. The very poems and ballads, and the historians of these
ages, are confirmatory proof of ' their terrible degeneracy. In
stead of repenting of their sins, they corrupted themselves, and
sinned more and more. The very legends of the saints, read to
the people as practical theology, were fitted by their indelicacy alone
to contaminate .their moral character. The system of auricular
confession, which was introduced at this time, combined with the
compulsory celibacy of the clergy, was suited to increase that
contamination. There was a text-book, of which forty editions
are extant, first issued in the Pontificate of John XXIL, in
which every crime had its absolution and every sin its forgive
ness for a fixed sum of money. The bishops, even, of that day,
licensed the very sin which is here strongly denounced, and much
of the episcopal revenue was derived from licences granted to the
sensual for living in that very sin. Gerson, in the Council of
Constance, publicly denounced the -nunneries as "prostibula
meretricium," and he could not be contradicted.
But, it is added, they did not repent of their "sorceries."
What were their sorceries? Who is ignorant of pretended
visions, dreams, and- "lying wonders," and miracles, and pious
frauds ? What lists of holy relics ! What remains of the cross,
and of the apparel of the Virgin. You will say^ome of you,
surely such sorceries are not practised now. Even now they
have not repented of, or renounced them ; they occur every day
on the continent of Europe. It was only in 1846 that the Arch
bishop of Paris, with the sanction of his superior, the pope,

116 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
published the account of a miraculous medal, which is solemnly
declared to be able to convert heretics and cure diseases. Only
the other day, 1847, we have archiepiscopal sanction given to an
account of an appearance of the Virgin to two children in La
Salette, in which it is stated, the place she stood on became a
spring, the waters of which operate- miraculous cures. That no
true Christian female, much less Mary, addressed the children on
this occasion is plain, from the words put into Mary's mouth,
" If my people will not be converted, I shall be compelled to allow
them to fall into the hands of my Son"-^a remark in which you
may observe an essentially Popish idea. Our Saviour is repre
sented as an offended judge, and Mary as an indulgent mediator,
who sympathizes with us, in a way and to a degree in which
Christ cannot. The way to propitiate Christ, as if he needed
such propitiation, is/it is alleged, through Mary; and the only
way of propitiating God, no less incensed, is through Christ.
The Trinity is represented as all wrath, but Mary all love. The
Bible says, that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life." The Virgin may not come between
us and Christ. We need her not. Through Christ, God can
come down low as we have fallen, and we can rise as high as
God is. Jesus is God : none can come between him and God.
He is also man : none can come between Christ and me. As
God-man, he fills the whole chasm that sin had made between
heaven and earth. He lays his right hand on the throne of
Deity, and his left hand on my heart, and so makes of twain one.
I need not remind you of Lord Shrewsbury's Adolaratas,
which are purely mesmeric creations. His lordship believes
that in ( each of the hands of one of these ladies are distinctly
represented the stigmata or wounds of Christ, which bleed the
instant the host or consecrated water is brought near, and cease
bleeding whenever the host is withdrawn.*
The next sin in this dark catalogue, of which the apostasy
* While this new edition of these lectures is passing through the press, I
may add the fact of the recent discovery of the head of St, Andrew at Home,
and the devotional exercises in honour of it performed by Pius IX. and his
cardinals.

THE SIXTH TRUMPET. 117
repented not, is Hieft. Indulgences had long been sold publicly
in the market, and the coffers of the Vatican were filled with the
produce of the sale of relics, and of jubilees and pilgrimages.
Clement VI., in his bull appointing the jubilee of 1350, says,
" We also command the angels that they place his soul in paradise,
entirely exempt from purgatory." Masses for the dead, the sale
of ecclesiastical dignities, and the prices of licenses to the priests
to live in sin were so great, that Pope Leo X. exclaimed of the
gospel, " How profitable this fable of Jesus Christ has been
to us I"
They repented not of their "murders." In the year 1179,
the third Lateran denounced heretics .with anathema, and com
manded their goods to be confiscated. The fourth Lateran, a. d.
1215, commanded that "the secular power be admonished, and
if needs be compelled, to exterminate heretics out of their land."
Every Romish bishop swears still at his consecration, "I will
persecute and attack all heretics and dissenters." Dominic began
the Inquisition as an individual persecutor, and after his death
the Inquisition was duly organized, A. d. 1233 — that fell system
of universal espionage, unsparing and ceaseless proscription,
whose Argus-eyed police entered and. analyzed every house, and
made the human heart dread even the sound of its own beatings.
In short, so little evidence of. repentance was there just previous
to the Reformation, that in 1460, Alan de la Roche revived the
Rosary with its ten prayers to Mary, or Aves, for one Pater Nos-
ter, or prayer to God. Alexander VI., in his bull canonizing
Anselm, writes, "Romanus Pontifex viros claros inter sanctos
predictos debet collocare et ut sanctos ah omnibus Christ! fideli-
bus coli venerari et adorari mandare." "The Roman Pontiff
ought to place the foresaid eminent men among the saints, and
to order them as such to be worshipped, venerated, and adored
by all Christ's faithful people." At the bidding of Pope Inno
cent VHI. in 1488, eighteen thousand soldiers burst on the
country of the Waldenses, and depopulated the Val Louise,
leaving in its caves four hundred dead infants clinging to the
breasts of their dead mothers. From the reorganization of the
Inquisition in 1478, to the Reformation in 1517, thirteen thou
sand persons were burnt for heresy. All was fearful,, dark, and

118 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
sanguinary. God at length interposed and said, as he alone
can, "Let there be light;" and Martin Luther stepped upon the
platform of Europe.
My dear friends, you and I, and all of us, are sinners in the
sight of God. God calls upon you also to repent, not to exhibit
the momentary tempest of remorse — but the lasting power — the
abiding influence that renounces sin, and leads to God — that
repentance in short which is hot caused by fear of the punish
ment of sin, but by regret for sin itself. Such repentance is not
natural to the heart of man— it is not indigenous — it is a flower
of God's own planting. "Christ is exalted to be a Prince and a
Saviour, to give repentance and remission of sins." My dear
friends, think ye that those who were thus punished for their
transgressions, and their unabjured apostasy, were sinners above
all? "I tell you nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all like
wise perish." Do you feel the force of these words: "What
shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul?" I beseech you, by the mercy of God, by the
preciousness of atoning blood, by the prospect of judgment to
come, by all the happiness of heaven you would inherit, by the
woes of the lost you would deprecate, that you will not suffer
your eyes to sleep, nor your eyelids to slumber, until you feel
that you have within you the dawn of peace with God, the first
presentiment and earnest of the hope of glory.
Sinners ! perishing sinners, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and ye shall be saved. Turn to him with all your heart. Bow
the knee of the soul at his throne. Does he not say, " Him that
cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out 1"

119

LECTURE VIII.
THE REFORMATION.
" And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a
cloud : and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun,
and his feet as pillars of fire :
" And he had in his hand a little book open : and he set his right foot upon
the sea, and his left foot on the earth,
"And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth : and when he had
cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.
"And when the seven thunder's had uttered their voices, I was about to
write : and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things
which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not." — Revelation x. 1-4.
Those who were present last Lord's day evening will recollect
that I gave you a portrait, very brief, as must have been necessarily
the case, of the awful and overshadowing corruption under which
Christendom groaned, prior to the Reformation. I showed you
too, that, notwithstanding' the Gothic judgment, four times in
flicted upon it — next, the Saracenic wo, which almost consumed
it — and finally, the Turkish wo, under which Constantinople fell;
notwithstanding these and other judgments of God, the nations,
in the language of the chapter, ^repented not of the works of
their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of
gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood; which can
neither see, nor hear, nor walk ; neither repented they of their
murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of
their thefts."
My previous lectures will show that we are arrived now just
about the close of the 15th and commencement of the 16th cen
tury. If there be present those who have not heard the previous
lectures, our fixing this epoch will seem to be a gratuitous as
sumption. But those who have heard the series will see that I
have pursued at least a consistent and continuous chronology — a
chronology that seems to me to grow more evident as we proceed.

120 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
The whole of it may be wrong, but parts of it scarcely can be so.
If I am right in my premises, I can scarcely be wrong in my con
clusions. If the principle of the exposition be,' as it is possible
it may be, a misapplication, then all my chronology is wrong ;
but if the principle on which we have fixed it be correct, (and I
think that the evidence that it is so is all but overwhelming,)
then the conclusions which I have deduced are logically and
scripturally right.
This chapter, I believe, describes that most glorious event, the
blessed Reformation. Tractarians may denounce it as a schism;
one of their chief spirits may say, " it was a leg badly set, and
must be broken again in order to be set right," as he has said :
but I believe that, next to the great Pentecostal effusion, it was
the brightest and the most blessed interposition of eternal truth
that' has occurred in the history of Christendom.
The Reformation— the scene described in this chapter, is set
forth in vivid and impressive symbols. There appears an angel:
that angel of whom we have read as the Angel of the Covenant
— the Son of God. This illustrious Angel came down from
heaven " clothed with the cloud." This last characteristic of the
Angel is a sign that the Lord Jesus is referred to. He alone is
represented as an angel clothed with the cloud ; no created in
telligence in the history of the services rendered by heaven to
the church, or in the description of that history in the pages of
the Apocalypse, is represented as thus clothed with the cloud.
He had next a rainbow, it is stated, upon his head. That rain
bow, as I have told you before, -is the recognised symbol of his
eternal covenant, " ordered in all things and sure." We beheve,
therefore, that this was a revealed manifestation of the Lord Jesus
Christ, in all the glory of the gospel, just at the epoch at which
we have arrived. Priests and people were without light or life.
Christendom groaned beneath a system that had in it all the cor
ruption of the dead, and beneath a sacerdotal despotism that was
instinct with all the wickedness of the damned. The crisis was
come : Christ must interpose, either to crush or to convert. The
church must be extinguished, or it must be purified. Mercy, not
judgment, was vouchsafed. Ruin was deserved : a Reformation

THE REFORMATION. 121
The nature of that Reformation is symbolically set forth in the
language of this chapter. First, it is intimated that it would be
a manifestation of Christ specially as the Sun of Righteousness,
letting forth the beams, of righteousness on a benighted earth ;
" his face was as it were the sun." In the next place, it must
have been a manifestation, of Christ associated in gome way with
his own blessed book — the book, for that is the meaning of the
word Bible : the Bible — and with the preaching of its contents.
In the third place, we gather from the accompaniment, " pillars
of fire," a symbol that. reminds us of the pillar of fire by night
and the pillar of cloud by day, that went before the Israelites in
the wilderness — that it must have been such a manifestation as
cast around irradiating splendour that encouraged his people, and
threw backward awe and- darkness that damped the spirit and
destroyed the power of his adversaries.
Now having noticed these "three points, let us see if any thing
occurred about the era that we have fixed in our chronology, that
bears- out and makes actual these symbols and signs. We read
that at the close of the 15th and in the commencement of the
16th century, the. Reformation 'burst upon the world. The dis
tinctive revelation in that event was Christ as the Sun of Righteous
ness. For the great doctrine that shook the foundations of the
Papal hierarchy, and made popes tremble on their thrones, was
not a voice from beneath, or .a political stratagem, or conquering
battalions, but the announcement of a proposition that passed like
a ploughshare through all the superstitions of the Vatican — " We
are justified by the righteousness of Christ, and by that alone."
This rent the Romish superstition into ten thousand fragments.
Another feature of Christ's manifestation was, that he should
speak, or roar, or utter his voice as the lion — the Lion of the
tribe of Judah. This intimates the deep and terrible conflict —
the din and tumult of an arduous and earnest controversy. It
was not a peaceful expansion of the light of "morn into the splen
dours of meridian day, as by the rising of the sun; but along
with this a fell struggle between light and darkness ;¦ a desperate
conflict between truth and error : and it was only after earth had
been drenched with sainted blood, and the winds of heaven had
wafted the ashes of holy martyrs to the very ends of the earth,
11

122 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
that that consummation, in the light and results of which we now
live, was aohieved and made permanent.
I refer to one well-known history of this era. In the continua
tion of Milner's Church' History there is language used which
forms an expressive commentary on the passage I have just read,
as well as the evidence of its fulfilment : " After ages of super
stition, and the reign of ignorance," says the historian, " we see
the Sun of Righteousness rising over Europe, with healing under
his wings."
In achieving this glorious event, God made use of ''instru
mentality just as he has used it in previous epochs. He might
have proclaimed the atonement by illuminating the concave of
the sky -with a cross, and writing on the'Tirmament above, so as
to be legible on earth, every text in the Bible. But he did not
do so. Men were to be saved, and he employed men to preach and
persuade. God works by means, when means will do-r-he works
against them when they resist -him — he works above them when
they will not do. The Reformation was achieved in a similar
manner. God might have shaken Christendom by an earthquake
— he might have expunged by one sweep all the canons of coun
cils, the decretals of popes, and the psalters of superstitious car
dinals. He might have written Justification by Faith upon the
noonday sun. He might have inscribed Regeneration by the
Spirit alone upon every star that studs the blue fii'mament — he
might have made the winds of heaven and the chimes of the
desert sea to make melody in man's ear, by proving to man's
heart the blessed gospel. But he did not do so. He chose man
to be the instrument: and, when God is about to accomplish a
great work, he selects an instrument, if not adequate, at least
suitable to the emergency. The instrument selected for the
Reformation bears a name that has become a household word — a
name that shines in greater lustre than the name of Milton, of
Shakspeare, or of Newton — because associated with more glorious
triumphs — a name that has left behind it a legacy that no other
has rivalled — the legacy of an unshackled Christianity — an un
clasped Bible — a preached gospel. Need I add, it is the name
of Martin Luther.
In the year 1483 was born Martin Luther. He was the son,

THE^ REFORMATION. 123
as you are I dare say aware, of a poor miner of Mansfeld : and
so poor was Martin Luther, that when at school he had sometimes
literally te beg his bread from door to door, and to ask a morsel
for the " love of God," to keep him from starving. And yet that
schoolboy could not be' starved. His bread and water were pro
vided for him from everlasting ages. He had a work and mission
which he alone was designed to do. The waves of the Nile could'
not bury Moses in his eradle of bulrushes, — and so not all the
spirits in hell, nor all the priests of Rome, could crush the child
of the poor miner of Mansfeld. The selection of such an instru
ment for achieving the Reformation, shows us " not many mighty
men, not many noble men, hath God chosen : but he has chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things that are
mighty ; and base things of the world, and things which are de
spised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring
to nought things that are : that no flesh should glory in his pre
sence." Yet, insignificant-as he appeared to man, Europe waited
for Martin Luther, and Martin Luther was preserved for Europe.
Martin Luther ! It is a name ploughed into the hearts of mil
lions, and all the insults of Tractarianism cannot efface it, and it
will be mentioned with the veneration due to a great saint,
though never with the worship that is the exclusive prerogative
of the Deity. While we must not play the Papist by,canOnizing
Luther, or any other saint, we must not prove" ourselves ungrate
ful by erasing his name from the brightest place, in the roll of the
illustrious dead.
Luther entered the university of Erfurt in the year 1501. It
is recorded that he made remarkable progress, in his various
studies ; he was distinguished for the strength of his intellect,
the rapidity of his- acquirements, and the facility with which he
triumphed over the most difficult tasks prescribed to him. Luther
excited the admiration, we are told by Merle D'Aubignd, of all
his teachers. He showed himself to be a student of real intellect,
and a labourer of indomitable perseverance. He showed he would
shrink from no toil, and would be conquered by no difficulty.
Auguries of success the most splendid were given forth by his
professors and teachers. He was destined by some for the law —
de was set apart by others for the church. It was predicted by

124 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
all that he would prove to be no ordinary, man : and such he
proved to 'be, though in a way unsuspected by his admirers. In
the midst of his career, suddenly, and without giving notice to
his teachers, or assigning one single reason to any of his com
panions, Luther determined to leave the university, and enter an
Augustinian convent ; that is, a convent adopting the principles
and bearing the name of the celebrated Latin father, St. Augus
tine, of whom I have spoken in a previous lecture. What could
be the reason of so sudden and' Unpromising a change ? Why
did Luther thus abandon the path that pointed to his realizing
bright promises, and so Cast a cloud upon brilliant prospects?
Why- did he leave a university career of unrivalled promise, and
immure himself in an Augustinian convent, where his usefulness
might be utterly destroyed, his name obliterated, his talents buried
as in a napkin, and his prospects were sure to be annihilated, as
far as man could see, for ever ? There was a reason : that great
mind, as if struck with some supernatural impulse, was stirred in
the midst of his university career, with solemn and awful fore
bodings of death, and judgment, and eternity to come. That
great heart which quailed at no perils, and was conscious of no
fear of man, began to hear sounding in its own depths the very
voice of God, preintimating to the student another course than
that which university professors had assigned him. His soul felt
its contact with the ocean of eternity ; and the waves and ripples
of" that sea began to overflow that spirit, and to reveal in its bo
som, as in a brilliant mirror, that great tribunal, before which
Luther felt that monks and monarchs, princes and peasants, must
stand to receive judgment according to the deeds that they had
done in the body. In the midst of university studies, he suddenly
felt the reality of judgment and of God, and after the manner of
the times he thought a convent was the only proper place for re
ligious men.
What was the instrumental cause of this sudden movement in
his mind ? What originated these struggles ? Luther was one
day searching in the library of the university of Erfurt; and, in
the course of his searches, he found a large volume, with strong
clasps, covered with dust, evidently not opened for half a century,
or it might be more. Struck with the strangeness of its ap-

THE REFORMATION. 125
pearance, and with the bulk of the volume, he opened it : it was
called the Bible, He had" never seen it before. He knew nothing
more of the Bible than the lessons ' extracted from it in the Mis
sal, or the incidental histories given from it in the Breviary. He
began to read that Bible. He found in it new and awakening
facts— he read of the guilt of man, so deep that no tears could
wash it away, and of the holiness of God, so awful that no sinner
could meet it ; and he felt, between his own conscience^ in its
calm and sequestered hour$, and the delineation of man's' con
science contained in that Bible, such an identity as satisfied that
lonely ^youth that the God who made his conscience wrote that
book called the Bible. And he looked at- it again and again, and
he found fresh proof that, while one page of it revealed a guilty
world, the other page revealed a holy, a just, and a righteous
God. Luther's great mind was, perhaps, touched by a celestial
unction ; he felt that if he was, what he knew he was, the chief-
est of sinners, and if God was, what he read he was, a just and
a" righteous and a holy God, then there was no prospect of salva
tion for his soul beyond the grave. He trembled and he read :.
he read again and again ; he trembled, and wept, and read. The
Reformation depended upon this — whether -Luther should read
on, or whether he should shut the book, and place it where it was
before. The Reformation, with "all its issues, stretching into
eternal ages, was contained in the dusty Bible Martin Luther dis
covered in the library of the university of Erfurt. But. God
said, Come forth, and nothing could repress it. God's providence
seconded the leading of God's grace, for we read in the interest
ing history of Luther, by the pious Genevese historian, Merle
D' Aubign6, that Luther was one .day walking in the fields with
a fellow-student; when there overtook them suddenly a tremen
dous storm of thunder and lightning ; both ran for shelter, but,
ere they reached a place of retreat, Luther's Companion was
struck by the lightning, and dropped dead at Luther's feet.. Lu
ther was unscathed. That companion the world could do with
out, but neither the world nor the church could do without Lu
ther. This solemn event impressed and awed the spirit of Luther.
He felt again with increasing force, Life, how short ! Judgment,
how near ! Eternity, how terrible ! And when he 'recollected
11*

126 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
again what his own conscience felt, and what God's word declared,
and thought that he also might be /struck by the next flash, or
overwhelmed by the next storm, and sent to stand shivering and
naked and guilty at the judgment^seat of God, he endured an
agony of spirit that was beyond all expression. What, he asked
himself, what must I do to be saved ? What can I do ? He
cried out, in the anguish of his soul, " Oh my sin ! my sin !
what, fljhat can forgive me my sin 1"
Now let me' beg of you to take a retrospective- glance at the
sequestered convent of< the Augustinians. Do you see that pale
spectre shivering amid the corridors ? Do you see that emaciated
monk wandering with bowed bead, and beating heart, and fevered
eye, amid the cloisters of the eonvent? There is plenty to eat,
brother Martin, abundance of raiment, right merry companions,
men that fear not Gjod, and care not -for man; Why be sorrowful?
This was no comfort to his soul : like the stricken deer, he pre
ferred to wander alone, separated from the rest; there was a
barbed shaft rankling in his spirit, which no human hand could
extract; and in that suffering, pained, emaciated, lonely monk,
amid the corridors and the cloisters of the Augustinian convent,
you have-the living and the visible evidence of the reality of that
solemn text, " a wounded spirit who can bear ?"
But look at him again : he is determined to have peace, if it
can be had at any price! He goes to the inmates of the convent ;
he speaks to his brother monks; he tells them of man a sinner,
and God all holy ; some laugh at him ; some try to amiise him
with other things ; and the most serious among them prescribe
to him an 'increase of fasting and penances. Luther took the
only prescription that seemed an earnest one. He clothed him
self with thorns, made long and weary pilgrimages, endured tho
most excruciating penances, went days without food, and fasted
to an extent that the eremites of Tractarianism make but a very
shabby imitation of, and endured a martyrdom while living that
was not equalled or exceeded by the martyrdom ^nce endured by
saints that are dead. In all this he sought peace, by seeking to
realize justification from sin. Did he find it ? Far from it. No
suffering of man reaches high enough to touch the offended heart
of an offended God ; and no penances or atonement of man de-

THE REFORMATION. 127
scend deep enough to reach the conscience and communicate to it
peace. When you behold him fasting, and doing penance, and
making pilgrimages, and living without- bread or water, and
covering his. couch with his tears, in order to have peace with
God, -and, after all, reaching none, you learn another lesson, so
short and simple in words, but so full of a sublime, meaning — a
text that wordd God it were written upon the - lintel of every
cathedral, and churoh, and chapel- in the land ! or rather, would
God it were written, by the Spirit, of God, upon the heart of
every prelate, and minister, and preacher, and father of the
church : — "By the deeds of the law no man living can be justi
fied."'. In this staterthen, of conviction — in -this state of alarm
that nothing could quell — in this state of. perplexity that nothing
could remove, Luther at last met with one who felt for him — one
who was in the Church of Rome, but not of the Church of Rome.
Staupitz was vicar-general of the convent, and, strange to say] a
Christian and a- Protestant, though called a Papist: there are
such, I believe, still ; but these are not the product of Popery, but
the product of. the Christianity that penetrates its darkness.
Christians these are in spite of the system to which they belong;
but they are not the products and results of that system. It is
not unreasonable to expect that it should be so. Is there any
desert in the length and breadth of the continent of Africa, in
which there is not here and there a ¦ green and . beautiful oasis ?
Is there any granite peak that towers to the skies, . amid the
Apennines or the Alps, in the clefts and interstices of which
there is not some^ sweet violet that the frost has not nipped,
some blossom that the fetorm has not blasted ? And even in tho
Church of Rome, though the sirocco of a blasting superstition has
swept it, and the cloud of awful and, overshadowing apostasy
hangs over it, yet such are the brightness and the power of. the
beams of God's truth, that they penetrate the cloud, and pour
into the depths of the hearts of many who pant and thirst in the
midst of that church for the light of life, and for the love of God.
So was it here. Staupitz was a Christian, under a Papist in
name — a Protestant, and yet a monk — a believer in the Bible,
and yet a reader pf the Breviary. This was inconsistent, no
doubt, as far as we can see; but are there no inconsistencies with

128 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
us ? He that knows his own heart best, and reads, his own life
most honestly, and above all, judges truly as well as charitably,
will be the last to condemn. Luther found access to the vicar-
general ; he explained his case to him, and, ,to the amazement
and delight of Luther, Staupitz said, " The righteousness of Christ
is the only righteousness by which the sinner can be justified."
" And the love of God in Christ," said Staupitz, to the vexed,
torn, bleeding heart of Luther, "the love of God is the only
fountain of genuine repentance." "But," said Luther, "my
sin, my sin : how can I expect to" have an interest in this ? I am
a great, a miserable sinner." Staupitz said, "Would you only
be the semblance of a sinner ? then you must expect only the
semblance of a Saviour; but if you be what'yoTi say you are — a
real sinner — then there is for you a real Saviour — in his blood,
forgiveness — in his righteousness, a. title to heaven and everlast
ing happiness." The clouds of night, were successively swept
from the mind of Luther, and the Sun of Righteousness, de
scribed in the chapter, shone forth upon his soul in meridian
splendour; a new era dawned, a new career unfolded itself to his
mind. Superstition, and will-worship, and voluntary humility
departed, and in the light of that Sun he saw light. " He be
held," to use the language of the evangelist on. another occasion,
" he beheld the glory of Christ as the glory of the only-begotten
of the. Father, full of grace and triith." The bitterness of Luther
was' gradually removed ; his wounded spirit was healed ; and he
was heard, in the joy arid excitement of his soul, to exclaim,
" 0 happy sin that has introduced me to such a salvation !"
At this very time, the Church of Rome, not aware that the
inohk's cowl concealed an enlightened head and a Christian heart
— the Church of Rome, ever subtle and watchful, was anxious to
keep Luther quiet. I have heard it said, that when the cele
brated Whitefield began to make too deep and powerful a stir,
King George III.,'I believe, asked his minister what should "be
done with him ? The reply of the supple statesman was, " Make
him a bishop." That was a prescription borrowed from the
great pharmacopoeia of all such prescriptions — the policy of the
Church of Rome. Be it as it may, Martin Luther was made not
a bishop, but a doctor of divinity — a dignity of some value, but

THE REFORMATION. 129
strange enough, (for it is the fact that suCh policy always con
founds itself,) the very office with which she invested him, im
plied that he was to be a teacher of the Bible, and that Bible he
was specially to study. The name remained, but the duty in
reality had become obsolete. The study of the Bible was utterly
forgotten, though the office of an expounder of it was still kept
up. Luther determined, as he always did, to be what he seemed,
(for, as Carlyle said of him, " there was no sham about that man
— he was no semblance — that monk was a real man — a true man
— he never would live in semblance — he would stand always on
realities.") Luther acted in this spirit; for when invested with
the title of Expounder of the Bible, he determined to be really
and truly so. He immediately caused three or four planks to be
placed in the market-place of the town of Wittemberg, and took
his stand upon these planks, and began to preach ; first of all to
a very few, but eventually to many ; for the doctrines he uttered,
the strange truths he enunciated, found a response in- the hearts
of myriads; and, at. last, the crowds that came to hear Martin
Luther were so great, that even Pope Leo, the elegant and ac
complished pope, who was far more busy in encouraging painters
than in promoting the spread of Christianity, began to think that
the monk was no. common or ordinary disturber of the church.
The people spoke of him in some such language as this : — "We
have learned," they said, " from this m<mk to sing a new song."
And what was that song ? " Therefore' being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our 'Lord "Jesus Christ." And
Melancthon — the amiable and peaceful Melancthon, who never
could have originated the Reformation if it had been left to his
arrangement — made the. remark, that it seemed, since Luther
thus preached, "as if a new day had risen upon the Christian
world, after the long, darkness of a dark- night." I have just
alluded to Melancthon ; ; and though I am speaking chiefly - of
Luther, let- me add the advice, in this place, th'atrin estimating
Christian character, we should always recollect that Christianity
does not change A into B, Or B into C, but it sanctifies A, and it
sanctifies B, and it sanctifies C. In other words, the gospel does
not' make us other men, but it renders us new men. And while
some thought Luther was too rough, and others that Melancthon

130 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
was too gentle,- each was alike fitted and sanctified for his place.
If Knox had affected to be one of the elegant and accomplished
preachers of the day, and had been more attentive to the ring on
his finger than to the Bible in his hand — if he had preferred to
pay court- to queens rather than to be loyal to Christ, and faith
fully to preach the gospel; to study to be elegant and courtly in
his phraseology, rather than to enunciate the truth fearlessly — it
would never have been written on his tombstone, " Here lies the
man who never feared the face of clay." It was thus that we in
Scotland got rid. of not only the rooks themselves, but the nests
and rookeries in which they found their lurking-places.
The Reformation, however, was not merely a manifestation of
Christ simply as the Sun of Righteousness arising in silent splen*
dour. It is further declared, that when Christ interposed, he
not only appeared with a face shining hke the sun, but he also
"sjjoke with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth;" and that lion
is described, in a previous chapter, to be the Lion of the tribe of
Judah. Was there . any feature now in the Preformation, the
counterpart of this revelation in heaven ? There was. Luther's
duty was not only to point out the Sun of Righteousness which
then arose above the horizon with healing under his wings, but
he had also a sterner mission ; like Jeremiah, he was born a man
of controversy. He had not only to speak the truth, but to con
demn and to protest against error — not only to point out the sun
beams, but to scatter th6 obstructing clouds : and, accordingly,
we. read in history that about this very time an occasion occurred
that necessitated his assuming a controversial attitude. Tetzel,
the impudent and unsanctified emissary of the Vatican, began to
preach his indulgences, and to tell the people, (I quote his own
language,) " There is no sin so great that the indulgences which
I have cannot remit it. These indulgences are the most precious
gifts of God."' "This red cross has as much efficacy as the cross
of Jesus Christ." " There is no sin so great that the indulgence
cannot remit it ; aud even if any one should, which is impossible,
ravish the Holy Virgin Mother, let him pay — let him only pay
largely, and it shall be forgiven him." " Even repentance is not
requisite" — " indulgences save not only the living, but the dead."
" Yo priests, ye nobles, ye tradesmen, ye wives, ye maidens, and

THE REFQRMATiqN. 131
ye young men, hearken to your departed parents, crying to you,
from the bottomless abyss, i We are enduring horrible torment ;
a small alms would deliver us ; you can give it, and you will not.'
The very moment that the money chinks against the bottom of
the chest, the soul escapes from purgatory, and flies freely to
heaven. 0 senseless people, and almost like to beasts,- who do
not comprehend the grace so richly offered ! * This day heaven is
on all sides open. Do you now refuse to enter? With ten
groschen you can deliver your father from purgatory. I protest,
that though you should have only one coat, you ought to staip it
off and sell it to purchase this grace. God has given all power
to the pope." "Do you know why our most holy Lord dis
tributes so rich a grace ? The dilapidated church of St. Peter
and St. Paul is to be restored, so as to be unparalleled in the whole
earth. That church contains the bodies of the holy apostles
Peter and Paul, and a vast company of martyrs. These sacred
bodies, owing to the present condition of the edifice, are now,
alas ! continually trodden,- polluted, dishonoured, and rotting in
the rain?. Ah ! shall those holy ashes be suffered to remain, de?
graded, in the mire ?" _
The impious Tetzel then quoted Scripture : — " Blessed are the
eyes that see what you see. ' Bring moneys bring, money, bring
money !" Luther says that Tetzel uttered this, cry with such a
dreadful, bellowing, that one might have thought some wild bull
was rushing among the people, and goring them with his horns.
Each person paid for his indulgence according* to his rank and
crime. Polygamy was six ducats, perjury and sacrilege nine,
murder eight, and witchcraft two. Perhaps the most satisfactory
explanation of the nefarious traffic will be the perusal of one of
the diplomas : —
" Our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on thee, N. N-, and ab
solve thee by the merits of his most holy sufferings. And I, in
virtue of the apostolic power committed to me, absolve thee from
all ecclesiastical censures, judgments, and penalties that thou
mayest have merited ; and, further, from all excesses, sins, and
crimes that thou mayest have committed, however great and
enormous they may be, of whatever kind, even though they
should be reserved to our holy father the pope, and the apostolic

132 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
see. I efface all the stains of weakness, and all traces of the
shaine that thou mayest have drawn upon thyself-by such ac
tions ; I remit the pains thou wouldest have had to endure in
purgatory; I receive thee again to the sacraments of the church;
I hereby reincorporate thee in the communion of saints, and
restore thee to the innocence and purity of thy baptism, so that,
at the moment of death, the gate of the place of torment shall
be shut against, thee, andJthe gate of the paradise of joy shall be
opened to thee. And if thou shouldest live long, this grace con-
tinueth unchangeable till the time of thy -end. In the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."
It must be obvious that this process was calculated to acquire
an extensive popularity among that numerous class "of persons
whom licentious passions urge forward to every vicious indulgence,
but in whose bosoms the moral faculty still retains a degree of
'sensibility sufficient to render them uneasy even in the moments
of the most vicious intoxication. They learned that they might
sin and purchase absolution in quick succession — the amount of
their riches being the measure of their indulgence. The temple,
in the days of our Lord's humiliation, had- never become such a
scene of, nefarious traffic as this. And, as if to proclaim to the
world that conscious thieves had the management of the un
hallowed gainSj the chest into which the price of sin was cast had
three keys ; one key was intrusted to Tetzel, the other to the trea
surer of the house of Fugger, by whom the toll was farmed, and
the third was in .the hands of the civic authorities. They dared
not trust each other. Each viewed his fellow as a thief, and God
beheld "from heaven his house of prayer literally turned into a
den of sacrilegious thieves. There is still another illustration of
the spirit of these unprincipled dealers. As soon as the labours
pf the day were over, they gave themselves up to every species of
debauchery. The sums which had been scraped together, and
emptied into the chest by the worn hand 6f labour, were spent in
gaming-houses, in taverns, and houses of infamy. These priests
were the mercenary and sensual impostors — the poor people were
tho ignorant and wronged and bleeding victims. Tetzel and his
fellow harpies dreaded nothing so much as the simple announce-

THE- REFORMATION. 133
ment of the preface of the gospel, " without money and without
price." The people, however, began to see through the gross deceptions
practised upon them. Inquiries began to be made far and wide; ,
in palaces, in halls, and in huts. If souls suffer so much in'pur-
gatory, and the pope has power to emancipate them, why does he
wait 'till he gets so much money ? What is the use' of rich
foundations for masses for-the dead, -seeing their souls can now be
rescued only by the money paid into Tetzel's box ? Human na
ture could not stand the gross imposition. A sinner one day
asked a sin-broker and indulgence-vendor, " Can we redeem a soul
from purgatory by casting a penny into the chest?" -"Yes,"
said the vendor. " Ah !" replied the sinner, ." what a cruel man
the pope must be, to leave a poor sOul to suffer so long for a
penny !" The miscreant vendors paid innkeepers by promises of
salvation, like bank-notes. None dared boldly to rebuke them.
Tetzel's impiety and impostures, however, reached the ears of
Luther. His remark was characteristic of the man — " God will
ing, I will make a hole in Tetzel's drum."
Opportunities soon occurred for enabling Luther to put in prac
tice the principles he cherished even in . the depth of Papal
tyranny. As a confessor, he heard the acknowledgments of nu
merous citizens of Wittemberg, that they had been guilty of
adultery, licentiousness, and dishonesty. -On his rebuking them,
he was told that, though they required absolution^ they did not
mean- to abandon the sin which they had confessed. He refused
them absolution. They showed in turn the indulgences which
they had purchased. Luther -told them their bits of paper were
of no value; they must cease, to sin, or perish.. Tetzel heard of
the daring comments of this Augustinian monk, and, mistaking
the metal of the man, he began to fulminate anathemas against
him. He even lighted fires in succession in the great square of
the city, and announced that he had orders from the pope to burn
every heretic who should say a word against indulgences.
Luther's flock heard" what Tetzel said, and some of them were
even infected by his deadly and pernicious imposture. This
awakened the mind of Luther to a full investigation of his pre
tensions, and the result of that investigation was that Luther, on
12

134 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the evening of October 31, 1517, drew up ninety-five contrary
theses, or propositions, which he forthwith fixed upon the doors
of .the chief church in Wittemberg. There was no newspaper
then in which to advertise them — nor public crier to announce
them; or, if there had been one willing, he dared not employ
him. Luther, in the silence of the night, posted his propositions
upon the most public and conspicuous place in the city, and the
crowds that gathered round to read them were innumerable.
Each of these contained a germ of Protestant truth, — each
struck at a Popish heresy. These ninety-five theses are worthy
of record. Let us read one or two of them as samples : —
"1. When our Master, and Lord Jesus Christ, says 'Repent/
he means that the whole life of his faithful servants upon earth
should be a constant and continual repentance.
" 2. This cannot be understood of the sacrament of penance, —
that is to say, satisfaction and confession as administered by. the
priest. "3. However, our Lord does not here speak only of inward
repentance : inward repentance is invalid if it does not produce
outwardly every kind of mortification of the flesh.
" 4. Repentance and grief — that is to say, true penitence — last
as long as a man is displeased with himself, — that is to say, till
he passes from this life to eternal life.
" 5. The pope cannot, and does not mean to remit any other
penalty than that which he has imposed, according to his good
pleasure, or conformably to the canons, — that is to say, to the
Papal ordinances.
"6. The pope cannot remit any condemnation,, but can only
confirm and declare the remission that God himself has given,
except only in cases that belong to him. If he does otherwise,
the condemnation continues the same.
" 8. The laws of ecclesiastical penance can be jmposed on the
living only, and in no wise respect the dead.
" 27. Those persons preach human inventions who pretend
that, at the very moment when the money sounds in the strong
box, the soul escapes from purgatory.
" 32. Those who fancy themselves sure of their salvation by

THE REFORMATION. 135
indulgences will go to the devil with those who teach them this
doctrine. " 36. Every Christian who feels true repentance for his sins
has perfect remission from the punishment and from the sin,
without the need of indulgences.
" 37. Every true Christian, dead or living, is a, partaker of all
the riches of Christ, or of the church, by the gift of God, and
without any letter of indulgence.
" 50. We must teach Christians, that if .the pope knew the
exactions of the preachers of indulgences, he would rather that
the metropolitan church of St. Peter were burnt to ashes, than
see it built up with the skin, the flesh, and bones of his flock.
" 52. To hope to be saved by indulgences is to hope in lies and
vanity, even although the commissioner of indulgences — -nay,
even though ' the pope himself should pledge his own soul in
attestation of their efficacy.
" 55. The pope can. think no otherwise than this : — If the in
dulgence, which is the lesser, is- celebrated. with the sound of a
bell, and pomp, and ceremony, much more is it right to celebrate
the preaching of the gospel, which is the greater, with a hundred
bells and a hundred times more pomp and ceremony;
" 62. The true and precious treasure of the ehurch is the holy
gospel of the glory and grace of God."
This was what Luther called, in his own stern and rugged
Saxon, " taking the goose by the throat." Leo heard of the
propositions of Luther : he was grieved that he denied the pope's
power, but thought — very falsely thought — that as fire had ex
tinguished so many heretics beforehand as the light of the flames
that had consumed previous martyrs was not yet totally darkened
over the firmament of Europe, even the smell of fire might awe
and put down the rash and courageous monk who avowed him
self the author of the ninety-five propositions affixed to the doors
of the church at Wittemberg. But Luther was not the man to
be put down thus.
There were tremendous struggles in his bosom nevertheless.
He felt he stood alone in Christendom. The majesty of power,
the pomp of circumstance, the prescriptions of age, the inveteracy
of prejudice, his own awful reverence of the church, amid whoso

136 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
terrible corruptions . and overshadowing darkness he fancied he
saw still bright emanations of the surviving glory; his conscious
ness of weakness of temper, impetuosity of character, and com
parative deficiency in patristic learning, all weighed upon his
great mind, and urged him to relax or cease his efforts. His
perplexities within and persecutions without, would have crushed
the. energies of any contemporary. But he was .not alone. He
had bread to eat the world knew not of. Evidently a divine
power sustained the hero-priest, leaving us a lesson we are slow
to learn, that the weakness of God is mightier than the strength
of man. It was neither earthly policy, nor human passion, on
the wings of which Luther swept broad Europe, scattering the .in
corruptible seeds of truth. His soul . burned with love to God
and sympathy with men. Truth was to be uncaged, the church
to be enfranchised, souls to be delivered, and Luther's great heart
was fitted for Luther's great work. His was a holy baptism from
on high. He purged his eyesight at the fountain of light; he
refreshed his giant might by feeding on heavenly manna, and
drinking large and frequent draughts from the fountain of living
waters ; he had an apostle's soul within him, and he had also an
apostle's God above him. This is one of the proofs that the Lord
has not forsaken any of the w"orlds of nature, of providence, and
of grace. Ever as a difficulty comes in the perpetual evolutions
of things, a spirit is introduced willing and able to meet it, and
when all around is so dark and mysterious that all expectation of
an upshot is gone, some silent ray is piercing the mass of cloud,
and gradually, but surely, giving foretoken of approaching day.
The pope's fire decree only roused Luther's indomitable spirit,
for he took the pope's bull, supposed to be the most awful docu
ment exhibited in Christendom, and burned it publicly in the
market-place of Wittemberg. All the Wittembergers shouted at
the strange and striking spectacle: that shout was the tocsin of
approaching Protestant triumph — the death-knell of the Papal.
power. It was, as we read in this passage of the Apocalypse, a
victorious shout, " as when a lion roareth."
Carlyle, in his own peculiar style, thus writes : — " It is curious
to reflect what might have been the issue, had Roman Popery
happened to pass this Luther by; to go on its great wasteful

THE REFORMATION. 137
orbit, and not come athwart his little path, and force him to
assault it ! Conceivable enough that, in this case,, he might have
held his peace about the abuses of Rome ; left Providence and
God on high to deal with them ! A modest, quiet man ; not
prompt he to , attack, irreverently, persons in authority. His
clear task, as I say, was to do his own duty ; to walk wisely in
this world of confused wickedness, and save his, soul alive. But
the Roman high-priesthood did come athwart him ; afar off at
Wittemberg, he Luther, could not- have lived in honesty for it;
he remonstrated, resisted, came to extremity; was struck at,
struck again, and so it came to wager of battle between them !
This is worth attending to in Luther's history. Perhaps no man
of so humble, peaceable a disposition, ever filled the world-with
contention. We cannot but see that he would have loved privacy,
quiet diligence in the shade ; that it was against his will he ever
became a notoriety. Notoriety : what would that do for him ?
The goal of his march through this world was the infinite heaven :
an indubitable -goal for him : in a few years he should either have
attained that, or lost it for ever ! We will say nothing at all, I
think, of that sorrowfulest of theories, of its being some mean shop
keeper grudge of the Augustine monk against the Dominican, that
first kindled the wrath of Luther, and produced the Protestant Re
formation. We will say to the people who maintain it, if indeed
any such exist now, Get first into the sphere of thought by which
it is so much a,s possible to judge of Luther, or of any man like
Luther, otherwise than distractedly ; we may then begin arguing
with you.
" The monk Tetzel, sent out carelessly in the way of trade by
Leo the Tenth — who merely wanted to raise a little money J and
for the rest seems to have been a pagan rather than a Christian,
so far as he was any thing — arrived at Wittemberg, and drove
his scandalous trade there. " Luther's flock bought indulgences ;
in the confessional of his church, people pleaded to him that they
had already got their sins pardoned. Luther, if he would not be
found wanting at his own post, a false sluggard and coward at the
very centre of the little space of ground that was his own, and no
other man's, had to step forth against indulgences, and declare
aloud that they were a futility and sorrowful mockery— that no
12*

138 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
man's sins could be pardoned by them. It was the beginning of
the whole. Reformation. We know how it went : forward from
this first public challenge of Tetzel, on the last day of October,
1517, through renionstrance and argument, spreading ever wider,
rising ever- higher, till it became , unquenchable, and enveloped
all the world. Luther's heart's desire was to have this grief and
other griefs amended ; his thought was still far from introducing
separation in the church, or revolting against the pope, father of
Christendom. The elegant pagan pope cared little' about this
monk and his doctrines; Wished, however, to have done with the
noise of him ; in a space of some three years, having tried various
other methods, he thought good to mend it by fire. He dooms
the monk's writings to be burnt by the hangman, and his body
to be sent bound to Rome — probably for a similar purpose. It
was the way they had ended with Huss, with Jerome, the cen
tury before. A short argument, fire. Poor Huss, he came to
that Constance Council with all, imaginable promises and safe-
conducts ; an earnest, not rebellious kind of man : they laid him
instantly in a- -stone dungeon, ' three feet wide, six feet high,
seven feet long;' burnt the true voice out of this world;, choked
it in smoke and fire. That was not well done !
" I, for one, - pardon 'Luther for now altogether revolting
against the pope. The elegant pagan, by this fire decree of his,
had kindled into noble, just wrath the bravest heart then living
in this world. The bravest, if also one of the humblest, peace-
ablest; it was now kindled. These words of mine, words of
truth and , soberness, aiming faithfully, as human inability would
allow, to promote God's truth on earth, and save men's souls,
you, God's vicegerent on earth, answer them by the hangman and
fire ? You will burn me and them for answer to the God's mes
sage thus strove to bring you ? You are not God's vicegerent ;
you are another's, I think ! I take your bull as an imparch-
mented lie, and burn it. You will do what you see good next ;
this is what I do."
So far, then, we have proceeded with the history of Luther,
and of the efforts made by him. We have identified these as
illustrative of that beautiful description of dawning truth re
corded in the passage this evening read in your hearing. But

THE REFORMATION. 139
there is one statement in the chapter that long puzzled many, and
has only just been explained by the laborious and devoted Scrip
ture investigations of. the Rev. Mr. Elliott. It is stated, you per
ceive, in this chapter, that seven thunders uttered their voices,
(Ver. 13.) It is, added, that as John, personating Luther, (for
the Apocalypse is a drama — a holy, an inspired, drama,) was
about to write, he' " heard a voice from heaven saying to me, Seal
up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write
them not." Let us "see what is the meaning of this. First, it
has been shown by Mr. Elliott, that " Write," and " Write- not,"
are formulas, one of an injunction, and the other of a pro
hibition, in the Apocalypse, of the most important description.
For. instance, in Rev. xiv. 13, it is said, " Write, Blessed are the
dead which die in the Lord : Yea, saith the Spirit, for they rest
from their labours, and their works do follow them." Then in
Rev. xix. 9, there is another passage : — " Write, Blessed are they
who are called unto the marriage-supper of the Lamb. These are
the true sayings of God." xxi. 5, "Behold, I make all things
new. And he said unto me, Write, for these words are true and
faithful." Now, you will notice, after each of these, commands,
Write, there is the statement of a reason, and that reason is, that
what he was to write was the word of the Spirit, or the faithful
and the true sayings of God. Now, guided by this usage, we in
terpret the command here addressed, to John, personating Luther,
" Write not;" and' we may presume the reason for " not writing"
just the reverse of the reason for " writing." Then you will
notice, in the second place, that these thunders are said to have
uttered their own voices. The voice of the lion that roared was
the voice of Christ., We may infer, therefore, that the seven
thunders uttering " their own" voices, was the voice of the very
counterpart of Christ — Antichrist. We are also told that the
edicts of the pope were called, in the Middle Ages, the thunders
of the Vatican. Bishops might fulminate an anathema, but the
pope alone might issue the thunders. But, then, you ask, Why
seven thunders ? The number seven is used to denote perfection,
seven being the perfect number, and it may convey Antichrist's
mimicry of Christ ; there is another reason : the number indi
cates locality ; for we read of the woman sitting on the seven h£la

140 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
in another chapter. The seven thunders issued from this Papal
Olympus, and were the voice of the pope. An illustration of the
propriety of this application is found in Le Bas's remark in his
Life of Wicliffe : — " The thunders which -shook the world when
they issued from the seven hills, sent forth an uncertain sound
when launched from a region of less elevated sanctity."
I therefore believe that the seven thunders represent the voice
of Rome commanding Luther to desist, or " write :" the voice,
" Write them not," was a Command mightier than Rome's, that
issued from, the throne of God ; " Luther, write them not;" de
spise them, burn them, tread them under foot; "be faithful
unto death, and I will give thee a crown Of life." But observe
what follows : " I was about to write them." This is Luther's
account of then- effect on his mind, and seems to imply that Lu
ther placed some belief in them, attached some degree of im
portance and efficacy to them. Now, is there any evidence that
he did so ? and if there be such evidence, it will be an additional
link that will unite the predictions in the Apocalypse to the his
toric facts on which I am now commenting. What do we read ?
We find that the last error that Luther parted with was the sup
posed authority of that awful and mysterious thing — the church.
He learned the gospel before he learned that Popery was the
great Apostasy. He knew Christ to be a Saviour before he knew
that the pope was the Antichrist, the destroyer. His own lan
guage, at the very time that he burned the pope's bull in the
square of Wittemberg, and preached those truths that rent Eu
rope by their power, and shook the Vatican by their echoes,- tes
tifies that Luther, at that moment, had no suspicion that Rome
was the Apostasy, or that. the pope was the Antichrist. His own
language in after years was as follows : —
"After being enabled to answer every difficulty that could be
brought against me from Scripture, one difficulty only remained,
viz. that the church ought to be obeyed. If I had then braved
the pope as I now do, I should have expected every hour that the
earth would have opened to swallow me up like Korah and
Abiram." He believed that the pope was a constituted authority ; this
shows that the monk was not a revolutionist. He did not seek a

THE REFORMATION. 141
revolution — he aimed only at a reformation. And little does a
superficial world know that the true plan to prevent a revolution
is, to originate always a timely reformation. " He that hath
ears to hear, let him hear." '
We read, that Luther .was yet so wedded to the thought that
the Church of Rome was the true church, and. that the pope ought
to be obeyed as the representative of Christ, that. he thus addressed
the pope, after he had proclaimed the gospel: — "Most blessed
father, kill me or make me alive, approve or reprove, I will ac
knowledge thy voice as the voice, of Christ speaking by thee !"
Such was his reverence for authority — such his deference to what,
he thought, constituted ecclesiastical and scriptural, powers. So
little anxious was Luther to oppose the Papacy, that could he
have served and glorified his Master, and won souls to Ghrist, he
would have left the Papacy to stand. But when Luther was thus
trembling and hesitating whether or not he should continue a
priest of Rome, and render canonical obedience tp her laws, or in
other words, " write the thunders," a voice sounded from heaven,
that, awakened its echoes- in the depth of his heart — "Luther,
write not these thunders." Care not for the anathema of man,
here is for thee the benediction of God : " Fear not man that can
only kill the body, but fear him who, after the death of the body,
can cast soul and body into hell ; yea, I say unto you, fear him."
What then took place ? Just as if Luther not only felt, but
had heard the very words of the Apocalypse, he writes to his
friend Link, about A. d. 1518 : " My pen is ready to give birth to
things much greater. I know not myself whence these thoughts
come to me. I will send you what I write, that you may see if
I have well conjectured, in believing that the Antichrist, of
whom St. Paul speaks, now reigns at Rome." The conviction
daily grew upon his mind with irresistible force, until when he
had burned the bull, and proclaimed the imposture it contained,
he declared, as if to fulfil the very statement, of the Apocalyptic
passage, that these bulls arid decretals from the Vatican " were
(I use his own words) the infernal voices of the Roman Church."
Thus beautifully does the history comment upon prophscy, and
thus fitly does the prophecy point out and proclaim the truths -of
history. So rapidly did these Protestant sentiments spread, that

142 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
when the legate of the pope came to Worms, with great pageantry
and in a vast and imposing procession, as to a city where he had
before found the people falling upon the earth and kissing his
feet, he heard with terror the peasants and the burghers of Ger
many shouting that he came only as the emissary of Antichrist.
Protestantism, in short, began to be preached in the pulpits-
proclaimed in the streets and enunciated in the market-place —
to infect all classes— to agitate all men's hearts and consciences —
until the voice that began in a whisper, shook Europe with its
thunders ; and the feet that once trod so softly on "" father-land,
smote the earth with strange vibrations, and popes and prelates
treinbled on their thrones. '
I must leave the sequel of this most interesting sketch till
another Sabbath evening : in the mean time, suffer me to ask you,
have you ever felt that deep but real consciousness of sin that
Luther felt ? Have you ever, my dear hearers, in the agony of
your hearts, cried unto God, " What must I do to be saved ?"
I assure you it is not to amuse your fancy, or merely to illuminate
your minds, but it is chiefly to interest your hearts in the gospel,
that I bring before you these truths. God speaks in -the Bible,
and through that Bible to your hearts and your consciences. I
reiterate his word, and if I can but succeed in riveting one young
man's mind — in bringing one wandering heart to pause, to think,
to inquire — if I can be the instrument of awakening in one heart
that agitation, and that agony, and that excitement, which the
Spirit of Christ alone can quell, and the voice of the Son of God
alone can still — I shall have got infinitely more than my reward.
I know what some of you say — I hear it in the bookshops —
that some of you avow that you come here merely to spend a
spare hour, and to be pleased. My dear friends, if you come
with this motive to hear, I come not with this design to preach.
You and I, young man,' must stand at the judgment-seat of God.
That heart of thine that now beats strong and healthy, may
feel but a few more palpitations, — before it beats— in eternity.
Young man, though you, perhaps, think there is long life before
you, strong* health, and pleasant prospects : yet I can tell you
it is not the nervous system — it is not galvanism — it is not elec
tricity that gives its pulses to 'your heart — it is God. Your heart

THE REFORMATION. 143
first beats, then it halts, again it beats and then it halts, then it
beats again, and then another pause ! It seems to me, that during
each pause that intervenes between each beat, your heart lifts
itself to God, and says, " May I beat again ?" and God says,
"Another beat;" and it asks, "May I beat again?" and God
says, "Another beat still." And I ask you — I put it to your
common sense — I put it to your conscience — will,G°d permit that
heart to continue beating, when that heart rebels against him,
and provokes him every day ? My dear friends, men and bre
thren, turn from your atheistic "folly. Raise your souls to God.
Implore his tender and forgiving mercy through Christ. Seek
his promised Spirit — .why should you procrastinate your happi
ness. I invite you to be holy, because it leads you to be happy.
I entreat you to cease to be miserable and wretched. I would-
not enter into heaven alone. I desire to carry many with me.
I address to you these prophecies, because I believe that many
of you are already interested — savingly interested — in Christ, and
anxious to know all his will, in every portion of its development;
and I address to others these expositions, if, peradventure, I may
stir up in their hearts that interest in the truths of this blessed
book — that sympathy with the importance of "real religion — that
personal anxiety, too, about salvation — -that deep and abiding
sense of its paramount importance- — which will constrain them to
begin, if they never have begun before, to look upward to Jesus
Christ, and forward to his presence, where there is fulness of joy
— and lead those who know in their hearts and develop in their
lives the faith of the gospel, to hold it fast at all hazards, and feel
more and more thankful" to that God who has. taught them its
blessed truths.
The Reformation has bequeathed not only new privileges, but
heavier responsibilities to us. See that ye walk worthy of them.
Embody great truths in your lives — enshrine them in your hearts
— spread them at all hazards. The time is short — the hour of
action is closing — the day of privilege is in its twilight. Hold
fast. Be faithful.

144

LECTURE IX.
MARTIN, LUTHER.
"And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted
up his hand to heaven,
"And sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and
the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and
the sea, and the things which are therein, that. there should be time no longer:
"But in the- days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to
sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his
servants the prophets.
"And the voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said,
Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which
standeth upon the sea and upon the earth.
" And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book.
And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up ; and it shall make thy belly bitter,
but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
"And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up ; and it was
in my mouth sweet as honey : and as soon as I had eaten it, niy belly was
bitter. "And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and
nations, and tongues,--and kings." — Bevelatioh x. 5-11.
May I state, by way of preliminary remark, that it is all but
essential that those who may listen to the lecture .this evening,
should have heard the lecture of the previous evening. La
order, however, to make all plain, I will recapitulate what I then
said, even though it should occupy two of three minutes of your
time. I stated in a previous lecture, that the close of the chapter
that precedes that which we have read this evening, describes
the awful eclipse that had fallen on professing Christendom prior
to the Reformation. This eclipse took place in spite of every
visitation of mercy or judgment. I stated that the judgments
poured out upon apostate Christendom, first, by the Gothic
invasion, — next, by the Saracenic wo, to use the language of the
Apocalypse, — next, by the Turkish wo, or the Turkish irruption,

MARTIN LUTHER. 145
had failed to operate any thing like repentance on the hearts of
priests or of people ; or, as it is said, they " repented not of the
works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and
idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood;
which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk ; neither repented they
of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication,
nor of their thefts." I observed the last Lord's-day evening,
that a crisis had arrived, and that crisis seemed to imply that,
either God must- extinguish his church, or he must reform it.
It deserved extinction by its sins, but, as it will be seen, it
received and rejoiced in a reformation, through- his grace. I
showed you that, both in point of chronology — the chronology
which we have successfully and consecutively pursued — and in
respect of events delineated -and described, it was just, and
logical, and scriptural, to consider the tenth chapter — the chapter
we have this evening read, to depict that blessed and glorious
event, second only to the Pentecostal effusion — the blessed
Reformation. I showed you last Sunday evening the great hero of his age.
And what is a hero ? Surely not the man that deluges fields
with blood, and leaves smoking ruins, and wrecks, and blasted
villages ; but he who deposits in the hearts of the, desolate the
hopes of glory— --communicates -to humanity new, brighter, and
more-thrilling hopes — lifts it from the degradation in which sin
has laid it — turns its heretofore tearful face to the skies — and
tells it that, however smitten, proscribed, and persecuted, it may
look to the everlasting hills and have eternity-for its lifetime,
infinitude for its home, the great God for its Father, and all the
inhabitants of heaven for its blessed and its happy companions.
I showed you, I say, that the hero of that age was Martin
Luther, and that the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse, if my
theory be true — if my premises be just — (for to-night this, of
course, must be assumed) — and I think they are so in all respects —
delineates the Reformation, and that John, the Apocalyptic seer,
personates Martin Luther.
I showed you, by a comparison of the facts of history, and the
description that is here employed, how truly the prediction of the'
prophet coincides with the facts of the historian. It is stated
13

146 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
that an angel — who is, -as I showed you, the Angel of the
everlasting covenant — comes down from heaven : around his
head ig a rainbow — that thing woven of man's tears and God's
mercies, of the raindrops and sunbeams — the emblem pf the
covenant — the -symbol of love — the type of the gospel ; that he
had his face like the sun ; " to you that fear my name shall the
Sun of Righteousness arise, with" healing under his wings.-" And
I showed you that the great doctrine that Martin Luther evoked
from the rubbish that overlaid it, and lifted prominent, luminous,
and above surrounding truths — like the Jungfrau amid the
lesser and clustering Alps, was the great doctrine of Justification
by Faith alone, in the sacrifice and righteousness of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
I next directed your attention to" the little book in the hand
of the angel; that book which Luther received, and in whose
light and life he proceeded to accomplish events on which we
enter in the sequel of this discourse.
I referred also to that remarkable prohibition when the seven
thunders had uttered their voices, and " I was about to write, the
angel said, Write not." You recollect how I explained the
meaning of that prohibition. I showed you that, wherever, in
the course of the Apocalypse, the voice says, " Write it down,"
it is added, " These things are faithful and true," or " These
are the true sayings of God," or "Yea, saith the Spirit;" and I
argued that when we read the converse of this, or the prohibition,
" Write not," it was equivalent to saying, " Martin Luther, the
thunders thou hast heard are not the voices of God — not 'the
true sayings of God' — not 'Yea, saith the Spirit,' but the mimic
anathemas of the Vatican — not the thunders of the Heaven, but
the thunders of the seven hills. Fear them not — despise them —
proceed in thy mission — fear not the face of Pope Leo, for I am
with thee — regard them not."
I now come to that expression which is used in the sixth verse,
and which, from our translation, is liahle to -misconception.
This angel which appeared, " sware by Him that liveth for ever,
that there should be time no longer." Now these words do not
mean that the world should not remain any longer, as is perfectly
plain from the sequel of the chapter, in which it is stated that

MARTIN LUTHER. 147
the seventh angel had not sounded. And the description of the
seven vials takes place before any picture of the .Millennium is
exhibited, and much of the Apocalyptic history of the world is
seen to evolve subsequent to this statement, that " time should
be no longer." Then what is meant by the clause, " time shall
be no longer." The meaning of it is best expressed by another
and, I think, necessary translation — "And he sware that the
time should not be yet ;" a reference obviously to some epoch
which was anticipated or antedated by believers. This is con
firmed by the addition of the disjunctive alia, but. The
original is zoii w/ioasv Sri ypovo<; ouxiri sarat. Now the word
Xpovoq, time, is never used in Scripture to denote time in con
trast with eternity. The %povo<; here mentioned, or time, is
that in Acts -iii. 21, and Acts vii. 17. 'Thus in Rev.-vi., the
souls were impatient that their blood should be revenged, and
were told ha ayanaoo-aivrai in %povov. ptxpov, " that they shall rest
yet a little while." This little while is that alluded to in the
angel's oath. Time here means, the epoch, or the period
promised, — the beginning' of the Millennium, ^the end of " the
time, times, and half a time," or the era expected; the expres
sion " longer" is not in the original at all; it is simply this,, " the
time shall not be yet." I will, therefore, give you the. literal
translation of the 6th and 7th verses of this tenth chapter.
" He sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, that the time
should not be yet, but it should be in the days of the voice
of the seventh angel, whenever he shall be about to sound:
then the mystery of God shall be finished, according to the glad
tidings that he declared unto his servants the prophets." I have
given youthus the very literal rendering of the original words.
You-may recollect that when I explained the meaning of the
fifth trumpet, I gave you a- description of its contents; and I
showed you that wherever there was a wo' enunciated from
heaven, there was always an echo responsive from the earth.
When God said from heaven, Wo, I showed you that in the
occurrences of the time — -in the- feelings of mankind — in the
expectation of the world, there was evidence of the presentiment
and foretaste of an approaching wo. Now, in acc'ordance with
this reasoning, and in harmony with the plan which I have

148 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
pursued, we may expect when we hear the angel cry from heaven,
"the time is not yet," that there was upon the earth some
expectancy of that time before the period when it should be
actually fulfilled. Was there any such expectancy of the time
about the- era of the Reformation ? We open history, and we
find that the sudden outburst of the human mind — the expansion
of knowledge — the discovery of printing — the new and vigorous
development of intellect — all excited a belief in the minds of
mankind that the Millennium itself was about to dawn. And in
the minds of the Christians of that epoch, Martin Luther, for
instance, Cranmer,- Bullinger, Latimer, Zwingle, and all the
Reformers, there -was the belief that now at length Antichrist
was to be destroyed — the apostasy to be consumed-r-the kingdom
of Christ to be established on its rums — -ancient prophecies
fulfilled — the glory of God to lighten every land — and the whole
earth to be filled with his praise. I do not quote facts, because
your time will not permit it : I state the result of such facts,
when I say that at the time of the Reformation there was a uni
versal belief that the Millennium was about, to begin, and the
glorious fulfilment of ancient prophecy to be realized over the
length and breadth of the earth. It was at this moment of
expectancy that the voice of the angel became thus audible:
"Ah Luther, thou art bitterly mistaken! you are looking for a
paradise, but alas, the earth will, long before, it arrive, be like a
very Pandemonium. Ah Zwingle and Cranmer, how sadly you
are mistaken !. ' the time is not. yet,' that time predicted by
Daniel— that time prophesied by Isaiah, the preintimations of
which resounded from the harp of Malachi — for which creation
groans, and all humanity in heaven and earth cries in agony — it
is not- yet. You have many a stern battle to fight — many an
iron tyranny to grapple with — many an obstruction to meet and
master before that period will be fulfilled. It will come in all its
magnificence, for I have fixed it — but you must wait."
At the 8th verse of this chapter, we have a new commission
addressed to Luther. He had to work as well as wait. " The
voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again, and said,
Go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the
angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And I

MARTIN LUTHER. 149
went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book.
And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall be
in thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth sweet as honey. And I took
the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was
in my mouth sweet as honey : but as soon as I had eaten it, my
belly was bitter. And -he said unto me, Thou must prophesy
again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings."
The word prophesy, I need not inform you, does not, in Scripture,
always denote the prediction of future events. Thus, for in
stance; it is said, " Have we not prophesied in thy name 1"
now this unquestionably means, in the language of this dispensa
tion, preached in thy name. Again, "Whosoever receiveth a
prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward :" which must mean,
a minister of the gospel, as it was addressed to the evangelists
and apostles of the New Testament. The command, therefore,
"Prophesy again/' is equivalent to the prescription, thou must
preach again.
And the little book here referred to, is the "Book of books,"
as I showed you in" my previous lecture; either the New Testa
ment, as the most precious part, or the Old and New Testaments,
as the whole of God's revelation to man. I believe, therefore,
that here the command is equivalent to, "Luther, revive that
preaching' ^Ehat is obsolete — evoke the sword of the Spirit from
its scabbard — remove the dust from that volume thou hast taken
from the library of Erfurt — unelasp that glorious record — raise
the everlasting standard — shake out its folds tp the winds — make
Europe ring with the accents of the gospel — speak all the truth
that I command you — preach it to kings, and fear not — preach
it to "peasants, and .believe ' there is a blessing upon it. Luther,
take the book, and though it should be bitter in thy experience,
it shall be sweet in the issue — rand prophesy again, before many
peoples, and' nations, and tongues, and kings."
But it may be here asked, perhaps, why was there given this
special command to preach ? The answer is, preaching had fallen
into desuetude prior to the Reformation. Any one versed in the
pretensions of the Popedom will find in these a very plain rea
son. The preaching of the truths of Scripture, and the pre-emi
nence of Popery, could not then, and cannot now co-exist. If
13*

150 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the one be fully displayed in all its faithfulness, the other must
be crushed without doubt. The extinction of ' preaching was a
gradual and long preconcerted process prior to the ReformatiQn.
First of all, the ministers were allowed to preach only with the
special license of the bishop. The bishop exercised absolute and
despotic power ; he might allow the ordained minister to preach,
if he saw no reason to the contrary; but, if he had no predilec
tion himself for truth, he was sure to prohibit it in those that
were likely to let its unwelcome voice be heard. Ultimately the
power of preaching, or authority to preach, was withdrawn from
the presbyter, and concentrated exclusively in the bishop : he
alone assumed the sole right to preach, and the presbyters, or
ministers, were merely allowed to offer up the sacrifice of the mass,
or to assist at the great ceremonial of- the altar. The only ex
ception to this was the case of the friars, the Franciscan and
Dominican friars, who sprang up previous to the Reformation.
They felt it their duty to reinstate preaching. But there was
this difference between their preaching and Luther's. They
preached the legends of saints"; Luther preached the living truths
of the gospel. Their preaching was destitute of power, because
it was destitute of truth; the preaching of Luther was living,
because it was the light of the very Sun of Righteousness. Even
Wicliffe, long prior to Luther, enunciated a proposition that
Rome excessively disliked, viz. "that the neglect of the office of
preaching was the foulest treason to the Lord Jesus Christ."
Luther, seeing in this utter extinction of preaching the secret
of the strength and prosperity of Antichrist, began to make
known the gospel; and where and what do you think was his first
pulpit ? . No cathedral had he ; no splendid hall or room, such as
this : all he had to stand on was some deal planks, a little raised,
in the market-place of Wittemberg, and there the glad sound of
the gospel was first heard, after it had been -all but silenced for
many successive centuries. And the effect, as I told you last
Sunday evening, was electric. Before the weakness of preaching,
Pope Leo trembled in St. Peter's ; he felt about Luther's preach
ing very much what others of his party said of printing, then
recently discovered,: "We must destroy this preaching, or this
preaching will soon destroy us." And when Luther discovered

MARTIN LUTHER. 151
in a preached gospel the secret of his power, and the element
of his success under God, he uttered that ¦ memorable remark,
" Would to God that he would now multiply living books," that
is, preachers of the gospel. The- more earnestly and frequently
he preached, the more terrible the wrath of Rome became, till
bull after bull was hurled against him — and the seven thunders
of the Vatican rolled over his head, and his position became
perilous— so much so, that a forefather of the husband of our
queen, the Elector of Saxony, one of the earliest converts to
Protestantism through the preaching of Luther, out of love laid
hold upon the Reformer, and confined him in the castle of Wart-
berg, in order that he might escape the fury and vengeance of his
Popish enemies. May it be, (and I am sure every heart here
will repeat the prayer,) that Prince Albert's sons, like Prince
Albert's sires, may never be ashamed of the , gospel of Christ ;
but wherever the cross is obscured, or its preachers persecuted,
may they not hesitate to step forward manfully, to unvail the one
and shield the other.
Thus then Luther was confined in the castle of Wartberg,
through the instrumentality or command of the Elector of Sax
ony,; but there even, he had not a mind made to be quiescent:
lie felt that a great work was to be done, and that if that work
could not be done at that moment in the pulpit, it could be done
in some degree in the prison. My dear friends, Luther here sets
you a precedent for those who think -they can only serve God in
certain situations. God's providence never places a man where
God*s grace cannot enable that man to serve him. If you can
not glorify God- behind a counter, you will never glorify him if
you were the wearer of a noble's coronet. If you cannot glorify
God as a servant, you will never glorify him as a master. God's
providence never places us, I repeat it, where God's grace cannot
enable us to serve him. Luther was in prison, and in -that un
likely place he did the noblest work ever done in a prison. Yet
many noble acts have been done in prisons. Some speak of con
secrated places, as if nowhere else could God's work be done.
This is a grievous error, and it is not violating order to say so.
The jailer of Philippi was converted in a prison. Some attach
special efficacy to octagonal baptismal fonts — the jailer of- Phi-

152 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
lippi was baptized from a basin or a bucket, or similar vessel, in
that prison; and Luther translated the Bible from Hebrew and
Greek into his own German mother-tongue in that prison ; and
as he preached from the " little book" in the market-place of
Wittemberg, so he translated into his mother -tongue that " little
book," when it was God's will that he should be shut up in a
prison, in order to escape for a season the wrath and persecution
of his enemies.
After Luther had been removed from the prison — that prison
in which a friend, not a foe, had placed him — he began again to
preach the word he had felt so sweet to his own taste, and so pre
cious to his own soul. But no Sooner did he begin to preach the
preaching that God commanded him, than he was interdicted by
the pope. He was told his orders were from Rome, and his obe
dience must terminate there also. But Luther, as you will recol
lect, had learned that the seven thunders were not thunders from'
heaven, but the mimic thunders of the Vatican, and therefore he
thus replied to the prohibition, " It is not from man that I have
received the gospel, but from the Lord Jesus Christ." In other
words, Luther, put his feet upon what the pope called apostolical
succession, in order that his tongue might be eloquent with what
God pronounced apostolic truth. Luther felt what every minis
ter of the gospel ought now to feel, that in that mission, the trans
mission of power is not in a line parallel with the plane of the
earth, "but by a descent direct from the throne of God. He felt
that his commission to preach the gospel was not a horizontal but
a vertical transmission. He did not look backward to make sure
of the links of an unbroken pedigree, but he looked upward in
order to receive the teaching of the Spirit and the blessing of
God. And if ministers of the church, now-a-days, instead of
looking upward to Christ and deriving grace from on high, will
look backward to see that their succession is sure, like Lot's
wife, who instead of pressing onward to Zoar, looked behind her
to Sodom, they will become, like her, a fixture — -a pillar of salt
that has lost its savour. In spite of popes and prelates, Luther
persisted in preaching the glorious gospel. Wherever he trod he
told forth its testimony, and others kindling their torch at the
same central Sun, spread around them its light-beams from the

MARTIN LUTHER. 153
rivers to the ends of Europe. It was literally fulfilled in the
case of the Reformer, " God gave the word, and great was the
company of preachers." Bulls were fulminated against him,
menaces and bribes were employed to turn him, but the pope had
a man to deal with — not a pliant monk — -a supple Jesuit — a
marketable article, but one raised up by God, and in no respect
and by no power to be daunted or to be put down. To show that
this was the character of Luther, I will quote some of his own
remarkable, sentiments. When- he was summoned before the
Council of Worms to give an account of his preaching, and his
friends dissuaded him -from going, his reply was, " If Jesus
Christ do but aid me, I will never fly from the field or desert the
word of my God. Should the pope kindle a fire that will blaze
from Wittemberg to Worms, I will appear in the name of the
, Lord !" -When Spalatin sent a messenger to him to press him
not to go ; to tell liim that he must recollect the condemnation
of John Huss, and the treachery which that Reformer experi
enced ; the reply of Luther was, " Tell your master, if there were
as many devils to confront me as there are tiles on the houses of
Worms, I will go and defend the cause committed to me." When
he was told that Duke George would be sure to arrest him, and
put him in prison, the magnanimous man replied, giving evi
dence of the firmness of his soul, and the fixity- of his purpose,
and the depth of his conviction of the truth — " If it should rain
Duke Georges for nine days together, I will go."
Such you see were the sentiments of Luther when threat
ened with every sort of proscription, of punishment, and of op
position. And, now or never, we must catch his spirit — we must
imitate his example. He was not to be prat down— he could not
be put down — he would not be put down; the eternal God was
his refuge, and the strength of the Omnipotent sustained his
spirit. The truth of God needs no apology now or then — it
ought not to prefaced with " excuse me :" if it be the truth,
speak it boldly; if it be a lie, speak it not at all. God is with
his own truth: the minister is to merge himself in the- claims.
of his Master, and his feelings""and safety in the glory and com
mission of his Lord. s
I thus close some remarks- upon him who was the most, distin-

154 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
guished minister of the Reformation from Romanism. I have
shown you that an instrument was raised up adequate to the
crisis. If Melancthon, so gentle and beautiful in spirit, had been
placed in the position in which Luther was, the Reformation had,
humanly speaking, been strangled in its cradle, and perished in
its birthplace. God raised up an instrument fitted for this work,
arid we and our children, and our children's children, shall rejoice
in the light which Luther struck forth, and shall bless for gene
rations yet to come the God that raised up so great a man, and
gave commission to so faithful and so fearless a servant.
I need not describe, as it does not bear upon my subject, the
close of Luther's remarkable career; but just to show that it was
in perfect keeping with his life, I will read a little extract from
a lecture which I delivered to a most- important and promising
association, an association of young men professing the gospel,
connected with houses of business, for the purpose of instructing
their own minds in the things that belong to their everlasting
peace—an -association that I commend to such young men as are
before me, and who may not have joined it. I gave them the
following account of Luther's death : —
His death at length drew near. About one o'elock of the
morning of February 18th, 1546,- the pain at his chest became
intolerable. He frequently prayed, "Into thy hands I commit
my spirit. My heavenly Father, eternal and most merciful God,
thou hast revealed to me thy dear Son our Lord Jesus Christ.
Him have I professed. Him have I preached. I adore Him as
my only Saviour and Redeemer. I know I shall be for ever with
Him, for no one can pluck me out of his hand." Dr. Jonas said
to him, "Beloved father, do you still hold on to Christ the Son
of God, our Saviour and Redeemer?" "0 yes!'' was his last
utterance. , He then folded his hands on his breast, turned his
face to one side, and fell asleep softly as an infant on its mother's
breast. The Countess of Mansfeld, who was present, would
scarcely believe he was gone, till the icy coldness of death under
her touch chilled all hopes. She wept as one that refused to be
comforted. On February 19th, his body was borne in a leaden
coffin to St. Andrew's church, Eisleben, where Dr. Jonas preached
from 1 Thessalonians, 4th chapter, 13-18 verses, and next day

MARTIN LUTHER. 155
the body was borne to- Wittemberg. As the procession proceeded,
one of the crowd unexpectedly gave out and began to sing the
first hymn composed by Luther :
" From deep distress I oall to thee,
My God, regard my crying."
And the whole multitude joined in the hymn, till their voices
were choked with weeping. The body -was finally taken to the
Castle church, which was crowded with weepers. 'Bugenhagen
and Melancthon successively entered the pulpit. The former
gave out his text, but the moment he attempted to address the
audience he was overcome by weeping. The congregation joined
in this burst of feeling, and from thence 'the crowds in the streets
caught the solemn sympathy, and the whole city became literally
a Bochim. Martin Luther fell asleep in Jesus. His mighty
spirit now soars amid the seraphim, worshipping Him whose glory
he vindicated, and whose church he emancipated from' thraldom.
His ashes repose peacefully in the hope of a resurrection in Wit
temberg. His living voice consecrated its churches, and his dead
dust endears its soil. Kings and emperors have made pilgrimages
to the tomb of that monk, and_nations .cherish in theip hearts his
imperishable name. Charles V., Frederick the Great, Peter of
Russia, and Wallenstein, and -lastly, Napoleon, visited the spot
where the remains of the Reformer lie; and even these names,
the sounds of which still shake the casements of the world, seem
but ciphers beside the dust of Martin Luther. The moral gran
deur of an Augustinian monk dims the lustre and diminishes the
greatness of heroes, consuls, and kings. Nobler far is moral than
mere physical dominion. He is the true ruler who sways minds
with truth, not he who restrains with a rod of iron. We may
applaud the energy which subdues rebellious provinces, and
clothes with golden harvests otherwise arid fields. But we must
admire and infinitely prefer that more glorious might which
throws into other minds kindling thoughts — awakens, in human
hearts the sense of their lost prerogatives, and moulds society
into all the forms of truth and beauty and, order. The Pauls,
the Luthers, the Calvins, the Cranmers, and the Knoxes are the
true sovereigns of the earth; the Napoleons, and Caesars, and
Alexanders are not to be compared with them. The former shall

156 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
only begin to approach their meridian glory, when the latter sink
into midnight oblivi&n.
Before' I close my remarks, on the chapter, which I have thus
minutely considered — this chapter, which contains so brilliant an
epitome, of the blessed Reformation, let me add some remarks
upon the effects of that Reformation, with special reference to
Some objections that have been made to its value.
In the first place, there is no doubt that the Reformation of the
16th century awoke- a tremendous controversy, as well as excite
ment, throughout Europe. Many have urged this as an objection.
They still deprecate .controversy. " They think it fitted for battle
fields, not for the peaceful pastures of the gospel. I think differ
ently. In politics, excitement is the peril; in religion, stagnation
is the peril. , Men may -be too much excited about civil matters;
they are always under-excited about religious truth. I think,
that what we have to fear in religion, is not life, but death. Give
me life — life with its excesses^ — in its wildest excesses — rather
than the silence, and with it the corruption, of death. A living
dog is better than a dead lion. The greatest blessings have been
achieved by discussions: error suffers in the ordeal; truth never
does: the dross is consumed in the fire; the gold comes out more
brilliant, more precious, more pure. The storm may injure some
things for a day, but'the atmosphere we shall breathe for months
will only be purified by the storm. "The wisdom that is from
above is first pure, then it is peaceable :" and until it be made
pure by discussion, it never can be peaceable in its influence.
True it is, discussion is not pleasant; contending for the truth,
and rebuking error, is not agreeable ; and if I felt I had the power
by a wish, I would give expression to that wish, that every rose
that blossoms- in the gardens of the earth, should be denuded of
its every thorn; that there never should be a storm to devastate
the fields, or to sweep the habitations of old England ; that the
Millennium should come on to-morrow, with unsuspended sun
shine its eternal noon. But I know that that thorn is needful to
defend that rose ; that storm we deplore purifies the air that we
breathe; and there never will.be, and never can be, a millennium
of truth, and righteousness, and holiness, till truth has been vin
dicated amid all the nations of the earth.

MARTIN LUTHER. 157
Another result of the blessed Reformation was one still more
precious — the unshackling and emancipation of God's blessed
word. ,To show you that this book was a sealed book before the
Reformation, whatever Roman Catholics and their abettors may
say, I add, that in 1229, the Council of Toulouse prohibited the
reading of the Scripture wholly to the laity. In 1270, James the
First, king of Arragon, passed a law, that whosoever possessed
any book of the Bible in the vulgar tongue, and did not bring it
to the bishop to be burned, should be considered suspected of he
resy. In 1400, Pope Alexander HI. condemned all translations
into the vulgar tongue. In 1413, Gerson, one of the best of the
Roman Catholic bishops at the Council of Constance, complained
that the practice of teading the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue
was still permitted. In 1711, Clement XL issued a bull, (the
word bull signifies a document issued by the pope, condemnatory
of some error, or expressive of some precept; and it is called
bull, from the Latin word bulla, which signifies a piece of wax
which was attached to them.) In a bull of Pope Clement XI.
he declares it to be heresy for any one to have the Scriptures in
the vulgar tongue, or to attempt to read "them at all, and insists
on the civil power helping the spiritual to put a stop to- it. Dr.
Wiseman, who, I understand, is to be the Roinan Catholic arch
bishop of Westminster, has declared it is not true that the Bible
was prohibited in the vulgar tongue, prior to the Reformation :
and in order to confirm his statement,1 he cites the case of Bruc-
cioli, an Italian, who translated, the Scriptures into Italian in 1532.
But Dr. Wiseman forgets that in 1564, the Council of Trent, in
the index of prohibited books', has entered the name of Bruceioli„
as a chief heretic, whose works must not be read. To the time
of the Reformation, we have evidence that the Bible was not-per
mitted to be read by the laity in the vulgar tongue; and I may
show you that the Church of Rome has no sympathy whatever
with Dr. Wiseman's pretended approval of vulgar versions of the
Scriptures. The present pope is my proof: Pius IX. seems to
be a republican in politics ; political liberalism being the latest
phase of Popery. The Church of Rome is ever ready for all
chances. Republican the one day, she can be a despot the next
— she can head the mob. as a ringleader, or crush the people as a
U

158 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
tyrant/as it may suit her purposes. So the present Pope Pius IX.
has begun apparently a new career in politics, but he has not in
troduced the least reformation in his creed. For all I care, the
popedom may become an autocracy or a republic. What I repro
bate is.its religion, not its politics. Pius IX. addressed an en
cyclical letter to all the Roman Catholic bishops of Christendom,
in the year 1846. This document was read in every Roman Ca
tholic church throughout the world; and is received by every
Roman Catholic priest and prelate in Christendom. The pope
states in this document, "Such is the object of these most crafty
Bible Societies, which, reviving an old device of the heretics, do
not cease to put forth an immense number of copies of the books
of the Sacred Scriptures printed in various vulgar tongues, and
often filled with false and perverse interpretations, contrary to the
rules of the Holy Church, which they continually circulate at an
immense expense." Now one would have thought, if the Bible
be a good thing, that even the pope would be pleased with any
body that would spread it; but it is evident that the pope must
think it is a very bad thing, for he condemns those who circulate
it as stro'ngly as those that circulate infamous books. Still we
may give the pope credit so far, in that it is not the Bible itself
which he so vigorously condemns, but the Bible in the vulgar
tongue. Here is the secret of Romish sophistry : many Protest
ants make erroneous charges against Roman Catholics and the
Church of Rome, when they say that that church prohibits the
possession of the Bible- — this is not the case. In the present
day, the Church of Rome does not prohibit the perusal of the
Bible — prior to the Reformation she did not prohibit the perusal
of it — she merely prohibits the reading of the Bible in the vulgar
tongue. This is all. . Her law allows Englishmen, for instance,
to have the Bible in French, Frenchmen to have it in Italian,
Italians to read it in German, and Germans in Spanish, and Dutch
in Russian, but none of them in the tongue that they can under
stand. It is not having a dusty book, or a Hebrew, Greek, or
Arabic book in your hand, or in your library, that stirs up her
enmity and wrath, but it is the reading that book in a language
you can understand— -reading it in the light of God's Holy Spirit,

MARTIN LUTHER. 159
and expressing its ennobling sentiments in your life, in your prac
tice, in the worldi
I have thus then shown you by -these references, that the
Bible, at least in the vulgar tongue, was prohibited, prior to the
Reformation. One of the very greatest blessings achieved'by the
Reformation, was the bringing forth that blessed book, not in
Latin, which the Germans could not understand, but in German,
which they could read and meditate upon. Shut the Bible, and
all the clouds of Roman superstition will gather and darken the
canopy of heaven. Open its glorious page, and they 'will flee
before it like the morning mists. It is the Bible that the pope
dreads. Popery and the Scriptures cannot co-exist. They are
irreconcilable enemies ; one or other must triumph. We know
the'issue. Our creed is not what the best men. say, nor what
the most men say, nor what popes decide, nor what councils
decree, but what God has declared in his own blessed word. I
would read the church in the light of the Bible, not my Bible in
the light of the church. I would hear not what the pope thinks
of the Bible, but what the Bible says of the pope. We must
bring all questions to that standard — all disputes to that tribunal :
it is the test that never fails — it is the balance that has no
deceit^the rule that has no crookedness — it is the judge that
decides all controversies, and from which there is no appeal.
Were all the fathers of the Nicene age — were all the fathers
of the Christian church together to proclaim, most distinctly and
unequivocally, one thing, and were one single apostle, to' stand
up in the midst of those fathers, and to declare the opposite,
that apostle would be right, and all the fathers would be wrong.
Their unanimous testimony does not weigh one stravr in com
parison with one single text from God's own most blessed word.
Let God take from us our cathedrals, our churches, our chapels —
let him take from us our commercial prosperity, our agricultural
greatness, but oh ! may he, in his forbearing love, and in his
tender mercy, leave England England's Bible, and she will rise
again to be the mistress of nations, the queen of empires, .and
occupy a yet more glorious position — the birthplace of saints,
the nursery of heirs for God.
The third result of the Reformation which I will enumerate,

160 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
was the preaching once more of the blessed gospel. I have said
the first was the discussion of truth — I have said the second was
the emancipation of the Bible — I now state, that the third was
the preaching of the blessed gospel — a new thing in the history
of Christendom for a thousand years. Here' I must remark,
there is no system of theology which suits the pulpit, or is fit
for preaching, except evangelical religion. The ancient Greeks
and Romans had no pulpit — they expressed their theology by its
only suitable vehicles, in statues of marble, and in. exquisite
paintings, the production of the painter's pen. And, in modern
times, Rationalism and Socinianism do not feel at home in the
pulpit. These systems practically own that the pulpit is no
place for them. And why ? Socinianism, or, as it is called here,
Presbyterianism, owing to the fact that English Presbyterianism
has always degenerated into Socinianism when standing alone,
offers man advice, not life — direction, not a cure. Socinianism
makes Christ a mere model — the sanctuary a lecture-room — the
pulpit a mere literary desk; and the Socinian preacher, as if
conscious that his preaching has no life, and his Christianity no
warmth, and his gospel no power, and his cross no glory, betakes
himself to lecture , on Political Econoihy, or Corn-laws arid
Currency. Romanism feels not more at home in the pulpit; and
this is very natural; for in. her usage the perfect master of
ceremonies is the perfect priest. Dexterity in accomplishing
Romish rites, not. power in preaching great truths, is what the
Roman Catholic religion requires in its ministers. A most rigid
conformity to its rubrics — a silent but exact performance of the
ceremonies, is alL that Rome demands. Popery is a splendid
performance, and her priests have each his part stereotyped.
Far different is Protestantism. Here it is : — a few planks of
timber for a pulpit, and the market-place of Wittemberg for a
cathedral — three thousand agitated hearts and inquiring spirits
for an audience — Martin Luther the preacher, and the Lord of
glory in the midst — this is Protestantism. In the Romish
church the pulpit stands in a corner, and the altar alone is made
visible; in the Protestant church the pulpit is, and ever ought to
be, the most prominent thing ; the pulpit, with an evangelical
minister in it, the Bible on it, and the blessing of God over it,

MARTIN LUTHER. 161
is the instrument for the world's conversion. I mind not very
much who the preacher is, or what he wears. I have my pre
ference, but my preference or my prejudice, as some of you might
say, never can affect my solemn and deliberate conviction of the
infinite value of eternal truth. I mind not whether the Occupier
of that pulpit wears lawn sleeves, or a silk grown, or a surplice,
or, like the Methodist preachers, what is still more apostolical,
none of the three. I mind not much, I say, who the preacher
is, or what the preacher wears, that occupies the pulpit — only let
the preacher be seen — let him speak out — let him not look be
hind him to see who frowns, nor before him to see who applauds,
but let him proclaim God's truth — let him be, like Knox, one
who fears not the face of clay — let him speak fearlessly as in the
presence of G-od — let his words be like Luther's cannon-shot,
and his sermons half battles. Fears, and compromises, and
livings, and patrons, and people — their promises, or threats, or
gains, or losses — must have no place in his heart, or conscience,
or creed.
In the fourth place let me state, that the distinctive doctrine
which Martin Luther brought forward — and what inay be called
the great v doctrine of the Reformation — was the doctrine of
Justification by Faith alone in the righteousness of our Lord
Jesus Christ. This doctrine lies at the foundation of the whole
Protestant controversy; and you will always find this, that a
convert from the Church of Rome who does' riot leave that
communion on the ground of his acceptance before God is a
convert not worth having, certainly not to be depended on. It
matters not how much he iriay disapprove of the ceremonies of
that church, or how truly he may be convinced of the truth and
scriptural "character of ours ; unless he has renounced the one
and entered the other, as fully persuaded that pardon and accept
ance are to be obtained only and exclusively through' Christ, his
conversion wants depth and reality, and his accession is of no
real value. The great doctrine that we are justified by the
righteousness of Christ alone, Luther proclaimed to be the article
of a standing or a falling church. The church whose pulpit is
silent upon that point, be it eloquent upon all others, is a church
whose prosperity is based upon the sand ; and the church whose
14*

162 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
creeds and prayers and pulpits are eloquent with the utterance
of this great truth, is a church, be it established or not, that
gives evidence of an immovable foundation and token of an ex
panding influence. Nothing seems to me so damning and awful
a characteristic in the Tractarian theology, as its reiterated
assertion that Justification by Faith, or what they call the
Lutheran doctrine, is a Satanic doctrine. (I use the very
words employed by them.) It is this that makes me believe
that what is called Puseyism is not a mere fracture in the window,
but a great rift in the walls — a terrible settlement in the very
foundation^ The preaching of this truth is, to me, vital. The
denial of this truth is, in my judgment, fatal.
The Reformation, in the fifth place, was not the formation of a
new church, but the reformation of an old one. Roman Catholics
would have us believe that our church is a new one, and was
founded only at the Reformation : our answer should be, Not at
all : it was not a creation, but a restoration. The Temple in
Fleet street was not built for the first time three or four years
ago : it was only restored to what it was before, by ^he removal of
deforming rubbish. The Rhone runs along Europe till it issues
into the lake of Geneva ; it falls into that lake a mixture of mud
and water. After it leaves the lake of Geneva, the river emerges
clear and crystalline as when it first came from its fountain.
Suppose now that the muddy Rhone, prior to its entrance into
the lake, were to -become animate and vocal, and were to call
acrossjhe lake to the stream that flowed from it with crystalline
purity, " You are an upstart stream : I am the Rhone, you are
a totally distinct river : there is no relationship between you and
me : I have nothing to do with you : you are a modern thing :
your fountain and origin is Geneva : I am the ancient stream :
I eome from the pristine fountain, unmixed and perfect." The
reply of the river as it leaves the lake, could it also become
animate and vocal, would be, "You are mistaken — you must
have very bad advisers — I am still the original stream : all I
have left in the lake is the mud that was mingled with me : and,
purified and unfettered, I press onward with waters of pristine
beauty to the sea : all I have left behind me is nothing, I assure
you, but the mud that mingled with you in your lapse through

MARTIN LUTHER. 163
many-lands." So is it with the Reformation. What the lake
of Geneva is to the Rhone, that the Reformation is to the
church of Christ. All that the Reformation did was to separate
superstition from Christianity, and leave the stream of truth to
flow onward in -its purity, refreshing many lands, and creating
around.it all green and beautiful spots, -till it is lost in the ocean
of eternity.
But, asks the Roman Catholic, where was this Protestant
church before Martin Luther? The answer is, Do you mean by
that question, where were our principles ? . Just where they now
are — in the Bible. If you ask where was our name, I reply, Do
you mean to say that the novelty of the name implies the novelty
of the thing ? The' name of transubstantiation was not known
till the ninth century ; are you prepared, because the naine tran
substantiation is modern, to admit -that the dogma is modern
also ? They answer, -no. Then, by parity of reasoning, because
the name Protestantism is not older than the Diet of Spires,
we must not infer that the thing Protestantism is not as old as
the days of the 'apostles. But do you mean, where were the
living exponents of Protestantism prior to the Reformation?
Of all communions, the last that ought to ask this question is
the Church Of Rome. When she asks where were Protestants
before the Reformation, she asks a question her own archives can
answer. Go to the valleys of the Cottian Alps, and you will find
the ashes of many pf them there whom you burnt. Go to the
cells and dungeons of that hell on earth, which you term the
Inquisition, and you will learn their bones and their dust are
buried there. Rome crushed them ever as they appeared ;
silenced the witnesses in the flames; and then, after she had
done the deed, she asks with sarcastic triumph, Where were Pro
testants before the Reformation ? Did I ever tell you of an illus
trative incident recorded in the Travels of Lord Lindsay in
Egypt? He" states that, in the course of his wanderings amid
the pyramids of that patriarchal and interesting land, he stum
bled on a mummy, proved by its hieroglyphics to be at least 2000
years of age. In examining the mummy after it was unwrapped,
he found in ond -of its closed hands a tuberous or bulbous root.
He was interested in the question how long vegetable life could

164 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
last; and he therefore took that tuberous root from the mumriiy's
hand, planted it in a sunny soil, allowed the rains and dews of
heaven to descend upon it; and in the course of a few weeks, to
his astonishment and joy, that root burst forth and bloomed into
a beauteous dahlia. It seemed to me that we have in this an
answer to the question, where was Protestantism before the Re
formation. It was closed in the iron grasp of the Roman
apostasy, and all that Luther did was to unclench that terrible
hand and extricate the seed of truth. Sowers started up in all
lands, and plarited it in England, in Scotland, and in Germany :
and now the living seeds, through the blessing of God, have
spread forth and grown up in all countries; and the vast num
bers of churches scattered throughout the land are its blossoms.
I have thus, then, drawn several lessons from that great event
on which I have been commenting — the blessed Reformation.
There -is a practical lesson with which we must conclude this
evening: it is this, cleave to your Bibles. The Bible is the
standard of the gospel, and wherever it is unfurled, there freedom
finds a footing, humanity a champion, and pure religion a suitable
resting-place. Much was sacrificed to preserve it— sacrifice much
in order to spread it. The Reformation was in that book which
Martin Luther took from the library of Erfurt — the continuation
of the Reformation is in that blessed volume still. Rome laughs
at our acts of Parliament, she spurns our penal laws. It is vain
to try to put her down by the might of intellect, or "by the policy
of men. But I will teU-you what she does fear. Ever as she
sees that pale, emaciated monk begin to draw out of that dusty
library a book that has not been opened for many centuries —
as she sees that monk unclasp it — as she beholds him study its
contents — as she sees him read in it his solemn and blessed com
mission, she trembles and is dismayed. Leo trembles on his
throne while that monk reads and prays over the Bible in his
convent. She dreads still that blessed book ; ever as she hears
the sound of its voice, or of its footfall, she trembles. Her
religion is based upon man's word, "it cannot stand. Our religion
is based upon God's word, and- it will endure for ever.
My dear friends, recollect the Reformation has left a responsi
bility upon you. Better, 0 Tinconverted man 1 better you had

MARTIN LUTHER. 165
perished before Luther was born, than perish amid the light and
truth of the age in which we live. Better you had perished
when the Bible was locked in a dead tongue, than perish repu
diating and neglecting it when it has become a household book —
giving names to your babes — sanctifying your bridals — your
comfort at burials — the visitor of the poor man's cabin and the
prince's palace, and the eloquence of 10,000 pulpits around you.
Better you had perished when that Bible was inaccessible, and
our God unknown, than perish when that God bids you, from
the skies, come to him, and his outspread Bible offers to teach
you all its truths, and the minister, standing in Christ's stead,
with Christ's own commission, beseeches you, " Be ye reconciled
unto God." Brethren, "what shall it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and lose his own soul?" and again, "how shall
we," you and I, "how shall we escape if we neglect so great
salvation ?'¦'
Slighted , mercies are the sharpest judgments — a neglected
gospel is the greatest condemnation. Look unto him who is
exalted a Prince and a Saviour,-, to give repentance and remission
of sins. Believe and be saved — why will ye die?

166

LECTURE X.
' THE TWO WITNESSES.
"And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a
thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.
" These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the
God of the earth.
" And if any man will hint them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and de-
voureth their enemies : and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner
be killed.
"These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their pro
phecy : and have* power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the
earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
"And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth
out of the -bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall -overcome
them, and kill them.
"And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spi
ritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
" And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see
their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies
to be put in graves.
" And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry,
and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented
them that dwelt on the earth.
"And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into
them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw
them. "And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up
hither. And thoy ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld
them." — Revelation xi. 3-12.
Last Lord's-day evening, I closed my remarks upon that mo
mentous era pronounced by millions to be the blessed Reforma
tion. I showed how expressly that Reformation was shadowed
forth and represented in the beautiful imagery of the chapter that
immediately precedes this. I explained first the darkness that
had long overshadowed Christendom; I showed that the judg-

THE TWO WITNESSES. 167
ments inflicted upon it did not lead its guilty ones to repent ; I
then showed that a crisis had arrived when either God's judg
ments must consume it, or God's mercies must convert it. His
ways are not our ways ; judgment is his strange work ; he remem
bered mercy ; he gave the word, " Let there be light."' Martin
Luther emerged from obscurity, stood up and preached the gospel
in the market-place of Wittemberg, and from that hour, to bor
row the imagery > of the Apocalypse, the Sun of Righteousness
shone forth in his splendour, and the voice of the Lion of the
tribe of Judah was heard loud as when a lion roareth. I also
explained to you the meaning of the " little book." I showed to
you that the little book was the Bible ; that little book was im
mediately received by the Protestant Reformer, as personated by
the Evangelist John ; and then followed soon after the great cha
racteristic result — an unclasped Bible, and the unfettered preach
ing of the everlasting gospel.
The chapter which contains so graphic and beautiful a sketch of
these two mysterious personages, called the witnesses for Christ, is
a retrospective review of the past history of the true church of Christ
amid the darkness that overshadowed the earth, and the corrup
tion that pervaded all its churches, its clergy, 'and its people,
prior to the Reformation. In other words, the sacred seer, ac
cording to-the commission of his Lord, stands amid the light,
which Luther, as an instrument, struck out; and from that light
he darts a retrospective glance at the past history of the true
church, and sees, amid its densest night, rays of glorious light—
and, beneath the. turbid current of men's corruptions, the unpol
luted and the crystalline stream of the faithful testimony of
Jesus. I will now endeavour to show the complete identity be
tween the Apocalyptic description herein contained, and the his
torical facts as they have actually occurred, and are recorded in
the pages of history.
It presents confirmatory proof of our view of the witnesses,
that at the Reformation, for the first time for many hundred
years, Christian men began to look backward, to ascertain where
the truth and its followers had been during the dreary ages that
had at length passed away. It is a remarkable, or rather an in
tended coincidence,. that as in the Apocalypse there is a retrospect

168 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
from the era of the Reformation of the^witnesses for Christ
during the apostasy of the Middle Ages, so in history there is the
record of the Reformers beginning on their emerging from- Popery
to trace backward, not the succession of the priest, but .the suc
cession of the Christian people, the faithful witnesses and follow
ers of the Lamb. The one is the Apocalyptic retrogression, the
other is the historical retrospect. A remarkable proof of this is
the fact that, one of the earliest books of the Reformation was
called the " Catalogue of Witnesses," drawn up by the Magde
burg centuriators ; and the very next remarkable book that ap
peared after the Reformation was that book that ought to be in
every Englishman's home, and the records of which ought to be
registered in every Briton's memory — Eox's Book of Martyrs,
i. e. Witnesses. We have, then, in the Apocalyptic drama, the
appearance of two witnesses, the retrospective history of whom is
given in this chapter. We have, at the very period in history at
which this retrospect in the Apocalypse begins, the appearance of
catalogues of witnesses from the Magdeburg centuriators in Ger
many downward to Fox's Book of Martyrs, composed and pub
lished in England.
Now, then, that the Reformers were called to take this retro
spect is plain from an argument then and now used by the
Church of Rome, as well as by those divines who adopt the main
positions by which that great Apostasy is defended. The text is
cited, " Upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it." The argument of the Roman
ist and Tractarian constructed on it, is this : — If the whole
church of Christ became apostate for nine hundred years, then
the truth of the promise, " the gates of hell shall not prevail," is.
contradicted by fact. I will not comment upon the meaning of
this text. I will reserve that for a future occasion; I merely
quote it in order to show you that the Reformers were met by this
plausible argument, and were .necessarily driven to look backward,
in order to ascertain if there had been from St. Paul onward to
Luther a continuous chain of living witnesses, resplendent with
the glory and transmissive of the truth of God, and constituting
thereby the church of Christ. This was what the Reformers
called, and what I call the true succession. The apostolical sue-

THE TWO WITNESSES. 169
cession is a great truth; the .Popish or Tractarian succession is a
great lie. The one is God's- plain declaration, the other is tradi
tion's absurd invention. God said there should be no age in
which he would not have a church : I am going to show you that
there- has been not a century, not a year, not a week in which
there has not beeri audible testimony and visible witness fori the
truth as it is in Christ. But if you should say, as the Trac-
tarians and Roirianists assert, that there must be .shown a per
sonal succession in the clergy as well as-laity, my answer is, there
has always been in the history of the 'church a stated ministry of
the gospel. There neyer has been an age in which there has not
been a Christian, nor has there been a flock for which there has
not been a minister. But that is quite different from what I
have called the Romanist succession. If you should say to me,
If it be not true that there has been, and can be shown, a con
tinuous succession of canonical ordinations from the apostle
Peter, called, very ignorantly, the first pope, down to Pius IX.,
called, very properly, the present pope, — that^ unless I admit
this, Christ's, promise is not fulfilled, — I must utterly dissent from
your opinion. I might show the inaccuracy of your argument by
plain historical facta} as well as plain seriptural reasons. Eor so
often has this "succession been broken, and so completely has it
been interrupted, that to say there is no ministry except where
that succession can be proved, is but tot play into the hands of
the infidel. I can show you that if the apostolical succession, or
the necessity of a continuous chain of ministers from Peter down
to Pope Pius IX., ought to be insisted on, that there is not a
church or valid ministry in Christendom. If the . apostolical
succession be what Dr. Pusey says it is, the Church of England
has it not; and the sooner he transfers his person, as he has
already transferred his belief, to the Church of Rome, the. better —
at least, the' more creditably, because more consistently, he will
act for himself, and beyond dispute -for those he leaves behind
him. To illustrate this, suppose a chain stretching from Exeter
Hall to Westminster Abbey ; suppose, by accident, one solitary
link drops from that chain; the mischief is as complete as if a
thousand links had dropped from iti or suppose that the trans
mission of that mysterious power claimed by Romanists is some-
15

170 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
thing like the transmission of the electric fluid by the wires of
the electric telegraph, if there should be introduced into the chain
-a non-conducting link, it is just as bad as if the wire were snapped
in twain, or no wire at all, for there would be no conductor of
the mysterious element. Now I can show you that in the suc
cession of popes there have been many depraved, corrupt, and un-
eanonical, and therefore non-conductors. I can show you that in
the succession of bishops there have been simoniacal, degraded,
or unoonseorated bishops ; and if I can show you that there is a
link wanting or a non-conducting link introduced in the chain
supposed to. conduct 'the mysterious element of which Rome
claims a monopoly, I show a-flaw in the chain- — a gap infhe suc
cession — the arrest ,of a valid ministry — the extinction of the
church — the triumph of skepticism.
But I will not dwell upon this.
In prosecuting this very interesting inquiry, to my mind the
most interesting contained in the Book of Revelation, I will lay
before you first the character, the existence, the- early history of
the two witnesses of Christ. Next, the death~ and resurrection
of these witnesses; and in the third place, their resurrection,
their standing on their feet, their ascent into heaven.
I. The name assigned to the persons here described is "wit
nesses." The word witness is the translation of a Greek word,
p.aproc;, which Greek word is the parent of our common word
" martyr." The reason why the word /xapruz, which means simply
a witness, came to denote one that seals his testimony with his
death, is just this, that to preach Christ, or to profess Christ,
during the iron despotism of the Papacy, or during the earlier
persecution of the pagan, was altogether a different thing from
professing Christ now. Then the profession led not to prefer
ment, — it preceded you to the stake. Then to be a Christian
was not a passport to office, but a crime to be punished with
death. And hence to be a witness, in the early ages, was just
equivalent to be what is meant by a martyr now. That these
persons then called "witnesses," were persons and not things, I
am satisfied on strong and irresistible evidence. And here you
must allow me to explain myself. Some time ago, when I knew
less, and probably felt less — for I grow in grace and in light too,

THE TWO WITNESSES. 171
as well as you — I published a volume of sermons : in this volume
there is one on the Two Witnesses-. Ike two witnesses, I then
said, were the Old and New Testaments.' I have changed my
opinion. I am satisfied my arguments were unsound, my reasons
inconclusive. We must not hesitate to cast what is popularly
understood as Consistency behind' us, if taught something better,
and to emit truth as God teaches us. I cannot and will not be
arrested in my preaching, by looking over my shoulder to see if
what I say now be consistent with something I have said before.
Truth is always consistent with truth. It is human to err* it is
heavenly to forgive. The two witnesses, I am satisfied, are not
books, but persons : my reasons for believing so are, I think, most
satisfactory. Pirst, the word p.aproz occurs in the Bible exactly
thirty-four times. In thirty-three of these it means a person;
why change its meaning in the thirty-fourth ? Now this alone
seems to me conclusive : it is never once applied to a booh, but in
every. Case to % person. Again, to "prophesy," which I showed
you, in my lecture on the Reformation, is equivalent to "preach,"
is always predicated of a "person," never of a "thing." Hence
I infer that the two witnesses were two living witnesses, not two
testaments or dead records.
In the second place, the two witnesses' are -here called "my"
witnesses. Christ is the speaker, and the witnesses he declares
are his. He. calls them "witnesses of Me." We may expect,'
therefore, in tracing the history of these .witnesses, that they
should proclaim and stand . for the perfect atonement of Jesus,
and protest against all that would conceal or undervalue the effi
cacy of his precious blood ; that in the face of all pain and peril
they would maintain upon the earth the offices of Jesus as Pro
phet, Priest, and King; upholding the virtues of his grace, the
advent of his glory, the integrity of his word, and the purity and
spirituality of his church.
And in. the next place, we may expect they will exhibit con
temporaneously with this a protest the most emphatic and the
most unflinching against that which was the predominating
heresy in the age in which -they were to maintain their testimony.
These two witnesses are called "the " two olive-trees and the
two candlesticks, standing before the God of the earth." The

172 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
word candlestick is, literally translated, " a lamp-bearer,"
(Auj^vfa,) and in every case it means, in the Scripture and in the
Apocalypse, a " church." " The seven candlesticks are the
seven churches;" a church meaning, not consecrated earth, or
Gothic cathedral, or Protestant chapel, but, in the language of a
truly Protestant "article of the Church of England, " a- company
of faithful Christian men;" "where two or three are "gathered
together in my name, there am- 1 in the midst of them." The
candlestick may be small, confined to one house — " the church in
the -house of Nymphas;'-' or it may be larger, confined to the four
walls of an edifice ; or it may be, in my judgment, larger still,
comprehending all the churches that constitute a national com
munion; or it may be still larger, denoting the whole visible
church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If the " two candlesticks" mean the ~" church" — that is, the
Christian people — the " olive-trees" mean the ministers, or those
that preach the gospel to them. My reason for this is shown by
a reference to Zecharjah, where we read, in chap, iv., " Then
answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive-trees
upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side
thereof? -And "I answered again, and said unto him, What be
these two olive-branches which through the two golden pipes
empty the golden oil out of themselves ? And he answered me
and said, Knowest thou not what these be ? And I said, No, my
lord. Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand
by the Lord of the whole earth?' (11-14,) Now, who was it
that stood up before the Lord ? We read this morning in the
ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that the priests en
tered into the first place, and the high-priest, once a year, into
the second, or holy place. In short, it was then- office to " stand
before the Lord." They are called the " sons of oil," or, literally
translated, the " communicators of oil." The ministers of the
gospel convey from the Great "Fountain what feeds and gladdens
the people committed to their care. We have, then, the " caridle-
stieks," or the assembled Christians — we have "the olive-trees,"
or the presiding ministers ; in other words, the prophecy is, that
there should be a church and ministry of the gospel in every age,
from the day when the darkness of the apostasy should become

THE TWO WITNESSES. 173
all but universal, till the day that Martin Luther should speak,
and bring once inore into prominence . alike the fact and true
functions of the church of Christ.
The next point I direct your attention to, is their- number : it
is said their number should be two. What can be meant by this ?
In the first place, it may mean that they should be. numerically
two; and I can show you that '-this is borne out by history, for
there have been, as we shall presently see, two contemporaneous
lines of witnesses protesting against the- Papacy, and -proclaiming
the glorious truths of the gospel : one line; called Paulicians, in
the East ; another line, terminating in the Waldenses, . in the
West; and these from the days of Augustine downward to the
days of Luther. And~in the next' place, the reason of the num
ber two being eriiployed maybe this > in the' Mosaic law two
witnesses were necessary to constitute a valid testimony — mqre
might be corroborative, but two were essential ; and it therefore
may imply, that during the dark and terrible eclipse of medieval
Europe, there would be witnesses for Christ, but these reduced to
the fewest that could be. consistent with a valid testimony. "
The condition of the witnesses is expressed by their prophesy
ing in sackcloth. - Sackcloth is a symbol of mourning. Daniel
put on "sackcloth ; so did the Ninevites when they proclaimed a
fast ; the ancient prophets also wore sackcloth, denoting that their
office was a painful one, and their condition a persecuted one.
Now/ as I shall show you, these witnesses not only preached the
gospel, but preached it clothed in -sackcloth — subject to persecu
tion, proscription, martyrdom, and death.
It is said, " And if any man will hurt "them, fire proceedeth
out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies ; and if any man
will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have
power to shut heaven that it rain not in the days of their pro
phecy; and have power over- waters to turn them to blood, and
to smite the earth with all plagues as often as they will." Now,
this language is the literal description of the prerogative of
Moses and Aaron, who turned the waters of the Nile visibly into
blood. Elijah also commanded fire to come from heaven and
smite the earth. The prediction that there should be no rain for
1260 years, plainly means not a literal, for that would be impos-
15»

174 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
sible, but a spiritual drought ; and if this clause be figurative, tha
others must be so also. The fire going out of their- mouth is in
all probability the symbol which sets forth God's fiery judgments
desoending on their enemies through their word ; and that I am
not exaggerating or doing violence to the passage by applying
this literal language to spiritual judgments, may be seen by re
ferring to the case of the- prophet Jeremiah, to whom God says,
" I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood,
and it shall devour them/' Another illustration of this solution
is in Amos, (viii. 11,) "Behold, the days come, saith the Lofd-
God, that I will send a famine in the land; not a famine- of
bread, nor a thirst for 'water, but of hearing the words of the
Lord- And they shall wander from sea -to sea, and from the
north even to the east, they shall -run to and fro to seek the word
of the Lord, and shall not find it."
In the next place, the duration of their prophecy was to be
1260 days — that is, as I told you, 1260 prophetic days, or 1260
literal years; I will not now, however, enter on the evidence of
the commencement of this period, which was, I conceive, when
the apostasy was clearly established, nor on its close, as we shall
subsequently come to it. I may merely state that about the sixth
century their -testimony began, as in that century their testimony
was specially required. Gibbon, to whom I have so frequently
referred, describes the state of that century in which, we believe,
the witnesses began their testimony, in the following words : — -
"The use and even worship of .images was firmly established be
fore the end of the sixth century." " The Christians of the sixth
century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of paganism.
The throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs,
saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration."
Pope Gregory, called the Great, writing A. D. 590, states, "All
things which were predicted are taking place. - The King of
Pride is at hand, and what is unlawful to utter, an army of priests
is prepared for him."
Mosheim writes of this very same century: — "At. this time
true religidn, weighed down by a heap of insane superstition, was
unable to raise its head. The early Christians were wont to wor
ship God and his Son only : but in this age (sixth pentury) they

THE TWO WITNESSES. 175
who were called Christians worshipped the wooden cross, the
images of saintejvand the bones of men." In this very century
too, or rather at the commencement of the seventh, viz. in the
year 604, the Pantheon- at Rome, which contained the images of
all the gods of the heathen, was, without the least violence de
signed or done in making the change, transformed into a Romish
temple : the idols which were known of old by the names of Jupiter
and. Venus, were christened by the names of Peter and the Virgin
Mary. The statue of Jupiter received the keys into his hand
instead of the thunderbolt he had originally, and is devoutly
kissed as St. Peter at this clay; and from thence forward the Pan
theon became literally the Pandemonium, that is, the assembly
of all the demons (Satpovta) or glorified spirits of apostate
Christendom. This, then, may be regarded as the era at which the testimony
of the witnesses began. The Justinian code was also, drawn up
in the sixth century, and by that code the pope was publicly de
clared to be the supreme pontiff, and all dissent from his decrees
or worship was pronounced to be heresy; and- then was introduced
that ancient and- favourite practice in the visible church, the
burning men's, bodies to change "men's creeds, on the mistaken
ground that a great error could be extirpated, or a great truth
promoted, by punishing them who persisted in the one or refused
to embrace the other. From this era all the elements of the. pre
dicted apostasy were developed on thetheatre of Europe; priests
devoured widows' houses, and built cathedrals with the spoils —
absolved from oaths and evangelized with the sword — made Divine
service a pantomime, and religion priestcraft — lengthened the
creed, and shortened the decalogue; — became the parent of igno
rance in the cabinet— immorality in the palace — idolatry in the
temple — pollution in the confessional — and -licentiousness of life,
provided there was strict observance of ceremony, everywhere.
"If," says Gibbon, "in the beginning of the fifth century,
Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead,
to assist in the festival of some popular saint, or martyr, they
would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the pro
fane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual wor
ship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors, of the

176 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
church were thrown open they must have been offended by the
smoke of the incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of
lamps and tapers which diffused at noonday a gaudy, and, in their
opinion, a sacrilegious light; if they approached the balustrade
of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd,
consisting for ,the most part of strangers and pilgrims who re
sorted to the city on the vigil of the feast, and who already felt
the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and perhaps of wine; their
devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavement of the
sacred edifice, and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever
might be the language of their church, to the bones and blood or
ashes of the -saints, which were usually concealed by a linen -or
silken vail from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequent
ed the tom'bs of the martyrs in hope of obtaining from their
powerful intercession every sort of spiritual, but more especially
of temporal blessings. The walls were hung round with symbols
of the favours which they, the pilgrim offerers, had received.
Eyes, hands, and feet of gold and silver, and edifying pictures,
which could not long escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous
devotion, represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles
of the titular saint."
I have already named such witnesses as Augustine, whose
writings are so replete with evangelical truth, and Vigilantics,
who is so decided in his Protestant testimony. I will now allude
to a succession of eminent and faithful witnesses, who appeared
like stars amid the darkness of the overshadowing night, illumi
nating portions of the earth, and who were visible proofs in the
world that there was in every age a true and believing chureh.
After Augustine and Vigilantius, CjESARius of Arles in Dau-
phin6 appeared, a faithful witness for the truth. Milner trans
lates two passages from the canons drawn up at a council held at
Orange expressly under the dictation of Caesarius in the year
529 : "If any one say that the beginning or the increase of faith,
and the.very affection of belief, is in us not by the gift of grace,
that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, correcting our will
from infidelity to faith, from impiety to piety, but by nature, he
is an enemy to the doctrine of the apostles." "If any man
affirm that he can by the vigour of nature think any thing good

THE TWO WITNESSES. 177
which pertains to salvation as he ought, or choose or consent to
the saving, that is to evangelical preaching, without -the illumi
nation and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all. the
sweet relish in consenting to and believing the truth, he is de
ceived by an heretical spirit." At the beginning of the seventh
century, and in the popedom of Gregory the. Great, appeared an
other witness, whose name was Serenus; he witnessed against
the apostasy, proclaimed the truths of the gospel, and eloquently
protested against image worship,, the popular passion of the age::
The Council of Frankfort, a. d. 794, had three hundred
Christian -bishops in it, who entered their protest against image
worship, and gave expression and emphasis to the scriptural sen
timents- of Cassarius and. Serenus. An Englishman, Alcuin,
witnessed about a. d.'804. Paulinus of Aquileia appeared be
tween A.D. 810 and 841. He proclaimed salvation through the
shed blood and living intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ only.
Agobard, archbishop of Lyons, and Claude of Turya, one .on
one side of the Alps and the other on the -opposite side, raised a
distinct and impressive testimony to the truth, about a.d. 817.
Agobard proclaimed, "There is no other mediator than the God-
man :" and for these sentiments alone his work wag placed in the
Index Prohibitorius. He preached the evangelical sentimerits
of Augustine with the intellectual vigour of Calvin, the force and
intrepidity of Luther, and the faithfulness of Knox. Claude of
Turin was misrepresented and maligrfed; he was denounced as a
heretic, and persecuted as a malefactor. ' He thus wrote to a con
temporary: — "A rumour is spread as if I were- teaching a new
sect contrary to the Catholic faith. I teach no new sect : this
trouble came upon me, because, when I found all the churches at
Turin stuffed full of vile and accursed images, I alone- began to
destroy what all were, so sottishly worshipping."
Claude thus expresses his truly Protestant testimony: — "If
we ought to adore the cross because Christ was fastened to it,
how many other things are there which touched Jesus Christ!
Why do they not in the same sense worship all that are virgins
because a virgin brought'"forth Jesus Christ ? Why do they not
adore mangers and old clouts because he was laid in a manger
and wrapped in swaddling-clothes? Why do they, not adore

178 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
fisher-boats because he slept in one? Let them adore asses be
cause he entered Jerusalem on the foal of an ass. All these
things are ridiculous, rather to be lamented than set forth in
writing, but we are forced to set them down in opposition to fools.
Gome to yourselves again, ye miserable transgressors, why do you
crucify the Son of God again and expose him to open shame?"
How beautiful is the following letter of his : — " Truth grows
not old by length of time, she minds not places, she does not
suffer herself to be overtaken by night, she does not shut herself
up in shadows, she is near to all that turn to her from all parts
of the world, she ' is >eternal to all, she Is everywhere — she
changes and converts those that behold her. In this idea of my
faith I separate all change and alteration from' eternity; and in
this eternity I discover, no space of time, for the spaces of time
are made up of future and past notions of things. Now there is
nothing past or future in, eternity, for that which passeth ceaseth
to be, and, that which is to come is not yet begun -to be ; but as
for eternity, it is that which is always present. Since this is the
case, we are not commanded to go to the creature that we may be
happy, but to the Creator, who alone can constitute our bliss."
Gotteschalc left his monastery, a. D. 846, and under deeper
and purer- impressions than a monastery could teach, -began a
missionary career. After preaching the gospel of the grace of
God in Lombardy arid the Delphinate, he was summoned by two
archbishops, Rabanus Maurus of Mentz, and Hinckmar of
Rheims. By these he was condemned, degraded, beaten with
rods, and when dead denied Christian burial ; which last refusal
is not, you perceive, peculiar to the nineteenth century, but is
pretty old.
Alcuin rejected the Apocrypha, and recognised nothing like
purgatory- or transubstantiation. He makes the following truly
practical remarks : — " In the Holy Scriptures man may contem
plate himself as in some mirror what sort of a person he is. The
man who desires to be ever with God should often pray to him
and study his holy word, for when we pray we speak to God, and
when we read the holy book God speaks to us."
From the Western line of witnesses I now pass to a sketch of
the Eastern, where a testimony waa equally needed.

THE TWO WITNESSES. 179
In the year 653, an Armenian — not an Arminian, but an
Armenians-named Constantine, having received and read a
copy of the Gospels and Epistles of St, Paul', was so impressed
by their purity and excellence, that he professed to be a disciple
of St. Paul alone, and of no existing, or other human teacher.
We read that this Constantine, after preaching the gospel for
thirty years, was condemned for his heresy, in the language of
the Romanist Petrus Siculus, that is, in our view,-for his attach
ment to the gospel. Simeon, an officer of the government, waa
sent to see that he was stoned to death, according to sentence,
but he was so struck by the grandeur of the sentiirients he
preached, by the patience with which he «ndured his sufferings,
the fervour with which he prayed for his foes, and the meekness
that animated and actuated him, that he left the stoning of the
martyr, embraced his principles, forsook all and preached the
gospel, for which he also was speedily put to death.
Soon after him there rose above the horizon Sergius, another,
and- perhaps the most eminent witness among the Paulicians, or
followers of Paul, as they designated themselves. A female was
blessed to the conversion of this eminent Paulician minister. A
woman addressed him one day who had heard that he was cele
brated for his; talents and intellectual attainments; she urged
him to study the gospel. He replied, " It is not lawful for me
to read the Bible, but only for the priests." The woman, who
was not to be repelled, said, " It .is not as thou supposest : there
is no acceptance of persons with God. You-r priests, because
they adulterate God's word, read some things out of it, and leave
out others." He was struck by the statement-: he resolved to
make inquiry, and the result of that inquiry was, that he became
a faithful minister and missionary, and, in his own words, " From
east to west and from north to south I have preached the gospel
of Christ, and laboured with these my hands." He died, having
finished his testimony, in the year 830. One remarkable senti
ment of his identifies him with the line of witnesses. " We,"
he said, " are Christians, you are Romans." We may judge of
the numbers of faithful witnesses in the East, by the fact that
100,000 were drowned or put to the sword in the persecution by
the Empress Theodosia.

180 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
I have thus brought down these lines of witnesses to the year
900, when both the Paulicians in the East, and Gotteschalc and
Paul and Csesarius and Claude of Turin, a,nd others scarcely less
faithful, in the West, were merged in that illustrious -band,
signalized by their faithfulness to Christ and their devotedness
to the extension of his .cause, the Waldenses. About A. D.
1045, appeared Beranger,w1io declared " the see of Rome is
not the " apostolic seat, but the seat of Satan." He shrank
before persecution, it is true, and yet renounced not finally his
testimony. A faithful witness for Christ about this time shone
forth in Peter de Bruys, whose testimony may be briefly com
prehended in these words : — " Baptjsm is of no^avail without
Faith :" "Christ's body is not "present in the Eucharist; purga
tory' is a mere invention ; and the dead are not benefited by our
prayers." He was seized by the Papists and burnt to death
near Toulouse, a. d. 1126. About this time appeared Henry,
an Italian, who was the Whitefield of his day, and whose elo
quence was so persuasive, and the truths he uttered so startling,
that the eloquent Bernard of Clairvaux, the grand advocate of
Rome, and the last of the fathers, was sent to-oppose his pro
gress. Bernard thus describes the results of Henry's preaching
— which seemed to him, as a Romanist, very disastrous, but to
us evidence of good. " The churches (/. e. the Romish ones)
are without people — the people without priests — the priests left
without reverence — and the Christians without Christ (i. e. the
wafer-Christ) — no oblation for the dead, and the shrines of the
saints were utterly neglected." The charms and exorcisms of
the' priests, the gross superstition of the people, and the merce
nary exactions of the church, were swept away by the exhibition
of the dawn of that Sun of Righteousness which shone at the Re
formation in meridian glory.
The Waldenses, or Vaudois> was the modern name given to a
very ancient people composed of true Christians, protected amid
the Cottian Alps- since the days of the apostles.' They derived
their name from Peter Waldo, a merchant at Lyons, in France.
He early received the knowledge of the gospel from some of the
Paulician emigrants. He began to preach what he had received,
and was the means of converting hundreds of Roman Catholics

THE TWO WITNESSES. 181
to the truth as it is in Jesus. There is a. beautiful and interest
ing document drawn up in the year 1100, called the Noble
Lesson ; it is written, in early. French. Nothing can be more
apostolical than its language-^nothing more scriptural than its
sentiments, and it remains a standing and - eloquent proof, that
when the darkness was densest there were not wanting those who
could testify for Christ, and be his faithful witnesses.
One or two passages of this faithful and ancient testimony I
copy from Mr. Faber's translation .of it : —
" The Scripture saith, and we ought to believe it, that all men
shall pass two ways— the good to glory, the wicked to torment.
" Wherefore, whosoever wishes to do good works, he ought to
begin with giving honour to God. He ought likewise to call
upon his glorious Son, the dear Son ' of holy Mary, as also upon
the Holy Ghost, who gives to us a' good life.
' " Though one has extorted from- another ' a hundred pounds,
yet the priest will parddri him for a. hundred pence, and some
times for less, when he can get no more. And he tells him a
long story and promises him pardon, for he will say mass both
for him and his forefathers. Thus granting pardon to them
whether they be just or felonious, and he puts his hand upon
their heads. But when he leaves them he occasions a grand
festival, for he makes them to understand that they have been
very well absolved. Yet ill are .'they confessed who "are thus
faulty, and they will certainly be deceived by such- an absolution.
For I dare to say, and" it will be found very true, that-all the
popes from Sylvester down to the present one, and all the car
dinals, and bishops, and abbots, even all such put together,
have no power to absolve or pardon a single creature in regard
to a single mortal sin, inasmuch as God alone pardons, and no
other can do it.
" Those who are pastors ought to preach to the. people and
pray with them, and often feed them with divine doctrine."
Reinerus, their bitter enemy and a bigoted Papist, says- of
them — and the favourable testimony of a foe is more valuable
than the testimony of a friend : — " They are sedate,, modest;
they have no pride in clothes ; they do not carry on commerce,
that they may avoid falsehoods, oaths, and frauds; they are
16

182 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
chaste, and abstain from lying and swearing — only they "blaspheme
the Roman Church and clergy."
While he thus denounces them, he gives an account of their
missionary spirit : — " They introduce themselves to the acquaint
ance of the noble and great. Having sold rings and such like,
he is asked, have you any thing- more to sell ? He answers, I
have more precious gems. I will give them -to you if you will
not betray me to the clergy. I have one brilliant gem from God
— the Bible, whereby men may have the knowledge of God."
And what seems to be a remarkable coincidence, they are called
by this great persecutor, " the sackclotlvwearing heretics ;" and
it is no less remarkable also, that the heraldic arms of the Wal
denses, as well as the armorial bearings of their chief town, Lu
cerne, at this day, are the embodiment of the very picture given
in the Apocalypse— a candlestick with a lighted candle on it,
surrounded by this motto : " The light, shineth in the midst of
darkness." »
Such, then, is a mere sketch of the long line of witnesses,
whose testimony was heard when the visible church was dead,
and from whose lips came forth that sustained and eloquent pro
test for Christ, and against the delusions by which his glory was
eclipsed, that has made them worthy of a place in the Apocalyp
tic record as. -the witnesses for Christ — the sackcloth wearers of
Reinerus — the lights shining in darkness, according to their
own beautiful motto.
The expression, " Fire proceedeth out of their mouth and de-
voureth their enemies/' may mean, I think, that their testimony
proved to all that heard it, either the savour of life or the savour
of death. And, perhaps, according to the continuous allusive
character that pervades the Apocalypse, there is transferred to
them in reality what was gratuitously assumed by their foes, as
their own prerogative. Thus we read, for instance, that the lan
guage used by the Papal authorities of the day was, " We shut
heaven against them — we send famine and thirst — we call fire
from heaven to consume the heretics." Now says the Saviour :
" Antichrist's is an assumption — the power of the Papacy is pre
tence ; but the prerogative of my witnesses is real. The curse
pronounced by the Papacy on these my witnesses approaches them

THE TWO WITNESSES. 183
not ; but the blessing pronounced by them comes in the shape
of a consuming and corroding curse upon' all that reject and
repudiate their testimony." - -
The next statement is, when they have completed their testi
mony, " the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit -shall
make war upon- them." The phrase, " when they shall have
finished their testimony," does not mean when they shall have
finished altogether the commission with which God has charged
them. I may show this by a reference to the chapter we read
this morning. It is there said that the high-priest enters the
tabernacle continually, fulfilling or finishing or completing his
service — that is, completing his stated duties, or- the several, acts
as prescribed for -each day; but not ceasing from the priestly
office. So these" witnesses completed their, testimony— -that is,
they finished the special testimony that devolved upon them — in
short, their specific mission ;- they testified against the sacra
mental errors— the invocation of saints — the Apostasy — the
Antichrist. They closed that chapter of protest whioh was re
quired by the corruption of the age ; .but which is no more re
quired when that age has passed away. It does not mean that
the gospel ceased to be proclaimed finally just before their death,
but that these witnesses, after they had finished that special tes
timony which was required by the existing corruptions prior to
their death, should be assailed by the great antiehristian Apos
tasy, and put to death and refused the rites of Christian burial.
Now, the fact that the beast described in chap. xiii. made war
against them, is plainly proved by such acts as are contained in
the councils that were held at that period, i The fourth Lateran,
in 1215, denounced all- heretics to be extirpated, their goods to
be confiscated, and enjoined the secular power to see. that this
was done. Crusades, peculiarly sanguinary, were instigated
against the Waldenses. Children were forced to denounce their
parents when their parents were suspected of heresy, and in the
year 1488, eighteen thousand soldiers burst upon the Valle de
Louise,. and burned or drowned upward of three thousand per
sons, and had recourse to one desperate and horrible act of cru
elty, which has been' recently illustrated by their national suc
cessors in Algeria ; for when the poor Waldenses fled to dens and

184 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
caves for refuge, they piled straw and wood at the mouths of the
caves, and set fire to it :- and a few days' after -there were found
four hundred dead infants clinging to the breasts of their dead
mothers in these caves ! A terrible proof surely is this that the
beast did make war against the witnesses of Christ.
We now come to that which is the most striking and, perhaps,
the most interesting part of this history; and though I shall de
tain you twenty minutes longer, I am sure you will patiently listen
to it when you consider its importance and interest. The great
fact to which we now come is the defeat and death of the witnesses.
The witnesses, we have shown, were not two individuals, but a
succession of individuals. The death of the witnesses must,
therefore, not be the martyrdom of two. individuals, but the ex
tinction of a continuous series. The witnesses were "figurative,
being not two persons, but the symbols of a succession of per
sons ; their death must be figurative also ; in other words, it must
be the extinction of their testimony. Now, then, we come down
just to the only period in the history of Christendom during
which we learn there was a pause, awful and foreboding, in the
protest of the people of God against the a'bominations of the
Papacy. There' was no century in the fifteen but one, ^during a
part of which the anti-Papal testimony was silent. The Bohemian
Brethren at this time reported the extinction of the Waldenses.
And, in order to show you that I am not giving a sketch out of
my own imagination, but an historic fulfilment of a great pro
phetic truth, I will read to you what Milner says of the "sixteenth
century : — " The sixteenth century opened with a prospect, of all
others, the most gloomy in the eyes of every true Christian ; cor
ruption, both in doctrine and in practice, exceeded all bounds;
the Roman pontiffs were the uncontrolled patrons of impiety.
The Waldenses were too feeble to resist the popedom, and the
Hussites were- reduced to silence." Such is the testiriiony of
Milner as to the commencement of th6 sixteenth century.
Mr. Cuninghame of Lainshaw, who has written most power
fully and eloquently on prophecy, says — "At the commence
ment of the sixteenth century, Europe reposed in the deep sleep
of spiritual death under the iron yoke of the Papacy. That
haughty power, like the Assyrian of the prophet, said, in the

THE TWO WITNESSES. 185
plenitude of insolence, 'My hand hath found as a nest the riches
of the people, and as one gathereth- eggs have I gathered- all the
earth, and there- was none that moved the wing, or opened the
mouth, or peeped.' " Mosheim writes — " At the commencement
of the sixteenth century, no danger seemed to threaten the
Roman pontiffs. The agitation -previously excited by,the Wal
denses and the Bohemians was suppressed by the council and the
sword, and the surviving remnant was an object -of coptempt
rather than fear." And, in an article in the "Encyclopaedia
Britannica" upon the Reformation, it is stated that, at the com
mencement of the sixteenth century, " every thing was quiet —
every heretic was extirpated."
Notice, in the next place, what is stated in the chapter : —
" Their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the city, which
spiritually is called. Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord
(xupios auraJv) was- crucified." Now what was that city?- That
city is described in Rev. xvii. as Rome ecclesiastical, as distin
guished from the city of God, of- which believers are citizens.
Quesnel, a witness, called the Rome of that day "Egypt and
Sodom." Grostete called the Romish despotism " Egyptian
bondage ;" and Luther, when he speaks of Rome, calls it worse
than Sodom and even Gomorrah. And the expression, " where
also their Lord was crucified," is explained by a parallel expres
sion : " Ye have crucified Christ afresh, and put him to an open
shame." And you will notice that just as the twelve tribes of
Israel, to whom in their apostasy Rome is" likened, had its capi
tal, Jerusalem ; so Roman Christendom had Rome "for its capi
tal ; as Christ was literally .crucified at Jerusalem, the capital
of the first, so he was spiritually crucified in Rome, the capital
of the second or the great Apostasy.
You will also notice, that it is said "their bodies shall lie in
the street of the city," and the word which is here translated
" street" is dckarela, and the meaning of it is the market-place,
or forum. The market-place or forum was the place where
justice was administered — political discussions were held — con
troversial proceedings were settled — it was the tribunal of the
judge, the place in which equity was statedly dispensed. And
we read, .that just as the Jews looked to Jerusalem of old, as
16*

186 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the great centre -of all justice, so Christendom looked in the
Middle Ages to Rome as the great seat of moral, ecclesiastical,
and judicial jiower. Gibbon writes, "The nations began once
more to seek on the banks of the Tiber the laws and oracles of
their fate."
Then, in the next place, it speaks of those who were in this
great city, " which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where
also our Lord was crucified" — as "they of the people and kin
dreds and tongues and nations," Ix rmv Idvmv. This language
conveys the idea of representation, and means the representatives
from nations and peoples. It. is not said, "the people and
tongues and kindreds and nations shall see their dead bodies,"
brit it says, "they of the people," Ix t<5v kawv, "they who are the
representatives or deputies- of the people and nations and kin
dreds "shall see their dead bodies." We are led by this very
language to the idea of representation; and the only idea of re
presentation in the Middle Ages was that exhibited in a general
council. During the, years 1512 onward to 1514, the great
council of the- Lateran was held under Julius H., and by Leo
X., in the most conspicuous place or izXareia at Rome; and one
of the speakers in the midst of the council made the remark,
"This is the meeting-place of Europe;" a natural remark, in
Rome, the great centre of -the Western world; and the use of
the very language of the Apocalypse, though unconsciously and
undesignedly. Now the professed object of this council, we read,
was the exaltation of the church, and the extirpation of heresy
and heretics, or, in Apocalyptic language, "the death of the
witnesses." The Waldenses of Piedmont and the Lollards of
England were declared, at that council, to be already extermi
nated. The Bohemians, it was said alone, remained. The Bo
hemians were therefore summoned at the 8th session of the
council, in the year 1513, to appear and plead, in person or by
deputy, on the 5th of May, 1514, in the forum, or the broad
street, or market-place at Rome, before the representatives of all
peoples and nations and kindreds and tongues. The Waldenses,
it was allowed, were extirpated, the Lollards in England were
declared to be silenced; the only heretics that remained were the
Bohemians, and these were thus summoned with a year's notica

THE TWO WITNESSES. 187
to appear before the council on May 5th, 1514. Did they do
so ? Luther appeared at Worms and entered his eloquent pro
test in the face of all opposition. Huss also appeared at Con
stance ; but such was the depression- of the witnesses of Christ
at this time, that not one witness, in- person or by representation,
appeared on the 5th of May, 1514, to testify for Christ, and
against the superstitions of the Papacy. Not a mouth was
opened, not a wing fluttered. The testimony of the witnesses
Was suppressed, and the orator of the council, after the heretics
had been summoned and no response or appearance made,
ascended the pulpit, and pronounced, amid the applause and
plaudits of the assembled bishops, "Jam nemo reclamat, nullus
obsistit" — "Not one protests, not one opposes," i. e. no heretic
appears, heresy, is extinct. Here, then, we have the heretics
summoned to appear in the year 1514, on the 5th of May; on
their non-appearance on that . day, the council, by a public act,
writes their epitaph — proclaims their special testimony finished —
declares that there was not one ready to appear before them and
attest the truth of their creed.
This I hold to be the evidence of "the death of the witnesses;"
there being complete and concurrent evidence that their testimony
was silenced. The two witnesses were slain.
It is added, "they of the nations," i. e. their representatives,
" shall not suffer their dead bodies to be buried." Now, what
was part of the sentence of the Church of Rome on heretics, not
only in this council, but in the third and fourth Lateran and in
previous councils ? It was, that heretics should be denied Chris
tian burial — a prescription borrowed from paganism. The
Council of Constance, for instance, ordered Wicliffe's body to
be exhumed and burned. The ashes of John Huss were cast
into the Lake of Constance — they were too impure to be honoured
with the rites and ceremonies of Christian burial ; and some of
whom we have recently read in the papers, and whose names
have therefore gained an unhappy notoriety, have thus shown
themselves- the successors not of Christ, but of Antichrist, inas
much aa they have refused to bury the bodies of the saints of
God, because they had not been baptized according to the formu
laries which they prefer in administering Christian baptism.

188 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Thus the Lateran Council pronounced the death of the witnesses.
It also decreed that the bodies of heretics should not- have Chris
tian burial; and thus unconsciously drew up ecclesiastical canons
which remain to this day as illustrative commentaries upon this
passage in the Apocalypse, " They of the kindreds, and nations,
and people., and tongues, shall not suffer their bodies to be piut
in graves."
It is stated, in the next place, in this chapter, "They that
dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry,
and. shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets
tormented them that dwelt on the earth." That is, they shall
be so delighted that the heretics are extirpated, and their testi
mony extinguished, that they "will make merry and send con
gratulatory gifts one to another." I open the page of history,
and there I read that Pope Leo, the reigning pontiff, received
splendid gifts from various realms, and especially from the king
of Portugal, with congratulations that Rome was now supreme,
and the pope conferred on that king in return half the Eastern
world. At the close of this very Council of Lateran, which
pronounced the epitaph of the witnesses; the most splendid fetes
and the most luxurious dinners were given — toasts were drunk —
eloquent speeches were made — Congratulations the most fervent
were expressed, and the special subject of joy, says the historian,
was the total reduction of the heretics, and healing of the French
schism : "And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over
them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; be
cause these two prophets - tormented them that dwelt upon the
earth." Dean Waddington, an able historian of the church,
says, "At this moment the pillars of the Papal strength seemed-
visible and palpable, and Rome surveyed them with exultation;
from her golden palaces." "The assembled princes and prelates.
separated from the council with complacency, confidence, and.
mutual congratulations on the peace, unity, and purity .of the.
church." -!-,*'
Now, then, we have seen the death of the witnesses of Christ — i
we have heard the echoes of the congratulations of the Apostasy ,t
but those congratulations were as short-lived as they were im-j
pious : the Spirit of God had written, and popes^ must come downj

THE TWO WITNESSES. 189
from their thrones to help to fulfil it — "They shall stand again
upon their feet" — they shall experience a resurrection, and hear
the invitation of him that consecrated their hearts by his grace,
and gave them their commission in his word, " Come up hither."
Is there, then, in fact, any thing that fulfills tire prophecy of
their resurrection, as close, clear, and conclusive as that which
we have adduced to prove the- fulfilment of their martyrdom and
death? I quote not only from writers of the 19th, but from an
historian of an earlier date. Raynaldus, the Romish annalist,
says, "How ill the laws against heretics were observed, appears
from the great spread of Luther's heresy very soon after the
council separated." And Mr. Cuninghame of Lainshaw remarks,
"A.t the commencement of the "sixteenth century, Europe reposed
in the deep sleep of spiritual death, under the iron yoke of the
Papacy, but suddenly, in one of the universities of Germany, the
voice of an obscure monk was heard, the sound of which rapidly
filled Germany, Saxony, and- Europe itself, shaking the very
foundations of Papal power, and arousing men from the lethargy
of ages." How does the chronology of prophecy and history
agree? Most strikingly. We are. told that the time during
which the witnesses were to lie unburied was three-^and a half
prophetical days, or, literally, three years and a half, at the end
of which they were ' to rise from the dead. The council pro
claimed on May 5th, A. D. 1514, "Nemo reclamat, nullus obsis-
tit," which is substantially, "Heresy is extinguished;" this we
have seen, was the death of the witnesses. On October 31st,
1517, Martin Luther made the first proclamation of the gospel,
by posting his theses' upon the gates of the church of Wittem
berg on that very day. The number of years from 1514 to 1517
is precisely three; from May 5th to October 31st, is precisely
180 days, or half a literal year. From the -period, therefore, at
which the death of the witnesses was- proclaimed, and their
epitaph was written, till the moment that their resurrection took
place, there elapsed precisely three years and a half. " Great
fear," we are told', "fell upon them which saw them;" not on
the representatives at the council, for they made merry; and
Leo, too, thought it was the work of 'a foolish monk — the gam
bols of a German friar, that the very smell of the olden weapons

190 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
of Rome-^the fire arid the fagot — would quickly extinguish;
but he knew not, as I have showed, the metal of the man.
Tetzel, Cajetan, and Eck trembled as they listened to Martin
Luther: it was literally true that "great fear came upon them"
— they believed that .the day of the glory of Rome was gone;
they thought they heard from afar the intimations of its fall;
they fancied that already they were- listening to the footsteps of
its departing glory"; and again, they literally trembled as they
listened to Martin Luther. Pope Adrian exclaimed, A. d. 1523,
as if to illustrate the prophecy, "The preachers Huss and Jerome
are now alive again in the person of Martin Luther." True it
was, the great deception of ages was to be now unvailed — the
Apostasy was set in the light of that, truth which depicts all
things truly — the doctrines of the gospel began to spread like
summer lightning from cloud to cloud, till Luther and his fellow
Reformers in 1530, just at the close of the Council of Augsburg,
united at Smalcald, and proclaimed the identity of- the Reformers
with the medieval witnesses of the East and West, by calling
themselves Protestants, {pro and testis,)— that is, the Wit
nesses.

191

LECTURE XI.
THE TWO WITNESSES.
IHEIK, ASCENSION.
"And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into
them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them- which saw
them. "Arid they heard a great voice from heaven, saying unto them, Come up
hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud ; and their enemies beheld
them. \ v
"And tho same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth partof the
city fell,- and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand :. and the
remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
"The second wo is past; and, behold, the third wo cometh quickly."—
Bevelation xi. 11—14.
I presume that many who are assembled together this evening
have heard the previous lectures on this most interesting subject:
I presume, too, that you are satisfied with the grounds on which
I have fixed the chronology of this scene in the Apocalypse, and
that you have shared with me in the satisfaction I felt when I
first perused the proofs of the fulfilment of it, and became con
vinced that the witnesses are that illustrious and luminous line
of Christian martyrs who, beginning with the age of Augustine,
terminated their testimony for a season in the greater glories of
the Reformation.
, Some of the points in the last evening's lecture I cannot but
recapitulate. , First, the witnesses were not two individuals, but -a succession
of individuals. Secondly, the number, two, is specified, because,
in the Mosaic economy, two witnesses were the fewest that con-
stituted_ conclusive evidence ; and , they were two, to show that
the witnessing church was reduced to its least possible number
consistent with a valid testimony. I stated that these witnesses

192 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
were emphatically called the witnesses of Christ — witnesses of his
eternal Deity — of the perfection of his sacrifice — to his intrans
missible priesthood— arid to his promise that he will come again.
- These witnesses were to be killed. As the witnesses were a
succession of individuals, or, in other words, represented under a
figurative form, so, in "consonance with this, I said their death
must be a figurative death also. In the year 1514, the last links
of the line — the Waldenses — were almost extirpated — the Lollards
in England were entirely. silenced, and the last echoes of protest
lingered among the Bohemians. The Lateran Council assembled
on the 5th of May, 1514 — assembled expressly for the purpose
of exalting the church, and exterminating heresy. The Bo
hemians, the Waldenses, the Vaudois, and the Lollards had been
summoned to appear at that council, and to defend their princi
ples' or renounce them. When Luther was summoned, he ap
peared : when Huss was summoned to Constance, he obeyed also;
but when "these witnesses, the last remains of the upholders of
Christian truth, were summoned to the Lateran, on May 5th,
1514, so weakened was their strength — so erushed their spirit —
so truly dead — that the orator of the council mounted the pulpit,
and amid the plaudits of the assembled cardinals and bishops,
cried "Nullus reclamat, nemo obsistit" — "there is no one to
appear ;" or, if I might explain it, " heresy is." extinguished, the
church is triumphant, exclusive, and supreme."
I expressed my belief that this was the death of the witnesses.
It is then stated that their dead bodies should not be buried. I
showed you how this confirms the application of their death to
the epoch I have supposed, for the very language of the Romish
councils in dealing with the bodies of dead heretics is here em
ployed in the Book of Revelation. It was the decision of that
council that the dead bodies of heretics should not have Christian
burial. I showed you therefore that the circumstance, of which
you must have read in the papers a few years back, of certain in
dividuals refusing to give Christian burial to those who had not
been baptized according to their formula, is not at all a novel
thing, nor is there any thing strange in it, nor even unexpected,
from the principles professed and held by the party. This part
of their weapons was borrowed from the arsenal of Jhose c'ham-

THE TWO WITNESSES. 193
pions from whom they had derived their principles — the canons
and decretals 'of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus these wit
nesses of Christ were not allowed Christian burial. They were
proscribed, and denied all intercourse, and so for three years and
a half, called prophetically three days and a half, they were almost
unknown, unseen, and unheard.- The two witnesses lay dead and
unburied. They were so treated because they witnessed against
that apostasy to whom all consecrated earth and funeral rites
pertained. But, it is said, that -after three years and a half they should
experience a. resurrection. Is there in history any corresponding
fulfilment of this ? Let us see : on the 31st October, 1517, Mar
tin Luther starts into view as if he had dropped, from the sky,
posts his ninety-five theses upon the gates, of the parish, church
of Wittemberg, then the only mode\}f public advertisement, starts
the slumbering echoes of all but extinguished truth, wakens
Europe from its nightmare sleep ; summoned from then." graves
the Witnesses that were slain — and they received life from heaven,
started to their feet, and raised again their testimony after three
and a half years' silence, in the hearing of amazed arid awed
Christendom. Count from, the 5th of May, 1514,'to the 31st of
October, 1517, and you will find it precisely three years and a
half. " ,,
Thus, then, we have the death, the burial, and the resurrection
of the witnesses. But I must notice another point of contact
between the prophecy and history : when the witnesses were slain,
and when the council had separated, all believing that heresy
was extinct, and hence, " they of the people, and kindreds, and
tongues, and nations shall rejoice over them, and make merry,
and shall send. gifts one to another;" as it was written in verse 9.
It is not said the people, but " they of the people"- — it involves
the idea of representation, Ix tujv Xamv, that is, the representatives
of the people and the tribes. Here, then, we have described the
feelings cherished by the delegates or representatives at that
council, and the mode in which they manifested those feelings.
When the Lateran Council which pronounced the death of the
witnesses was dissolved, brilliant fetes were celebrated by its
members at Rome ; cardinals and bishops, and popes and abbots,
' 17

194 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
and princes and high laymen,, its members, assembled in all the
splendour of costume — in all " the pomp of Papal circumstance ;"
and at these fetes toasts were drunk — congratulations were ex
pressed— ^and all bore on the point mora or less, that the church
at last had triumphed, that the heresy of the Bohemians and the
Vaudois was extinguished for ever, and so "they of the nations
rejoiced over their" dead bodies, and made merry."
-It is >lso said that they should " send gifts one to another."
Historians who have investigated the era, state that kings- and
emperors transmitted to the pope magnificent presents, and ac
companied these presents with expressions of their great satis
faction that the church was triumphant, and at peace. Three
years and a half, however, elapsed, and what they called heresy
appeared again, personated in that noble character — that true hero
—Martin Luther, the solitary monk that shook the world — who
revived the protest of his fathers, and bequeathed us the legacy
of an unshackled Bible— a glorious gospel — an independent and
emancipated church.*
I will. now follow out my remarks upon the witnesses, by ex
plaining what is here stated of their standing on their feet, their
* I may, in this place, refer to " Luther, a Poem," by my friend, Robert
Montgomery, a man of great and true genius, whose latter writings in prose
are full of original and powerful thought. His poem on Luther needs com
pression, but passages -of great' force and striking poetic beauty abound in it.
"In thy heart,. heroic England, long
- May Luther's voice and Luther's spirit live
Unsilenced and unshamed. Thou peerless home
Of liberty and laws, of arts' and arms,
Of learning, love, and eloquence divine,
Where' Shakspeare dream'd, and sightless Milton soar'd,
Whore heroes bled, and martyrs for the truth
Have died the burning death,
Land of the beautiful, the brave, the free,
Never, oh, nover ! round thy yielded soul,
May damning Popery its rust-worn chain
, Of darkness rivet :
Without the Bible, Britain's life-blood chills,
And curdles. ,
Reft of her Bible, not a drop remains
Of holy life-blood in the nation's heart."
Robt. Montgomery's Luther, p. 346.

THE TWO WITNESSES. 195
ascending- up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beholding
them. First of all, it will be asked, What is meant by the expression,
" they ascended up to heaven in a cloud ?" This is1 not the
heaven in which God's throne is; and for this reason, among
others, theirenemies beheld them after they had ascended, which
they could not have done if the ascent had been into literal
heaven. It is to be interpreted in accordance with the great
principles on which we have hitherto proceeded— the recognition
of a figurative phraseology, borrowed partly from the centuries
as they flowed and circumstances to which the - book refers, and
partly from the usages, habits, and expressions of the .Levitical
economy. I find in Isaiahrxiv. 13, an explanation of the expres
sion- " ascending into heaven ;" when the proud despot says, " I
will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars'
of God ; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the
sides of the north" — that is', I will possess supreme power, I will
exercise unlimited despotism, I will occupy the loftiest pinnacle
of pre-eminence and of power that the heart of ambition can crave,
or the imagination can conceive. I understand, therefore, by the
expression, "they ascended up to heaven," that the witnesses,
i. e. the witnessing churches, or those faithful ones to whom I
have referred, obtained great civil and national power — were
raised from the depths of depression to the very height of emi
nence and power. I am not asking your approval or disapproval;
or expressing my own, of investing the church with political
power ; I do not ask whether or not you coincide with the opi
nion that the church should be established^this is a question.
which does not enter into this subject": all I state is the simple
feet, that to ascend into heaven, according to Apocalyptic phrase-
lology, means to be elevated to the possession of civil power, and
'that facts, recorded in the pages of historians, bear me "out in this
interpretation of the passage. What, then, was the historical
occurrence that confirms the assertion in the Apocalypse ? Soon
after the prescriptive decree of Augsburg, what was called the
Pacification of Nuremberg was passed : at the moment that that
Pacification was passed, in the sixteenth century, the period at
which we are now arrived, the decree went forth -through the

196 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
length and breadth of Germany — the first for. a thousand years—
that Protestantism should not be crushed by proscriptive penal
ties, nor Protestants exterminated by the sword. In other
words, toleration, took place where proscription had been before ;
and the Church of Rome, so far as the civil power was con
cerned, was driven to contend with Protestantism by the use of
argument, and to sheathe, at least for a season, the sword of per
secution. Principal Robertson, the great historian, and a more
illustrious historian than a divine — more accurate in his facts
than scriptural in his theology — makes the observation : " From
having been viewed hitherto only as a religious sect, the Pro
testants came now, after the Pacification of Nuremberg, to be
considered as a political body jof no small importance." And
although the death of Luther seemed to be an interruption of
their prosperity, and the assembling of the Council of Trent in
1552, which, sat for ten years and upward, seemed to threaten
their extermination again ; yet the peace of Passau, which took
place in 1552, not only confirmed the toleration of Protestants,
but also admitted them to civil power, and invested them with
political privileges, and made them constituent members of the
Supreme Imperial Chamber. Here, then, the first time for a
thousand years, truth is recognised, or at least tolerated, by the
kings and the powers of the earth : from being crushed and trod
den down by the iron heel of tyranny, Christianity stood forth
emancipated from its shackles— protected by the sceptre, and
nestling under the shelter of the imperial throne, adding by its
contact new splendour to the crown, and new stability and
strength to the. sceptre, Such, then, is the fulfilment of this
prophecy. The witnesses ascended up to heaven ; they riot only
rose in the fact of their resurrection from .the depths -of the
earth, but rose in the fact .of their recognition by the "powers
that be" to great honour.
It is added, " their enemies beheld them." This expresses
emotion. What does it mean ? It is this : the priests and pre
lates of Rome, who saw their ascent, were enraged at the spec
tacle. What could be more terrible to the Church of Rome
than to see the Bible open, in spite of their efforts to shut it-
palaces admit it — kings listening to Protestant preachers — the

THE TWO WITNESSES. 197
great ones of the earth beginning to think that Rome wa9 the
Apostasy — that the monk was right — that Protestantism was
true; They beheld it with envy, with hatred, with agitation,
and with alarm. -
It is then added, " there was a great earthquake." Now, we
explain, the expression, as we have explained .similar expressions
used in the Apocalypse, as being not a literal earthquake merely,
though this is true, but a moral or a spiritual one. We then
ask, Was there any thing approaching this in historical fact?
Soon the fulfilment of it appeared. ' There took place- a great
schism in the popedom — a complete disruption in the power and
dominion of the Roman Catholic hierarchy — a moral earthquake —
Saxony,- Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark renounced the supremacy
of the tiara, and rallied round their own national altars, and
raised a wall between' them and the popedom that all the artifices
of the Jesuits have not been able to undermine.
It is added, in the next place, that " the tenth part of the city
fell." I have already intimated, what I shall have to explain
when the proper time for explanation shall arrive, that the Ro
man empire under the popedom was divided into ten great divi
sions. This was prefigured in Daniel ; it is also expressly stated
in the Apocalypse : and one of the greatest of the ten kingdoms
was Great Britain. It was one of the ten sections into which the
popedom was divided. Now, it is here stated, that the tenth
part of the popedom fell. Can we be ignorant of a fact in his
tory that illustrates this part of the prophecy ? Great Britain
separated from the popedom at the Reformation ; the most bril
liant gem in the tiara was then torn from its socket, and lost to
the pope, I hope, I pray, for ever and ever. By whom was it
thus severed? By as bad a man as ever walked the earth, and
as corrupt arid as wicked a king as ever swayed a sceptre, which
Roman Cathblics will tell you, when they are tired of repeating
that our religion is the religion of Martin Luther, though surely
it is not a greater shame to have the "religion of Martin Luther
than to have the religion of Hildebrand, or Alexander VI;, or
Innocent III. At the same time, our religion, as I showed you,
is not the religion of Luther. It was the creed, but not tho
creation of that man;' and if Luther were to say one thing, and'
- 17*

198 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
an apostle were to say the contrary, we should cast Luther's opi
nion to the winds, and receive the word of the apostle. Henry
VIII., then, I say, was the person who awoke. the vibrations of
the earthquake that detached England from the influence of
Rome. . Roman Catholics taunt us with Henry VIII. as one of
our founders ; but they must surely forget that never did a de-
vouter Papist count his beads, or confess his sins, or be shrived,
than Henry VIII. All he meant to do was this : that the
reigning pontiff should not be pope, and that he himself should
be pope in his stead. He renounced not Popery, but the pope.
His own supremacy, not that of truth, was his aim. He severed
Englandf rom Rome. He did not sanctify it for God. Hatred
to the pope, not attachment to truth, led" him. He renounced
superstition one day, and embraced it 'the next. He burned
Roman Catholics for believing transubstantiation, and Protestants
for doubting, disputing, or denying it. At the approach of
death, Henry VIII.. had an altar erected by his bedside, and a
priest to offer up the sacrifice of the mass, and say prayers to de
liver his soul from purgatory. He was used as an instrument,
and that was all. So was Gyrus. So was Alexander. So was
Napoleon., There was a great wall between the sinner and his
God, and it mattered little whether that wall was shattered by
the lightning's flash, or upheaved by the earthquake, or blasted
by gunpowder, or battered down by the battering-ram; it was
removed, in order that communion might be restored be
tween the guilty and his God, between the sinner and his
Saviour. But while Henry VHI. thus constituted by his act the earth
quake, it was reserved for Edward VI. to introduce positive truth
instead ©f mere negative protest ; and after Edward VI. we read
of the noble — -noble as far as they were Protestant — the noble
efforts of Elizabeth, to help forward the great and blessed truths
of the Reformation.
Not only England, thus separated from the popedom, but
Scotland also. In 1560, the Reformation was established in
Scotland. And in their respective separations you cannot but
notice how tho two great divisions of the empire were added to
the possessions of the church of the gospel by different processes.

THE TWO WITNESSES. 199
In England it came from the throne downward, and descended
slowly to the mass of the -people, and it carried with it in its
descent a portion of the. medium through which it came. In
Scotland the Reformation passed like an electric spark through
the masses of the people ; it shot upward, illuminating and agi
tating as it rose ; it moved from the basis of the pyramid till it
gleamed with heavenly coruscation on'the loftiest pinnacle of its
apex. In England, the Reformation was achieved by degrees,
and many things retained to conciliate as many as possible, and
one or two things,- as the Absolution Service, most unhappily.
In Scotland, the Reformation completely triumphed ; and what
ever may be our defects in Scotland, we have not much Popery.
It is true we do sometimes quarrel — and yet these quarrels" show
the depth and earnestness of our religious principles ; men rarely
quarrel about mere trifles — there must be something that is felt
to be important in order to originate a dispute. Our quarrels,
arise, not from hatred to each other, but if by mistake, yet really
from love to our Bible, our religion, and our God. In England
they had the good taste to spare, what they had in .Scotland -the
Protestant zeal in many instances to destroy, those ancient abbeys
and convents, and those beautiful cathedrals— Hhose silent poems
— which seem as if the very stones of the- earth, bursting into
blossom, sent fragrant incense to the skies. My poetic feelings
have sometimes predominated, and made me congratulate this
land that its cathedrals had been spared; and this same feeling
has borne me to Scotland, and made me almost weep that more
of those beautiful cathedrals were not left to be consecrated by
truth, as is the case with St. Machar's, St. Mungo's, and St.
Giles's, and to adorn and still beautify the land ; but when my
poetry evaporated, and my Christianity predominated, and I
recollected that if you want me to point to the spot where spiritual
religion is certainly not most aided — where, the hard-working
parish ministers are worst paid — and where the flood of supersti
tion, should it come again, will find every receptacle ready for its
reflux, you force me, in spite of all my poetic sympathies, to point
to the vicinity of our ancient cathedrals. The truth is, cathedrals
are not adapted to Protestant worship except by the process we
have adopted in Scotland, turning the choir into one parish church,

200 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
and the nave into another-1— a suggestion they have partially
adopted at Chichester. Knox put forth a strong hand, and gave
perhaps too heavy a blow — he was not satisfied with driving the
monks out of Scotland, he brought down their convents too — he
pulled duwn the rooks' nests, as he said, and the rooks fled away.
Yet it was the convents, not the cathedrals, he thought were irre
claimable. He wished, and was not able, to spare all the latter.
Whatever we have in Scotland, however, we have very little of
Popery, and therefore when you blame us for our quarrels, praise
us for our Protestantism — when you denounce Knox as a Goth,
forget not he was a Christian. When you denounce him as an
architectural Hun, think also of the blessings he was instrumental
in bequeathing to _us and to our children, and our children's
children. Another expression' occurs in the passage, which leads us yet
more plainly to fix the chronology of the event as we have done,
viz. the statement, that there was not only an earthquake, but
also that there was killed or slain of men seven thousand. In
the original the expression is " seven chiliads, the names of men."
On referring to the -Old Testament Scriptures, I find that the
chiliads denoted princedoms, under the domination or rule of a
prince. Thus the very word is used in a passage in the Prophet
Micah, " But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little
among" — in our translation, " the thousands," it is literally,
"among the chiliads of Judah." When the Evangelist quotes
the prediction of the prophet, he says, "least among the princes
of Juda." I am therefore carried to the conclusion, that the
seven chiliads that were slain were provinces, each province under
its ruler, its supreme, magistrate or governing officer. Do we
find, then, seven provinces or. princedoms split from the Papal
ecclesiastical tyranny by this great earthquake? We do; for
after England and Scotland had followed in the wake of Germany,
and reflected from their shores also the echoes of the voice of
Martin Luther, we read, what completely confirms the prediction
of the Apocalypse, .that the Seven Provinces of ' the Netherlands,
which had heretofore been subject to Spain, and adhering to the
Papacy, began to feel the earthquake. They were assailed by
the Spaniards in a bloody war of thirty-seven years without sue-

THE TWO WITNESSES. 201
cess, and at last their independence was declared.. These Seven Pro
vinces, under the ruling dukes or princes, separated from the pope
dom at this very period, and formed themselves into the Protestant
republic of Holland, next to Britain the most glorious protesting
nation against the corruptions and superstitions of the Papacy.
Then it is said, they, that is, the Romanists, " were affrighted."
That is, those who were left by the secession of those countries,
and nations, and empires, that seceded from the Roman Catholic
Church. We read, accordingly, that the Romanists, when" they
recollected the cruelties they had perpetrated — when the remem
brance of their crimes was brought vividly before them, and when,
in connection with this, they saw the hated Protestants raised to
civil and political power, they were affrighted; they expected
that the day of vengeance, the hour of retaliation was come, and
having been themselves accustomed to act upon the principle,
" an eye for an eye, 'a tooth for a tooth," and judging of Pro
testants by their own spirit, they thought that Protestants would
puriish, persecute, proscribe, and burn those- who had .so treated
them in times that were gone. > It is true, and it ought to be ad
mitted, that the great Protestant nations omitted, in some respects,
to act in the spirit of the religion which they had embraced. It
is too true, that each nation stole or borrowed from Rome too
many of the weapons that are now peculiar to Rome ; yet one
wonders not at it, for at this very period, such was the alarm of
the Protestant nations at the reflux of Popery, and with Popery,
persecution, that penal laws of the most bitter and stringent de
scription were recorded in the statute-books of every country, jn
self-defence ; and even the Reformers themselves sanctioned the
incorporation of sueh prescriptive laws. For instance, it ought
" not to be disguised, — for we must never try to serve the cause of
truth by the concealment or denial of facts; truth will always
stand, it will never suffer by the avowal of facts, — that Cranmer
sanctioned the burning of two Anabaptists. John Knox, I need
not tell you, believed, and preached, and wrote, that all priests
that said mass, and all Roman Catholics that were present, ought
to be put to death. Roman Catholics will tell you so, and when
they so tell you, admit and regret it, but be sure at the same time-
to ask them, where did they learn these tenets ? Cranmer was

202 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
once a Roman Catholic priest — Knox was also brought up a
Roman Catholic priest — they imbibed persecution with their
mother's milk — it was in their catechism,. their creeds and horn
books. ¦_ The wonder to me is,, not that the Reformers retained so
much of Popery, but that they shook off so much. The wonder
to me is, not that they retained so much of its spirit, but that
they got rid of so. much of its spirit : and when Rome twits us
with the proscriptions of Knox, she ought to recollect that she
was the nursery in which Knox was taught to cherish these pro
scriptions.. Here, too, is an important difference : we Protestants
are getting rid of our prescriptive laws. I was therefore delighted
when I heard of some penal laws, absurd and inoperative in them
selves, cancelled from our statute-book. I rejoiced that such
proscriptions, and pains, and penalties were repealed. How ab
surd to retain an act, that if any Roman Catholic priest travelled
more than a certain distance- from his residence on the Sabbath,
he should be put in prison ! I believe it is but two years since
that was expunged, and if there be any remaining penalties of the
same description in our statute-book, I should rejoice to hear that
they were expunged also. Here, then, is evidence of our im
provement; but when we act "so generously, ought we not to
expect the Church of Rome to reciprocate our kindness ? Does
she do so ? What is the oath of every Roman Catholic bishop ?
There is to be a Roman Catholic archbishop of Westminster, what is
his oath ? I have in my possession the oath taken by every Roman
Catholic bishop at his consecration, and one clause in it is, (Dr.
Wiseman and every Roman Catholic bishop in England has taken
this oath,) " I will persecute and attack all heretics and dis
senters." They avow their intention to burn heretics. A Popish
prelate, when ho presides at the auto-da-fe acts consistently. I
like to see men act consistently with their principles, and if the
Romish Church will act honestly, and carry out her principles to
full practice, we shall then learn at last what Popery is. While,
then, wc are blotting out all that, is penal in our statute-book, I
should wish to convey one solitary petition to that pope who
reigns in the hearts of all Roman Catholics, who is called tho Re
forming Pope, and who seems to have a desire for civil freedom,
which we cannot but commend. I would explain my petition

THEcTWO WITNESSES. 203
thus : — When Dr. Wiseman comes to London, he builds his chapel,
worships in it according to his own views — he summons his meet
ings, (I have attended some of them,) circulates their tracts,
makes speeches against Protestantism, says strong things in favour
of Romanism, and nobody interferes with them : I should de
nounce the practice of the man' as altogether contrary to the prin
ciples of his Bible who.should try to interfere with them. I would
give them full, unfettered, unrestricted freedom. Liberty of con
science to friend and foe is a principle of ours. But now let me
ask of Pius IX. — so generous, so liberal, so reforming — that he
will allow — and I am sure there is not an individual in Exeter
Hall who will not accede to my proposal, when I make it, for
contributions to enable us to do so — that he will allow a Pro
testant church (let him make a selection from all the denomina
tions in England ; let him choose the very worst ; it will be far
preferable to his own) to be built in Rome within the walls — let
him select, or suffer, any preacher out of a list I will give him, to
preach in it ; and then let him allow me to spread the tracts of
the Tract Society, in which there is nothing sectarian or denomi
national — let me ask this extent of freedom — will he grant it?
No ! He never has granted it ; he never can grant it consistently
with his principles ; and I should say, the doom of the Popedom
is sealed the moment that you hear that Protestant chapels arid
preachers are tolerated in Rome. Popery cannot afford it; it
would not do there at all. . We can afford to be generous without
loss or compromise. But Popery cannot afford to be tolerant;
to permit the propagation of truth would be an act of suicide.
There is one point more in the history of the witnesses, and a
very beautiful and interesting one it is. It is said, when the wit
nesses ascended into heaven, the remnant of the Apostasy that
saw their advancement trembled at the spectacle, and, it is added,
they gave " glory to the God of heaven." Unfortunately, this is
not an accurate and true translation of the passage I have read.
Every scholar acquainted with the idiom and structure of the
Greek will allow that the signification is, " they" (i. e. the Pa
pists) "were affrighted," and they, the witnesses, (not the Pa
pists,) " gave glory to the God of heaven." This- is an historical
description of the affrighted Romanists : side by side with a de-

204 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
scription of the feelings which actuated the elevated and tri
umphant witnesses. Tho assertion, then,' is, that after their eleva
tion to power — after the close of their long and painful depres
sion — after they had come to worship in splendid churches, no
longer in dens and caves of the earth, proscribed-, persecuted, and
trampled upon — they, the Christians, felt that all the glory (and
this is the grand peculiarity- of Protestant truth) was to be given,
not to Luther, who had proved so indomitable a champion — not
to Knox, who had been faithfhl among the faithless many— not
to Calvin, so evangelical, so eloquent — not to any of that illus
trious line of witnesses that preceded them; but they gave the
glory of an unfettered Bible — an emancipated church — a fully
preached gospel — unto him to whom the glory alone was due/ the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You will see, also, a beautiful instance in this of what we have
called the allusive character of the records in the Apocalypse :
when St. John speaks of some great evangelical truth, as strongly
illustrated at some particular period in the history of the church,
it always conveys, by allusion or by contrast, the exhibition of
some rampant and predominating heresy. Now, when it is said
the Protestants gave glory to God, it conveys, by allusion, the
painful fact that the Roman Catholics, ever as they had gained an
object they' had prayed for, or attained the success they had an
ticipated, gave the glory to saints, or to the Virgin Mary. Saint
Patrick used to get the glory in Ireland,- Saint Andrew in Scot
land, and Saint George in England, and the Virgin everywhere.
And if at this moment you cross the sea, and enter the first port
in Belgium, (and I am sure that every Englishman who visits the
continent will return to his own country, and bless God that he
was born in a land of liberty, and has been made acquainted with
the Bible,) you will find in each of their most beautiful ca
thedrals a huge statue of the Virgin Mary — you will see silver
hearts nailed to the pedestal on~ which she stands, giving her the
glory of Cures and deliverances. I recollect, too, on a visit to
the chapel of Jesu Flagellt", which is within five miles of Bou
logne, seeing on its walls children's' Caps. and shoes, and crutches,
and also model ships and boats hung around the statues of saints
and saintesses, and of the Virgin Mary, designed to teach that all

THE TWO WITNESSES. 205
the glory of these children's recovery, and of sailors' escape from
shipwreck, is to be ascribed to the Virgin. We have, then, I
say, here, contrasted with this the fact that the Protestants
"gave glory to the God of heaven." Strype, in his preface,
among other extracts, gives the following : " Elizabeth, preparing
her heart, and giving God the glory, was in a few years made
strong against her enemies." Strype also gives extracts from, a
thanksgiving of the English Protestant " exiles, called, " Ad
Christum Anglorum exultantium EuyaptaTtxoy." And on the
defeat of the Spanish armada, which came to papalize the church,
as well as overturn our government, it is recorded in history —
and you are all, I dare say, acquainted with this fact — that Queen
Elizabeth wentin procession to St. Paul's, and gave glory to God
for this victory. She also caused a medal to be struck, on which
was a representation of a fleet beaten 'by a tempest, and over it
the inscription, "He blew with- his. winds, and they were scat
tered :" and thus the queen gave God all the glory. So many
striking facts are surely coincidences with predictions not to be
overlooked; but taken in connection with all the facts I have ad
duced on previous occasions, they are surely contributions tending
to illustrate the prophecies of this book, and evidences of the
truth of the Apocalypse.
We read that Elizabeth gave glory to God for all the good her
realm had realized. And is there not a kindred act this day-?*
A nobler and more favoured than Elizabeth bids us, her loyal
subjects, give glory for an unprecedented harvest; not to nothing,
as the atheist would say — not to sunbeams and raindrops, as, the
materialist would say — rior to Ceres and Jupiter, as the heathen
would say — nor to saints and to the Virgin Mary, as the Ro
manist would say — but, as England's queen has said, and as
England's Bible echoes, to that God whose smiles gave our corn "
all its ripeness, and whose goodness- has replenished our granaries
with all their fulness. The more I think of this, my dear friends,
the more I am struck with the interesting coincidence. A queen
is ours who has all Elizabeth^ principles, without Elizabeth's
* This discourse was delivered in the evening of the General Thanks
giving 18

206 APOCALYPTIC 'SKETCHES.
persecuting spirit — all Elizabeth's Protestantism, without Eliza
beth's pride — all the splendour-of the reign of the Maiden Queen,
with all the added glories that are peculiarly her own. That
queen, Victoria, who lives in the hearts, is sustained by the
prayers, and embosomed in the piety of her people— a Protes
tant, a queen, and a mother — exemplary and beautiful in all —
what heart will not pray, God save the Queen ? what Chris
tian will refuse to give to the God of heaven the glory ?
I have just exhausted the small portion of Scripture I had
selected for this evening's exposition : I am- only prevented by
the vastness and magnificence of my subject from giving you,
what I must reserve for another evening, a sketch of those dis
tinguished" -witnesses, a cluster and constellation of whom ap
peared at the Reformation. I have entered in my notes illustra
tive extracts explanatory of such witnesses as- Melancthon, and
Zwingle, and Calvin, and Knox, and others of whom the world
was not worthy ; but I must reserve my remarks upon them for
another^ occasion ; and in the mean time conclude with two or
three practical inferences from the history and lineage which we
have endeavoured to trace through the medieval ages of Europe.
First of all, this subject leads me to recall to your recollection
the interesting fact that there has been no period-in the history
of the past in which there have not been witnesses for the Lord
Jesus Christ. I believe, and this is a fact for which we ought to
be thankful to God, that even in the bosom of the Church of
Rome there never was an age in which there were not some at
least, that trusted in the Saviour, in spite of the enveloping su
perstition. I believe that many a tonsured head now rests in
Abraham's bosom. I believe that many a poor monk, worn
down with fasting, girt round with bell-rope, and clothed with
rags, was saved, because of the. truth that penetrated all, and
rests in the abodes of peace and blessedness, in which are Au
gustine and Claude of Turin, and Huss and Jerome of Prague,
and Martin Luther, and Calvin, and John Knox. An interesting
specimen of the probability of this, is found in a fact recorded in
the graphic history of Merle D'Aubign<5. In the year 1776, an
old building was pulled down at Basle, which had formed part
of the ancient convent of the Carthusians. In a hole in the wall

THE TWO WITNESSES. 207
was found secreted a box, in which a poor Carthusian brother had
deposited the following prayer : —
" 0, most merciful God, I know that I can only be saved and
satisfy thy righteousness by the merit, the innocent suffering and
death -of thy well-beloved Son. - Holy Jesus, my salvation is in
thy hands. Thou canst not withdraw the hands of thy love
from me, for they have created and redeemed me." Thou hast
inscribed my name with a pen of iron, in rich mercy, and so
that nothing can efface it, on thy side, thy hands, and thy
feet." Here was the gospel of Jesus cherished in the midst of a con
vent; and who can doubt that that Carthusian lived and died
washed in the blood and justified by the righteousness of the
blessed Jesus ? But when I admit all this, what does it prove ?
Not that the system to which he belonged was true, but that the
truth, which' that system tries' to exclude, just like the light of
heaven, found, by its penetrating intensity, some nooks and
crevices in the popedom, by which it entered, and transformed
by its touch that poor Carthusian brother: The inference that
I draw is, not that" Popery is true, but that Protestantism can
penetrate the darkest dungeon. The inference I draw is, not
that "the desert was less bleak, but that there were some sweet
sheltered flowerets in the midst of that desert, that the frost
had not nipped and the simoom had not utterly blasted. Thus,
again, we have additional reply to the query, " Where was your
church before JiUther?" If you mean, where were our prin
ciples ? we answer, in the Bible : if you mean, where were the
exponents of them ? they were in the line, of witnesses I have
traced, and a few in the bosom of the Church of Rome herself.
Our Protestant churches and chapels were not the erection of
new buildings, but the purification of the old ones. Let me
explain this to you. A broker, the other year, was purchasing
pictures in Paris : he found one which was a beautiful painting
of the Virgin Mary ; he purchased it for a little, hoping to sell
it for much. He began to mean the picture, according to the
process that cleaners of paintings employ. In doing so, by
accident a little fragment of the countenance of the -Virgin
scaled off, and he saw where the fragment scaled off something

208 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
far more beautiful below it. This tempted him to scale off a bit
more, and he found it was a master-piece of one of the most
illustrious masters, representing the Lord Jesus. Now, what
the picture-cleaner did to this painting, Martin Luther and
John Knox did to the church at the Reformation. The in
crustation of saints they scraped off. Knox did it often very
roughly, but he did it well ; they scraped off the pictures of
the saints, and there burst forth, in all its glory, the repre
sentation of the Son of God; and in the back-ground, shining
in his light, the church purchased with his precious blood,
" fair as the sun, clear al the moon, and terrible as an army
with banners."
The church of Christ is to be traced, like a stream that rises
in a sandy desert, its parent in the skies, pursuing its me
andering course through many nations, not by its noise, or its
breadth, of its brilliancy, but by the rich verdure that it leaves
at its margin, as it flows onward in its calm and silent course,
until it loses itself at last in the mighty and illimitable sea
from whence it originally sprang. The church of Christ is to
be traced, not by the glittering dress that clothes its exterior —
not" by the pageantry of cathedral processions — not by mitred
abbots and tiaraed popes"; but by its separation from the world —
by the holiness of its ministers and its faithful ones; by the
stains of the blood which they shed — by the clank of their
chains — by their bones that- still lie bleached upon the Cottian
Alps ; not by the -grandeur of their robes, but by the glory of
their principles — not by the splendour they have reflected upon
the page of history, but by the blood-bought privileges they have
bequeathed to us, their unworthy but their honoured successors.
The names applied to these witnesses of Christ by historians,
were Paulicians, Cathari, Paterines, Albigeois, Lollards, Wic-
liffites, Vaudois, Waldenses, Bohemians ; but the principles they
held were substantially the same — scriptural,- Protestant, evan
gelical. They are the succession links in that continuous chain
which began with Adam at the fall, and will go onward till tho
Second Adam comes to restore all things.

209

LECTURE XIL
THE CHXJRCH IN THE "WILDERNESS.
" And there appeared a great wonder 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 wonder in heaven; and behold a great red
dragon, having seven heads ,and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
"And his tail drew the 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 unto God, -and to his throne.
"And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared
of God, that they should feed her there a "thousand two hundred and three
score days.
"And there was war in hoaven : Michael and his angels fought against the
dragon ; and the dragon fought and his angels,
"And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and
Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and
his angels were cast out with him.
"And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and
strength, and the kingdom of our God, and tho power of his .Christ: for the
accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day
and night.
" And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their
testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
" Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Wo to the
inhabiters of the ejarth and of the sea ! for the devil is come down unto you,
having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time:
" And when the dragon saw that he Was cast unto the earth, he persecuted
the woman which brought forth the man child.
"And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might
fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and
times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.
" And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman,
that he might cause hor to be carried away of the flood.
"And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and
swallowed" up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
18*

210 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
" And the dragon was wroth with tho woman, and went to make war with
tho remnant of her seed, which keep tho commandments of God, and have the
testimony of Jesus Christ." — Revelation xii. 1-17.
We .are about to experience a yet greater pause or break in
the continuous history we have heretofore pursued. This
chapter does not carry us further onward in the" Apocalyptic
history of the world. It carries us backward for a little. It
contains what may be called a retrospective or a retrogressive
view of scenes, transactions, and circumstances that we have
already partially reviewed. We had advanced in previous lectures
to that glorious and blessed era, the Reformation; from which
we were led to take a retrospective glance of the witnesses.
The design of the Spirit of God, in that retrospective history,
was, no doubt, to show us that in the darkest eras of the apostasy,
there was Christian light on the earth, and that there was not a
year in which there was not a loud and fervent protest against
the dominant corruptions of Rome. We have, in this chapter,
a second retrospective or retrogressive look, but extending still
farther back than the retrospect of the witnesses, and pointing
out, amid pagan, Papal, and Mohammedan supremacy, the spouse
of the Lamb, often concealed, but neyer utterly crushed. A
woman appears here, clothed with the sun, and with the moon
under her feet, and a coronal around her head of twelve stars, in
pain, waiting to bring forth. A dragon, also, which is the Roman
empire, as I shall show you, instigated and actuated by Satan,
that old serpent, is ready to destroy the man-child the instant.it
is brought forth. There is, next, the momentary glimpse of
splendour and civil grandeur which the church enjoyed prior to
her reception into the wilderness state, where she was to abide
for a time, times, and a half. . That is, the sum of 1260 years ;
or 360 years — a " time," twice 360 years, or " times," and the
half of 360 years — "half a time;" making in all f260 prophetic
days, or 1260 literal years.
That; this event is not successional to, but parallel with
previous ones, we gather from this fact alone, that the history
of the sackcloth testimony of the witnesses was to be for 1260
years. The history of the wild beast rising out of the sea, on
which we shall enter by-and-by, was also to be for 1260 years ;

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS. 211
and the history of this woman's sojourning in the wilderness was
also to be for 1260 years ; not the one period of 1260 years suc
ceeding to the other, but both contemporaneous and parallel.
They are coincident periods in history; The Spirit traces one
from its commencement to its close ; it then goes backward and
begins at the second, and traces it to its close. And this is after
the manner of human histories, every .-one of which contains
retrospective sketches. For instance, the historian gives an
account of the civil, and then comes back and gives the com
mencement, the progress, and the close of the ecclesiastical
history, mentioning at each step of the development the points
of contact, or where they meet and blend into one.
Having thus seen that this chapter contains a retrospective
history of a great fact, and also teaches instructive lessons, let
us endeavour, while we "bear in mind the positions which we
have already established, to discover who this woman is — what
is meant by her recession into the wilderness, and the persecution
she experienced from the • dragon, who waited to destroy the
man-child she was to bring forth.
I cannot see one jot of evidence for believing, with the Roman
Catholic Church, that this woman was the Virgin Mary, not
withstanding its acceptance by some Protestant divines. I do
think that the view' that, has been vindicated by the Rev. Mr.
Elliott, and also, I think, more or less, held by that very dis
tinguished and learned expositor of prophecy, Mr. Cuninghame
of Lainshaw, is alone true, scriptural, and consistent, viz. that
this woman represents the Christian or spiritual church. There
is no evidence that the Virgin Mary retired into the wilderness
after Christ was brought forth — there is no fact in history that
gives the least hint of such an event. To apply it to her .would
therefore be not only inconsistent- with the allusions of the narra
tive, but be inconsistent with plain historical facts, and we have
no right to make facts, in order to explain Apocalyptic mysteries.
The woman, then, 1 believe, represents Christ's true church —
the same holy company we saw -before — the sealed ones — the
God-baptized, in opposition to the man-baptized-^those that had
washed their robes in the blood of Jesus, in. contrast with thoso
who had only washed them in the baptismal laver. That I am

212 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
not fixing an arbitrary interpretation is plain from the circum
stance, that the same symbol is employed in other parts of the
Bible to denote the . Christian church ; and in this very book,
chapter xix., it is said, "the marriage of the Lamb is come, and
his wife" — the woman in the wilderness — " his wife hath made
herself ready." Rev. xxi. 2, "And I John saw the holy city,
the new Jerusalem, . . . prepared as a bride" — there is the
woman again — "adorned for her husband," the Lord Jesus
Christ. And I need not refer to passages in the Epistle to the
Ephesians, where the apostle uses the same figure to denote the
Christian church.
It is said, she was " clothed with the sun." I do. not beheve
that this means Christ, for not once in the Apocalypse is he called
the sun, though it is said his countenance- was as the sun, not
borrowing the lustre of the sun. So far from the Apocalypse
making the sun the symbol of Christ, it speaks of the new
Jerusalem as having " no need of the sun or of the moon, for the ¦
glory of God did lighten it, And the Lamb is the light thereof."
The sun and moon, I believe therefore, as I have explained the
same firmamental imagery in previous lectures, and as consistency
requires them to be explained now, to be the symbol of civil and
political powers, and to denote in this instance "her possession at
the time, right or wrong, of great political grandeur and civil
greatness. The twelve stars are used in another portion of the
Apocalypse to denote the presiding ministers or rulers of the
churches. Clustering all these symbols into one group, I hold
the meaning of the woman clothed with the sun, and having the
moon under her feet, and the twelve stars around her head, to
denote this same woman who afterward went into the wilderness,
as at this time clothed with terrestrial grandeur, in a state, be
it good for her or bad for her, of great earthly and sublunary
prosperity. Then it is said that she was to bring forth a man-child, who
was "to rule all nations with a rod of iron." The word, the
nations, is, in the original, literally the Gentiles, not denoting all
the earth, but portions of it; and to rule with the rod of iron, is
not the exclusive, prerogative of Christ, for it is expressly stated
in Rev. ii. 26, "To him that overcometh . . . will I give power

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS. 213
over the nations ; and he shall .rule them with a rod of iron."
I apprehend that it is the promised privilege of every believer to
rule the nations, when the time for that manifestation comes.
The'next scene we find in the drama is the appearance of a
dragon. That dragon I conceive to be not Satan, in his independ
ent and personal Satanic character, if I may us the expression,
but in this special manifestation through the medium of the anti-
christian, persecuting, heathen Roman .empire; and the reason
why I come to this conclusion is, that the drag<3n had seven
heads, these being used in a subsequent portion of the Apocalypse,
as I shall show you, to denote the seven hills of Rome, the
septem colles Romae.
You will observe, that upon the heads were ten horns, or ten
kingdoms, as I shall hereafter show you, into which the Roman
empire was divided; and then you will notice, upon the heads
were, not the arecpdvoi — and you recollect I explained on a pre
vious occasion that the laurel crown, or the oreyavoc, was
employed by the Roman emperors in the second and beginning
of the third century, and that the diadetfia or imperial diadem
was not used by the emperors till after the third century :
then the fact that these seven heads had on them diademata, (Sta-
dijpaTa,) diadems, and not arscpdvot, Or laurel crowns, is evidence
that the period in chronology to which the text refers, must be
about the -third or fourth century, when the imperial symbol
came into favour and imperial prominence. Near the beginning
of the third century the dragon, too, was used as a Roman stand
ard. The period was then the transition-period from paganism
to Christianity.
"Let us consider in $he next place the birth of the man-child:
that child I believe to be the symbol of Christian people, the
first-born — the 144,000 — the sealed ones incorporated, or in their
corporate and united capacity. It" cannot mean our Lord in any
sense or shape : nothing but the most arbitrary and unwarranted
construction could lead to this conclusion.
Having thus made these explanatory remarks, let me now state
that the period, when the woman was thus arrayed and ready to
bring forth the man-child, or when the church was exhibited in
her children as in a state of grandeur, prosperity, and power,

214 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
was about the year 313, when the celebrated decree of Licinius
and Constantine was issued, when two-thirds of the Roman
empire became professedly Christian, and only one-third of it
continued pagan, under Maximin, and continued to persecute
the Christians. We have then the Christian church united —
bright from trials she had passed through — ascendant in the poli
tical firmaments— emperors shedding on it the rays of the imperial
sun, and her chief ministers a starry coronal around her head.
Now, the commencement of the woman's gestation was the year
33,- the year of our Lord's resurrection, when the church, pro
perly speaking, became developed. Prom that period there
elapsed on obvious grounds the number of 9 prophetic months,
or 40 prophetic weeks, or 280 prophetic days, that is, 280 literal
years, which is the illustration of the chronological period here
mysteriously shadowed forth.
Adding, then, to the year 33 — the year of our Lord's resur
rection — the 9 prophetic months, or the 280 literal years, we come
down to the year 313, when the Milan decree, was issued. Her
travail began a prophetic week or seven literal years previously
in the Diocletian persecution, and amid the prosperity, toleration,
and countenance accorded to the Christians, the man-child was
brought forth, and- speedily raised to imperial power, invested
with all the patronage of emperors, and while the old pagan Ro
man power, or the dragon, concentrated in Blaximin, the ruler
of a third of the empire, stood by ready to destroy him, but was
prevented from accomplishing his purpose.
Now that this is the construction of the figure which I have
read is evident from such historical statements as the following :—
"Before the decisive battle," says Milner, "Maximin vowed to
Jupiter, that if he obtained the victory, he would abolish the
Christian name. - The contest between Jehovah and Jupiter was
drawing to a close; Licinius, in a dream, was directed to suppli
cate, with all his army, the supreme God, in a solemn manner.
He gave directions to his soldiers to do so, and they prayed in the
field of battle, using the very words which he had received in his
dream. In all this the reader will see nothing suspicious, nothing
but what is in its own nature very credible, when he considers
that the contest between Jehovah and Jupiter was now at its

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS. 215
height, and drawing to a crisis. Victory decided in favour of
Licinius. Maximin, in consequence of this, published a decree,
in which he forbade the molestation of Christians, but did not
allow them, the liberty of public worship. Warned by former ex
perience of his enmity, the Christians in his dominions dared not
to assemble together. While the rest of the Christian world,
under the auspices of. Constantine and Licinius, who published a
complete toleration of Christianity, together with that of all other
religions, enjoyed peace and tranquillity." "Then," says Gibbon,
"the death of Maximin delivered the church from the last and
most implacable of her enemies."
In other words, in A. d. 313,, when the woman brought forth the
man-child, the dragon lost his power; he beheld the out-peering
grandeur and elevation of the Christian church, or, in the words
of Gibbon, "-Christianity seated on the throne of the Roman
world," and Theod'osius and the Christians already ruling the
pagans with a rod of iron.
It is next stated that " there was war in heaven." I showed
you, on a previous occasion, that the firmamental heaven denoted
the high places of the world, or the places of dominion, empire,
rank, and power. There was war between the representatives of
Christianity and the representatives of paganism. And after it
had been closed in A. d. 324, we read that paganism was finally
crushed; Christianity was left without a foe or hostile rival; and
in the language of Constantine, as if fulfilling the Apocalyptic
symbol, " the dragon was deposed from the government of affairs
by God's Providence."
Then it is said, when the woman had brought forth the man-
child, and that child was raised to dignity — in other words, when
the Christian church was fully developed as a great national in
stitution, and raised — scripturally or unscripturally I do not here
inquire — to the seat of political power and civil grandeur, we read
that there was a song in heaven, an eiztvmov, a song of victory.
It is said, "I heard, a loud voice from heaven" — that is, from the
firmamental heaven, from which, you recollect, Mohammed, as a
st^r, fell; i.e. the high places of authority and power, "saying,
Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our
God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren

216 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the
word of their testimony;-- and they loved not their lives unto the
death. • Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them."
It was not angels who -sang this song, because when angels refer
to Christians, they say, "fellow servants," never "our brethren."
It was not saints in glory that sang this song, for saints in glory
would have said, the accuser of us and of our brethren. It was
therefore the song raised to the skies by the rejoicing Christians,
at length delivered from their outward affliction, and raised to
prosperity and grandeur, — a period at which, as I showed you,
they most erroneously, but naturally, on so great and unexpected
a transition, supposed that the millennial kingdom had arrived.
It was an era so bright and brilliant that dawned upon the world,
that even the martyrologist Fox has recorded it as his conviction,
that the Millennium began when Constantine established the
Christian church. At this period, which externally presented so
complete a contrast to the day when they were persecuted and
driven to the dens and caves and solitary places of the earth, the
Christians burst forth into songs of praise, thanked God that they
were delivered from the imperial tyrants that wore them out; and
placed beneath the patronage of a diadem, under which they
thought — though, as the sequel proves, erroneously — that they
should retain their purity, and yet be unmolested by the hostile
forces that were around them. Hence Eusebius, a contemporary
historian, makes the remark, that when the church was thus
raised to unclouded sunshine, and paganism crushed, and the
Christians, from worshipping in caves, worshipped in cathedrals,
and saw the heads of their ministers, from being pelted by pitiless
storms, covered with golden mitres, and themselves received as
the princes of the earth — then the Christians in hymns and songs
everywhere expressed their gratitude to God. He gives this
instance : " Formerly we used to sing, We have heard what Thou
didst in our fathers' days, but now we have to sing a new song
of victory, Our own eyes have seen His salvation." And Euse
bius speaks of the casting down of paganism, as the casting down
of the dragon, the accuser of the Christian brethren, and he nar
rates that there was a solemn commemoration of the Christian

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS. 217
martyrs, who, he makes the remark; were referred to as those
who conquered by the cross, that is, by "the blood of the -Lamb
and by the word of their (jxapropta) witnessing." Such songs
were sung by the captives who returned from their dungeons — by
the prisoners emancipated from the mines, being liberated by im
perial goodness, as they came- to enjoy that respite of prosperity
and civil grandeur, which had been vouchsafed to the whole Chris
tian church, under the reign of Constantine.
Such, then, I deem to be the interpretation of this vivid and
glorious sketch as far- as we have proceeded, and I think that the
subsequent portions of this, lecture will convince- you that my
interpretation is, scriptural and correct.
You notice, in the next place, after this song was sung by the
Christians raised to power and authority, that it is said,. "Wo to
the inhabiters of the earth." But you must see that this wo,
mentioned in verse 12, is no part of the song- of vietory; it is a
great pity that the break in the- chapter is not marked to show
that such is the case. "And they overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. Therefore
rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them." Then a new
paragraph, being no part of the song of the triumphant Chris
tians, but dictated to John by the Holy Spirit, begins: "Wo to
the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea; for the" devil is come
down unto you, having great wrath, beeause he knoweth that he
hath but a short time." " Now, after this prosperity — this outward
and visible prosperity, which encompassed the outward and the
visible church — is there in the page of history the record of any
wo that fell speedily on Christendom? I read, that at the very
period when the church rose toyalmostrmore than earthly gran
deur, there burst upon the world a wo almost unprecedented in
the history of the past; that. wo was the outbreak of the most"
pestilent heresy that ever tormented the church — -what is called
the Arian heresy. Arius, a presbyter or minister of Alexandria,
first denied the Deity of Christ, and, of necessity, rejected the
Atonement. He is the, first Socinian whose history is on record;
for Socinianism, just like Popery, however old, is not old enough
to bear the test and light of Apostolical.Scripture. After he had
for some time preached this blasting and blighting heresy, we read'
19

218 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
that it-spread through the length and breadth of the professing
church like wildfire in withered- grass, or like the summer light
ning from cloud to cloud, until, as it is recorded by contempora
neous writers, two-thirds of the professing Christian church — that
church that had been made so suddenly prosperous, caught the
contagion, and plunged into the very deptLs of the Arian heresy.
An outwardly prosperous ehurch rarely continues long a pure one.
Caesar's persecution does her often "greater good than Csesar's pa
tronage; and I may add, that a remarkable proof of the. utter
absurdity of the maxim laid down by the Tractarian divines, that
that is Catholic doctrine of which we can say quod semper, quod
ubique, ,quod ab omnibus, is just a reference to this very era.
They have said, and you know the sentiment has been quoted in
the Tracts for the Times, in the writings of Mr. Newman and Dr.
Hook, " (hat is true which is quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab
omnibus," i.e. that must be the true faith which was held every
where, at all times, and by every person in the "world. Then,
will any of these divines, Dr. Hook, or Dr. Dodsworth, consent
that this maxim shall be tested by applying it to the fourth cen
tury of the jChristian era? If they do, instead of being called
Traptarians, they will be compelled to drop the first and best half of
the word — Tract — and retain the last and worst half — Arians —
since the widest and most popular creed among the majority of
clergy and laity, in the fourth century, was not evangelical truth,
but deadly heresy. It is also remarkable enough, that though
the Council of Nice, in 325, decided for Trinitarianism, and de
nounced Arianism, that that decision was as much the result of
imperial influence, as it was of internal and intellectual convic
tion; and it need only be added here, that the very next council
that met in the history of the church, the Council of Seleucia
and Ariminum, by a majority of its component members, decided
in favour of Arianisim What does this teach us ? That no other
standard and rule of faith can be relied on but the Bible. Some
say that the church exists in her episcopacy : — bishops have be
come Popish. Others say that the church exists in her presby
teries, synods, and councils : — assemblies, synods, and presbyteries
-have become Arian. The. great safety of the church, I believe, is,
under God, the enlightenment and scriptural education of the vast

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS. 219
body of the laity. It. has Ireen found to be true in almost^very age
of the church, that when the state became corrupt — bishops, Pa
pists; and synods, Arians — the great-body of the people remained
true to. Christ and scriptural principles. Severed from the state,
episcopacy tends to Popery, and presbytery to Arianism, as Scotch
episcupacy and English presbyterianism show. The system that
seems to perpetuate evangelical truth on the strict voluntary sys
tem with greatest purity and power, is Congregationalism. I do
not speak of form or ceremony, but simply of ecclesiastical polity.
Thus, the wo that fell upon the church, namely, the Arian
heresy, prevailed so widely, that Athanasius was- cast forth from
his church. The pagans, the heathen pagans, sided with the
Arians, and, asrif to show how nearly Arianism approximates to
infidelity, the pagans themselves said, the Arians have ceased to
be Christians, and have adopted our creed. Arianism is.just the
easy let down to skepticism, or infidelity; it is the half-way -house,
the resting-place in the downward course. When a man begins-
to preach intellectually, what his heart does not feel, he comes to
leave out doctrines that are mysterious, or humbling to flesh and
blood — he next lapses into Arianism, tarries there for a season,
till finally he sinks into that cold and freezing skepticism, which
believes in a cross without glory — a Bible without truths— and a
futurity without hope.
Such, then, was the wo that fell' upon the church of those
times — a dark and blasting stain — distinct from Popery in its
dogmas, but conspiring with it against truth, the one a negation
of truth — the other a deadly corruption of it. After this we read
of the woman's flight into the wilderness; to this "woman were
given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wil
derness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, times,
and half a time, from .the' face of the serpent." The meaning
of which is, that the inner and true church began gradually to
disappear, and the. outward alone remained. The name took the
place of the substance — the vessel'remained, but the living water
had oozed out to run in other channels. The- gorgeous" garments
still stood, but the wearer, the woman, had slipped out' in order
to reach a more congenial place in the wilderness. She. learned
the lesson that the church has since learned in every century of

220 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
her history, that her hours of persecution have been her purest;
she suffered when the sun shone upon her — she" became purer and
more beautiful when all ¦ the forces of the world were arrayed
against her. The true church, accordingly, at this era of outward
prosperity and doctrinal error, began to retreat into the wilder
ness; that is, true Christians ceased to be -seen — they did not
appear to the world ; and Milner the historian gives the best ful
filment of this, when he states that, in consequence of -Arianism
without, and the church's exaltation to civil and imperial great
ness, "the practical use of a crucified Saviour for troubled con
sciences was scarcely to be seen, and the real gospel of Christ
began to be hidden from men," — the true church, in short, was
about to retire into the wilderness. "Godliness," he adds,
" lived obscure in hermitages, and abroad the gospel was almost
buried in faction and ambition." And Mosheim also, a less spi
ritual but no less true historian, says, "Good men were mixed
with the bad; but, by degrees, the bad so multiplied that men
truly holy and devoted to God appeared more rarely, and the pious
few were almost crushed by the vicious multitude :" and "fictions,"
adds Mosheim, "of early origin, about saint veneration and relics,
and purifying, or fire, and celibacy, now so prevailed as in course
of time almost to thrust true religion aside, or at least to obscure
and tarnish it." When the church, in her exterior state, basked
beneath the sunshine of royalty, the true church -with her spi
ritual but unseen beauty was retreating into the wilderness, there
to be hid for a time, times, and half a time. The form of god
liness remained — -its life was hid. The outward church may enjoy
the greatest peace, may be surrounded by the greatest grandeur,
and the true church be altogether hid from the eyes of a hostile
world, to whom spiritual religion is foolishness.
But we find another incident recorded in this chapter, "Two
wings of a great eagle were given to the woman to help her to go
into the wilderness." The words here translated "of a great
eagle," are, literally translated, " of the eagle, that great one,"
speaking of some particular one, and that particular one is no
other than the national symbol of the Roman empire. The
empire therefore is here predicted to have spread its eastern and
western wings over the church. We find, then, at this very

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS, 221
time, when the true church was almost buried, and the mere
formal church alone was clothed with circumstantial grandeur
and imperial sunshine, that Theodosius, called by Gibbon Theo
dosius the Great, ascended the throne of the Roman empire, and
-united, the hitherto bipartite empire in one. He was the first
emperor who was a Christian, not in- name, like Constantine,
but in deed and in truth. Theodosius (and there is the fulfilment
of the symbol) gave the visible church, and therein and thereby
the true spiritual body, or church within a church, that is, the
woman about to retreat into the wilderness,- a momentary pro
tection, by spreading over her the wings of the empire. " Every
victory of his," says Gibbon, " contributed to the triumphs of
the orthodox and Catholic faith." He opposed paganism and
Arianism with all his might.
Thus the recognition of vital Christianity by a pious emperor
aided Christ's people. Theodosius cast the Arians out from the
churches, restored, we are told, the Trinitarians, and saved the
empire for eighteen years from the impending irruption of the
Goths — during which suspense and interval the woman had time
to prepare for her flight into the wilderness. These eighteen
years were the respite. This powerful prince was the author of
it. On the wings thus given in the respite, the church took her
flight into her quiet rest from the glare of earthly splendour, and
the corruption of increasing apostasy; Augustine, under the
covert of these wings, entered on his ministry, and the beams of
the setting sun irradiated with departing lustre the horizon of the
church of Christ, till the -shadows of that dark and dreary night
closed around her amid the fastnesses of the Cottian Alps.
When the church was receding into the wilderness, the dragon,
we read, " cast out of his mouth waters as a flood after the
woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood."
Crocodiles and whales spout forth great bodies of water. Floods
are used in Scripture to denote hostile invasions; and, in reading
the prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah, we find the invasion of hostile
forces frequently compared' to great floods. The flood thus
pointed out was that one out of which the Papal wild beast (chap.
xiii.) arose. Did1' any thing occur in history to "fulfil this symbol?
I open the page of history, and we find occurring at this very
19*

222 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
time the irruption Into Italy of the Visigoths, the Vandals, and
the Huns, to whom- I have referred under the symbols of the
trumpets, all of whom were Arians — for it is a remarkable fact,
that these Vandals, Visigoths, and Huns had adopted universally
the Arian or Socinian creed— at this very time, when the formal
church was supreme and the true church was retreating into the
wilderness, we find, I say, that the Arian Goths and Socinian
Vandals rushed into Rome, endeavouring to exterminate Trinita
rians wherever they found them, and to establish the Arian
heresy as supreme over the length and breadth of the empire.
But it is added here, that when the dragon poured these floods
after her, " the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the
flood which the dragon cast out of her mouth." What is the
solution of this ? We find that when the Arian Goths invaded
Rome, they did not do, as I showed you the Mohammedans did,
retain their own religion and their own king, and insist on the
conquered adopting them. On the contrary, they parted with
all — they were quite absorbed by the orthodox Romans — they
renounced their Arianism as they settled, and were merged amid
the Trinitarian population ; and thus the earth, in the language
of the Apocalypse, swallowed up the flood, and helped the woman
in her flight into the wilderness.
Such then is the simple, and, I think, satisfactory exposition
of the chapter I have read : I will not dwell longer upon it, be
cause it falls in contemporaneously with the two witnesses ; in
fact, the two witnesses are, to a great extent, a coincident sym
bol ; they more fully represent the continuous Christian protest
that was uttered against the errors of Rome, while the woman in
the wilderness, contemporaneous with it, represents the true
church, separated and hid from the world, visible only to its God.
Now, having traced up the history of the witnesses-" — having seen
also the recession of the true church, under the symbol of the
woman, into the wilderness, let us draw some great practical les
sons from this subject, for it is a subject of great importance and
of much value in the day in which our lot is cast.
First, then, we learn that the church of Christ was not to be,
as Rome and the Tractarians allege that it has ever been, ever
visible to the world. The purest part of the church was hidden

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS. 223
from the outward eye — the church that is heir to the promises —
the channel of the true succession — the perpetuated and uninter
rupted body of Christ, was hid for centuries, and the Apostasy
alone was dominant — visible — luminous.
But it is asked by Tractarianwand Romish divines, does not
this theory represent as a failure the promise, " On this rock will
I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it?" The Romanist argues — Here is the superstructure of a
visible, apostolical, catholic church, based on St. Peter ; meant
to be and found to be visible in every age ; and that superstruc
ture is the Romish Church. This, however, is a misconstruction
of the text. This visible church, to use another scriptural sym
bol, consists of tares and wheat,- and the superstructure, to use
this figure, of wood, hay, and stubble, as well as precious stone.
Can such a superstructure be that against which the gates of hell
shall not prevail ? This is impossible. Nay, it can be proved
that against every portion of the church, in different' times and
at different places, destruction has prevailed. The seven churches
of Asia are swept away — Corinth' is gone — the Christians 'at
Rome have been swallowed up amid overwhelming apostasy.
I believe, therefore, that this superstructure is composed ex
clusively of the living stones, the sealed and sanctified of God,
excavated from the quarries of the earth, cut and shaped for their
respective places by the Great Builder of -the church, laid upon
Christ the foundation stone, the living, rock, cemented by love,
rising, age after age, into a glorious structure, seen by God,
dimly seen by the world, and waiting for the day when angels
shall shout from heaven, " Grace, grace unto it." If the visible
Peter had been the foundation, then, of course, a visible super
structure would' have been perfectly consistent. But no~earthly
person was so. If Peter had been constituted supreme, is it not
strange that our Lord should have said to the apostle — after he
had constituted Peter the foundation and the head (if he did so)
— " See thou tell no man?" Why, if Peter had been constu
tuted the head and the foundation, a? the Romanist alleges
that he was, instead of our Lord saying, Tell no man, would he
not have said, Tell every man, that every man may look, to and
cling to the chair of St. Peter ? And it is quite clear that Peter

224 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
himself, if he was made the foundation, never knew the fact.
For, in the subsequent history of the apostles, it is said they
contended and ¦ disputed which of them should be the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven ; and Peter himself says, Not I who am
the vicar of Christ, but I who am a co-presbyter — a fellow-elder
with you.
In the second place, we gather from this the idea of a true
church. Another promise often misapplied and misconstrued
by Romanizing divines, viz. : " Go ye into all the world, and
preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name
of the Father-, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Lo, I
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Now
this, it is alleged by the Romanist and Tractarian divines, is the
organization of a visible church. Here is the pledge of a per
petual Divine presence. The inference they draw is, that there
must, therefore, have been a perpetually visible church, and a
perpetual Divine presence and -teaching with that church ; and,
therefore, they think it quite clear that the church that was visi
ble throughout the Middle Ages was the true church, and what
we call the invisible church a dream — ;a nonentity — a mistake.
But it seems to be overlooked that this promise which Christ
makes is a conditional one. When the Tractarians and Roman
ists quote it, they quote that part of the promise, " Lo, I am
with you alway, even to the end of the world," but they quietly
skip over'the condition of that presence, " teaching the people to
observe, all things whatsoever I command you;" Now, wherever
there is a ministry not teaching all things that Christ commands,
there, it is evident from this passage, is not the presence of
Christ : wherever there is a minister, a priest, or prelate, or pope,
or presbyter — synod, or council, or assembly, that teaches as
essential what Christ has not revealed, or what is contrary to
what Christ commands, there the promise is not applicable, and
Christ is not. present. I say Christ is present wherever there is
the teaching of Christ's truth. The truth preached is the evi
dence of Christ's presence. The Romanist says Christ is present,
therefore there must be the teaching of Christ's truth. We say
the truth is preached, and therefore Christ is present. My idea
is, that only there is the apostolic succession, where there is the

THE CHURCH' IN THE WILDERNESS. 225
preaching of apostolic doctrine. The- Tractarian reasoning is,
where there is the apostolic succession, there cannot but be the
teaching of apostolic doctrine. The promise is, I am 'with you
alway ; but the condition is, If ye teach all thiDgs whatsoever I
command you.
Another promise, also, on which we can see light cast by this
-subject, is that beautiful . one in the Gospel of John, xvi. 13,
where our blessed Lord promises' to his -disciples another Com
forter, to be with them for ever. " When he, the Spirit of truth,
is come, he will guide you into all truth." Now, these divines
to whom I have referred argue, Here is the special promise of
the presence of the Spirit of God. That presence, they say, in
volves this blessed privilege — that they, the church with whom
he is present, shall be guided into all truth ; .and therefore, they
argue, the Romish Church, being the only demonstrable visible
succession, never can have fallen into heresy, for " our Lord has
promised that the Spirit should be perpetually with her, and
guide her to all the truth. If the promise were to a visible
church, their reasoning would probably be true ; if the church
was not the woman in the wilderness, their reasoning would be.
incontrovertible. But the church consists of two parts j t the
inner church, which alone is the kernel, and the outer church,
which is only the shell. And what is the test of the presence
of the Spirit of God ? If that Spirit be with you, then what
will that Spirit teach you ? We are told immediately after " to
glorify me." Then' I argue, Wheresoever we have a church and
ministry that glorify Christ, there the Spirit of truth is ; . where
Christ is not glorified, there the Spirit is not. But,, if I can
show that "the Church of Rome exalts Antichrist, not Christ — -
the sacraments, not the Saviour- — the church; not the gospel —
speaks much of the minister, little of the Master^— speaks, much
of the saints, little of the Son of God — glorifies the Virgin, and
not the Virgin's Lord — then you, have the proof, that, wherever
the Spirit of truth be, he is not with her — she has forfeited the
promise; and given evidence that it is sOj'by glorifying another
instead of Jesus Christ.
The visibility" of the church — the true church of Christ — I
hold is not to be in this present dispensation. At present, the

226 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
woman is more or less in the wilderness,, and in that condition-,.
she will continue till .the Lord call her forth to manifest her sons
to the world.
Nor is this a mere Apocalyptic statement, unconfirmed by
other scriptures ; for we read that the sons -of God are not now
manifest — all creation is " waiting for the manifestation of the
sons of God." The jewels are still hidden — the witnesses are
in sackcloth — the woman is in the wilderness. The church that
adopts Episcopacy, or the church that adopts Presbytery, or In
dependency, or Wesleyanism, is the visible church — -the outward
shell — the ecclesiastical formula; portions of , the true church
are in each — in the wilderness — invisible to man — visible and
known to G-od-. It- is true now as it was a millennium ago, "the
world knoweth us not," "our life is hid with Christ in God,"
believers are God's " hidden ones." The form of godliness is
predominant — the substance of it is not so. But in the new
heaven andtnew earth — not in the present dispensation — the visi
ble and the' true church shall become identified, and be raised to
a state of glorious, sunshine, of outward prosperity,-and visible
greatness, and shine in, the firmament as stars for ever.
But driven from the New Testament, these controversialists, to
whom I have referred, have argued from the Old Testament;
and there is a passage you will find in every controversial work
that takes the Romanistic view of the visible church, Isaiah ii. 2 —
"And -it shall come to pass that the mountain of the Lord's
house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall
be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it."
This passage is cited to prove that the church of Christ is not to
be what we.said it would be, a woman hidden in the wilderness,
but always a great, visible, manifest corporation of professors of
the truth. But, if you quote this passage to prove that the
church of Christ will be always visible, you will find, that you
must .draw from the, rest of the passage a vast deal more ; for if
it be the Gentile church that is " the mountain" here spoken of,
that mountain being always raised on the tops of the mountains,
it will justify the inference -of the Church of Rome, that she
ought to' have the supremacy, and be, as she claims, the mother
and mistress of all churches. This Protestants do not admit.

THE CHURCH. IN THE WILDERNESS. 227
But I believe that the supremacy of this mountain, whatever it
be, is not to take place in the present dispensation. We read
that in the present dispensation, according to the words of our
Lord, " nation shall rise up against nation, kingdom against
kingdom ;" but the characteristic of the period to which this
promise refers, as it is stated in what follows it, is, that they
" shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks, neither shall they learn war' any more." Our
Lord says expressly, that, during this dispensation, nation shall
war against nation— this is to be its predominant characteristic ;
but at that time, when this mountain shall be exalted above the
mountains, " nation shall not war against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more." I draw, therefore,' the inference, that
it is not in this dispensation that this mountain of the Lord's
house is. thus to be elevated on the tops of the mountains. If
we turn to the parallel prophecy in Micah, (iii.. iv.,) where the
very same words occur, " Therefore shall Zio'n for your sakes be
ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem become heaps, and the moun
tain of the house as the high places of the forest." You can
plainly see here that the mountain is not a Gentile church, but
the Jewish. Jerusaleni is first to be overturned — this has been
done. "-But in the last days it shall come to pass that the
mountain of the house of the Lord (the same mountain) shall be
established in the top of the mountains" — that is, the mountain
spoken of in the closing verse of the third chapter, namely,
Jerusalem. We Gentiles treat the poor Jews in a strange manner : all- the
brilliant -promises we Gentiles take, and say these are ours: but
the. moment we read threatening and predicted judgments, we
say these are for the Jews : we eat the kernel, and thank God,
and we hand the. shell to the Jews, and tell them, this is for you.
But this is neither consistent nor Christian treatment. I believe
the brilliant promises of Tsaiah are primarily the property of the
Jews. The Jewish church is. chastened, not utterly cast off. I
believe, and I think I shall prove it to you in a subsequent lecture,
that those deep-toned Oriental voices that you" hear in the streets
of London, shall yet be heard in" the streets of Jerusalem : once
they shouted "Crucify 'him! crucify him!" next they shall "cry

228 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
in one national burst of .exultation, "Thou art the King of Glory,
0 Christ: This is our God, and we have -waited for him: Jesus
is the light that lightens the Gentiles, and the glory of his
ancient people Israel." I believe that on the very spot on which
they crucified' him, they shall praise and worship him. Without
speaking politically, or saying whether I approve of it or disap
prove of it, I may state the startling phenomenon, as a sign of
the times, that a Jew has been chosen to. represent a portion of
the metropolis of the greatest empire in the world, in the midst
of the senate of. England.-' Whatever the fact maybe, or- what
ever construction you may put upon the fact, it is one of those pre
cursory phenomena that are drawing the attention of the world
to -that people. I believe that the day will come when the Jews
will start into life in every nation of the earth, like lights break
ing forth in the bosom of darkness — like salt amid the corruption
of earth; and the unbelievers of the world witnessing the new
scene, and' arrested by a new evidence, shall' some believe and
live, and others wonder and perish.
Thus, then, we have proved .from this passage, I think, that
the promise of the exaltation of the Lord's house above the
mountains, does not, prove that the gospel church is in this dis
pensation to be found always invested with great outward splen
dour. Then, the only other passage to which I will refer, is that one
in- 'John xvii., which I recollect was very often quoted in the
course of that interesting experiment, the Evangelical Alliance,
and as often misapplied. Our Lord says, "I pray for them : I
pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given, me;
for they are thine : that they all. may be one, as thou, Father,
art in -me, and I in thee: that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me." According- to the interpretation of some of
those men, at whose feet I am unworthy to sit, it means that
all Christians may all be so- visibly united as Christians, that the
world, seeing a united church, may believe, and be converted and
live. I conceive this is not the meaning of the passage. In the
first place, if this be its meaning, what explanation can we. give
of what our Lord previously said, " I pray not for the world ?"
if so bo that in this passage he prays for the conversion of the

THE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS. 229
world? In the second place, it is truly impossible that this
prayer should be fulfilled in this dispensation : when our Lord
says, " I pray that all who shall believe on me through their
word may be one," he does not mean all in every spot of the
earth during any one year, but that all, the first that believed in
Jerusalem, those in the first century that believed in Rome, and
these in the last tha^ believed in London — that they all, that is,
all the Christians that have believed in the course of the last
eighteen centuries — I pray ihat-they may be visibly one. This
cannot take place in this" dispensation. It must succeed, not
precede, the Resurrection. But will it ever take place? "you ask.
Yes:- for the whole creation groans and travails in pain together,
" waiting for -the manifestation of the sons of God." That mani
festation of the sons of God will yet visibly take place. Then, and
then only, will they all be one visibly. I believe the day comes
when the whole of the redeemed shall congregate together, when
and where the Lord may appoint, and all true believers, thus
gathered out of every nation and clime, and kindred and tongue,
shall be seen amid the light of glory to be not only essentially,
and inseparably, and eternally, but visibly one. These words,
"That the world may believe that thou hast sent me," do not
imply the conversion of the world : when it is intended to convey
a saving acceptance of Christ, it is — that they may believe on me.
But here it is not "that they may believe on me," but that "they
may believe that thou hast sent me." This expression, believe
on me, signifies conviction, and ending in conversion : "believe
that thou hast sent me," is conviction not followed by conversion
at all. It means, in this case, conviction of the truth when the
opportunity of salvation has passed away.
Thus, the woman is still in the wilderness — the true church is
still hidden — the sealed ones are seen by God, but not seen as
such by the world; and if it be so then, let us' recollect there
may be Christians where the eye cannot see them, heirs of God
concealed where we see none. There are stars in the sky whose
light has not reached us; -gems in the caves of the sea that eye
hath not seen; flowers that bloom, in the desert; Christians in
Nero's palace; believers in the depths of the Apostasy. Cir
cumstances and situations in life may conceal the Christian from
" 20

230 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the eye; the poor man who has not sixpence to put into the box
may have a heart more benevolent than the person that sent me
without name the other day a fifty pound bank-note for the
rebuilding of the Scotch Church. The world judges of bene
volence by what it sees in the hand; God judges of benevolence
by what he sees in the heart. There may be a church in some
hovel into which the rich man would not enter, and which the
world's great ones would think themselves defiled if they attempt
ed to approach. It is not the loudest talkers that are the great
est Christians. Real Christianity is concealed by diffidence:
many Christians feel the deepest who say the least — they would
be better than they seem, not seem better than they are. There
are deep streams that rush onward to the ocean, and the very
depth of their waters gives them silence.
There may be true Christians hidden by their own constitu
tional character. Take Peter and Paul and John ; God the
Creator made them different; and though God the Redeemer
gave them grace, he did not mould them all into one character, but
he sanctified Paul, and sanctified Peter, and sanctified John.
That rugged casket contains a precious gem — that silent man
may have a heart that flows with love and is ever open to melt
ing charity — that hot-tempered man may have the most forgiving
spirit in the world; many a disguise covers the true Christian.
Christ's church is in the wilderness. Her raiment is seen only
by the spiritual eye — she is all glorkras within.
And this -grace also manifests itself in a different, manner in
different individuals. Grace speaks in one; it is silent in a
second; it gives in a third; it visits the poor in a fourth; it
prays in a fifth; it dies in a sixth. But because. the grace that A
has does not show itself in the way in which the grace that B
has does, we are not to deny that A is a Christian.
Do you belong to the children of the woman in the wilder
ness ? Are your names registered among those who are the
witnesses of Christ ? The great question for us is, do we belong
not to the outward church, but do we belong to that inner
ohurch ? are we regenerated by the Spirit and risen with Christ ?
Let me ask the question, then, who is a Christian? Let ma
ask, who is on the Lord's side ?

THE CHURCH IN THE- WILDERNESS. 231
Not the' infidel, for he declares religion to be fanaticism, the
Bible to be a lie, and the hope of heaven to be a -delusion.
Not the Roman Catholic. There may be Christians in Rome,
but not of Rome : as- I said 'last night, there may" be many a
tonsured monk' in Abraham's bosom. Not the Roman Catholic,
whether on the Tiber or the Isis — whether at Rome or at Oxford
—with them the church is all, Christ is a doctrine of reserve.
Not a churchman, as such. You do not belong to Christ's
church because you are a churchman. It is quite possible to be
established by Acts" of Parliament and yet to be disowned by
the Acts of Apostles. It -is quite possible to bask beneath the
sunshine of the state, and yet to be a stranger to the love of
Christ and to the light of the gospel.
Not the Dissenters, as such. It is quite possible to dissent
from the Establishment, and yet not belong to Christ;. It is
quite possible to be an advocate of the voluntary system, and yet
have in the heart enmity to Christ and him crucified. It is quite
possible to be free from all the chains of Caesar, and all the
manacles of the state, and yet to be the slave of Satan, and the
servant of corruption and of sin.
Nor, because you are baptized, do you belong to the true
church. " He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that
circumcision which is outward in the flesh-; but he is a Jew who
is one inwardly,- and circumcision is that of the heart, in the
spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of
God." Because you take the Lord's supper, you do not there
fore belong to the true church. Who then do belong to it ?
We cannot say, with certainty, A belongs to it, and B does not,
or B and C do not : but we can pronounce the characters that
compose it. They were chosen of Christ ^before the foundation
of the world that they might be holy. They are " purchased
with the precious blood of a. Lamb without -blemish and without
spot." They receive the word of Christ, not as a theory for
discussion or a topic fpr dispute, but as a truth for acceptance in
the head, and for influencing the heart, and actuating the life.
They buijd upon the Rock of Ages the superstructure of their
-hope, and seek heaven in Christ," the only way to it. They have
their heart and their treasure in heaven, where Christ their

232 APOOALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Saviour is. They are holy, for without holiness' no man can see
the Lord. They are happy, for how can a Christian feel other
wise than happy ? — and, may I not add, how can a worldly man
enjoy one moment of real happiness ? What is a Christian ? A
man that feels his immortality till his work is done : for him the
arrow that flieth by day has no point, and the -pestilence that
wasteth at noonday no contagion, till he has finished the work
his father- has given him to do : — a man that builds upon the
rock that remains when all around is swept away — who, when he
loses all, wealth, estate,- and family, and friends, can Eft up his
eyes to the everlasting hills, and say, I have lost nothing, for
the great God is my father — Infinitude the breadth of my
home — Eternity itself the duration of my lifetime. Outward
circumstances may conceal or render suspected such a one, but
his name is in the Lamb's Book of Life, and his inheritance is a
crown of glory.

283

LECTURE XIH.
THE FOLLOWERS OP THE. LAMB.
'* And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the. Mount Sion, and with him art
hundred and forty and four thousand, having hi? Father's name written in
their foreheads.
" And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the
voice of a great thunder : and I heard the voice of harpers-harping with their
harps :
"And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four
beasts, and the elders : and no man could learn that song but the hundred and
forty and four thousand, whieh were redeemed f>om the earth.
"These are "they which were not defiled with women j for they are virgins.
These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were
redeemed from among men, being the. first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb.
"And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before
the throne of God." — Revelation xiv. 1-5. „
In the course of my expositions of the -Apocalypse, I have
seen so many bright and beautiful spots, that I regret being so
often obliged to pass them over, in consequence of the effort I
have made to give you a connected;, exposition of the whole.
We have here the description of that little throng of which we
have often spoken, named, in other portions of the Apocalypse,
the two witnesses ; in another part, the woman clothed with the
sun ;' in another, as having come out of great tribulation, and
having washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb. In another part they are . represented as singing,
" Thou wast slain for us, ¦ and hast redeemed us out of every
kindred, and people, and nation, and tongue, and hast made us
kings and priests unto our God, and we shall reign with thee."
I showed you that never was there an age in the history of the
past so utterly dark, that there were not here and there . some
bright and radiant stars, indicating that the Sun of Righteous
ness, though hidden, was not extinguished, or withdrawn from
his church. I have shown you that when the Apostasy was
20*

234 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
most complete, and its overshadowing superstitions the most op
pressive, there were here and there faithful witnesses, .who testi
fied for God, for Christ, and for the great truths of Christianity,
even in the very worst of circumstances. Now, the hundred and
forty-four thousand is only an Apocalyptic phrase for the election
of God : it is only a variety of expression for the two witnesses,
or for the woman in the wilderness, or for those that came out of
-great tribulation, and sang the song of Moses and of the Lamb ;
and here, where this picture is presented of the Lamb seated on
the throne, and the hundred and forty-four thousand gathered
round him, we have only expressed, in different language, the
very same idea whieh is beautifully set forth by St. Paul in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, when he says, (xii. 22-24,) "But ye
are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of
angels, to the general" assembly of the church of the first-born,
which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to
the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the Mediator
of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh
better things than that of Abel." The same hundred and forty-
four thousand are spoken of in other parts of Scripture, as those
who say, " our' citizenship is in heaven ;" as those who are said
" to sit together with Christ in heavenly places ;" as those who
"are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise;" those who are
"justified by faith, and have peace with God;" as those to whom
" there is no condemnation ;" who " walk not after the flesh, but
after the Spirit." Alas, amid all the clash and collision of opi
nions upon churches and church forms and church government,
there seems to be lost the recollection and expression of this
blessed truth, that the church of Christ is a totally different
thing from the Church of England, or the Church of Ireland, or
the Church of Scotland, or dissenting, or established, or non-
established church of any description whatever. I believe that
there is no stronger symptom of approaching wreck than when
men begin to quarrel about the vessel, and lose their perception
of the glory for which that vessel was made. There is no
Stronger proof of the very first commencement of idolatry than
cleaving to tho altar, contending for its forms, and forgetting that

THE FOLLOWERS OF THE LAMB. 235
the altar was raised that there might burn and glow upon it tho
mingling beams of mercy and truth that have met together, and
righteousness and peace that have kissed each other. The
church of Christ is a community spread over every section of the
earth ; and much as I have said and proved of the corruptions
of the Church of Rome, I believe there is a fragment of the
church of Christ in the very bosom of that awful Apostasy. I
believe that there are many in glory who were in the Church of
Rome, but who are not, therefore, witnesses to its purity, but
witnesses to the penetrating power of God's truth, which pierces
the strongest, eclipse, and makes converts under the most unfa
vourable circumstances. I believe that there are portions of the
hundred and forty-four thousand in the Church of England, por
tions in the Church of Scotland, portions among our Independent,
Baptist, and, Wesleyan communions also ; they, are the truest
churchmem — and they are the high churchmen ; they are the only
churchmen who believe in the reality of this truth. What is it
but Popery to magnify the sect, as if that alone' were pure, and
to excommunicate .the sister -church because it is not altogether
what we should wish it to be.' Let us, my dear friends, rejoice
that the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church is not what Dr.
Pusey makes.it, nor yet what Dr. Wiseman makes it, nor yet
what Dr. Candlish makes it, nor yet what Dr. M'Neile, or Dr.
Muir, nr any other may ever attempt to make it — but what
Christ has made it, according to his election of grace — the hun
dred forty and four thousand, who sing the song of Moses and of
the Lamb. In other words, we are taught in this passage that
the Head of these ransomed ones — the great centre around ^rhich
they cling — is not any thing earthly, or local, or visible, but
Christ alone. Of this church — the hundred forty and four thou
sand — Christ alone is the living, the everlasting, the glorious
Head. Christ is not the head of any visible church on earth in
the sense in which he is the Head of 'this elect, and redeemed
body, called the hundred forty and four thousand. These are
constituent stones of the arch ; he is the glorious keystone :
they are the body ; he is the head, and, as in this vision, they
cluster around his throne, and behold the. Lamb, and rejoice' amid
the splendours of his crown, and celebrate his praise and his

286 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
alone. The model of the true church is not what some have
thought it — the medieval church : jfchat would be a most corrupt
model ; nor" yet the reformed church of the sixteenth century :
that was a defective one ; but the great model of the Christian
church is beyond the skies, and the nearer the church of Christ
on earth approximates in its character to the church in glory, the
more perfect that church becomes. There is also another lesson
that we ought not to forget, which is this : that there are but two
great parties in the world, each with its head or its centre.
There is the Apostasy — its head and its centre Antichrist ; and
the apostolical church, the hundred forty and four thousand, with
its head and its centre Christ; and that head and centre is the
spring and source of all our Christianity. And, as you will see
in the Church of- Rome, every difference in doctrine, every di
versity of sentiment, forgiven and forgotten on condition that all
cling to the chair of St. Peter, and hold the pope to be the head
of the church; even so it ought to be, if it is not so,. in the Pro
testant church, meaning by that the scriptural church universal,
every difference in discipline, every diversity in sentiment or de
tail, is forgiven and forgotten on condition that you cling to
Christ, and to Christ alone, as the head of the true church. This
is the difference between the apostate church and the apostolical
church:- the one has its head and its centre Antichrist; the other
has its head and centre Christ ; the one has a visible head, and
therefore a visible unity or uniformity ; the other, has an invisible
head, and therefore it has an invisible unity, but a real and a sub
stantial unity notwithstanding.- Hence I have always felt, that,"
in the Protestant church, it would be inconsistent with what is
stated in the Bible, to make all the sections of that church uni
form in rites, ceremonies, and discipline. I believe that it would
be not only contrary to what is in the Bible, but that it would be
inexpedient as a matter of fact. I believe it was not God's de
sign — it was hot God's great design — that there should be abso
lute uniformity in grace any more than there should be in nature.
If we look at the fn'mament of heaven, God might have made
every star of the sixth magnitude, or of the first magnitude; but
he has not done so : one star differs from another star in glory.
If we look upon earth, each flower differs from another flower in

THE FOLLOWERS OF THE LAMB. 237
fragrance and in tints. God might have made each flower a
rose ; but he' did not do so. He made many flowers, of many
sizes, of many tints, all having one grand principle in common —
their vegetable life — but developing that principle in every va
riety of tint, and blossom, and beauty. So, when I look at this
immense assembly, I can see here several thousand faces ; every
face in this assembly has" several characteristics in common — two
eyes, one nose, one mouth, so complete, that there is none without
these characteristics; but there are not two faces. in this hall that
are so like each other that you could mistake them for a moment.
What does this show? That there is a certain' principle called
unity, common to all, but that this unity develops itself in in
finite varieties. This I believe to represent the state of God's
visible church : all its parts hold certain great principles in com
mon. We hold one God, one -Christ, one Spirit ; we hold one
baptism, one Lord's supper ; we hold the sacredness of the Sab
bath, the completeness of the Bible : these are the grand essen
tial, elemental characteristics of our common unity; but these
grand essential points or principles which we hold in common
have developed themselves in a great variety of forms ; but that
very variety itself only proves the essential unity that is within.
Nature resists uniformity, and so does grace. If you go into the
wood in the season of autumn, and cut each outspreading oak
into the form of a perfect cone, you will thus have made every oak
the fae-simile of its fellow, and produced a most complete and
perfect sylvan uniformity. But- is this the will of Him that made
the trees ? Wait a little : wait till next spring. The moment
that the sap of life rises from the roots into the trunks, and
breaks out into foliage, that moment the uniformity is gone, for
each branch will develop itself according to its own "sweet
will," and the dead trees only will remain as man shaped them,
to let the uniformist know that God meant unity to be in nature,
but not uniformity in development. So it is in the church of
Christ. . Wherever a pope with his tiara, or an Archbishop Laud
with his crosier, or a king with his. sceptre, or a Cromwell with
his iron sword, have tried to make Christians perfectly uniform
in all things, they have found a power mightier than kings, and
popes, and prelates, and consuls; in that great law that God has

238 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
struck into his kingdom of grace, telling us that unity in essen
tials with diversity in development is God's great design.
Now these hundred forty and four thousand have one centre,
one head. They are complete in Christ — they glory in his grace
— they look to Jesus in heaven just as they looked to him on
earth. On earth they ran the race set before them, looking unto
Jesus ; in heaven- they surround his throne and sing the praises
of the Lamb, that sits upon that throne with his hundred forty
and four thousand. Now it is stated that this elect, this justified,
this redeemed company, sang a new song which no man could
sing, except the hundred forty and four thousand, "who were
redeemed from the. earth."
I have spoken of election: Now I have heard that there are
strangers who attend this hall, who complain that I' even mention
the word. They say it is not a true doctrine ; but I think, if
they read a little longer their_Bibles, they will see that it is true.
The question is not, can you comprehend it ? or can I reconcile
it ? But the real question is — -Is it in the Bible ? I wish I
could only teach you this point, which is at the present day of
great importance. I believe a thing, not because A says it, or B
holds it, or A can comprehend it, or B can explain it, but because
God says it. Our rule of faith is not what the best men say, x>r
what most men say, -but what God says in his blessed word. Be
cause I cannot comprehend a doctrine, I do not give that as a
reason for rejecting it. Pirst, I ask, is it here ? If it is, I say,
it is God's truth ; if it is not here; I say it is not true. We read
in one page, " No man can come to me, except the Father which
hath sent me draw him." I read on the next page, " Come unto
me." — " Ye will not Come unto me." — " Why will ye die ?" You
say, these are contradictory. I say, they look so to us ; they are
not contradictory absolutely, but contradictory relatively — that is,
we cannot see huw to reconcile them ; but that does not prove
they are irreconcilable. You know it is a great law in mathe
matics, that if two lines were to start out from the position that
I now occupy, these two- straight lines might seem to you for a
thousand miles to be perfectly parallel and never to meet ; but
if in either of these -lines there "were the very slightest inclina
tion to the other, they will ultimately meet and blend together.

THE FOLLOWERS OP THE LAMB. 239
Thus it is with these truths of election and man's7 responsibility.
They may seem- to us for tent thousand miles to be perfectly
parallel, never to be in contact together, but when we meet with
the hundred forty and four thousand, we shall see that there was
an inclination given them in heaven by the touch of God, and in
the brightness of that throne they will meet -and mingle and be
eternally one. I open my Bible, and there I find, " No man can
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him."
There is God's sovereignty ! On another page I read, "Ye will
not come to me" — there is man's responsibility.. I do1 not say,
because God is sovereign man is not responsible, or because man
is responsible God is not sovereign; but, I say, both are true,
for both are plainly stated in God's word ; and he that rejects
one, leaves not an inch of ground on which to stand for the re
ception of the other. Such passages as these, " Elect from the
foundation of the world," — " Chosen in Christ before the world
began," you say will tend to make men sin, because "-since they
are elect, they must he eternally saved. That is your logic, not
God's word — that is ' human reason, not God's revelation. You
have no more authority for such reasoning than you have for the
rejection, of both the doctrines I have now stated. I not- only
refer te other texts', but I appeal to fact. Do you find that the
most devoted Christians concur with you ? Not at all. 'The man
that believes he is saved most completely by grace, is just the
man who abounds the most consistently in whatever things are
pure and just and lovely and of good report. One fact will be
felt by many of you to be better than a thousand arguments.
With a Scotch audience, metaphysical reasoning will always have
the most power"; with an English audience, a fact will always be
the most conclusive. Then here is a fact, I say, that the men
who believe in that doctrine are the men : I appeal to their lives,
I appeal to their writings. I appeal to the Newtons, the Howels,
and others, of whom the world was not worthy-^-who were the
purest and the holiest in their lives and conversations.
But it is now stated, " and no man could learn that song but
the hundred forty and four thousand." The song is described in
another part of Revelation : — "Unto him that loved us, and washed
us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and

240 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
priests unto God and his Father; unto him be glory and do
minion for ever and ever, Amen." Why is it that they could
not learn this song ? First, its key-note was Christ, and they
that belong to Antichrist have nothing in their constitutions made
to receive it. You know that an unmusical ear is never pleased
with melody, or harmony either. An unsanctified heart" is never
refreshed by holiness, and purity, and peace. You cannot make
the physical ear susceptible of sweet sounds, and man cannot
make the natural heart susceptible of divine grace. It needs the
touch of the Creator in the one, it needs the tuning of the Creator
in the other. Hence, if an unforgiven and an unsanctified sinner
were admitted into heaven, he could not take his part in that
choir — he could neither be admitted as a performer, nor as a
hearer. He could take no place in it ; he would find himseif in
a strange and uncongenial element, and the sharpening of a saw
would not be greater discord to our ear than the new song of the
hundred forty and four thousand to his. And the reason of this
is explained by such passages as " the preaching of the cross is to
the natural man foolishness" — "foolishness to the Greek, and a
stumbling-block to the Jew; because it is spiritually discerned."
The epithet " new" is applied to the song. What is meant by
that ? I think it is one of the most expressive appellatives in the
word of God. Why is the song of the gospel said to be "new?"
Does this mean new in the sense of just being discovered? No;
it means this : — All created things on earth may soon pall : the
fairest landscape that you have often looked at, fails at length to
please — the most exquisite melody which is too frequently sung,
soon becomes hackneyed — infinite excellence alone will bear to be
seen every day, and never to fade. This song is infinite music —
it is an infinite harmony — an infinite Christ is its key-note — it
has infinite glory its diapason for ever, and it is as new after a
million years as it was when it was first sung.
But the great characteristics of the redeemed ones are two that
I must especially notice.
I. — The first of these is, that " they followed the Lamb."
II. — The second is, that therefore "they are without fault
before the throne of God."
I.: — First, then, "They follow the Lamb whithersoever he

THE FOLLOWERS OF THE LAMB. 241
goeth" — this was their practice on earth ; " they are without spot
before the throne of God" — this is their reward in heaven. The
two are so connected, that without the one we can never attain
the other.
Let me now show, you how Christians still follow the Lamb!
They follow him, 1st, in the end and object of his life; they
follow him, 2dly, in the great standard to which he appealed ;
they follow him, 3dly, in his intercourse. with the world; 4thly,
in his joys; lastly, in his' sorrows. They follow Christ in' all
these points of view:
First, then,- they follow Christ in the end and object of his life.
I put the question to you, my dear friends, what is the end and
object of your existence ? What is it that you specially con
template as the great end that you are seeking to attain ? There
are as various ends among you as there are persons in the world.
The only object of some is to satisfy the desires of the flesh; they
live sinners, they .die sufferers. They are slaves in life, they are
wretched in death. There are others; again, whose main object
is to do no harm. There are persons in the world who propose
nothing definite to themselves, but to pass through the world
without doing harm to anybody: They are content to be blanks,
if they can only escape the- ignominy of being blots. They are
satisfied to hide their talent in a napkin, but they must be igno
rant of the judgment of Him who gave it, " Cast him into outer
darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." There
are others whose great object is to possess the world, to get rich,
to become comfortable, to provide for their families, to retire and
spend the remainder of their days in uninterrupted happiness.
They are always disappointed; they al-e the most miserable men,
whose consuming care has been to retire and enjoy themselves.
These persons, by a great law, never know what enjoyment is.
The very transition is miserable, from the fact that their minds
are not prepared and filled with1 the glorious truths of the gospel
to be their consolation and the subject of their thoughts in age;
and this will sufficiently account for my assertion, that such men
can never be happy. There are others; again, whose main object
in life is to do good to others. These are of a nobler' grade :
there is something beautiful in the benevolent man. It is no
21

242 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
light evidence, one might believe, of grace, when a man can say,
"When the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when the eye
saw mo, it gave witness to me : because I delivered the poor that
cried, and the fatherless, and him that had no one to help him.
The blessing of him that Was ready to perish came upon me : and
I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." And beautiful as
this character is, it is not all. We may be benevolent, and yet
not Christians; we may minister to the wants of the bodies of
thousands, and yet never have cherished one" anxious thought
about the state of our own soul. But what was Christ's great
object in life? He himself has told us; he says, "My meat and
my drink is to do the will of him that sent me." Here was the
great end proposed by our Lord. And, in another passage, "I
come not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me."
And now, my dear friends, let me speak to you. Do not ask,
when some design is placed before you, Is this profitable ? Will
this be popular ? but ask the question, first of all, Is it consistent
with the will of Christ ? Our Lord, the great example to us, all
the time of his sojourn on earth, sought to do the will of God :
and if we are washed in his blood, we shall endeavour to imitate
his example; and our first and chiefest inquiry on many subjects,
in all situations, in college, in school, and in business, will be,
What is the will of God ? and, Is this consistent with that will ?
They follow Christ, not only in the object of his life, but also
in the great standard- to which Christ appealed. This was a re
markable characteristic of our blessed Lord. Christ was God;
in him were the treasures of infinite wisdom. When any one
asked him a question, he might have said, I say unto thee thus it
is ; but he did not say so. And this is a wondrous fact, and I
hope you will, not forget it : when our Lord was asked, Is this
so ? is it lawful to do this ? is it right to do that ? he did not
reply, It is so ; for I, who am infinite wisdom, tell thee so ; but
he always replied, " How readest thou?" — "It is written" —
" Search the Scriptures, for these are they that testify of me."
Can you conceive a higher honour put upon God's word, than
that he that inspired it should appeal to it for a response to every
question ? that he who is infinite wisdom should draw from it the
exposition of every difficulty ? When the Jews asked him any

THE FOLLOWERS OF THE, LAMB. 243
thing, his continual answer was, " How readest thou ?" — " Search
the Scriptures;" and when he answered them, "then opened he
their understandings, that they may might understand the Scrip
tures." My dear friends, let it be so with you : and this brings me to a
subject on which I have already said something. If you are
asked, Is the doctrine of election true ? the right answer is not,
I cannot believe it — I cannot see how it can be so ; but the right
answer is, How readest thou ? and if you find- it written here,
the question is answered — the controversy ¦ settled,, for God has
spoken. And again, do you wish~an answer to the question,
What is man's state by nature ? some will tell you, Can we
believe that that beautiful babe that slumbers on its mother's
knee, with the countenance of a cherub, can have the heart and
nature of a sinner ? Dear friend, how . readest thou ? Search
the" Scripture — " The heart is deceitful above all things, and des
perately wicked" — "Every imagination of the thoughts of our-
heart is only evil continually." - And in that beautiful babe's
heart lie. coiled up all the passions that swept Europe in the his
tory Of Napoleon, or deluged the earth with blood in the persecu
tions of the Papacy. Nothing can save that child — though I
believe and" can prove that every babe that dies in infancy is
saved, and saved for ever — yet it is true that nothing can make
that sweet unconscious babe a child of grace — but the God that
made him — the Holy Spirit, the Quickener. If you ask the
question, How can I be justified before God? some will say,
Give alms to the poor — do good to others; but the right way is
— How readest thou ? What does God say ? We are justified
by Christ — we are justified by faith — " He who knew no sin was
made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him." And whatever be your difficulties with reference
to religion, always open the Scriptures — read1 — and see what is
written there. You must bring every thing to the test of the
Bible — you must bring every thing within the Bible. The in
stant you go out of it — it matters not whether you go to the
fathers, or bishops, or councils, or synod's, or doctors — the in
stant you go without the Bible for the solution of a religious
question, you are upon Popish ground, and must become a Pa-

244 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES,
pist ; but the instant you open this blessed book, and appeal to it
alone, you are on Protestant ground, and God, our own God, will
teach you.
Then, in the next place, they follow Christ, not only in the
standard to which he appealed, but they follow him in his inter
course with the world. He has said, " Ye are not of the world,
even as I am not 'of the world." Now, what was the nature of
Christ's intercourse with the world ? He did not go out of the
world, as some propose, but he remained in the world, as the
Bible prescribes. He prayed, " I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them
from the' evil." To retreat from the world, as monks and nuns
do, is cowardice — to conform to the world, as professing Protes
tants do, is sin— ^to remain in the world, and meet and conquer
the world, is Christianity. To be in the world, and not of it, is
the great law of our existence. v If your situation in life is such
that you cannot perform its duties without committing sin against
God — then it is time you were out of it. But then you must
take care that you do not confound great difficulties with absolute
impossibilities. You must take care, I say, before you leave the
situation in which Providence has placed you, that you do not
confound very great difficulties with absolute impossibilities ; and
you must also take care -that you do not confound your .own
indolence and love of ease. with the love of Christ and obedience
to his laws. It is rarely that Providence places us where - grace
cannot keep us— rarely are we placed by God in. the world with
out our having grace given us to conquer the world. And, my
dear friends, with respect to another point ; while you are to be
in the world, and not of the world, you are to take care not to go
without a call into the midst of tempting circumstances, for that
is not being in the world and trying to conquer the world. If
you go into the midst of temptation voluntarily, and expect that
your Christianity will sustain you there, you calculate erro
neously. You first violate what you know to be duty, and you
then expect that the God whom you have insulted will protect
you in the midst of the peril you have provoked. When Our
blessed Lord, my dear friends, went into the wilderness, recollect
what is said. It is not said that when our great example — for

THE FOLLOWERS OF THE LAMB. 245
he was our example as man just as he was our atonement as God-
man — it is not said that he went into the wilderness to be
tempted — but " he was led into the wilderness, to be tempted of
the devil." Now, take earethat you do not go into the midst of
temptation, but that if ever you are found in the midst of it,it
has been in the leading of the providence of God. But you will
say, Did not our Lord eat with the publicans and sinners ? Yes,
he did ; and if you go there exactly in the same character, and
with the same designs, you may eat with them too. He went
not to be their companion, and to enjoy their festivities; but he
went to instruct, reclaim, and sanctify them. Hence it has
always seemed to me another ruling principle, whenever you en
gage in any thing on which you cannot ask the blessing, the
grace, and the direction of God, you are upon wrong ground.
You may lay this down as a great rule, that if you cannot pray
that God would keep and guide and bless you, then you are on
false ground, and it is time to retire, and go back to the place
from whence you came. This I have always felt in reference to
play-houses. As I never was. in either of them, I cannot speak to
what goes on ; yet, suppose the play were pure, suppose the
actors were honourable men, I suppose there could be no sin in
repeating the --play, therefore no sin in representing the characters
of that play ; and I could conceive a theatre to be a place where
a Christian might go and be instructed. But I do not take
visionary shadows of what might be, but a true exhibition of
what exists. The plays, I am told, are disgraceful ; the company
that you meet at the theatre, the most enthusiastic admirer of the
theatre must confess is not the company in 'which he would wish
his sons and daughters to spend1 many happy and agreeable hours.
Suppose a Christian goes to the play-house — he says, I am strong
— it may be so ; I have grace — it may be so ; I shall come in
and go out without any contamination, or getting into any evil
company — it may be so. This may be perfectly possible; but
by going there, remember you have set an example which others
will copy. Are you sure that your son or yohr daughter' will
copy it, and not contract the evil you" have avoided? Can you
be responsible for those who will quote your example as one
which they may follow, but who are strangers to the grace which
21*

246 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
keeps you from falling ? And if it be, what some of you may say
it is, even questionable, hesitation- in matters of conscience is
periloiis-^-the clear duty is to avoid it : and if you have the grace
of God, you will find in the sacred sketches of heaven, in the
employments of true religion, in the duties and responsibilities
of the gospel, what will suit your taste "far better than the stimu
lating and exciting "exhibitions of the play-house. Some of you
perhaps have been there : I will presume that some there are in
this assembly who have been in their thoughtless days — and per
haps even some who know the truth, and hope that they have the
grace of God; you came home, say eleven or twelve o'clock.
Did you thfen kneel down and pour forth your heart unto God ?
Did you feel in the least in a temperament for prayer ? Did you
not feel inclined to think about any thing rather than about God,
or about your sOul — about Christ and eternity? Did you not
regard such matters with a feeling of dislike ? Did you not feel
them quite uncongenial with the sort of happy dream into which
the excitement of the theatre had thrown you ? You know it is
so, and it ever has been and ever will be so. Hence, my dear
friends, the result of the gospel will be that the grace of God
will separate you from the world — or the world, understanding
your character, will separate itself from you.
But Christians follow the Lamb, next, in his condition of life.
He was the Saviour — he was a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. He was satisfied ; but how few there are at the pre
sent day who are contented with that position in which God has
placed them ! Instead of being satisfied, the lower stratum is
ever pushing to get above the upper, and one class treading on
the heels of those that are before them; and all actuated by a
consuming thirst for wealth, or power, or supremacy.
Let me add, in the next place, they follow Christ in his sor
rows. What was the great subject of his sorrow? We weep
over our losses — that is nature ; we weep over our bereavements
—that is natural too. But this was not Christ's chiefest sorrow :
he wept over suffering ; but the great subject that produced his
tears was sin. He wept not at his own sufferings, but he wept
for our sins. And in proportion as a Christian feels what sin is,
in the same proportion will he learn thus to weep also.

THE FOLLOWERS OF THE LAMB. 247
Lastly, we are to follow Christ in his joy. What was his joy?
Not the joy that is carnal — not the joy that is sensual — but the
joy that is spiritual — "for the joy that was set before him;"
that is, the joy of converted sinners, a reclaimed earth, and a
glorified God.
And then we must follow him with the heart — not only with
the outward, but with the inward man. We^must follow Christ
openly. No Christian goes to heaven by stealth; no Christian
would be satisfied with creeping to heaven. " I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ," is his language. Boldly to confess
Christ is his first and essential duty. " Whosoever shall confess
me before men," says our blessed Lord, " him will I confess also
before my Father which ii in heaven."
We must follow Christ fully and constantly — not by fits and
starts. Having within them a fountain that ever flows, because
ever fed from the springs of, heaven, the followers of Christ go
wherever he calls — when he' precedes them to prison — when they
must march through the blazing fagots, or endure the taunts- and
contumely of a despising world; and following him in all the
places where he beckons them to follow him upon earth, at
length they mingle with the hundred forty and four thousand
who celebrate his praise' as he sits upon his throne.

248

LECTURE XIV.
THE FAULTLESS CONGREGATION.
"Therefore are they without fault before the throne of God." — Revela
tion xiv. 5.
I EXPLAINED in my last the great characteristics of the saints
of God on earth as these are described in the previous portion
of this chapter. They are the hundred and forty and four thou
sand who, surround the throne of the Lamb, and who sing the
new song, and who exhibit their faith in their practice, inasmuch
as "they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." I now turn
to a picture of the redeemed in heaven. You have had the por
trait of Christians here upon earth — ""they follow the Lamb
whithersoever he goeth." You have in the next clause the por
trait, of these Christians in heaven — "they are without fault be
fore the throne of God." By the first they were justified before
the world — by the second they are justified before God. The
church at large recognised the image of their Master in the lives
of his followers, 'for "they followed the Lamb whithersoever he
went." And God recognises his own in those that stand before
his throne: and he pronounces that they are "without fault be
fore that throne."
Now, the first question to which I will endeavour to reply is,
Who are they that are here spoken of? Whence did they come?
What are they now? They are "without fault." And lastly,
Where are th'ey? They are "before the throne."
First, then, who are these that are before the throne without
spot? I will give you a specimen list. Some of the names you
will recognise as household words; others you will dimly remem
ber; and those who were present during the last Sabbath evenings
I have lectured upon the subject, will hear names, though not
familiar to them, yet described by me as among the sealed of God,

THE FAULTLESS CONGREGATION. 249
that "w'ashed their robes and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb." In answering the question, Who are they? I must
mention the name of Abel, who, "being dead yet speaketh" upon
earth, whose soul is also now "without fault before the throne
of God." The next I will enumerate in this glorious catalogue
is Abraham, the "father of the faithful/' who went forth follow
ing God, "not knowing whither he went," and who was justified
by faith instrumentally, by works declaratiyely, and by Christ
meritoriously. Another of that illustrious throng was Lot, who,
however, narrowly escaped the pollution of Sodom and the con
demnation Of sin. There is also Isaiah, who was sawn asunder —
Luke, who was hanged on an olive-tree — Peter, who was crucified
with his head downward, and innumerable others "of whom the
world was not worthy." And in that illustrious throng I see
also the publican, who cried in the agony of his soul, " God be
merciful to me'a sinner," and whose cry of agony is now'lost in
the song of praise, "Unto him that loved me and washed me in
his blood be honour and glory." I see in that congregation the
prodigal, who said, "I will arise and go to my Father's house:"
admitted to a home in which there are no tears, from which there
can be no exile, a companion of " the angels who rejoiced over him
as one sinner that repented and returned unto God." And I see
amid the shining throng Mary Magdalene, who poured her tears
upon the Saviour's feet, and wiped them with the hairs of her
head; and who, having washed his feet upon earth, and having
been washed with his blood by grace, also joins in the anthem
of the redeemed, "Unto him that loved me, and washed me from
my sins, and made me a priest unto God" — "unto Him be all
the glory." I see Peter, too, who once denied Him upon earth,
and, in all his epistles, never forgot to allude with deep sorrow to
that denial as the bitterest thing in his experience, now not de
nied by the Master as the Master was denied by the servant, but
accepted and justified and without spot before the throne of God.
I see there also one pronounced by himself to be the chiefest of
sinners, "not worthy to be called an apostle" — "the least of. all
saints" — "in perils by land, in perils' by sea, in perils among
false brethren, in cold, in nakedness, and in hunger;" who having
triumphed over all, and having been found faithful in all, is

250 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
"without fault before the throne of God." And I see also one
sparkling gem in that diadem, one bright and happy one in that
throng — one who saw in the dying Saviour's countenance the
kindling beams of an unearthly glory, and as he beheld that
countenance, to the outward eye more marred than any other
man's, and yet to the inner spirit more glorious than all other
men's, he cried, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom." There he is remembered now in glory, and he re
members there, as the burden of his song, the love that ransomed
him— the grace that plucked him like a brand from the burning.
I see others also in that congregation, if I may leave the illus
trious apostles whose names' are familiar to us all, and touch upon
the names of some whose writings have often been misunderstood
and whose characters have, as often been mistaken, who neverthe
less, with all their faults iii life, with all their imperfections in
their writings, held the foundation. I can see among them the
"peaceful" Irenseus, the great advocate of peace in a world of
conflict — and also the violent Tertullian, now subdued and sanc
tified. Amid that throng I can see the tolerant Clemens of Alex
andria— the faithful historian Eusebius — the majestic Athanasius,
who, Gibbon says, was fit to occupy a throne, but whom God has
received and admitted to a throne" in glory. lean see among
them too the acrimonious Jerome, purified of all his fierceness,
and the Protestant Vigilantius, denounced and reviled by Jerome,
but now reconciled, and both together rejoicing before the throne.
I can see there the excellent Basil, and his contemporary Gregory
Nazianzen, and the evangelical Augustine, admitted to the true
city which he so eloquently described; and the golden-mouthed
Chrysostom, whose eloquence agitated the souls of the masses,
and yet charmed the most cultivated tastes. These all had their
faults upon earth, and in many of their writings were the seeds
of the Apostasy; in their lives were all the infirmities of fallen
humanity; but they grasped the main truth, they held the es
sential doctrines of Christianity;- and now the seeds of the Apos
tasy have been extracted from their hearts — their imperfections
forgiven — their sins covered — and in the lustre of heaven and
before the throne of God, they are now without fault. The
goodly fellowship of the prophets — the noble army of martyrs—

THE FAULTLESS CONGREGATION. 251
the glorious company of the apostles, are all "before the throne
without spot," "having washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb." There is also Isaac, "who blessed
Jacob and Esau concerning things to come" — there also is Moses,
who "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing
rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy
the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." There also are they
"who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
violence. of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the
armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised- to life"
again; and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that
they might obtain a better resurrection : and others had trial
of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and
imprisonment. They were stoned, were sawn asunder, were
tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in
sheepskins- and goatskins; being- destitute, afflicted; tormented,
(of whom the world was not worthy,) they wandered in deserts
and on mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." But
they are now "without fault before the throne oft God." Re
ferring to the links of that chain of witnesses whom I enume
rated in tracing the two witnesses, — I may add, before that throne
are Sergius, and Claude of Turin, and Agobard, Henri, and Peter
Waldo. Before that throne there is Wicliffe, the morning star
of the Reformation, whose dead dust was denied a grave upon the
earth, but whose living soul occupies a throne in heaven. There
too I can perceive John Huss, the faithful Reformer, who found
the promises of priests and the pledges of kings all fail him, but
who now finds before the throne that the promises of God were
all yea and amen. I see there, too, Martin Luther, the monk
that shook the world; whose life was a drama, in which pontiffs
and kings were but the shifting scenery — the translator of the
Bible — the vindicator of the glory of Christ— who bequeathed
to us a Protestant church, an open Bible; his rugged soul sub
dued — his indomitable heart beating with the pulses of immor
tality—amid the light that never knows a cloud — without fault

252 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
— and he had several upon earth — before the throne of God and
of- the Lamb. I see too, amid that glorious assembly, Calvin,
whose grave is not to be defected among the acres of this world,
but whose spirit now feeds upon that living bread he so largely
distributed to others. I behold there Ridley, who cheered his
brother amid the blazing fagots by uttering that memorable pro
phecy, which God grant may be fulfilled to the latest generation,
"Be of good cheer, brother, for we shall this day light a candle
in England, that, by God's grace, never shall be put out." I
view there also the amiable, and learned, and accomplished Me
lancthon, enjoying in heaven the peace which he sighed and
prayed for upon earth — the stern and indomitable Knox, who
"pulled down the nests, that the rooks might never again return"
— -who feared not the face of clay — who spoke the truth to princes,
and treated the man with the gold ring as he treated the man
with the beggar's wallet — the stern, the indomitable, the faithful,
the holy, who feared God, and feared none besides — now without
fault before the throne of God. I see Pascal, whose letters did
such havoc among the Jesuits, and whose thoughts have conveyed
such comfort to Christians; and Quesnel, condemned by the bull
of Clement XL, and pronounced to be a heretic, but acquitted
by the Judge of all the earth, and welcomed as a saint into glory.
And will you allow me — for charity should ever go as far as
truth — to say that in that shining throng are some who were in
the Church of Rome even, but who, like Martin Boos and Pene-
lon, were not altogether of it; men that singed their outer gar
ments only by the fires of the Apostasy, but whose souls were
preserved. safe by the Son of God. And I see in that illustrious
throng Clarkson and the eminent Wilberforce, who achieved for
England's colonies what is the characteristic of England's shores,
that the moment the slave touches them, that moment the
shackles will drop from his limbs, and he be free as the mightiest
of England's nobles. I see there Bunyan, who has passed all his
perils, and has crossed the river, and now dwells in the glorious
city; and Baxter, who now enjoys the rest in heaven he so beau
tifully depicted upon e'arth; and John Newton, who was converted
to God when he stood at the helm on a stormy night, and in a
tempestuous sea, by recollecting a text which his mother taught

THE FAULTLESS CONGREGATION. 253
him when he prattled as an infant at her knee;, and there too
the sainted Flavel, and the beautiful and amiable Leigh tori, and
Simeon of Cambridge, and Elliott the apostle of the Indians, and
Henry Martyn, and Oberlin, who has left to statesmen alesson
that the way to civilize is first of , all to Christianize. I can per
ceive, too, in that assembly, Robert Hall, whose beautiful style
was only surpassed by his lofty piety; and Andrew Fuller, who
excelled all scholars, and yet studied at no university; and John
Wesley, and Watts, whose hymns are sung where cold cathedral
chants and Gregorian-tones are unheard and unknown; and
Whitefield, who evangelized the masses; and Williams, who- pe
rished in his mission ; and last, though not least, one whose in
tellect was equal to the intellect of any of. them, and whose piety
was not surpassed by the piety of any of them— the late lamented
Thomas Chalmers of Edinburgh.
The removal of this great and good man, as I have elsewhere
stated, and now repeat, is a loss not to a party, but to, the whole
Christian church. His name will last with the literature. and
language of our country. Over the grave of so illustrious a
man — -so great a benefactor to the church — so distinguished an
ornament to his country— all party spirit, all sectarian feeling
should be quelled; and we should show that, whatever our opi
nions may be; we are not incapable of appreciating transcendent
greatness, or of doing homage to unrivalled worth.- No party
disputes — no denominational differences— no remaining recollec
tion of rash expressions or hasty censure should be suffered for
one moment to stifle. our Christian feelings, or dilute our expres
sion of regret, or dim that admiration^or lessen that gratitude we
feel for, the life and labours of so great a man, so good a minister.
He is now indeed before the throne and without fault, far
above the dark vortex of terrestrial strifes, in which frail spirits
vex and fret. He lives amid the light and breathes the love of
eternity. He has, not ceased -to be; he has merely ceased to
minister in this tabernacle. He has merely laid aside the .robe
in whieh he ministered as a faithful Levite without the vail.
In his case death has removed only the limits and restrictions
of the soul; it has extinguished, not life, but' its troubles — it
has shut up all the springs of sorrow, and opened at the same
22

254 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
time all the fountains of eternal joy. He has died only that ho
may die no more.
Bis great genius would have raised him to the very loftiest
place of power, pre-eminence, and even gain in any other pro
fession. But all his talents were consecrated to the cause and
enlisted in the service of his Lord. - An astronomer — a mathe
matician^ — a philosopher, he yet preferred to be felt while living,
and to be remembered when dead, as the earnest and devoted
Christian. His reason was guided by the inspiration, and his
imagination kindled from the altars of Christianity. In church
politics he could be dazzled by a crotchet, and led about, the
almost unquestioning victim of subtle and unscrupulous spirits ;
but in the higher walks of eternal truth — in the vindication of
the gospel — in the defence of its glory, its excellence, and its
truth, he was the independent thinker — the mighty logician —
the eloquent orator. With the simplicity of a child he combined
the intellectual calibre of a giant. Whatever great truth he
discussed he made so luminous, that few could fail to see it ;
while at the same time he clothed it with such and so varied
splendour, that all retained the impression even after the minuter
features had perished from their memory. With a mode of
address the most unprepossessing — a style. and phraseology
idiomatic and uncouth — and an accent utterly wanting in music
to southern ears, he yet riveted the minds of the thoughtless,
mastered the objections of the skeptic, and roused the conscience
and stirred the responsibilities of the ungodly, and led all captive
as beneath the might and witchery of an irresistible spell.
Long the minister of one of the largest parishes in Glasgow,
he set there an example of earnest piety and untiring labour.
He had a word "of power for all. The merchant felt Christianity,
by means of his commercial sermons, present in the very centre
of his circumstances, prescribing duties, and promising rewards,
and rightfully exacting a tribute from all his gains for the altar
of Him whose smiles made him rich, and whose grace alone could
make him happy. Ho followed the skeptic into all his retreats,
and overtook and overwhelmed him inv each in succession. At
one time he would track his course along subterranean mines,
amid fossil remains and fragments of aboriginal chaos, and con-

THE FAULTLESS CONGREGATION. 255
found him there with the undeniable footprints of Deity. At
another he would rise on untiring wing, -and pursue him from
star to star-»-from system to system^-and confute him there, and
bring back to this, earth as the evidence of his victory a more
glorious apocalypse of the power, resources, and glory of God.
Nor did he less excel in exhibiting the great and distinguishing
doctrines of the everlasting gospel. All his discourses are
inlaid with these. He, of all men, mostly clearly detected the
links of connection among the doctrines of the gospel, long
hidden, and beautiful affinities unseen by ordinary minds, but
visible to his; and truths that seemed to the outward eye isolated
and disconnected, he showed to cohere by fibres running below
and binding together all the trees in the paradise of God, one
with the other, and all with the Tree of Life. He never handled
a doctrine without throwing forth masses of truth that were like
ingots of gold, to ordinary minds. It would - not 'be easy to
express the greatness of the obligations of the Christian ministry
to Dr. Chalmers; and it would hot be more easy to state bow
much men of science owe to him. He was the first who made
the scholars and literati and philosophers of the nineteenth
century feel their littleness beside the apostles and evangelists of
the first. None were so successful in extorting from all the
sciences tribute for Christianity, or so happy in casting light on
the most distinguishing- peculiarities of evangelical religion' from
the various discoveries of modern science. In his writings all
the sciences are seen to be as the handmaids, of religion, ap
proaching the great temple of everlasting truth, spreading new
embroideries on its shrines, and- laying their most precious things
on her altar. Astronomy, in his pages, owns all her splendour
borrowed from the Sun of Righteousness. Geology empties the
deepest mines at -his bidding, and presents her most brilliant
gems and her most precious metals, as dim reflections of his
glory. Botany weaves around the cross her amaranthine gar
lands ; and Newton comes from- his starry home — Linnaeus from
his flowery resting-place — and Werner and Hutton from their
subterranean graves, at -the voice of Chalmers, to acknowledge
that all they learned and elicited in their respective provinces' has
only served to show more clearly that Jesus of Nazareth is

256 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
enthroned on the riches of the universe, and that the voice of
Christianity is thevoice of God. This is no ordinary demonstra
tion. Yet.it was the demonstration actually achieved by the
great and accomplished man, whose loss is not the calamity of a
sect, but a catastrophe to the Christian world.
His death, however, was not a mere fact occurring amid the
tumbling accidents of a chaotic world, but an appointment of
God. " It is appointed unto all men to die." Were we to
regard his removal as a mere fact, we should place it in the
hands of blind and unintelligent fate ; but in regarding it as the
appointment of God, we attach to it a holy significance. It is
seen as coming from the wisdom which precludes all supposition
of error, and from the love of which we can have no suspicion.
The day, the nature, and the place of our death are all fixed by
our Father: We are each
" Immortal -till our work is done."
Chalmers ceased to be on earth when there was no more work
for him to do. His mission was done — his journey finished;
and the voice that guided- him in all his ways -addressed him,
".Come up hither; those hopes I impressed upon your heart shall
now be realized ; those longings of yours after1 a perfection, a
glory, a permanence, which earth could not satisfy, shall now be
satisfied ; that great soul -of thine which I made, shall now be
relieved of its limits and shackles. My fiDger will now open all
its stops, and awaken the awful harmony of its thousand strings,
and. give it powers to magnify me, such as it never imagined on
earth. Come up hither : in this new Eden the leaves of the
Tree of Knowledge are all luminous, and cast around them no
shadow. Come up hither; and see the only free church in the
universe — not the phantom, the delusion, which man calls so,
but the reality which God pronounces so — 'Jerusalem which is
above is free, which is the mother of us all.' "
The name of Chalmers will be cherished by the (good and
great of every party through many generations-. He will rise in
the recollection of future ages, not in the robes of a sect, but in
the white garments of catholic Christianity; his first love
restored without its alloy, and his last errors erased, and "without
a vestige; his dead dust awaiting the first beam of the resur-

THE FAULTLESS, CONGREGATION. 25.7
rection morn, and his glorified spirit joining with a great mul
titude of many sects and tongues and countries, saying, " Unto
him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father ;
to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."
These all are before the throne without spot.- I can see there
also the babe that withered like a bud prematurely from its
mother's bosom ; and I can see there, too, the son, the daughter,
that seemed to have passed through the earth like, an angel, and
you only knew it was an angel by the vision of the departing
wing. And I can see there the father — your father — whose
gray hairs were the crown of glory ; whose deeds were articles
of faith: — whose conduct was his confession of faith — who could
say, " When the ear heard me then it blessed me, and when the
eye saw me it gave witness to me : because I delivered the poor
that cried, and the fatherless and him that had none to help him.
The blessing of him that- was ready to perish came upon me,
and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." I can see
there innumerable others— friends and relatives — who preferred
to be better than they seemed rather than to seem better than
they were; who said little upon earth, but who saw very far into
glory. I see there is no nook ofhumanity in which a Saviour
may not be discovered — no portion of human experience where
that Saviour is inaccessible. I see there the merciful, the pure
in heart, the peacemakers, and those that were persecuted for
righteousness' sake. I can see there all those who were invited
by the King of kings, " Come, ye blessed of my Father : for I
was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye
gave me drink; Iwas a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and
ye clothed me; sicl^ and in prison, and ye visited me;'-' — these,
from all the varieties of human life — from all the vicissitudes
of human experience, we may pronounce, without bigotry on the
one hand or exclusiveness on the other, to be " before the throne
of God :" and, let me tell you, you will meet in heaven many
whom bigotry proscribed, and ignorance mistook, and unchari
tableness excluded ; while you will miss in heaven great professors
whom you made sure to meet there. 22*

258 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
So far, then, I have endeavoured to answer the first question ;
let me now proceed to answer the second.
Whence do they come ? They come from every part of the
inhabitable globe ; and the Lord himself is my authority :
"They shall comej from the east and from the west, and shall
sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in my kingdom."
The African from his burning sands — the Laplanders from his
everlasting snow, shall be there — the Arab from his wilds — the
Druse from his mountain fastnesses — the antediluvian, the
patriarch of ancient days — the children of Shem, and Ham, and
Japhet, that met first in the ark, careering upon the waves of
the deluge that laid waste the world, till they rested upon the
summit of Ararat — the children of these, the gray fathers of the
human race, shall meet again ; first in Christ, the true Ark, by
faith; and lastly in heaven, the great antitype of "Ararat, no
more to look forth upon the world depopulated and dismantled
by the flood, but to bask amid the splendours of the beatific
vision, and to be for ever "without fault before the throne of
God." They come not only from various countries, but they
come from various scenes of suffering — some from hunger, and
cold, and nakedness, and peril — some from sick-beds, and hospi
tals,, and prisons, and inquisitions — some shall come from battle
sods, from Marengo, and Austerlitz, and Waterloo — and some
from the silent depths of the ocean — the slain of Camperdown,
and Trafalgar, and the Nile — and some from the stony pyramids
— and many whose winding-sheets have been the sands of the
desert, and whose requiem has been chanted by the waves of the
desert sea. No circumstances can conceal them whom God bids
rise — no distance can keep away those whom God summons.
And they shall come, too, from various sections of the church
universal. No sect has a monopoly of Christians, because no
sect has a monopoly of the gospel. There are diversities of gifts,
we are told,, but one Spirit. The distinctions that are made
between sect and sect are paper walls, that will be consumed by
the flames of the last fire : those points and practices about
which true Christians quarrel, will pass away like straw 4ind
straw huts before the overwhelming flood of universal light, and
universal love ; and it will be found at that day that the things

THE FAULTLESS CONGREGATION. 259
for which ohurchmen and dissenters quarrel were but microscopic
points, and that those things about which churchmen and dis
senters agree were majestic as the attributes and enduring as the
throne of the Deity. I have often thought that the following
little incident recorded of a good man was- a very beautiful one : — ¦
A skeptic addressed him, and said, "What will become of all
the sects into which you Christians are split at the judgment-
day of Christ ?" The ingenious yet- scriptural answer was,
" God will say to one, ' What are you V ' I am. anLndependent.'
' Sit you there.' To another, ' What are you ?' ' I am a
Presbyterian.' ' Sit you there ;' " — for I believe that, notwith
standing the authority of our Puseyite brethren, even a Presby
terian can get to heaven. — "Another will be asked, 'Who are
you?' The answer will be,- 'I, am a churchman;' and he will
be told, ' Sit you there.' And a fourth will be asked, ' What
are you?' The answer will be, ' I am a Christian;' and the
commission will be given him from God, 'Walk about heaven in
any place you like.' " For as it is true that one star differeth
from' another star in glory, so it is true that he that hath the
most of bigotry will have the least of heaven, and he that feels
all things subordinate to Christ, and him crucified, will have the
largest space to walk in. I ' believe, too,, that those who are
before the throne will be from every form of government..^ The
stern republican will be there — the accomplished monarchist will
be there also ; and there will be no nation under heaven which will
not contribute its quota— the subjects of uncivilized governments
and the victims of cruel ones will be there. They are a great
multitude — much- greater than the Antinomian will allow —
fewer than the Universalist believes — " a great multitude whom
no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people,
and tongues ;'' and this is their harmony, " Salvation to our God
which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb."
What are they ? The answer was. given in the text, " they
are without fault before the throne." But I may be asked,
Were they always so ? The answer must be, Not so. For hear
what ,tbe Apostle says, "Be not deceived: neither fornicators,
nor adulterers, nor idolaters, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor revilers, nor extortioners,

260 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you :
but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." Here upon
earth Christians need from Christians the continual exercise of
candour and of charity ; and that man who knows his own heart
best, will always be found the first to pardon the failings and
sympathize with the infirmities of a brother. But in heaven
they do not need the exercise of candour — they do not require
that their acts should be eharitably construed : there each soul is
radiant with light; each affection inlaid with love; each motive
is infinite charity; and the end of each is exclusively the glory
of God ; for " they are without fault." The God that sits upon
the throne examines them — the eye that penetrates all destinies,
and pierces all darkness, analyzes them— the Judge of all hearts
pronounces their character to be "without fault." What made
them so ? . " They washed their robes and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb." And why should not you be so?
There is no reason upon earth but your own reluctance. My
dear friends, there are but two classes in this assembly ; those
who are perfectly justified by the righteousness of Christ, and
who, as far as their title is concerned, are at this moment with
out any flaw or fault ; and those who are without any interest in
it at all. Let me ask, to "which of these classes you belong ?
The blood of Christ is accessible to you — the atonement is freely
offered to you — God beseeches you by us, be ye reconciled unto
God. Where are they I That question is answered in another por
tion of the Book of Revelation. " And he asked me, Who are
these, and whence came they ? And I said unto him, Sir, thou
knowest." You may recollect what I stated to you, that Burns,
who had all the sensibility of the poet, if he failed often in the
duties of the Christian, said he never could read these words
without weeping. " These are they which came out of great
tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lanb :" and then notice what follows : " there
fore," oh this account, " therefore are they before the throne of
God." Here is what they are doing : "they serve God day and
night in his temple, and he that sitteth upon the throne shall

THE FAULTLESS CONGREGATION. 261
dwell among them : they shall hunger no more, neither thirst
any more; neither shall thasun light on them nor any heat; but the
Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall
lead them unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes.'" And the place that they occupy is, first,
the place of great dignity. They are made kings and priests unto
God : they shall sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel. And in the next place; it is a place of great safety. No
fallen spirit shall be admitted into that better paradise to seduce
them. No criterion of creatureship by attendance to which they
shall stand, and by neglect of which they shall fall, shall be
there. They are placed before that throne, and amid the lustre
of that crown, where there is nothing that defileth — where there
are no separating elements that" divide the creature from his God,
the redeemed sinner from his glorious and revealed Saviour : the
crown that is theirs " fkdeth not away;" the inheritance that
is theirs " is incorruptible and undefiled" — " a city that hath
foundations, its builder and its maker God ;" their " kingdom is
an everlasting kingdom," that never shall be moved. It is the
place of perfect satisfaction. "When I awake," says the
Psalmist, "I shall be satisfied with thy likeness." "Eye hath
not seen, ear hath not heard, and heart hath not conceived the
things that God hath prepared, for- them that love him." In
that blessed land their robes have no moth to consume them —
the trees have no worm to gnaw them — the gold of that land has
no rust to corrupt it — its melodies have no intermingling minors
— the last tear has been shed, the last pang felt, the last -agony
endured; the very recollection of orphanage and widowhood has
passed away, and the hours of heaven, like the. hours of a sun
dial, are measured only by sunshine. They are' in a place of
dignity and safety, and before the throne of God., They are in
a place, too,"of perfect joy. There is a joy that endures for ever,
and is unmixed with grief. And, lastly, they are in a place of
complete reunion and recognition. I believe .that in heaven we
shall recognise, amid the lustre of glory, the countenances on
which we looked- with tears upon sick-beds on earth. I belieTe
that in heaven the parent will recognise his children, and tho
children recognise the parent, and the redeemed friend the

262 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
redeemed friend, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jactsb
in their Father's kingdom. Thus the very language used by the
apostle in order to comfort those who were bereaved, implies that
they will recognise their lost ones when they meet in glory ; for
he says, " I would not' have you to be ignorant, brethren, con
cerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others
which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose
again, eveh so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring
with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord,
that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord
shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, #nd with the trurhp of God: and the dead in Christ
shall rise first ; then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in
the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore
comfort one another with these words." What is the comfort
here intended to be conveyed ? Have any of you lost your rela
tives ? You are weeping for them as those that have no hope ;
but here is your comfort ; they are not lost for ever ; you shall
meet them again, and if it be comfort to anticipate that meeting,
the comfort would be lost if there were no recognition when that
meeting takes place. Therefore believe that the redeemed in
heaven will recognise each other. Those pictures of the departed
that are preserved in your memory as in a picture-gallery — fresh
ened by every circumstance, and revived by every recollection,
are these foretokens of the .originals ; ties severed on earth shall
be reunited in heaven, and friends and circles dissolved by death,
shall be completed never to be broken.
Such, then, are my replies to these questions; but the great
practical question still remains, Are we to be amid that throng ?
Are we to join in that eternal and glorious choir? Are we, my
dear friends, in our inmost hearts conscious of a great change
that has passed upon us, without which we cannot see the king
dom of God? It will be no advantage to you in the issue to
have calculated exactly who shall be saved, or to have speculated
upon who shall be lost, if we perish ourselves. " Lord, are there
few that be saved ?" was a question that was once asked before,

THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE REDEEMED. 263
and the answer was, " Strive to enter in at the strait gate."
Were you in a ship that was sinking inch by inch in the waves,
would you stand counting how many perish and how many
escape, and care not that the deck on which you stood was inch
by inch disappearing in the fathomless abyss ? Such conduct
would be folly. But is not this the conduct of the man who
would stand counting the probable numbers of the lost and the
probable numbers of the saved, and forget that his own soul is
unjustified, unsanctified, unpardoned, by the blood of Jesus and
by the Spirit of our God ? Let me ask you, then, my dear
friends, are you trusting on a Saviour's righteousness as your
only title to that presence ? Do you look upon that Saviour's
blood as the only element in the universe that can forgive you ?
Can you say, my dear friends, if you were called upon to die this
moment, there is no reason upon earth in me, but every reason
external to me, in the shed blood of my Lord and my Saviour,
why all my sins should be forgiven, all my trespasses covered,
and I justified and sanctified, and glorified for ever? Have you
washed your robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb ? Is it not a strange thing that we leave no questions
upon earth unsettled except the most momentous question of all ?
Is -it not strange that there is nothing in politics — nothing in
science1 — nothing in literature — nothing in news — nothing in
astronomy— nothing in geography, that we do not like to know ;
but this question, " Am I a child of God, or am I still in the
flesh ?" is a question which we leave unsettled and ^undetermined.
Is it not a fact, that if you speak of poetry, men's countenances
will glow ? If you "speak of politics, they will instantly enter
into it ? If you speak of trade,1- commerce, merchandise, they
will" discuss every point connected with them eloquently and
readily ? But the instant you speak to a man of that question
which ought to absorb every other question, his countenance
instantly falls : he does not say, Am I my brother's keeper ? but
he says, practically, that religion is a thing for the church — for
a funeral, for a sick-bed. Here lies a great obstruction to your
being Christians : you' think that Christianity is a capital thing
for sick-beds, and funerals, and absolutions ; but you think it
not a thing for bridals, and for business, and for the happy, and

264 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
for the sunnier parts of human life : in other words, your idea is
that religion isa nauseous drug, which must be taken in order to
give us eternal life ; but the longer we put off the nauseous
draught, the more happy shall we be, and not the less safe when
we come to die. Oh what a grievous misapprehension, my dear
friends ! Each truth is a leaf from the tree of life, to give balm
to the bleeding, and healing to the broken heart. The reception
of the gospel of Jesus is the reception into your hearts of an ele
ment that will sanctify ' every trial — that will give emphasis to
every happy beating of your hearts — that will make you not only
holier men, but will make you what you never otherwise could
have been, perfectly, happy men. And if it be true, as our wise
men or serious mensay, that the days of trial are rapidly ap
proaching — if it be true, as the wisest and most wary students
of prophecy believe, that a great crisis is coming, more terrible
than any that has yet overtaken our world, what will sustain you
therein ? — what will support you ? — what will give you perfect
peace ? — what will protect you from being scathed by the storm,
and overwhelmed by the flood, except that you know this, that
come what may, nothing can come that has a particle of wrath
in it; and come the worst that can come, the very stroke that
severs me from earth is. the stroke that sends me to the throne
of God, where I shall be before that throne, without fault, for
ever and ever.
Whence is it, my dear hearers, that you have so wretched
views of the gospel of Jesus ? Why do you not open your Bi
bles and read this good hews ? The object of it was as much to
make men happy as it was to make men holy. When I'say to
you, be Christians, I simply say to you, to translate it into other
words, be happy. . The gospel is the panacea for all grievances- —
the balm for all bleeding hearts— the only thing that can give a
peace which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot take
away. My dear friends, do not speculate about Christianity, but
receive and live it. Do not ask for an analysis of the drug, if
you will call it a drug, but make up your minds to taste it ; see
what its effects are. No man yet from a death-bed said, " I have
tried the gospel, and I have found it neither make me holy nor
happy." Did you ever hear a man say so ? Never. You have

THE BLESSEDNESS OF TILE REDEEMED. 2.65
heard man only regret-that he has not been so holy as it was in
tended to make him, nor so happy as it was calculated to render
him. My dear friends, were all the people of this great realm
Christians, then this great realm would be, indeed, a glorious one.
The revolution that is wanted, the reformation that is needed, is
not in the palace, nor in the parliament, nor in our courts, nor in
our churches, but in your hearts, and in your homes; for, if men
were Christians at home, the whole of society would be 'Chris
tians abroad. And if the people were Christian — all, from the
highest to the lowest — then God, our own God, would bless us ;
the earth would yield her increase, and the nations that were
spectators of our country round about would pronounce that peo
ple to be, indeed, a happy people, whose God is the Lord.
Go, then, this day to your homes, each to his own closet ; and
from the very depths* of your heart acknowledge how truly ru
ined, how sinful, how^guilty you are, and pray thus unto the Lord
Jesus : — " I want to make the experiment of Christianity ; I
want to try whether what that preacher in Exeter Hall told me
is a lie or a great truth, when he said that the gospel is intended
to make men happy, just as much as it is intended to make them
holy. Oh wash me with Thy blood, and clothe me with thy righ
teousness ; lead me by thy spirit — open mine eyes — renew my
heart — make me a Christian — I would test it — -help me !" and as
sure as there is a God in heaven, you will thank the preacher as
the instrument who proposed the experiment, and you will give
to him who crowned the experiment with his blessing, honour,
and thanksgiving, and glory, and praise, now and for ever.

23

266

LECTUEE XV.
THE WILD BEAST RISING iFKOM THE SEA.
"And I stood upon the sand of- the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the
eea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon
his heads the name of blasphemy.
"And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were aa
the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion : and the dragon gave
him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
"And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded- to death; and Ms deadly
wound*was healed : apd all the world wondered: after the beast.
"And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and
they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to
make war with him?
" And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphe
mies ; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
"And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his
name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
"And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome
them : and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
"And all' that $well upon the earth shall Worship him, whose names are not
written in the hook of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
" If any man hath an ear, let him hear.
" He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity : he that killeth with
the sword must be killed with* the sword. Here is the patience and the faith
of the saints.
"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two
horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
"And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causetu
the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose
deadly wound was healed.
" And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven
on the earth in the sight of men,
" And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles
which he had power to do in tho sight of the beast ; saying to them that dwell
on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the-
wound by a sword, and did live.
"And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the
image of tho boast shoukl both speak, and cause that as many as would not
worship tho image of the boast should be killed.

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM THE SEA. 267
" And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to
receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads :,
"And that no man might buy or sell, save he that- had the mark, or the
name of the beast, or the number of his name.
"Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the nunlber' of
the bea-st : for it is the number of a man ; and his number is six hundred
threescore and six."— Bevelation xiii.
I have laid before you on a previous occasion that beautiful
piece of biography, the history of Christ's true church. I have
tracked its checkered story under the name of the two witnesses
for Christ, first through the Paulicians in the East, and next
through the Waldenses in the West, onward to the day when the
witnesses were slain and rose again, and were exalted to the skies.
I have shown you the .same great truth in another symbolical
exhibition of Christ's church, not as a gorgeous and powerful hie
rarchy, but as a little floek — a very few — under the symbol of
the woman hidden in the wilderness for a time, times, and half a
time, or its equivalent, forty and two months, or the equivalent
of that, -1260 years. We have thus- seen Christ's church, the
church within a church, the church invisible, as it has been called
in contrast with the church visible. We have seen visible Chris
tianity rolling along like a turbid stream, changed altogether in"
its character from the Christianity that was sealed by the death
of Christ, inspired by the' Spirit, and preached by the apostles
of Jesus; but we have seen beneath the turbid torrent a little
silver streamlet, crystalline and beautiful, flowing from the rock
that was smitten upon Calvary, and speeding onward with un
broken eurrent until it shall mingle with the eternal and glorious
main. Having thus seen Christ's true church, I proeeed to show
you what was thb state of the visible church that assumed the
name of Christian. This may not be so interesting in our view
as the sketch of the true church, but it may be no less instructive
and useful to our minds : and it is most important, my dear
friends, that we should understand this. The great aim of the
predominating tendencies of the day is to make the visible church,
in some shape, be it Episcopacy, or Presbyterianism, or Inde
pendency, or Wesleyanism, or whatever it be— and more espe
cially in one of these — to make the visible church to be identical
with Christ's true church. Dr. Hook, Dr. Dodsworth, Mr. Per-

268 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
ceval, Mr. Newman, all of them declare that the Church of Rome,
prior to the Reformation, was the true church, and that separa^
tion from that visible corporation was a sin or a misfortune, and
union with such a corporation, as it now exists in some shape or
another, is duty ; now, in opposition to that, we believe that no
visible church upon earth is exclusively or alone the redeemed and
regenerated ehureh. There are tares in the Church of England,
tares in the Church of Scotland, tares among dissenters : the wheat
and the chaff are mingled together, the gold and alloy are mixed
in one mass: man cannot wholly separate them; God, in his
judgments or in his mercy, I believe, will very soon separate
them. Now in turning your attention to this most graphic description
of the wild beast— for that is the true translation of the word
Orjptov — that was to rise from thesea, and who exercises all the
terrific functions that are here ascribed to him, it will be necessary
that I show you that this is not an isolated description, but one that
carries forth only more fully what is stated and impressed in others.
Thus, for instance, the description contained in chap. xvii. of this
book is substantially the same; and I am anxious this evening, I
may just remark, by way of parenthesis, to give you a full sketch
of the wild beast that is represented as rising out of the sea, in order
that, having given you in succession the Apocalyptic view of the
true "churchand the Apocalyptic view of the false church, or the
description of Christ aud Antichrist, I may the next two or three
Sabbath evenings enter upon an exposition of that portion of the
Apocalypse that bears upon the very age in which we live, or the
pouring out of seven vials. This evening, therefore, instead of com
menting much upon the several points, I will give you, as briefly,
but as clearly 'as I can, a comprehensive sketch of the whole.
You will perceive that the seventeenth chapter contains at the
8th verse a description, almost identical in words, certainly iden
tical in meaning, with the description I have this evening read
from the thirteenth. chapter. "The beast that thou sawest," it is
written in the seventeenth chapter, "that was and is not" — and
I beg of you to note each clause, because then you will see more
clearly the force of my explanation — the beast that thou sawest
was and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM. THE SEA. 269
go into perdition : and it is said, " they that dwell on the earth
shall wonder," always excepting one class, " whose names are in
the book of life :" and I am sure you must be struck with this
exception :, for wherever a sketch of the Apostasy is given, there
is nearly always given this excepted class — "the sealed ones" of
the fourth century — "the woman in the wilderness" of -the 1260
years — "the two witnesses" of the same time — or, as it is here
stated, those "whose names are written in the book of life from
the foundation of the world." The explanation is next given
us — "Here is the mind that hath wisdom. The seven heads are
seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth," — that is- the first
Apocalyptic meaning of the seven heads; then the ehapter-goes
on, "And there are seven kings, five are fallen, and one is, and
the other is not yet come, and when he is come he must continue
a short space. And the beast that was and is not, even he is
the -eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. And
the ten horns are ten kings who have received no kingdom as
yet; but receive power, as kings, one hour with the beast. These
have one mind, and. shall give their power and strength unto the
beast. These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall"
overcome them." Now you will notice the points of coincidence
between the thirteenth chapter I have this evening read, and the
sketch from the seventeenth which I now read.
First of all, each- of the. sketches is associated with ten kings
and ten kingdoms; each of the wild beasts has. the name of
blasphemy; each of them makes war on the saints; and each of
them is associated with an ecclesiastical, or .priestly power: and
the apparent discrepancies, if I had time to -solve them, would,
when solved, only prove more clearly the perfect identity which
subsists between them.
Now, having seen the general parallelism of the wild beasts
described in these two chapters, let me notice the points of con
tact between them, and a short sketch taken from the Book of
Daniel, which has often been referred to in prophetic inquiries.
It is in chap. vii. 19. I wish you to see clearly each character
istic in order to understand the exposition which follows. "Then
I would know the truth of the fourth beast which was diverse
from all others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron,
23®

270 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
and his- nails of brass; which - devoured, brake in pieces, and
stamped the residue with his feet. And of the ten horns that
were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before
whom three fell." Now I shall show you hereafter that of the
ten horns, or ten kingdoms, three were to fall, or be cast off, or
extirpated by the-beast, or that "little horn" represented in the
thirteenth chapter as the wild beast from the sea, or in the
seventeenth as the wild beast from the abyss, in Daniel a? the
little horn; which little horn, he says, had eyes, and a mouth
that spake very great things. He had eyes like a man; he was
a seer. What is a bishop? an overseer; i-iay.o-Eoz, an overseer,
not an over-looker, -but a looker-over; this little horn was anec-
clesiastical power, then, he says, it had eyes, and a mouth speak
ing very great things. "I beheld, and the same horn made war
with the saints and prevailed against them." Now notice again;
how long? "Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was
given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that
the saints possessed the kingdom. Thus, he said, the fourth
beast shall be the fourth Jringdom upon earth, and shall be diverse
from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall
tread it down, and breakJ it in pieces. And the ten horns,"
notice how Daniel coincides with the Apocalypse, " and the ten
horns out of this kingdom are ten kings which shall arise, and
another shall arise after them; and he shall be diverse from the
first, &nd he shall subdue. three kings. And he shall speak great
Words against the -Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the
Most High, and think to change times and laws : and they shall
be given into his hand until a time, and times, and the dividing
of time,'' 1260- years, 42 months, or, as Daniel calls it, "a time,
and times, and the dividing of time."
Notice here ' the points of identity. First of all the empire,
according to Daniel, was to be a great and commanding empire
in its decem-regal, or, if you will permit me to English the ex
pression, in ten-kingdoms form. These ten kingdoms were to be
supplanted by some power, called here a "little horn," that
started up among the rest. This little horn, acoording to Daniel,
was to have eyes like a man : i-KtawTzoq, an overseer, the bishop
of Rome, the pontiff, the great ecclesiastical seer in Christendom.

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM THE SEA. 271
This." little horn," in the next place, just like "the wild beast"
from the abyss and from the sea, was to " make war with the
saints, and to wear out the saints of the'Most High," and the
duration of his tyranny, it is stated, was to be for a time, times,
and half a time, 1260 years, all of which are the characteristics
of "the eighth head," which "eighth head" is the same as the
"wild beast from the abyss," or "wild beast from the sea," the
great Antichrist, the Roman bishop that heads the Apostasy of
Rome, of which we now speak.
The prophecy of Daniel and the Apocalypse of John indicate
a common origin and inspiration. It is thus that the Old and
New Testaments are not two religions, but two witnesses to one
great and eternal truth. ,As the tips of the wings of the cheru
bim upon the mercy-seat, in the Holy of Holies, touched each
other while the two angels looked down upon the propitiatory
glory that burned between them, so. these twain testaments,
while they speak in different formulas, yet speak of the same
Saviour, and concentrate, all their illustrations upon his personal
glory, that .solemn glory, made up of mercy and truth and
righteousness and peace, that God has kindled, and neither time
nor men nor evil spirits can put out. The two testaments, like
the twin lips of an oracle, open to give utterance to one truth,
to Christ as the Lamb of God, the King of kings, and Lord
of lords. Their harmony demonstrates their divinity. And
hence I am satisfied no man is so irrational as he that calls
himself a rationalist — no man so superstitious .as he that calls
himself a skeptic. It requires ten times the amount of credulity
to believe that this book is a lie that it does to believe that it is
God's truth. It requires but an honest mind and an open heart
to join in the conclusion that this is the book of God : it requires
a crooked heart and a distorted mind to come to the conclusion,
after hearing the evidence, that it is a fable.
Suffer me, then, with this digression, which I would place, if
you will allow me, in a parenthesis, to proceed to another
illustration of this chapter which I have now read : it is con
tained in 2 Thess. ii. 7-10 : " For the mystery of iniquity doth
already work ; only he who letteth will let until he be taken
away. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord

272 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy
with the brightness of his coming : even him, whose eoming is
after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them
that perish; because they received not the love of the truth that
they might be saved."
I have another reason for referring you to this passage and
comparing it with the Apocalyptic delineation of Antichrist, and
thereby showing its identity. That reason is the Puseyite
treatment of it. What do you think has been one great object
of what is called the Tractarian party during the last ten years ?
It has been very directly to explain away the description of
Antichrist, given in 2 Thess. ii., and the same description in
Timothy, where it says, "The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in
the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to
seducing spirits and doctrines of demons :" their. great effort has
been to show that these passages are not descriptions of the
Roman Catholic Apostasy, but are descriptions of some terrible
monster, who is to be more than six times the height and breadth
of an ordinary man, and is to be in the temple of Jerusalem,
and to show himself to be the Antichrist there. They have a
reason for this. If I am right in my interpretation of all these
passages, Rome is not a sister church — and if names were
authority, I might show you that all the Reformers, without
exception, and some of the most distinguished Christian teachers
of the day, adhere to the exposition I have given; and reason
and common sense seem to me to plead for the justice and pro
priety of it. I admit there are some— a few — a very few excel
lent divines, who are any thing but Tractarians, and yet take, I
am sorry to say, the Tractarian interpretation. I believe, not
withstanding, that one of the most successful efforts that have
been made during the last ten years to reintroduce Popery into this
country, has been the sweeping away, or the pretended sweeping
away of those brands that mark it out in the oracles of God. I
am thoroughly satisfied that Tractarianism is the smoke from the
bottomless pit; and' t^at the priests of Rome are like the locusts
sustained by it, and carried by it to blight all that is green, and
to blast all that is lovely. And Popery does come in like a

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM THE SEA. 273
torrent. It finds channels ready for its waters. It is already
fixed by Pope Pius IX. that there is to be an archbishop of
Westminster — a bishop of York — a bishop of Birmingham — a
bishop, I believe, of Liverpool ; who are to lay aside the name
of " Roman Catholic," and assume to be the legitimate bishops
with the true apostolical succession, in the midst of this country;
then I do not doubt that when it comes to this height, and
Romanism rules in the ascendant, men will learn they were not
fanatics who denounced it, nor alarmists who warned you, but
that we spoke forth the words of soberness and truth. I
solemnly believe, my dear( friends, that all but a judicial blind
ness rests on the mindg of many in the present day; I believe
that that judicial blindness exhibits itself most strikingly in the
efforts made to explain away the brands upon the Apostasy.
One regrets to find that there should be some excellent men
who are not Traotarians, who deny the interpretation which I
have put upon this passage, and say it does not apply to Popery.
Among others, there is Mr. Burgh,- a very pious and very able
man, who has written upon prophecy, but Unhappily has taken
the Tractarian view ; and another, whom I have the honour of
claiming as. an intimate friend, takes the same view, but has-no
sympathy with Romanism in the least degree. The description
in the Thessalonians, I do submit, in its main points, coincides
with the thirteenth chapter that I have now read. I will give a
fuller exposition at a future day. First, then, however, we read
that the mystery of iniquity doth already- work, only he who
now letteth — that is, the Roman emperor, "will let until he be
taken out of'the way," or the seventh head, as I shall show
you, shall be removed, and the eighth shall take its place.
" There shall be a falling away," as it is in our translation; but
our translation is in this defective; it is in the original " the
Apostasy," — that day shall not come except there be "the
Apostasy first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition." According to the Epistle, to the Thessalonians, it is
to emanate from Satan : according to the Apocalypse, it, is to be
an aggression of the- dragon ; according to the Epistle . to the
Thessalonians, it is to be "with signs and lying wonders-;"
according to the Apocalypse, he is to " deceive with' miracles ;"

274 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
according to the Epistle to the Thessalonians, it is to be an
ecclesiastical power, for it shall " sit in the temple of God,"
litetally cathedrize, sit as in a cathedral, in a bishop's seat.
According, to Daniel, it is to be an ecclesiastical power, a little
horn with eyes-1 — a seer; and a wild beast doing miracles, as
described in the Apocalypse : according to Thessalonians, to
oppose Christ, and to continue till Christ should come. All
these, therefore, coincide perfectly, and are together the full
description of that great Apostasy— the Apostasy — the Church
of Rome.
I now revert to the seventeenth chapter. The first thing
brought before us is the wild beast's head, or the pope : secondly,
we have its body or its main constituency, ten kingdoms : next,
we have the two-horned wild beast, which I shall show you
denotes the Romish priesthood : and lastly, we have the image
of the wild beast, which I shall show you denotes the representa
tive councils, synods, or assemblies of the Romish Church. You
will notice nOw that this wild beast rose from the flood. Yo"u
will recollect last ¦'Lord' s-day evening I stated that the flood was
the .Gothic Arian invasion that Satan poured out from his mouth,
in order to deluge the woman or true church of" God, rising from
the midst of the Apostasy, and hastening to flee for shelter into
that wilderness provided for her. It Was from this flood that
Satan poured from his mouth, that this wild beast arose. Thus
Arianism ministered to Romanism. This power was to have
seven heads, and these seven heads we read have a twofold
meaning. I do not invent a meaning, St. John himself assigns
it, therefore there can be no doubt about it. These seven heads
are, first of all, declared tobe,in chap, xvii., "The seven heads
are seven mountains," an expression which identified the locality.
Consult any Latin writer, either of the classic or patristic ages,
and he will tell you that the seven-hilled city is Rome. I could
quote for you many proofs. '
Sed qiiro de septeui totum circumspicis orbem
Montibus imperii Roma Deunique locus. — Qra>.
i
Dis quibus, septem placuere colles. — Horace.
Tertullian, in his Apology, speaks of the citizens of Rome as

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM THE SEA. 275
the population that dwell upon seven- hills. There is, therefore,
not the least doubt that the seven hills are a geographical
description of the seat of this apostasy, and in Rome accordingly,
the answering locality, all the elements of the Popedom grew up.
The ashes of Peter and Paul were supposed to be buried at
Rome ; the pope constituted himself guardian of their dust,
and ultimately the sole interpreter of their writings. It is a
remarkable fact, that when the pope tried to fulminate his bulls
and launch his thunders at a distance from Rome, as, for.
instance, from Avignon, where the popes were- driven for a
little— those thunders produced no echo, his bulls had no effect,
it seemed- as though it required that the popes should reside at
Rome, in order to give force to their thunders, and effect to their
anathemas. But Jhe seven heads, we are told, denote, not only " seven
hills," but "seven kings," or forms of government; and the
language here is very remarkable : " there are seven kings, five
are fallen, and one is," — John is supposed to be standing in
Patmos at the close of the first century — " five kings are fallen,
and one is," d e. while John was a prisoner in Patmos — "and
the other is not yet come," i.^e. the seventh is future from John's
day; "when the seventh shall come he shall only continue a
littje time :" then that seventh, we are told in a subsequent part,
shall be wounded, and- shall receive a deadly wound; and in
order to compensate for the deadly wound inflicted^ on the
seventh, an eighth head shall come up ; that eighth head is
identified with the wild beast, or with the pope, the head of the
Papal Apostasy,
Let us now notice the historic fulfilment of these Apocalyptic
descriptions. The point of view is Patmos. John is the speaker :
he says, there were seven kings, five are fallen, and a sixth is,
A. D. 97, and a seventh is yet to come : this seventh shall be
wounded, and an eighth shall arise, which is identified with the
little horn, or wild, beast from the sea, or head of the Apostasy.
I open the pages of history, and I find that there had been five
different forms of government, all of which had passed away
prior to John's day, or the close of the first century. Livy and
Tacitus enumerate, 1st, kings; 2d, consuls; 3d, decemvirs; 4th,

276 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
dictators; 5th, military tribunes : these five dynasties, or forms
of government, had successively ruled the Roman empire, and
had passed away. Then John says, "one is." What one was
that? We answer, the1 emperors in their primitive or early offi
cial character, having on their heads, as I showed yourin a pre
vious lecture, not the diadem, or badge of imperial sovereignty,
but the Stephanos, or badge of the general of the armies.
We have, then, here the historic fulfilment of the five that had
•passed away and of the one that is, whieh is the sixth : but who
then was the seventh? This was the great difficulty which it
was reserved to the Rev. Mr. Elliott to explain: becausewhat
commentators said, and what would strike a mere superficial
reader of history, was that the emperors not only were when
John wrote, but they continued till the days of Constantine, and
the establishment of the eighth head, to make room for whom
they had passed away: no interpreters had ever been able to
explain it, till, guided, I believe, by the Spirit of God, Mr.
Elliott, a scholar, a Christian, a divine, discovered what I think
to be the clear and unequivocal fulfilment in history of the Apo
calyptic reference to the seventh king of the Apocalypse. The
name of emperors, I allow, continued till the very moment when
the eighth head, or the pope, took the supremacy; but the office
was utterly changed, for just before the passing away of the im
perial power and the coming upon the stage of the supremacy of
the ecclesiastical or Papal power, the laurel crown, which was the
characteristic decoration of the emperors, as mere leaders or ge
nerals, was laid aside; and in its place was worn the Asiatic
diadem, the sign, and under it the substance of absolute power,
first, by Dioclesian, and afterward by all the Roman emperors.
You will recollect, in explaining the previous symbol of the seal,
hjpw I told you that the arsydvos, or the laurel crown, was the
crown that Augustus wore, and all the emperors prior to the third
century ; and that the Stadypa, or an Asiatic diadem, was adopted
in the third century, and subsequently worn.
The name emperor continued, but a new officer really came
upon the stage — the name of the sixth survived, but in fact the
seventh had come into office in the change of the azeydvoc;, or
laurel crown, into the SiaSrjpa, that is, the change from being

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM THE SEA. 277
simply emperor, or general of the Roman armies, to be the
rupaMos, or tyrant, or sovereign, or absolute ruler of the Roman
empire : and there Was as marked a difference between the lau
relled emperor of the first and second centuries, and the diademed
sovereign of the third, as' there is between the President r of the
United .States and the Autocrat of all the Russias. The name
emperor was retained, but the government became An absolute
despotism. Is there any satisfactory historical evidence that this was re
garded as- a change of government? I must appeal to him who
was the cleverest and most sarcastic infidel historian, but the most
brilliant commentator, not by choice, but undesignedly, on Apo
calyptic prophecy : Gibbon says, " Dioclesian assumed the diadem
and introduced a new ceremonial: this WAS -A new FORM of
government ;" it was, in short, the seventh head. " Dioclesian,"
says Gibbon, "'may be called the founder of a NEW EMPIRE."
Thus, you observe, the translation from the tnetpavos to the
dtad-qpa, from the laurel crown of the general who. commanded
the Roman 'army, to fhe diadem of the sovereign, who was the
Sso-tzottjs or fcao-iXew; in the Greek, or the dominus in the Latin,
provinces of the empire, was so remarkable a -change, that the
historian says it was the commencement of a new dynasty; and
thus we find the true solution of what so long puzzled comment
ators, in actual historical facts, of five heads, that had passed
away, a sixth that continued in the days of John, and of the
seventh that was to last till he should be wounded to death, and
also pass away to make room for the "wild beast from the abyss,"
or eighth head, or head of the Papal Apostasy.
The next declaration in this chapter is that the seventh head
should be wounded to death — chap, xiii. 3 — " And I saw one of
his heads as it were wounded to death ; and his deadly wound was
healed, and all the world wondered after the beast;" and then,
in chap, xvii., it is said, "five are fallen and one is, and, the other
is not yet come, and when he cometh he must continue a short
spacer" now,' of course he is come liow : and then he adds,
"And the beast that was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is
of the seven,' and goeth into perdition;"'*'.^, this wild beast or
head is to succeed the seventh so quickly, and be graffed, as it
24

278 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
were, upon the neck of the beast so closely and so unexpectedly,
as to be of the seventh, and yet to be the eighth.
Let us endeavour to ascertain if there is any historical evidence
that the seventh head, whom we have ascertained to be the dia
demed sovereign of the Roman empire, or "he who lets," accord
ing to St." Paul, was wounded to death in order to make way, as
if mortally wounded, for the eighth. You recollect that -the
twelfth chapter, on which I have commented, pointed to a season
of persecution by the heathen power; and you may recollect that
that persecution was inflicted by- the heathens on the Christians.
Gibbon states that four great battles were fought in the days of
Constantine, that is, -under the diademed emperor; on. which he
makes the remark, " the sword of the Christian struck down the
last pagan head of the Roman empire." And yet, as he states,
though "mortally wounded" — the very language of the Apoca
lypse — he lived. The Apocalypse intimates that the seventh,
though mortally wounded, continued a lingering, dying existence*.
And now Gibbon says, the-heathens — after the heathen had been
struck down — and, in the language of Gibbon, or in the words
of the Apocalypse, he had received a deadly wound, he lived a
little longer — or in the words of Gibbon, who is here the com
mentator of the Apocalypse — "the heathens cherished a secret
hope that some auspicious revolution would yet restore to them
all that they had lost;" till at last, as Gibbon goes on to say,
"the violent and repeated strokes of the Christians gradually de
stroyed the pagan." Then, he adds, that in a full meeting of the
senate, the emperor Constantine proposed to decide which was
true by votes. I am not saying that this was a Christian mode
of deciding what is truth and what is error : I am merely quoting
an historical fact. But if I may venture to give an opinion: I
would not desire you should take your creed from minister, prince,
or emperor. No man has a right to dictate to you or me my be
lief: and while I would obey, and cheerfully obey, the powers
that be, yet when it comes to the question whether the powers
that be shall decide for me what creed I shall believe, then I must
suffer rather, than yield. I would rather be a martyr amid the
smiles of truth, than be a prime minister amid the applause of
the prince, and the plaudits of the multitude over the sacrifice

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM THE SEA. 279
of truth- — Gibbon, I repeat, states that in a- full meeting of the
senate, the emperor proposed for decision by vote, whether the
worship of Jupiter or the worship of Christ should be the religion
of Rome. Jupiter was condemned by a very large majority.
In this instance jibe majority was right: whether the motives
which actuated them, and the grounds on which they proceeded,
were right, is a different question ; but in their decision they were
undoubtedly in the right. And. then, says Gibbon— as if he had
read the Apocalypse, and I do not believe he ever did read it;
and as if he believed the Apocalypse, and-he believed not a syllable
of the New Testament — in almost the very language in which we
read, that the seventh king received a deadly wound, or was mor
tally wounded1, "Theodosius inflicted, a deadly -wound on
the superstitions of the pagans." Thus we have the se
venth head, or the pagan empire, swept away, and thereby leaving
room for the eighth to come. It has been said in physics, nature
abhors a vacuum : that is-, you cannot make and maintain a va
cuum; some crevice will ba left, the smallest aperture will be
sufficient for the atmosphere to rush in. What is true physically
is true morally. There cannot be a moral vacuum. No. man's
heart pan ever.be empty. You think when you have closed your
heart against the entrance of the gospel, you have left it empty,
swept, and garnishhd. My dear friends, it is only opened for
seven demons to rush in and reign and revel there : "man's heart
can never be empty; it must have God to fill it with his glory,
or it will .have an idol to fill it with superstition. If the seventh
head disappears, another will occupy its place. A nation must
have a religion.
The seventh head was wounded to death, but Satan had found
a compensation for his loss in the eighth that followed: and, I
must add, this one point opens to me a range of thought the most
important, if I dare enter upon it. Satan felt that when pagan
ism was smitten down never to rise again, he had lost one great
servant and supporter upon earth. I believe that if ever Milton's
picture became fact, that Satan and the fallen angels in hell held
Conclave, or a synod, or a general council, it "was on this occasion :
and that as the result of their deliberations they pronounced the
funeral oration ' of paganism — I would have said with tears, if

280 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
fallen spirits could weep; but it is their agony that they have the
intensest sorrow, but no channel for tears; but surely if ever they
felt pain, it was., when paganism, the servant of Satan, was de
throned: but this sorrow was turned into joy, for if ever hell was
lighted up with infernal joy, it was when Satan hit upon his mas
terpiece, the great Roman Apostasy. In other words, the wound
ing of the seventh head signifies the overthrow of paganism, and
the eighth, its successor, describes Satan's compensatory provision,
the supremacy and power of the great Roman Antichrist. This
was a master-stroke, a compensation for loss; a defeat turned into
victory, for. Satan has done ten times more mischief by means of
the instrumentality of an Hildebrand, or an Alexander VI-., than
ever he did by means of a Nero or a Tiberius. The vacancy was
left by the destruction of the pagan head, and the eighth or Papal
was prepared, to fill it : and again I appeal for evidence to what is
so clearly explanatory of the Apocalypse, history, and to the
chiefest historian, Gibbon. " Now what does he say when record
ing the facts of this very period, this very portion of the history
of the world ? He says, " Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage,
the name of Rome must have been erased from the earth, if the
city had not been actuated byta vital principle which restored' her
to honour and dominion." This vital principle he explains to be
a tradition that two Jewish teachers, a tent-maker and a fisher
man, had been executed" at Rome, in the circus of Nero — that
after five hundred years their genuine or fictitious relics were
adored as the Palladium of Rome — and that about this time the
bishopric of Rome was filled by one of living energy, the first
of the Gregories.
And two writers, describing the time when the eighth head
thus became Satan's compensation for the wounding and death
of the seventh head, or paganism that passed away, neither of
them of very great celebrity, thus write :
Augustine. Stcuchus : "The empire having been overthrown,
unless God had raised up the pontificate, Rome would have be
come uninhabitable."
Blondus writes :'" The princes of the world now adore- and
worship as perpetual dictators the successors, not of Csesar, but

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM THE SEA. 281
of the fisherman Peter, that is, the supreme pontiff, the substitute
of the aforementioned emperor."
I now proceed to give the explanation of another passage.
There are ten horns, described by the Apocalyptic writer to be ten
kingdoms. These ten kings, with their kingdoms, are stated to
have been in communion with the beast; " to give their strength
unto the beast;" that is, that they were to be part and parcel
of the body of the beast. Let us endeavour to ascertain if there
is any truth in this by an appeal to history. I refer to A. d. 532,
and I find the following enumerated, not by Mr. Elliott, or any
commentator on the Apocalypse, but by every historian of the
period, viz. the Anglo-Saxons; the Franks of Central France;
the Ullman Franks of Eastern France ; the Burgundic Franks
of South-eastern France; the Visigoths; the Suevi; the Vandals;
the Ostrogoths in Italy; the Bavarians; the Lombards; making
in all ten kingdoms, now known by more modern names, but con
stituting the main ten kingdoms of the Christian world. These
ten kingdoms, I say, have been thus enumerated by various au
thorities, and admitted by almost every Romish, Protestant, or
infidel historian since ; and the ten horns therefore arising from
the eighth head are, in simple language, the ten kingdoms that
rose up under the- superintendence and patronage of the Roman
pontiff; and thus Midler, the celebrated German historian, gives"
a confirmation of this very symbol or hieroglyph of the Apoca
lypse, when he remarks, "with the exception .of the Papacy,
these ten kingdoms had no other point of union."
They shall give their strength to the beast, and shall be part and
parcel of the great Apostasy.
And now I must attempt to describe the development of this
power. First, then, the great policy of Satan was to compensate
himself for the defection of the seventh head, or the ruin of
paganism. ¦ To do this he hit upon the scheme of Romanism; a
scheme that assumes the name, but renders null every precept'
of the gospel, and has all the virus without the honesty o£ that
infidelity or paganism which had passed away — which was Caesar's
vile brass stamped with Caesar's superscription ; whereas Popery,
or the religion of the eighth head, is Caesar's vile brass still, but
wickedly stamped with the image and superscription of the Son
24*

282 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
of God. The -one was Satan honest, and acting as an honest
devil. The latter is Satan acting as an angel of light. The one
denied all truth — denounced all hope; the other professes to
admit all truth, while it really overwhelms all truth by the sanc
tion and the admission of error. Open, my dear friends, what I
have often explained, the Roman Catholic Creed; a mere refe
rence to. it will show you at once what Popery is. It first admits
twelve articles called the Nicene Creed, drawn up by the Council
of Nice in 325; it is contained in the liturgy of the Church of
England, and in Scotland I believe we learn the foundation of
it,, on which it was, constructed, the Apostles' Creed, which is in
our Catechism, and also in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
But to these. twelve articles you observe, they add twelve other
articles. The second of the twelve novel articles is as follows : — -
" I also admit the sacred Scriptures in the sense in which holy
mother Church has held and does hold, to whom it belongs to
judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scrip
tures; nor will I ever take or interpret them otherwise than
according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers." Such is
the fourteenth article of the Roman Catholic Creed. The
mystery of godliness is that God should come down to the limits
of a man ; the mystery of iniquity, that a man should dare to
usurp and assume the attributes of God. And here is the expla
nation of the mystery. There is first the admission of every
Christian truth; then, corresponding to it, the application of an
antichristian lie. The temptations of Popery are like the tempta
tion of Eve by) Satan. He did not say, "God hath not said,"
he insinuated a doubt. "Can it be so? surely you are mistaken,
that God hath said you shall die, a creature so fair, so lovely, so
beautiful. It is impossible. The laws of nature and physical
science tell you that my. interpretation is correct; you shall not
die. I can tell .you, by my own experience as an angel, that ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.'' Eve first became
accustomed to have the word of God explained away, and then
she learned to disbelieve it, and lastly felt it taken from beneath
her altogether, till she learned what good was by its evanescence,
and what evil was by feeling its corrosive poison thrill through
all her moral economy. So ' Satan seduced the visible church.

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM THE SEA. 283
It was as a commentator on Scripture, not as an avowed oppo
nent of it, that he- introduces the Apostasy, and Just while, the
"seventh head was still in existence— while the church was in its
Puseyistic state, prior to its full development in the Popish state
. — for Puseyism- is but Popery in miniature; Popery is but
Puseyism at full length — Satan first .quoted the text, "Thou art
Peter, and upon this rock will I build my. church, aud the gates
of hell shall not prevail against it;" and upon the perversion
of that text he laid the foundation of the superstructure of the
Roman Catholic Apostasy. I explained it's meaning in my last
lecture, but I have just one thought more uponi it that struck
me in correcting the report of the' last lecture. Ihzppq, I told
you, means a little stone-^-a fragment struck out from the rock.
"And upon this izerpa I will build my church :" -not on nerpoq,
masculine, meaning a little stone, but on izezpa, feminine, mean
ing- the solid rock. Now hear its obviously true exposition :
Christ presents himself to us .as a builder, who is going to build
a church — a composition of such stones as Peter was; for what
is the church?' a fabric, a building, erected of -mzpot, living
stones, all based on the great stone; or solid Rock of Ages; a
number of elect stones, chosen from the quarries 'of ^he earth,
and built upon the Rock of Ages — the same body that is called
the woman in the wilderness — the two witnesses — the church of
the- living God. ¦ This is that against which the gates of hell
shall not prevail., Satan's, grand policy lay in confounding the
true church with the visible church— the. truly regenerate with
the baptized— the , man-baptized with the God-baptized — those
who are Christians in heart with those who are Christians in
name only : and in this intermingling of heaven -.and earth, he
raised the great antichristian" Apostasy. Now there are two
temples, one built upon Christ, composed of living -szpot — living
stones — taken from nature's quarry; .'selected, and cut, and
squared by God himself — cemented by living- love — until they
grow up into a glorious fabric, immovable and immortal; but
there rises along with it — parallel to it— more impressive^ to the
eyes of men — more beautiful before princes- — more attractive to
the senses^more fascinating to the mere carnal beholders — so
charming to the mere man of taste, that the celebrated architect,

284 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Mr. Pugin, became a Roman Catholic, not by Popish reasons,
but by the magic of Popish building — so fascinating in its exte
rior, that all men who are guided by their senses only are dis
posed to join it — the fabric of the Romish Apostasy. You may
yet have to make your choice : the time may come again when
gold will lie upon the altars, and rich gifts upon the shrines of
the Popish church, and the desert, the den, the cave, the solitary
places of the earth, will be the portion of God's people. Some
one made the sarcastic remark, that in every one hundred per
sons, you may calculate on making converts of ninety-nine, if
you can only captivate their five senses. Satan believes so. He
made Popery on this principle. Popery has splendid paintings
for the eye — gorgeous music for the ear — incense for the smell —
on that side license, on the other, absolution. - Rome captivates
the senses, and she counts on all the rest. I have seen Popery
in its splendour — Tractarianism is but a shabby imitation of it —
with no contiguous Protestantism. I have said, when I listened
to the pealing of its organs — when I beheld the beauty of its
paintings, the chef-d' ozuvres, the master-pieces of the world,
affixed to its walls — when I beheld the sunbeams shedding their
light thrbugh the beautiful windows, reflected from the golden
robes of twenty or thirty intoning, crossing, and genuflecting
priests1 — If I were not a Christian I would be a Roman Catholic:
but I am a Christian by grace; and, by grace, I never can become
a Roman Catholic. My dear friends, those whose names. are
written in the Lamb's book of life, never can become Roman
Catholics. Popery makes no converts of regenerated hearts.
It does not attempt to do so. Such are beyond her reach, and
she knows it. Did you never read that when armies are march
ing to the battle, there is always seen a dark speck approaching
from the distant point of the horizon, hovering with outspread
pinions over the field, keeping without the range of gunshot, yet
following the scent of blood. Have you not read, or perhaps
seen, that this foul vulture, the instant it sees a soldier fall,
dashes upon him like a thunderbolt from the sky, and feeds upon
his vitals, and gorges itself with his blood. It attempts not to
touch the living warrior, it seeks the slain. That vulture is the
type of Romanism — she leaves the man whose heart has been

THE WILD BEAST RISING FROM -THE SEA. 285
quickened with the electric spark of grace divine — who has been
made alive by the Spirit of God; she will neither approach nor
touch him; but the dead, they who have the- name without the
reality of religions-believers in Christ by profession,' but not in
principle — those who have been baptized by man, but not bap
tized by God — she seizes on as her quarry, and carries away
captive. I say, when I think of the multitude of unbelievers,
and the fewness of true Christians, I do not wonder that Rome
makes so many converts — I wonder that she does not make many
more. If I saw the whole ehurch of Christ composed of living
believers,, we could sit upon bur island rocks and hurl defiance,
in the name of God,- to all the swarms of priests that are threat
ening us; but when I see so many who are mere professors —
and if there be any inconsistency in earth or hell, it is the
inconsistency of merely professing Christians — I fear for our
.country. Only three days ago, one of the secretaries of the London
Missionary Society came to me, and said that the secretaries of
the different Missionary Societies had been consulting together
on the painful fact that, wherever the missionaries" of Christ
endeavour to spread the gospel, they are assailed by the emissa-
, ries of" Rome endeavouring to circulate the errors of Antichrist.
I have promised to the Rev. Mr. Freeman to prepare a book or
explanation of texts misinterpreted by the priests and misapplied
by them, in order that it may be put into the hands of- mission
aries of all denominations. -My dear friends, the conflict, between
truth and error seems to come on quickly — their respective forces
are getting ready ; those only will be more than "conquerors who
have washed their robes in, the blood of the Lamb, and to whom
Christianity, is more than a letter — to whom it is life and light,
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

286

LECTUKE XVI.
THE "WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA.
" And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his
name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
"And it was given unto, him to make war with the saints, and to overcome
them : and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
"And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not
written in the book of Ufa of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
" If any man have an ear, let him hear.
"He- that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity : he that killeth with
the sword must be killed with the sword. JSere is the patience and the faith
of the saints.
"And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth j and he had two
horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
" And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth
the earth and-them which dwell therein ±o worship the first beast, whose deadly
wound was healed.
'¦'And he doeth great wonders, so that lie maketh fire come down from heaven
on the earfch in the sight of men,
"And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those mira
cles which he had power to do in the '¦sight of the beast j saying to them that
dwell oh the earth, that they, should make an image to the beast, which had
the wound by a sword, and did live.
"And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image
of t&e beast should both spoak, and oause that as many as would not worship
the image of the beast should be killed.
"And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to
receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads :
" And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name
of the beast, or the number of his name.
"Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding c6unt the number of
the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred three
score and six." — Revelation xiii, 6-18.
Those who were present last Sunday evening will recollect
how completely I identified the eighth head that was to arise on
the destruction of the seventh, with the little horn of Daniel, or
with the antichrist spoken of in 2 Thess. ii.; and with the wild

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 287
beast to arise from the abyss in the seventeenth chapter of this
book. I, showed you by dear historical facts that the eighth
head was an ecclesiastical power that followed on the destruction
of the seventh, and that that ecclesiastical power reigns at Rome
to this day. I proved its identity with the popes of Rome, first
by showing that the seven hills is the very description employed
by- classic writers to describe Rome. I showed you, too, that the
seven heads denote, as it is explained in chap, xvii ., seven forms of po
litical government — five in existence before John's day — the sixth,
or the imperial, in his day — the seventh, or the change from the
az£<pavo$ of the general of the Roman armies to the StaS-qpa, the
symbol of the Asiatic sovereigns, in the days of Dioclesian, and
immediately after the destruction of this the seventh head, the
rise and power of the eighth, in the pope of Rome and his suc
cessors. I was obliged to defer to this' evening the proofs and
characteristics of the eighth head, as these are declared in the
sequeb of the thirteenth chapter; and also the explanation of the
second wild beast, that had horns like a lamb and spake as a dra
gon ; and next, of the image of the beast ; and lastly, the num
ber of "his name, 666 — each of which I will therefore attempt to
describe. Now, to illustrate the great position which I assumed last Sun
day evening, I shall have simply to make extracts, and these ex
tracts, if they have any value, have this at least, that they are
from authentic and original- sources. You may depend on the
extracts that I make, and the references that I give, as perfectly
authentic. _.
I will first trace the initial history of the eighth head in the
popes of Rome, and show from what small beginnings their tre
mendous power originally sprang. First, Peter was gratuitously
assumed to be the prince of the apostles. For- this assumption
there was no evidence in authentic history or in Scripture. It
was merely the conclusion of- those that wished it to be true.
Next, Rome assumed to be the place of the martyrdom and se.-
pulchre of the ashes of Peter and of Paul ; .although there is no
evidence, in Scripture, and npt very much in ecclesiastical his
tory, that Peter, ever was at Rome at all. Most certain it is,
that, if ever he was there, there is no evidence whatever that he

288 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
was constituted the bishop of that see or prince of the apostles,
or if- he was so constituted, that he bequeathed- his prerogatives
and powers to the popes that should -follow. In the next place,
the bishop of Rome, being the prelate of the metropolitan see, a
see peculiarly central, and a locality beyond all others celebrated
in the history of the past, was naturally deferred to and respected
by the- rest of the ministers and bishops of Christendom. By
and by it came to be a custom that when disputes occurred be
tween the bishops or ministers of other dioceses, the bishop of
Rome, as being the most prominent, the most powerful, and,
owing to these facts not the least learned, was selected to be um
pire, and to decide their controversies ; and out of these elements
and on this basis there shot up that tremendous despotism which
has .lorded it over the consciences of men, and bestridden the
kingdoms and empires of, the earth.
By and- by bolder claims were put forth, and as .early as at the
Council of Bphesus, A. D. 431, the legate of Celestine, the then
existing pope, made the statement, "A thing it is undoubted that
the apostle Peter received the keys and the power of binding and
loosing ; and Peter still lives and exercises power in his suc
cessors even at this day." About twenty years after this, Pope
Leo said, "As being the see of the blessed Peter, the pope is
made the head of the world." I need not explain to you what a
see is. It is derived -from the word sedes, a seat, a pulpit, the
place where the minister -or the presiding minister sat. And I
may also here state — and I am aware you will not. say it arises
from prejudice, but from facts — I believe the very earliest form
of ecclesiastical politics was that of a presiding minister with
two or three ministers under him ; but then the extent of his
diocese was a congregation within four walls. For instance, we
read that Cyprian was bishop of Carthage; but how many pres
byters had he, do you think? When you hear the word bishop,
you think of the bishop of London, or the bishop of Winchester
— you think of one who is made a lord by the laws of the realm
— -who exercises great power and lives in great splendour ; but
the bishops of the primitive church were simply the presiding
ministers, who each exercised control over two or three ministers
under him, and whose only diocese was probably about forty feet

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 289
square ; and the only income of the bishops was derived, not from
the pew-rents, for I think they were not then known, but from
the gratuitous contributions of the people that met together ; and
accordingly Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, primitive in this re
spect, though not so in others, had just five presbyters under
him, and these presbyters he sent forth to make converts to the
gospel through the length and. breadth of Africa.
Then Hilary, we read, the successor of Leo, accepted the title,
in the fifth century, of successor of Peter, to whom the keys of
the kingdom belong. Pope Gelasius said, " There are two autho
rities by which the world i3 governed, the pontifical and the royal,
and in divine things it becomes kings to bow the neck to priests,
especially to the head of priests, whom Christ's own voice has
set over the universal church." And Pope Symmachus, when
presiding at a Roman council, accepted the defence set up for
him by Ennodius, " that the pope was judge in the place of God,
and could himself be judged of no man." And, finally, we read
that Justinian in his code, and, seventy years afterward, Phocas,
the emperor, in his decree, constituted the pope the great head
and ruler of the church universal, and commanded all men to
obey his behests, or to be punished with imprisonments, confis
cation of goods, exile and death, in case of disobedience or
dissent. Such, then, is the' rise of the Papal power. Now, you will
recollect, I identified the wild beast from the abyss with the little
horn of Daniel ; that little horn having eyes as a seer, being
literally a seer; and the translation of the Greek word eniazo-Kos,
which we have Saxonized into bishop, is an overseer- — not an
overlooker, as the best of bishops sometimes are — but an overseer,
as bishops ought to be, superintending and taking care of the
duties that devolve upon them. I showed you this little horn
was the symbol and prophetic type of the pope. I read from the
seventh of Daniel the account of the ten horns, or the ten king
doms, which I identified and named; — of whom three were to fall
before the little horn ; for it is written, " And of the ten horns
which were in his head, and of the other which came up" — i. e.
the little born — " and before whom three fell." In like manner
we find in the Book of Revelation the ten horns were ten king-
25

290 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
doms subject to the pope, and that three of those kingdoms were
subverted, in order to make way for the development and expan
sion of the Papal power. I open the pages of Gibbon, or of
any other faithful and authentic historian, and find that three
great kingdoms, the Vandals, the Ostrogoths, and the Lombards,
were found to be extremely troublesome neighbours to the pope,
interfering with his power, checking his pretensions, and other
wise disturbing the privileges he believed to belong to his see ;
and these three were rooted up and destroyed : and thus there is
seen to be complete identity between the prophecy of Daniel, the
Apocalypse of John, and the records of history.
We have before us the full and gradual development of that
terrible power ; and we have, in that gradual development, a
striking evidence of what Mr: Newman assumed for all the doc
trines of the popedom, namely, the power, the inherent power
of a gradual progressive expansion. Mr. Newman says that the
apostles planted the seeds of truth,*and nothing more; that it
was left to the church to foster and develop them ; he contends
that transubstantiation is the legitimate development of the
Lord's supper, and that the pope of Rome, lording it over the
kings of the earth, is the proper divine development of the ancient
fisherman Peter. Mr. Newman's idea is this : that the acorn of
truth is planted in the soil, where it gradually germinates and
shoots up, until at last, in the nineteenth century, it appears in
the form of the outspreading and gigantic oak. But when we
come to analyze the proofs of his theory, and the illustration that
he gives of it, we find that he has mistaken his illustration; and
that the true symbol is not the acorn expanding into the oak, but
the snowball starting from the summit of the loftiest snow-clad
Alp, rolling down the mountain side, attaching to itself snow,
ice, Straw, earth, stones, stubble, until it lies at the bottom of the
hill, a tremendous aggregate of all that is corrupt in nature, and
heterogeneous in composition.
I proceed in the next place, after thus touching upon the
gradual development of the Papacy, to show proofs — and these
are spread over every page of the history of the past — of one dis
tinctive and branding character here ascribed to the pope, that he
" opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, and blasphemed

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 291
his name," and that there was given unto him a mouth speaking
great things and blasphemies." I need scarcely tell you 'that
this is the common character that pervades all the portraits. In
Daniel, the predicted apostate speaks great things. In Paul's
Epistle to the Thessalonians, " he exalts himself above all that is
called God." In this chapter he is represented as " speaking
blasphemies." In chap. xvii. the very same character is applied
to him. We may therefore assume, that if the pope can be proved
to speak blasphemy, not once, nor twice, but statedly, and in
separably from his very office, he is, in this respect alone, the
identical wild beast from the sea described- in chap. xiii. of the
Book of Revelation. Let us see, then, if there is evidence of this.
First, I will give an extract from the official directory for the
election of the pope, the prescriptions of whieh are to be followed
whenever a new pope is chosen. In that directory, which is em
bodied in the Notitia Romana — that is, the standing orders of the
Court of Rome, edited by a Jesuit, and published in 1683— the
following description is given : — "After the pope's election and
proclamation, the pope, attired in his pontifical dress, is borne in
the pontifical chair to the church of St. Peter, and is there placed
upon the high altar, where he is saluted, for the third time, by
the cardinals kissing his hand and foot and mouth, and, in the
mean time, the Te Deum is sung — ¦' We praise thee, 0 God ! we
acknowledge thee to be the Lord,' — and when the adoration by
them is over, the pontiff then descends from the altar." Now,
recollect what the altar is with the Roman Catholic. It is that
sacred spot in the temple of God on which the wafer, or the con
secrated host — his God — -lies, as soon as the priest pronounces
the words, " Hoc enim est corpus meum." The Roman Catholic
believes that what was flour and water to all the senses, a moment
before, by being placed on the altar, and breathed on by the
priest, is turned into the soul and divinity, the literal flesh and
the literal blood of the Son of the living God. And it is upon
this altar, on which the Roman Catholic priest pretends to offer
Christ as a propitiation for the sins of the living and the dead,
that the pope is placed. On that spot, the most sacred in the eye
of a Romanist, on the spot to which the Roman Catholic turns to
adore and worship his God, the pope is throned and [' adored" by

292 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the cardinals, and the Te Deum' is the incense that is raised in
his presence.
But perhaps you will say, " This is an old, and, it may be, an
obsolete book." No doctrine is obsolete in the Church of Rome.
Her doctrines are stereotyped — she boasts that she is unchanged
and unchangeable, and every one cannot but feel, that if a doc
trine was infallibly orthodox in the sixteenth century, it cannot
be infallibly heterodox in the nineteenth. Truth must be still
true, in all the centuries of time, in all latitudes and longitudes
of the earth, and under all circumstances. But lest there should
be the least misapprehension in this matter, I will prove that
these blasphemies are neither obsolete nor repudiated. I will
refer to so recent a fact as the election of the present " liberal"
pope, who, we are told by his friends, is resolved there shall be
no tyranny in his domains, no despotism beneath his crosier. I
open a newspaper published in France under the auspices of the
Jesuits, called L' Univers, and in this paper I read the following
account of the consecration of the present pope, Pius IX : — " On
the 17th June, 1840, about half-past five, his holiness, Pius IX.,
appeared at St. Peter's, to receive the adoration of the cardinals.
Having entered the Sistine chapel, the pope prays : he then seats
himself upon the altar, where" he receives the adoration" — not
the homage, mind you, but the adoration — "of the cardinals, who
also kissed his hands and his feet ; his holiness was then raised
on the sedia, preceded by the cross, and the choristers of the
papal chapel chaunt, ' Behold the great high-priest,' is carried to
the basilique or church of St. Peter, then placed upon the middle
of the high altar of St. Peter, he there received the third adora
tion of the cardinals. The cardinal Dorien, having first made
his obedience, intones the Te Deum, which the choristers continue
till the pope has received the adoration of all the sacred college,
then the cardinal intones, 'Our Father who art in heaven.' " I
may just notice, all the bishops, clergy, cardinals, and priests kiss
the pope's hand, but the greatest sovereign upon the earth — Queen
Victoria— if she wore to be "so misguided as to offer such homage,
which I am sure, by tho .grace of God, she never will be, would
not bo allowed to kiss tho hands of the pope, but must kneel down
and kiss his feet. The highest layman in the world down to the

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 293
lowest, in order to show the superiority of the pontiff to all civil
power, must kiss the pontiff's feet, and not, as the clergy do, his
hands. I have spoken of the power of the pope. Let me show
that it is real, and requires room only to develop its pretensions.
Two years ago, there were instituted in Ireland certain colleges
for the education of the young. It was supposed by the govern
ment that then was — that education apart from religion would be
acceptable to all, and I think that in Ireland any light is better
than the darkness they have, and therefore, for one, I was not
disposed to complain of these institutions. No religion was to be
taught, the only subjects were to be sciences, literature, mathe
matics, languages, history, philosophy. It is true I felt pity for
the poor professors who might be appointed, because I cannot
conceive how it is possible — still very talented men might con
trive to effect it — but I say, I cannot see how it is possible to
teach any thing upon earth, and yet keep out the word and get
rid of the continual presence of God, who is the author of all
science, and the end of all literature. Yet any light is better
there than no light. These -colleges were appointed. Two-thirds
of the Roman Catholic bishops of Ireland approved of the plan,
and expressed themselves thankful for it. I thought this was a
token for good. They expected to make proselytes. We ex
pected to do the same. One bishop, who calls himself — blas
phemously enough, I cannot but feel — " the Lion of* the tribe of'
Judah," protested against the colleges. The matter was referred
to the pope. Did Pius IX. say, I have no jurisdiction in Ire
land ? Only ten days ago, this same Pope Pius IX., the liberal
pope, the reforming pope, issued his bull, in which he declares his
decision against them. These colleges must b,e left to moulder
in the winds of heaven, not a bishop who approves of them dare
patronize them, not one Papist dare enter them. The bishops,
the priests, and the people, all obey, as if it were the bidding of
a god. A power resides upon the banks of the Tiber that can
command by a word seven millions of the population of Great
Britain. By way of illustrating the origin of this power assumed, and,
in the case of Ireland, wielded by the pope, I will quote from the
very same paper, L' Uhivers, not only the description of the pope's
25*

294 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
consecration, but the description also of his coronation. The pope
receives not only the mitre, which would make him the summits
sacerdos, or pontifex maximus, but he receives also the tiara,
which has quite a distinct and separate meaning, and I will show
you what its meaning is, by referring to the words used at the
ceremony. " The cardinal puts on the tiara" — the tiara is a cap
composed of three crowns. There have been various mystic in
terpretations of it — some have explained it to denote that the
pope is lord of heaven, that is the first crown ; lord of earth, that
is the second; and lord of hell, or rather of purgatory, that is
the third. But whatever be the meaning of it, the words used
in the ceremony, when the tiara is placed upon the pope's head,
are, "Receive thou the tiara adorned with three crowns, in token
that thou art the father of princes and kings, the governor of the
world, the vicar of our Saviour Jesus Christ upon earth, to whom
be glory and honour, for ever and ever, Amen.''
Such, then; is the record of the consecration and coronation of
the pope. Having heard these strange and extraordinary preten
sions, you cannot, if you are acquainted vrith your Bibles, but
instinctively revert to that striking description which the apostle
Paul gives to the Thessalonians, of one that " sitteth in the
temple of God, saying that he is God, and exalteth himself above
all that is called God." Every expression used by the apostle is
ecclesiastical and distinctly allusive. The word " sitteth" is
there xadiaai, which is the origin of the word cathedral. The
meaning of cathedra is strictly a seat j and the cathedral was the
church which contained the bishop's cathedral or chief seat-
Now, when the apostle speaks of the pope, he says, that he will
have his cathedral in the church — vaoq — that is, the most sacred
end — the high altar ; thus vaoq, the word that he uses for temple,
is not the common word that is employed for temple in the New
Testament, but a totally, different word — the most sacred place of
the temple, or, as the Roman Catholic would say, the altar end
of the temple. Now, says the apostle, he sits there, opposing
and "exalting himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshipped, showing himself that he is God." I will now read
to you a document which also conveys the same idea of blas
phemies — for that is the Scripture epithet bestowed on the as-

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 295
sumptions of the pope. The quotation is authoritative, being
from one of the symbolical books of the -Church of Rome. It is
entitled, " Libri Symbolici Ecclesiae Catholicse editi a Streitwolf,
Gotting. 1838." The passage I now quote is to be found in
vol. ii. p. 343, and it is called the Confession of the Catholic
faith to be taken by all Protestants in Hungary, conforming to
that faith. " First, We confess that we have been brought from
heresy to the Roman faith, by the diligence of the fathers of the
Society of Jesus. Secondly, We confess that - the pope of Rome
is -head of the church, and cannot err. Thirdly, We confess and
are certain that the pope of Rome is vicar of Christ, and has
plenary power of retaining and remitting sins, according to his
will, and of thrusting men down into hell. Fourthly, We con
fess that whatever new thing the pope of Rome may have insti
tuted, whether it be in Scripture or out of Scripture, is true, di
vine, and full of salvation, and therefore ought to be regarded as
of higher value by lay-people than even the precepts of the living
God. Fifthly, We confess that the most holy pontiff ought to
be honoured by all with divine honour, with more prostration
than even what is due to Christ himself." Now, recollect, this
document is not a document propounded in this country, but a
document restricted to Hungary, propounded by the Jesuits, and
set forth in the year 1838, as a creed to be received by all that
become converts from Protestantism to Romish superstition.
And the eleventh article of this document is, " We confess that
the. pope has power of altering Scripture, or increasing or dimi
nishing it according to. his will." How truly descriptive of him
who openeth his mouth in blasphemy, blaspheming the temple
and the name of God !
Another class of proofs of Papal blasphemy I take from the
" Moral Theology "of Liguori, whose writings have recently been
brought before the public by an esteemed friend of my own, the
Rev. Mr. Blakeney, incumbent of a church in Nottingham.
In 1839, Liguori was canonized, that is, declared by the pope
to be a saint in heaven ; -and a collect was drawn up, which is in
every Roman Catholic missal, and is, prayed by every Roman Ca
tholic once a year. " Q God, who didst give blessed Liguori to
be a doctor to thy church, grant thfut we may be enlightened by

296 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
his doctrine, and benefited by his intercession." Before he was
canonized, there' were twenty different examinations made of his
writings, and all were pronounced faultless ; four popes declared
his writings were absolutely perfect ; the Sacred Congregation of
Rites at Rome, composed of cardinals and bishops, declared they
had examined his " Moral Theology," and there was nothing in
it in the least degree untrue. He was canonized by a pope ; he
is now worshipped by Roman Catholics : his doctrines, of course,
are of the highest authority, next to church authority itself, and
in giving extracts from it, I quote the acknowledged theology of.
the church. Now, let me show what be says by w7ay of proving,
however unintentionally, that the pope is the wild beast from the
abyss, that openeth his mouth in blasphemy. First of all, on the
fourth commandment, that is, " Remember the Sabbath day to
keep it holy," you will find it stated by him, " The pope can de
cree that the observance of the Lord's day shall continue only for
a few hours." He assumes the power of enlarging or restricting
a divine commandmentr Again, on the commandment, " Thou
shalt not kill," Liguori quotes with approbation this sentiment : — ¦
" Those who are confined in prisons may slay themselves, or
commit suicide, for the purpose of avoiding the certain sentence
of death." On another commandment, " Thou shalt not steal,"
Liguori says, " A servant can, according to his own judgment,
compensate himself for his labours, if he think that he deserves
more wages than those that he has received." Thus, then, you
have the Papal power annulling the commandments of God, set
ting itself above God, and pronouncing that to be void which
God has -pronounced to be eternal and unchangeable. But, lest
it should be supposed that there is any thing strange or startling
in this, I will quote similar instances from catechisms I hold in
my hand. I have four Roman Catholic catechisms, bound to
gether for the sake of convenience"; The first is a catechism
composed by the four Roman Catholic archbishops of Ireland,
and the ten commandments are contained in it thus : — " Repeat
the ten commandments of God. A. I am the Lord thy God;
thou shalt not have strange gods before me. 2. Thou shalt
not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Now, every
one acquainted with his Bible misses a whole commandment.

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 297
The Roman Catholic Church divides the decalogue differently
from us. I give her all the credit of that ; but what we complain
of is, that she has left out what we Protestants enumerate as the
second command, and what she herself, according to her own ar
rangement, must call nige-tenths of the first commandment.
5Tou naturally inquire, What can be the reason of that ?' The
answer is plain. It was left to tho pope cither to raise his wor
ship to the height of the requirements of God's word, or to' bring
down God's word to the depth of the debasement of his worship :
he preferred the latter, and made God's word suit his worship,
instead of making his worship suit God's word. He " opened
his mouth in blasphemy against God." And lest you should
think that this was extraordinary, I will produce another speci
men, from another quarter. I have here a catechism that was
picked up in the streets of Rome, by a lady, a friend of mine ;
and if there be sacredness in its soil, as our Tractarian friends
assert, there is sacredness in this catechism, for it is covered by
the mud from which it was picked up by this lady. This cate
chism was issued under the authority of the Roman pontiff,
drawn up by Bellarmine, the celebrated Roman cardinal, and
published in 1839. In this catechism the second commandment
is omitted, just as it is in the Irish one ; but in addition to this,
our fourth commandment is thus given : — " Recordati de santifi-
care le feste ;" that is, " Remember to keep holy the festivals."
The Sabbath is thus expunged from the law, in the exercise of
the same power whieh is arrogated by the pope. No man can
set himself more distinctly above God than he who pretends- to
annul and set aside God's commandments ! Would not that
man be setting himself above our queen who should assume to
invalidate the laws of our land. The fourth commandment is
cast out in the Italian catechism from' the ten. The Sabbath, in
short, is cast away, and the inventions of men 'substituted for the
institutions and appointments of God.
Thus, then, I have given you the evidences that the pope
opens his mouth in blasphemies. In speaking, however, of the
pope's liberties with the law of God, let me say I have always
admired one thing in the Church of England. There is much
that I admire in every section of the church. What Christian

298 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
will not' admire the spirituality of one section, the energy and
devotedness of a second, and the stability and resources of a
third ? But one thing in the Church of England I like — the ten
commandments, in full, are painted on the walls of her churches.
I think I shall have them written in their Protestant fulness on
the walls of my own church, as soon as the walls are dry. It is
a beautiful protest against that church that suppresses one, and
mistranslates, perverts, and corrupts another. Let the Papist
stick up his images ; but let the Protestant inscribe texts alone,
our only images, on the walls of his church. I may give another
instance of this making void the commandments of God, by
quoting from the Moral Theology of another distinguished writer
in the Roman Catholic Church. I need not tell you, perhaps,
that there is a college in Ireland called the Royal College of St.
Patrick at Maynooth ; I do not wish to make any remark in the
least that might be misconstrued about the institution; but,
surely, it cannot be interfering with things too high for me, if I
merely quote as pure Popery what is taught there to the rising
priests of Ireland, by giving extracts from one of the class-books
used there. We may surely quote what we are taxed for spread
ing, and it can be no reflection to that church to adduce the sen
timents actually sanctioned by its prelates and propagated by its
teachers. It is from the Moral Theology of Bailly, and that part
which treats of the decalogue, chap, 37, p. 232. He says, " How
much must be stolen in order to constitute a mortal sin V How
much ? you observe, is the question ; and the answer is, " Theo
logians are accustomed to divide men into four classes : first,
those who live in splendour; secondly, those who live on their
own estates ; thirdly, tradesmen, artificers, and those who sup
port themselves by their labour; and fourthly, the poor."
Now, notice what is laid down. That "mortal sin is com
mitted by persons of the third rank if sixty pence be stolen."
Mortal sin is defined to be the sin that ruins the soul ; and venial
sin, " sin that does not break charity between man and man, or
between man and God." A person, then, who steals sixty pence
from this class is guilty of a mortal sin — a sin for which he may
be damned for ever ; but if he steals to the value of fifty-nine
pence three farthings, he is only guilty of a venial sin, which

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 299
does not break charity between man and man, or between God
and man. Heaven and hell are suspended on a halfpenny ! !
Thus, you observe, by a sophistry the most plausible, by an argu
ment the most refined, the commandments of God are made of
none effect through the traditions of men. Thus the pope as
sumes power and prerogatives superior to God, and apnuls, can
cels, and modifies the commandments of heaven, to suit the con
veniences of earth — the consciences of sinners. But I must give
you one or two more illustrations of this point. In the fourth
session of the Lateran, a Yenetian prelate thus addressed the
pope : — (you will recollect what I am illustrating, viz. " his open
ing his mouth in blasphemies against God" — his being guilty of
blasphemy :) — " Thou art our Shepherd, our Physician — in short,
a second God upon earth." At the sixth session of the Lateran,
the bishop ofrModrusiuni called the pope, "The Lion' of the
tribe of Judah — the promised Saviour. Thou shalt rule from sea
to sea." On the election of a pope, the following words are used,
even by the conclave : — "I tell you good tidings of -great joy,"
(you recollect when these words were employed before,) " a new
pope is elected."
Cardinal Bellarmine says, " The pope is the father of fathers,
the pontiff of Christians, the prince of priests, the vicar of Christ,
the head of the body the church, the foundation of the building,
the universal bishop." Again, Lord Anthony Pucci, in the ninth
session of the fifth Lateran, said, " The sight of thy divine
majesty," addressing the pope, "does not a little terrify me, for
I am not ignorant that all power, both in heaven and in earth, is
given unto you ; that prophetic saying is fulfilled in you, 'All the
kings of the earth shall worship him, and all the nations shall
serve him.' " The bishop of Bitonto, at the Council of Trent,
in 1546, said, " The pope is come a light into the world, and men
love darkness rather than light." Pope Nicholas, addressing the
emperor Michael, says, "The pope, who is called God by Con
stantine, can never be bound or released by man, for God cannot
be judged by man." Of Alexander VI. it was said, "Caesar
was a man, Alexander was a God."
I have thus given extracts to prove that the pope answers to
the Apocalyptic description, " opening his mouth in blasphemy."

300 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
And if the pope be not the power that answers to that Apo
calyptic description, I ask you to specify any power in the last
nineteen centuries of the church, in any portion of the church,
that makes the faintest approximation to the portrait here
sketched,. or so vividly fulfils the prophetic description.
It is next said in this chapter, xiii. 14, " These kings have one
mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast."
In the eighth century — to give an illustration of this — Gregory
II. boasted, " All the kings of the West reverence the pope as
God." Charlemagne received his title and his empire as a
donative from the pope. The Western emperors took an oath
" to be submissive to the pontiff and to the Roman Church."
The Spanish king resigned his kingdom, that he might receive it
again at the hand of the pope. John, king of England, resigned
his crown to the pope's legate, that he might receive it as the
vassal of the Roman see. It was the duty of kings of old to
hold the pope's stirrup, and to kiss his foot. Pope Celestine III.,
A. D. 1191, struck off Henry VI. the German emperor's crown,
with his foot. Pope Pius V. deposed Queen Elizabeth, declaring,
" God hath set me as a prince over all nations, to root out and to
pull down, to destroy and to build." The Church of Rome has
not renounced that deposition ; and, at this moment, the bull
"in Coena. Domini," an authentic document of Rome, denounces
not only Elizabeth, but all her successors holding heretical, i. e.
Protestant principles. And to show that the Church of Rome
was not ashamed of Pius V. for denouncing and absolving the
subjects of Elizabeth from their allegiance, she has introduced
into her Breviary the following collect : " 0 God, who for crush
ing the enemies of thy church, didst choose the blessed Pius as
pope" — crushing not the heresies, but the "enemies" of the
church. Thus she celebrates the deeds and proclaims the glory
of that pontiff who dared to depose the queen of England, and to
absolve all her subjects from their lawful allegiance. And not
only were kings thus submissive to the Papal power, but the
people were no less so. They believed his dogmas, they feared
his bulls, and they paid for his indulgences ; and Gerson, the
most enlightened speaker at the Council of Trent, said, "The
people think of the pope as they think of-.the one God." And

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 301
the Sicilian embassadors sent .there thus' addressed the pops:
" 0 Lamb of G6d, that "takest a way, the sins' of the world."
In one word, "all the eai-th wondered after the beast," and "all
that dwell in the earth shall Worship him, 'whose names are not
written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world."
The next feature in this- description pf the wild beast from' the
abyss is, that he should war with -the saints" and overcome them;
in the seventeenth chapter, the woman is described as drunk with
the blood of the saints and with the " blood of the martyrs of
Jesus." Need -I refer to the Inquisition, which sent its emis
saries like an argus^-eyed police into every land, that made the
father accuse the son, and the son the father, and infected the
whole social atmosphere of Europe with one terrible and fearful
suspiciousness, so- that no man felt that he was safe when he
spoke to his.fellow — no "relative was sure- that what he unbosomed
to his nearest relative would not be made a reason for placing
him in the Inquisition, a prisoner for life, or a victim doomed to
death ? I peed 'isot mention the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. Who has not read of the massacre of St. Bartholomew ?
Hear a sketch of it.
" At length. Charles IX., casting his half-closed eyes on the
floor, gave the fatal order for the murder of his subjects. The
alarm-bell of St. -Germain was instantly rung} and in a moment
the Palais, the Tuileries, the banks of the river, the public
place?, the streets, the churches and edifices^nf Paris, were bril
liantly illuminated.
" Guided by those terrible lights, which enveloped the capital
as in a circle of fire, they distinguished the dwellings of heretics
by .the fresh-made marks. .'Open, by command of the Icing,'
was the order given by the murderers. , Some hastened to obey,
and, their lives were extinguished with, the lights which they
brought to see who called them ; others, opening their windows
to discover who knocked, at so unseasonable an hour, fell, struck
by twenty balls at once: another, burying himself in the bed
clothes, would perhaps pretend to be fast ^asleep ; his door was
shattered in pieces, and two or three assassins, separating from
the rest, ran and slaughtered him in his bed.. Sometimes they
26

302 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
left the house unstained with blood; but, dragging the victim
from his couch into the street, they gave him up to the weapons
of the populace. As the spoils of the doomed were to belong to
those who should despatch them, a thousand blades were raised
at once over the unfortunate wretch, whose death, swift as light
ning, left no time for -pain. Happy they who were thus sur
prised in their first sleep ; their sufferings were brief; but when
the hands of the murderers became wearied^ with slaughter, the
agony of the sufferer was prolonged for hours.
"While blood was thus spilt in torrents before the eyes of the
queen-mother, the bell of the Palais rang, and the general mas
sacre began. At this, signal, Tavennes and the duke of Nevers
drew their swords, crying, ' Kill ! kill !' The night-guards, the
citizens among whom arms had been distributed, the whole tribe
of murderers, sallied forth from their lurking-places, repeating,
'Kill ! kill !' The shrill sound of the bells, the clatter of arms,
the vagabond tramp of the assassins, the flickering glare of
torches, mingled with shouts, which the night-eeho rendered still
more horrible. The massacre then became general; there was
no pity for sex, age, or condition ; no blood came amiss, provided
that it circulated in heretic veins ; and these were the signs by
which the heretic was distinguished : — Whoever shuts his door at
the approach of an armed band is a heretic ; whoever refuses to
answer, or begs his life, is a heretic ; whoever has not a white
badge on his arm is a heretic ; whoever does not come when the
murderer calls is a heretic. The assassins had no need to speak :
here were no judges — all were executioners : but, if words did
now and then drop from their lips, it was to complain to one
another of their fatigue, or to insult' the sufferer; nay, it was
often an infernal laugh that greeted his last sigh.
" Pursued on all sides by those insidious flames with which the
capital was lit up, driven like a flock of sheep, tracked like deer,
in vain did the Protestants endeavour to fly from fate. If they
would have sought refuge in the Catholic churehes, armed men
guarded the doors of the sanctuary; if they approached the
Louvre, the Swiss awaited them with presented muskets; if .they
burst open the prison-doors, to conceal themselves among the.
malefactors whom the justice of men had condemned, the jailers

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 303
denounced or drove them out by main force-. If they attempted
to gain the banks of the river, the implements of destruction were
quite ready; boat-hooks to catch them in their flight, and to
knock them On the head, poles to thrust them into the water. If
they took shelter in the dark, they fell into the. snares of an
assassin lurking for human prey ; if they sought the light, the
light was deadly as the darkness; death -was everywhere" — in
their beds, in their house-tops, within, without, in the public
places, and in the very waters-of the river.
"They were flung alive into the Seine, and dragged out to be
plunged in again : if the unfortunate creatures, struggling against
the- current, contrived to rteach the shore, invisible hands, armed
with sharp spikes, thrust them back into the stream, which drove
some upon the sand of an islet facing the Louvre, and carried
others toward Chaillot, Auteuil, St. Cloud, and the adjacent parts,
to which these carcasses carried terror and infection. The grave-
diggers were too few in number, or worked to death. The Pr6v6t
des Marchands and the echevins were obliged to double their
wages to induce them to go to those distant places to bury the
corpses of heretics : a column of them started, carrying along
with them all the ordinary implements of their calling, and it
was several days before they returned to Paris. ' It is calculated
that in this interval about, eleven hundred drowned persons were
interred. The boatmen distinguished themselves in this abomi
nable night. Standing up in . their light barks, they cleft the
water with the rapidity of lightning, striking the heads that rose
above the surface, separating ^Jie hands clasped in the last prayer,
and lifting up bodies by- the garments and dropping them back
into the abyss, till they were sure that the victim was" suffocated.
" Suspended, not interrupted, the carnage1 recommeneed at eight
in the morning, but with colder and still more ingenious cruelty
than before : if the victims were multiplied, so were the execu
tioners. Darkness no longer shrouded the abode of the heretic
from the eye of suspicion : there was now no inaccessible retreat,
and places were ransacked to which the light of day never pene
trated. How many of the Protestants now regretted that, dark
ness, and deplored the return of that light which they had so
earnestly solicited of God in their prayers ! The sun, it is true,

304 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
beamed upon the vengeance of some of those who sold their lives
dearly, and stained the thresholds of houses with the blood of the
victors. Almost all expired with folded hands and faces turned
toward the palace of the sovereign.
"Such were the last scenes of the ever-memorable drama of
St. Bartholomew. A month after St. Germain's bell had given
the signal, all the dead were not buried. Some were yet floating
on the Seine, to which fishermen resorted for the purpose of pick
ing them up and selling them to any who chose to buy them.
For a long time, there was an auction of corpses on both banks
of the river, which was publicly cried, and" at which the lots were
adjudged to the highest bidder. . . Some-.buyers buried their pur
chases by night in sequestered spots; others burned those whom
they loved while living, and . collected "their ashes in urns which
afterward constituted ornaments- of their habitations. For above
a year, people durst not .pass at night along the banks of the
river ; some said that they had seen the earthquake there, others
had beheld spectres gliding along the water : fishermen had
asserted that invisible hands loosed after dark the boats moored
to the shore, and propelled them toward the islets in the Seine,
which sent forth moans like those of human voices. In some old
historians, we read that young females, murdered on St. Bartholo
mew's day, wandered about after dusk in Paris,, covered with long
vails, which- they lifted when they perceived the murderer, show
ing him the wound still fresh, and calling him by his name. The
grave De Thou hast not disdained to collect some of these popular
traditions." n -.
There is no reason to doubt that the pope was privy to the in
tended massacre. "Cardinal Alexandrin, nephew of the late
pope, had made no secret of expecting intelligence of a great
victory gained over the heretics, and exclaimed, when -it arrived,
'The king of France has kept his word!' — 'Good news! good
news !' cried Gregory XIII., who had been crowned about two
months before the catastrophe, ' all the Lutherans are massacred
except the Vendomets, whom the king has pardoned for" his sister's
sake.' That term he applied contemptuously to the three princes
of tho house of Bourbon- Vendome, the king of Navarre, and the
princes of Oond<5 and Conti. At night the, guns of the castle of

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 303
St. Angelo were fired, and bonfires blazed in every street in Rome.
The pope ordered a jubilee and a solemn procession, which he
accompanied himself, to thank God for this glorious success. He
sent a nuncio extraordinary to France to congratulate the king
on having so easily ' caught all the heretics in the same net.
Medals,* which I have seen, were struck at Rome, in approbation
of the massacre, and to perpetuate the memory of the happy event :
on one side was the portrait of the pope ; on the reverse the de
stroying angel, holding a cross in one hand, and in the otheit a
sword, with which he is slaughtering the Frenchmen called Pro
testants; and having this legend, Huqonotorum steages— the
slaughter of the Huguenots. In short, no demonstration of this
great triumph of the Church of Rome, of the church militant,
over her enemies was omitted : and that Buon Compagno might'
keep his work incessantly before his eyes, he had a large picture
of the massacre painted and hung up in the Vatican. A scroll
at the top of it contained these words :^PontifexColinii ne-
cem peobat — 'The pontiff approves the murder of G°ligni-'
' To this day,' says Brizard, whose work on the massacre appeared
in 1790, ' the French who.visit Italy behold, not without indigna
tion, this picture, which, though half effaced, still portrays but
too faithfully our calamities and the excesses of Rome.'
" The cardinal of Lorraine was at Rome- when the news of the
massacre of St. Bartholomew arrived there. He was so trans
ported with joy at the success of a plan which he justly considered
as in part his work, that he gave a thousand gold crowns to the
gentleman sent by his brother, the . duke of Aumale, with the
welcome intelligence. At his instigation, the pope and the cardi
nals ordered a. general jubilee and public processions. He went
in procession himself to the church of St. Louis, the patron saint
of France, where they attended, with ail the nobility of Rome.
The cardinal officiated in full pomp and splendour. On the front
of the church was a long inscription, purporting that the 'Cardi
nal of Lorraine, in the name of the most Christian king, Charles
IX., was returning thanks to God, and congratulating our holy
father the pope Gregory XIII., and the sacred college of cardi-

* I have one in my Possession.
26*

306 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
nals, on the astonishing and incredible suceess which had attended
the counsels given by the Holy See, the success which it had sent,
and the prayers which his holiness had never ceased to offer for
the last twelve years."
Roman Catholics are but too able to reply, Some of your Pro
testant' reformers also persecuted in their turn. I believe -the
right course is not to . deny what is true, for the cause of truth
will never be - assisted by shield or sword from the armoury of
falsehood, but to admit plainly and candidly that it is too true
that Calvin acquiesced in the burning =of Servetus; Cranmer
sanctioned the execution of two Anabaptists ; John Knox, as I
told you on a previous occasion, held that all Roman Catholics,
in Scotland at least, ought to be put to death. But when Roman
Catholics state such facts as these, our reply is very plain : first,
they persecuted as individuals. The Church of Rome persecutes
as a church. Secondly, these men were first priests of the Church
of Rome ; they learned their persecuting principles by being
taught in the colleges of Rome. Instead of being charges against
Protestantism, they are the' evidences of their connection with
that system, some of the principles of which they carried with
them into a holier and a purer communion. And lastly, Pro
testants of every name have improved.; they now denounce perse
cution : the Romish Church retains it ; - Rome is stationary. We
improve. If the sword is to, be unsheathed— -if the fagot is to
be lighted, we say, let that sword be unsheathed, let that fagot
be lighted by the foes, not by the friends of Christianity. A
good cause was never put down by the sword, and a bad cause
was never permanently benefited by it. " The weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling
down of strongholds?'
Now I. must just occupy your time for. eight minutes longer ;
as I wish to finish this subjeot this evening, and to enter upon
another and very important one next evening. We come to the
other wild beast that was to arise, and " exercise all the power
of the first beast before him, and cause the earth and them that
dwell therein to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was
healed." Who was the. second beast who is mentioned in this
chapter ? Mr. Elliott has been the first to show conclusively the

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 307
application. This second wild heast exercises" all the power of the
first. beast, as it is in the original, evmntov, in the presence of, or,.
as it might be translated, with the authority or under the episco
pacy of the first wild beast. The first wild beast, I showed you
was the pope ; the second wild beast exercises his powers subject
to the authority of the pope, and thifr second wild beast had also
the "horns of a lamb,"- but "spake as a dragon." Christ speaks
of false teachers as " wolves in sheep^s clothing." Illustrating
one passage by the other, I conclude that the symbol here used
is descriptive of the character of false teachers, and therefore
that the, second wild beast denotes the whole missionary instru
mentality of the Church of Rome — her bishops,' her cardinals,
her priests, her Jesuits, those skilful emissaries called the Janissa
ries of the Ghurch of Rome, as distinct from and dependent on
the pope. I need not tell you that the clergy of the Church of
Rome are totally different from the clergy of any other ecclesias
tical communion. The ministers of every church upon earth, ex
cept the Romish Church, may marry, and thus create social circles
around them;, the Roman Catholic priest must not do so. You
ask, perhaps, why it is so ? Never did Satan hit upon a cleverer
artifice than the celibacy of the clergy. It is the .strength of the
Romish pyramid, for whenever a man marries he becomes the
centre of a little circle likely to absorb a large share of his sympa
thies, and to awake within him the pleasures of a parent, and the
affection of a -husband. But in the Church of Rome the priest-
mayu not marry : hence all his sympathies must circulate within
the great visible corporation, to" which he is entirely devoted and
attached. It absorbs the man. It is the circumference of all his
cares. Therefore every' Roman Catholic priest feels the deepest
interest in the aggrandizement, expansion, and glory of that visi
ble corporation called the Roman Catholic Church, an interest
which he would not feel to be so exclusive and absorbing were he
the centre of a circle of his own. The individual is lost in the
aggregate, the personal is' merged in the corporate! He is a mere
cog or erank in the vast machine. The Papal pyramid would be
materially weakened' but for .the doctrine of the celibacy of the
clergy. '
It is said that this wild beast was to be lamb-like in its horns,

808 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
but dragon-like in its tongue. Appearing to be the ministers of
Christ, the priests are the ministers of Antichrist. Professing to
be the lambs of the Lord, they are really the destroying dragons
of the Apostasy.
They exercise, it is said, all the power of the first beast, and
had power to do great miracles, and signs, and lying wonders, all
"in the presence" (or under the superintendence) "of the first
beast." Priests are the delegates of the pope ; they curse and
bless in the village as the pope does in Christendom. Mosheim,
by way of illustrating Popish miracles, says, " In former ages
heresy was silenced by two things — the authority of the church
and miracles." I need not enumerate the pretended miracles of
the Church of Rome — her moving and winking images — her
weeping Madonnas. I need not remind you of the well-known
lying wonder — the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius at
Naples — nor of the mesmeric miracles to which Lord Shrewsbury
has given credit and currency. Who has not heard of the mira
culous medals consecrated by a pope, one of which, a perfect
wonder-worker, was lately hung round the neck of a Protestant
lady in Cornwall, and was (so says the priest) the means of con
verting her to the Roman Catholic faith, and her case is quoted
as proof of the miraculous efficacy of the medal 1 I need not do
more than quote the great standing miracle performed by the
priests (as they believe) — transubstantiation — in which they de
clare, with monstrous impiety, that they bring Christ down from
heaven, and place him bodily upon their altars. " He maketh
fire come down from heaven," is the very description of the
curses and anathemas of the Church of Rome, and these, there
fore, are the^fulfilment of this prophecy. At the excommunica
tion of the emperor Frederick by Pope Innocent, at the first
Council of Lyons, the following illustration of the Apocalyptic
statement — " he maketh fire to come down from heaven" — is re
corded : — " These words, uttered in the midst of the council,
struck the hearers with terror as with flashing thunderbolts,
when, with candles lighted and flaring down, the lord pope and
assisting prelates flashed then- lightning fire against the emperor
Frederick." It occasionally scathed kingdoms in the shape of
interdicts, the effect of which was to close the churches, stop the

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 309
celebration of sacraments, and all service over the dead. In tha
Pontificate Romanum, the great directory of the priests and pre
lates of the Romish Church, is the following curse, often recently
pronounced, and familiar to ever priest : —
" By the authority of the Omnipotent God, and of St. Peter
and St. Paul, his apostles, we firmly, and under the threat of
anathema, enjoin that no one carry off these virgins or religious
persons here present from divine service, to which, under the
standard of chastity, they have been dedicated, that no one plun
der their property, but that they enjoy it in quiet. If any one
shall have presumed to attempt this, may he be cursed in his
home and out of his home, may he be cursed in the state (or
city) and in the field, cursed in watching, and cursed in sleeping.
cursed in eating and drinking, cursed in walking and sitting;
MAY HIS FLESH AND HIS BONES BE CUESED, AND FEOM THE
SOLE OF HIS FOOT TO THE CEOWN OF HIS HEAD MAY HE Elf JQY
NO health. May there light upon him the curse which the
Lord sent in the law, by Moses, on the sons of iniquity. May
his name be erased from the book of the living, and not be re
corded with the righteous. May his portion, and his heritage be
with Cain the fratricide, with Dathan and Abiram, with Ananias
and Sapphira, with Simon Magus and faith Judas the traitor,
and with those who said to God, 'Depart from us, we. will not
follow thy ways.' May eternal fiee devoue him .with the
devil and His Angels, unless he make restitution, and come to
amendment. So be it. So be it."
Such is the curse which every priest pronounces on the proper
occasion. Cursing by bell, book, and- candle is common in Ire
land ; and when these curses are pronounced, lighted candles are
flung upon the earth, and thus they seem to, make fire descend
from heaven.
Then the second beast, it is said,- caused all the inhabitants of
the earth to worship the first beast. What is the great aim and
design of the Romish clergy ? To be caterers for the pope ; to
make proselytes to their lord pope, under whose episcopacy they
act; to make all the inhabitants of the earth to worship and
obey the Roman pontiff. " We declare, affirm, and define, that
submission to the Roman pontiff is necessary to salvation," is

310 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
their unanimous belief. " The monks of the seventeenth cen
tury," says Mosheim, "held up the pope to the veneration of the
people as God."
" Saying to them that dwell in the earth, that they should
make an image to the beast." This subject was one which has
been the occasion of much difficulty ; bui Mr. Elliott, I think,
has solved the difficulty by showing on, I think, sufficient evi
dence, that the image of the beast which they had power to
make, is the synods and General Councils of the Romish
Church; and that this is not a mere fanciful interpretation, I
think will be plain from the following evidence : — Tertullian, a
Latin father, calls councils the ipsa representatio, or very repre
sentation of the church. The word representatio means the like
ness of a party who is absent, but as true as if the party were
present. After the Reform Bill was passed in the parliament of
England, a very celebrated speaker in the midst of that assembly
said, " This house is now the real and express image" — the very
word that is -here used in the Apocalypse — " and representation
of the country." The original word dxibv, which is in this place
translated image, has been frequently used as the proper and ap
propriate expression for a General Council.
" To give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the
beast should both speak," &c. (ver. 15.) When a council met,
the laity were present, but the priests alone could_vote; and
when the council had issued its decision, it was by a majority of
the clergy. Thus it may truly be said that it was the clergy in
a council that gave breath to the image of the beast, by embody
ing its mindi Though councils assume to be free, the pope in
spired the clergy, and they originated all their conclusions. In
the fourth Lateran, at which one thousand bishops were present,
seventy canons were dictated by the pope, and received by the
council. The pope's powers were ultimately more restrained;
but his power of suspending, revoking, or dissolving a council
gave him practically the power of swaying it. Hence the pope
and his tools, the clergy, were substantially the council. And
the decrees of the Council of Trent were not the conclusions of
all the bishops in Christendom, but the collected sentiments of
the pope's own creatures, and of these only.

THE WILD BEAST FROM THE SEA. 311
Next, the second beast was to cause as many as would not wor
ship the image of the beast to be killed. The great end of coun
cils — and the priests were really the councils — was the extirpation
of heretics. The third Lateran decrees the extermination of
heretics. The fourth Lateran decrees the confiscation of their
goods. All history, with its thousand tongues, and' Scripture,
with its one emphatic voice, declare, that when Rome had the
power, that power displayed itself in deeds of blood; and from
the snow-clad Alps, that have been trodden by the feet of roving
barbarians,, to the sacred heights of Calvary itself, there is no spot
which has not been drenched with the blood of the martyrs of
Jesus, and from' which that blood does not cry to heaven for- ven
geance on the persecutor of the saints.
In conclusion, let me draw your attention to the last distinction
which identifies, and, like a clasp, binds together the whole, viz.
the number of the beast : that number is declared to be 666. In
our English language, we use what are called Arabic numerals,
1; 2, 3, 4, &c, quite separate and distinct from the letters, of the
alphabet ; but in the Greek language there are no numerals dis
tinct from the letters ; hence the letters of the alphabet are em
ployed instead of numerals. In ancient times, all slaves,, soldiers,
and devotees to a god had their characteristic stigmatar; and so the
wild beast from the abyss has its characteristic stigma : that is,
the whole Church of Rome has some grand, apparent, charac
teristic stigma — something that marks distinctly, that corporation
from all other churches and bodies in the world. Let us endeavour
to ascertain what that is. I will take the number 666 according
to the Greek notation : X' is 30, a' is 1, r' is 300, e' is 5, t' is 10,
v' is 50, o' is 70, ^ is 290-. Adding together these numbers, they
make exactly 666 ; and, putting all the letters together, they form
the word Xazetvog,. (Latinus,) or Latin man. His prayers are
Latin ; his canons Latin ; his missal Latin ; his breviary Latin ;
the decrees of his councils, his bulls, are all Latin j he worships
in Latin; he blesses in Latin; he curses in Latin; all is Latin.

312 APOCALYPTIC SKETGHES.

A

=

30

a

=

1

T

=

300

e

—

5

t

=

10

V

—

50

0

—

70

?

=

200

,j.aretvo<; = 666
I have thus described the wild" beast as faithfully and as suc
cinctly as I could ;' and I trust that in so doing" I have not violated
the laws of charity, or the claims of love. It is hot from hatred
to the menj but from faithfulness to God that I have made these
statements. And if this be true, and I am in no manner of
doubt that it is so, is it not a blessed-thing to have the great foe
clearly set before us? to have no doubt whatever about the cha
racter of ttte enemy with whom we .have to contend ? I. believe
that all the conflicts that have befallen our churches are, but pre
paratory skirmishes — all our quarrels between ohurchmemand dis
senters -are but child's play in comparison ^of what comes. The
great Conflict already looms in the horizon ; it gathers strength
and approaches with greater speed, every day — the conflict between
God's truth and man's tradition — between the breviary of the
priest and the Bible of the living God— between Christ, the
Head, the King, the Priest, the Saviour, and Antichrist, the great
usurper, and the head of the Apostasy. Let us all, then, "church
men and^dissenters,- of every name, merge the microscopic points
on which' we differ, or melt them in the majestic points on which
we agree, Which are glorious, eternal, and infinite! What we
agree in is worthy of being, embalmed for ever : what we differ in
is, in comparison, worthy of being buried. Let us love as
brethren- — let us labour. as the followers of the Lamb; and when
the great conflict comes, let us stand, differing in uniform, but
agreeing in principle, in object, in aim, in hope ; and, " if God
be for us, who can be against us 7"

313

LECTURE XVII.
THE FIRST VIAL.
" The second wo is past ; and, behold, the third wo cometh quickly.
"And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven,
saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and
of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
"And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell
upon their faces, and worshipped God,
" Saying, We give thee thanks, 0 Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast,
and art to come ; because tho'u hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast
reigned. "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath. is come, and the' time of the
dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy
servants the prophets, and to the saints; and thenf'that fear thy name, small
and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
" And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his
temple the ark of his testament; and there were lightnings, and voices, and
thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail." — Revelation xi. 14^19.
" 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.
" And the first 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." — Revelation xvi. 1, 2.
The two first woes have passed away. A third was pronounced
from the firmamental heavens, and roused an echo like each of
the other woes, commensurate to its force from the earth. The
first evidence of its . responsive echo is found in the expressions
of infidels during the years immediately preceding the French
Revolution, when the very oracles of Satan became unconsciously
the organs of truth. Voltaire thus writes in 1764 : —
"Every thing is preparing the way for a great revolution.
It will undoubtedly take place, though I shall not be so for
tunate as to see it. Light has been diffusing itself, and on the
very first opportunity the French nation will break out, and the
27

314 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
uproar will be glorious. Happy those who are young, for they
will behold most extraordinary things !"
Christian men saw, too, the approach of the coming wo. The
Protestant churches, they felt, had lost sight of their main duty
to witness to the word*: they had become ''salt without savour,
and, in the words of "Bishop Horsley, "the clergy substituted for
the great doctrines of the gospel a system little better than
heathen ethics."
Cowper, writing of the era of the French Revolution, says —
" The world appears
To toll the death-knell of its own decease ;
And by the v6ice of all- its elements,
To preach the general doom — when were the winds
Let loose with such a warrant to destroy.
¦  the old
And crazy earth has had her shaking fit
More frequent, and foregone her usual "rest;
And nature seems, with dim and sickly eye,
To wait the close of all."

" Already," said Burke, in 1790, " in many parts of Europe
there is a hollow murmuring under ground — a confused move
ment that threatens a general earthquake "of the political world."
There were also physical intimations of the coming wo. In
fact, almost every prediction of Scripture has not only a moral
and ultimate fulfilment, but a symbolical and literal fulfilment
also. Thus, the ancient prophecy, "a star shall come out of
Jacob," was not only morally fulfilled by the advent of Christ,
but literally also, inasmuch as a literal meteor star guided the
magi to the manger ; and the overthrow of Jerusalem was pre
dicted by our Lord, as accompanied with earthquakes and eclipses,
which had not. only their symbolical, but their literal fulfilment
also. We may, therefore, fairly presume that those earthquakes
and hail-storms, which were to be the precursors of the coming
wo, had their symbolico-literal fulfilment likewise. Thus, a tre
mendous hurricane ravaged the whole West Indies in 1783, and
Vesuvius burst forth with terrific fury. Sir William Hamilton
gives an account of an earthquake lasting from 1783 to 1786, and

THE FIRST VIAL. 315
convulsing all Italy. In 1788, a hail-storm, unprecedented in.
fury, ravaged the harvests and vintages of France. Of this
storm, Alison writes, vol. i. p. 172'—'' Even the elements con
tributed to swell the public discontent. A dreadful storm of
hail, in July, 1788, laid waste the provinces, and produced such
diminution in the harvest, as threatened the'horrors of famine."
In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, article " French Revolution,"
we read thus : — " On Sunday, July 13, 1788, at 9 A. M., without
any eclipse, a dreadful darkness overspread several parts of
France. It was the prelude to such a tempest as is unexampled in
the temperate climates of Europe. The' soil was. converted into a
morass, the standing corn was beaten into quagmires, vines
broken to pieces, fruit-trees demolished, and new unmelted hail
lying in heaps like rocks of solid ice. The hail was composed of
enormous solid and angular pieces of ice, weighing from eight to
ten ounces. The country people were beaten down in the fields
amid the concussions of the elements, and concluded the last day
had arrived." So truly was it fulfilled, " there were lightnings
and thunderings, and. a great hail." The moral and political
convulsions presignified by these symbols were no less palpable.
Alison says, " The minds of men were shaken at this time, as by
the yawning of the ground during the fury of an earthquake."
Having thus seen the general character of the seventh trum
pet, which includes the seven last vials, we are now prepared to
explain the nature and the action of the first vial. New angelic
agencies .are obviously employed. The four angels do not come
from the circumference of the earth, which would be the symbol
of foreign invasion. Their coming forth from the temple habited
in pure linen, implies their being sent from the immediate pre
sence of God, and commissioned to execute special judgments.
The fact that one of the four living creatures gives the vials to
the angels — in other words, equips, them for their missions —
seems to indicate that these judgments will be righteous retribu
tions on them that persecuted the saints of other days. The
plagues resemble those of Egypt — Papal Christendom being
figuratively Egypt. A vial is the same as the cup of trembling,
so frequently alluded to in Scripture. If is obvious, that the
localities on which the vials are poured out — the earth, the sea,

316 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the rivers,^ and fountains, are substantially the same as those on
which the judgments of the four first trumpets fell.
The word which is here translated " sore," is used in several
passages of Scripture. It is applied to the case of Job, where it
is stated, (Job ii. 7,) " Satan smote Job with sore boils from the
sole of his foot to his crown." It is also used to denote the con
dition of Hezekiah, as well as that of the beggar. Lazarus. In all
these it is descriptive of very severe disease. Whatever, there
fore, be the nature of the visitation inflicted on the earth by the
pouring out of the first vial, it is obvious that it must be some
severe and terrible calamity — some dreadful corruption.
From the name applied to the Roman earth, the alleged place
of its descent, " which is spiritually called Egypt," the sore
would seem to indicate its -having some analogy to the plagues of
Egypt. The very same word is applied to the plague-spot of
Egypt — the most noisome and painful of the judgments that fell
upon the subjects of Pharaoh, and one specially noted for its
contagious -nature. So peculiarly severe and infectious was the
Egyptian plague, that its name was applied to the most "malig
nant kind. The testimony of heathen writers also confirms the
description of holy writ. Thucydides traces the origin of the
great Athenian plague- to Egypt ; and in the Encyclopaedia Bri-
tannica, the plague is said "to be generally brought into Eu
ropean Turkey from Egypt." I need not remind you, that this
sore is evidently used in the text in a figurative sense, as it has
been used in the prophecies of Isaiah, in which he describes the
national corruption of his age : " The whole head is sick, and the
whole heart faint : from the sole of the foot even unto the head
there is no soundness in it ; but wounds, and bruises, and putre
fying sores." Isa. i. 6. This use is also apparent from the
figurative sense clearly belonging to the Apocalyptic Egypt.
The contents of the first vial were poured out at the French
Revolution, 1789. There had been long maturing and gaining
head in the social system, partly from the spread nf such writings
as those of Rousseau, and still more from the immorality and
licentiousness of the Papal clergy — a corruption too deep and too
intense not to find for itself ten thousand vents, in the shape of
Bores and plague-spots, over the length and breadth not only of

THE FIRST VIAL. 317
France, but of Europe itself. The sarcastic skepticism of Vol
taire was followed up by the sensual, but brilliant bursts of pas
sion from the pen of Rousseau. D' Alembert, Diderot, and Helve-
tius laboured hard to write down the existence of God. Crebillon,
Lacks, and Louvet turned into captivating fiction the materialism
of the Encyclopedists ; and the French clergy, the only repre
sentatives of Christianity, furnished abundant materials in their
superstition, unbelief, licentiousness, and avarice, for a united
onslaught on all that wore the Christian name.
The dreadful fever soon appeared, and- infected every order,
and rank, and class of the community; the deadly virus — the
more deadly because moral — shot through every vein, and smote
the springs and sources of all virtue, all morality. Intense suffer
ing rocked the fevered and restless mass, and began to show, to
discerning minds, what scorpion stings sin has within itself, and
how naturally the guilty become the executioners of their own
punishment. Infidelity and Popery combined spread their in
fluences far and wide, till at length the nation which had long
been subject to their action broke out into that moral sore here
attached to the First Vial. ' Sir Walter Scott, in his Life of Napo
leon' Bonaparte, thus describes these- roots and sources of this
noisome sore : — " The licentiousness which walked abroad in such
disgusting and undisguised nakedness, was marked by open in
famy, deep enough to have called down, in the age of miracles,
an immediate judgment from heaven; and crimes, whieh the
worst of the Roman, emperors would have at least hidden in his
solitary isle of Caprea, were acted as publicly as if men had no
eyes, and God no thunderbolts." (Vol. i. c. 2.) What renders
the parallel between a "noisome and grievous sore" and the
French revolutionary mania more marked, is the fact that, as the
former is not easily detected in the earliest stages, or may be
mistaken for a source or symptom of returning health, so the
French Revolution was hailed at its first outburst, as the dawn
of a new and glorious era; though, it ought to. be observed, the
very parties that thus prognosticated its glories, lived to retract
all they said in its favour. Fox, even after the murder of the
ting — Louis XVI. — declared in the British Parliament — " I, for
one, admire the new constitution of France, considered altogether
27*

318 • APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
as the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which has
been erected on the foundations of human integrity in any age or
country." Bishop Watson looked upon it as the dawn of ,a new
day ; and Dr. Price, a dissenting minister of that time, applied to
it the words of Simeon — " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant de
part in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."
But the true character of this " sore" soon showed itself. It
was not a symptom of health, "but the prelude to corruption — the
plague-spot of death — as the scenes and' deeds that followed
abundantly proved. By and by we read that Camille Desmoulins
harangued the mobs of Paris, and urged a " St. Bartholomew of
the patriots." Soon after this, the revolutionary mob laid siege
to the royal palace of Versailles ; and finding an avenue, rushed
into the royal apartments, and after murdering two of. the body
guard, who made the most heroic defence, and by their pro
tracted resistance, gave the king and queen time to escape from
the demons who thirsted for their blood, they beheaded the two
faithful guards, and carried their heads on pikes through the
streets of Versailles. It was on this occasion that the infuriated
democrats stabbed the bed from which the queen had just risen
and escaped, thinking she might be concealed beneath it — an in
cident, let me observe, which gave birth to the following beauti
ful and touching apostrophe of Burke : — " It is now sixteen years
since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness of Ver
sailles, and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly
seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above
the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just
began to move in — glittering like the morning star, full of life,
and splendour, and joy. Oh what a revolution ! and what a
heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation
and that fall ! Little did I dream, when she added titles of
veneration to that enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she
should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against dis
grace concealed in that bosom ! Little did I dream that I should
live to see such disasters fall upon her in a nation of gallant men,
in a nation of men of honour and cavaliers ! Methought ten
thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to
avenge eyen a look that threatened her with insult. But the

THE FIRST VIAL. 319
age of chivalry is gone ! That of sophisters, economists, and cal
culators has succeeded ; and the glory of Europe is extinguished
for ever. Never more shall we behold that, generous loyalty to
rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience,
that subordination of the heart, which kept alive even in servitude
itself the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of
life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment
and heroic enterprise, is gone."
Even this, however, was but the beginning of the sanguinary
outburst. The king was soon after dragged a miserable captive
to Paris, surrounded by his vrounded and bleeding body-guard,
no longer to rule the realm on the throne of which Providence
had -placed him, but to receive the orders and obey the dictates
of the Parisian mob. The people grasped the sceptre and the
sword, and -made and executed laws at pleasure ; and the unhappy
monarch was now the subject of their merriment, and anon the
object of their gross insults. He was shorn of his power, denuded
of his royal equipage, and denied the titles conceded to kings by
universal consent. In November, 1789, the property of the French
Church was confiscated by an act of the National Assembly, and
the proceeds were applied chiefly to the national exigencies, and
instead, a miserable pension decreed to the various ecclesiastical
orders. While we admit that no clergy had more neglected the
great functions of the ministerial office, or in their day and power
exercised a more sanguinary despotism over all that would not
bow beneath the iron crosier of the Papacy, yet it must not be
forgotten that the spoliation and cruelty of which they were the
victims was not inflicted by the Jacobins on account of their
crimes, which were black and many, but out of antipathy to every
thing like the Christian faith. In June, 1792, and soon after this,
upward of 30,000 Parisians proceeded from the Assembly toward
the palace, displaying banners inscribed with revolutionary senti
ments. " At the end of one pike," says Alison, " was placed a
bleeding heart, with the inscription around it — ' The heart of the
aristocracy.' " The palace was entered by the mob, the red cap
of liberty was placed by force on the king's fcead, and the venera
ble monarch was made the sport of the infuriated demons who
surrounded him ; ultimately he was iniquitously condemned and

320 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
executed by his subjects in January, 1793, and his queen was
beheaded in October following. Forthwith began that terrific
epoch in the history of the world, when the noisome ulcer attained
its height, which by universal consent has been called the "reign
of terror." It was during this period that the frightful massacres
of La Vendue and Lyons were perpetrated, of which I give the
accomplished Alison's graphic description. (Vol. ii. p. 391.)
"A Revolutionary- Tribunal was formed there imder the direc
tion of Carrier, and it soon outstripped even the rapid march- of
Dan ton and Robespierre. _' Their principle,' says the Republican
historian, ' was, that it was necessary to destroy en masse all the
prisoners. At their command was formed a corps called the Le
gion of Marat, composed of the most determined and bloodthirsty
of the Revolutionists, the members of which were entitled, of their
own authority,- to incarcerate any person whom they chose. The
number of their prisoners was soon between three and four thou
sand, and they divided among themselves all their property.
Whenever a fresh supply of captives was wanted, the alarm- of a
counter-revolution, the ' generale beat, the cannon planted; and
this'was immediately followed by innumerable arrests. Nor were
they long in disposing of the captives. The miserable wretches
were either slain with poniards in the prisons, or carried out in
a vessel and drowned by wholesale in the Loire. On one. occasion,
a hundred ' fanatical priests,' as they were termed, were taken
out together, stripped of their clothes, and precipitated into the
waves. The same vessel served for many of these Noyades ; and
the horror expressed by many of the citizens for that mode of
execution formed, the ground for fresh arrests and increased mur
ders. Women, big with child; infants, eight, nine, and ten
years of age, were thrown together into the stream, on the sides
of which men, armed with sabres, were placed to cut off their
hands, if the waves should throw them undrowned on the shore.
The citizens, with loud shrieks, implored the lives of the little
innocents, and numbers offered to adopt them as their own ; but
though a few were granted to their urgent entreaty, the greater
part were doomed tij destruction. Thus were consigned to the
grave whole generations at once — ' the ornament of the present,
the hope of the future.' So immense were the numbers of those

THE FIRST VIAL. 321
who were cut off by the guillotine or mowed down by fusillades,
that three hundred men were occupied for six weeks in covering
with earth the vast multitude of corpses which filled the trenches
which had been cut in the place of the department at Nantes to
receive the dead bodies. Ten thousand died of disease, pestilence,
and horror, in the prisons of that department -alone. -
"On one occasion, by orders of Carrier, twenty-three of the
Royalists, on another twenty-four, were guillotined together,
without any trial. The executioner remonstrated, but in vain.
Among them were many children of seven or eight years of age,
and seven women ; the executioner died two or three days after,
with horror at what he himself had done. At another time, one
hundred and forty women, incarcerated as suspected, were drowned
together, though actively engaged in making bandages and shirts
for the Republican soldiers. So great was the multitude of cap
tives who were brought in on all sides, that the executioners, as
well as the company of Marat, declared themselves exhausted
with fatigue ; and a new"method of disposing of them was adopted,
borrowed from Nero, but improved on the plan of that tyrant.
A hundred, or a hundred and fifty victims, for the most part
women and children, were crowded together in a boat, with a con
cealed trap-door in the bottom, which was conducted into the
middle of the Loire ; at a signal given, the crew leaped -into an
other boat, the bolts were withdrawn, -and the shrieking victims
precipitated into the waves, amid the laughter of the company
of Marat, who stood on the banks, to cut down any who ap
proached the shore. This is what Carrier called his Republican
Baptisms. The Republican Marriages were, if possible, a still
greater refinement in cruelty. Two persons of different sexes,
generally an old. man and an old womdn, or a young man and a
young woman, bereft of every species of dress, were bound to
gether, and after being left in torture in that situation for half an
hour, thrown. into the river. It was ascertained, by authenticated
documents, that six hundred children had, on one occasion alone,
perished by that inhuman species of death. The Noyades at
Nantes alone amounted to twenty-five, on 'each of which occasions
from eighty to a hundred and fifty persons- perished; and such
was the quantity of corpses accumulated in the Loire, that the.

322 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
water of that river was infected so as to render a public ordinanco
necessary, forbidding the use of it to the inhabitants. No less
than eighteen thousand perished in these ways, or by the guillo
tine, in Nantes alone, during the administration of Carrier ; and
the mariners, when they heaved their anchors, frequently brought
up boats charged with corpses. Birds of prey flocked to the
shores, and fed oh human flesh ; while the very fish became so
poisonous, as to induce an order of the municipality of Nantes, '
prohibiting them to be taken by the fishermen."
".The scenes in the prisons which preceded these horrid execu
tions exceeded all that romance has figured of the terrible. Many
women died of terror, the moment a man entered their cells, con
ceiving that they were about to be led out to the Noyades ; the
floors were covered with the bodies of their infants, numbers of
whom were yet quivering in the agonies of death. On one occa
sion, the inspector entered the prison to seek for a child, where
the evening before he had left above three hundred infants ; they
were all gone in the morning, having been-drowned the preceding
night. To every representation of the citizens in favour of these
innocent victims,. Carrier answered, ' They are all vipers ; h?t them
be stifled.' Three hundred young women Of Nantes were drowned
by him in one night; so far from having had any share in politi
cal discussions, they were of the unfortunate class who live by the
pleasures of others. Several hundred persons were thrown every
night, for some months, into the river : their shrieks at being led
out of the entrepot on board the barks, wakened all the inhabit
ants of the town, and froze every heart with horror. Early in
the Noyades, Lambarty, at a party at Carrier's, pointing to the
Loire, said, 'It has already passed two thousand eight hundred.'
< Yes,' replied Carrier ; ' they are in the national bath.' Fouquet
boasted that he had despatched nine thousand in other quarters
on the same river. From Saumur to Nantes, a distance of sixty
miles, the Loire was, for several weeks, red with human blood;
and the multitude of corpses it bore to the ocean so prodigious,
that the. adjacent coast was strewed with them, when a violent
west wind and high tide having brought part of them back to
Nantes, followed by a train of sharks and marine animals of prey,
attracted by so prodigious an accumulation of human bodies, they

THE FIRST VIAL. 323
were thrown ashore in vast numbers. Fifteen thousand persons
perished there tinder the hands of the executioner, or of diseases
in prison, in one month; the total victims of the Reign of Terror
at that place exceeded. thirty thousand.
" The spectacles of horror which ensued when the refluence of
the tide and the force of the west wind brought the. corpses in
numbers back to Nantes, were of the most appalling description.
Crowds of the peasants hastened from the adjoining country, in
the pious hope of recovering the body of a dear and lost relative
from the waves, and giving it a decent sepulchre ; but though
they in some instances were successful, yet it was only with great
difficulty, and often after a severe contest with the monsters of
the deep. Huge sea-snakes and enormous eels twenty or thirty
feet long, fierce sharks, and other marine animals of prey, followed
the blood-stained waves, and contended with vultures and ospreys
for the mangled corpses with which they were charged. Inex
pressible were the scenes of tenderness which these piteous remains
brought to light. Children were found with their lips affixed
to those of their dead mothers, locked in so close an embrace, that
even the struggles of drowning and the action of the waves had
been unable to separate them. Mothers with their infants yet at
the breast were found floating together in the waves. Often a
voracious fish had eaten out the entrails of the young infant with
out being able to dissolve the close embrace ; and the dead re
mains, yet locked in each other's arms, were disputed fiercely by
a shark and a vulture, each striving for the tender spoil." (Ali
son's French Revolution, vol. ii. p. 391-396.)
After having thus exhibited their terrible hatred to all order and
all human sympathy, after having murdered their king on earth,
and overturned the throne, they resolved next, if possible, to de
throne the King of heaven; and in their mad attempts, they.
reached a height of blasphemy and atrocity so unparalleled, that
were Revelation silent, Reason would pronounce it some awful
epoch — some unnatural eclipse of all moral light — some fell ex
tinction of all human sympathies. I quote again from Alison :. — ¦
" Having massacred the great of the present, and insulted the
illustrious of former ages, nothing remained' to the. Revolutionists
but to direct their vengeance against Heaven itself. Fouch6,

324 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Hebert, and Chaumette, the leaders of the municipality, publicly
expressed their determination to ' dethrone the King of heaven, as
well as the monarchs of the earth.' To accomplish this design,
they prevailed on Gobel, the apostate constitutional bishop of
Paris, to appear at the bar of the assembly, accompanied by some
of the clergy of his diocese, and there abjure the Christian faith.
He declarer!- ' that no other national religion was now required
but that of liberty, equality, and morality.' Many of the con
stitutional bishops and clergy present joined in the proposition.
The Convention received them with loud applause and gave "them
the fraternal kiss.. Crowds of drunken artisans and shameless
prostitutes crowded to the bar, and trampled under their feet the
sacred vases, consecrated for ages to the holiest purposes of reli
gion. The sections of Paris shortly after followed the example
¦of the constitutional clergy, and publicly abjured the Christian
religion. The churches were stripped of all their ornaments;
their plate and valuable contents brought in heaps to the munici
pality and the Convention, from whence they were sent to the
mint to be melted down. Trampling under foot the images of
our Saviour and the Virgin, they elevated, amid shouts of ap
plause, the busts of Marat and Leppelletier, and danced round
them, singing parodies on the Hallelujah, and dancing the Car
magnole. Momoro, the printer, an ardent member of the munici
pality, then said*—' Citizen representatives, you see before you
your brothers, who desire to be regenerated, and to become men.
You see the bishops of Paris, the grand vicars, and some of the
priests, who, conducted by reason, -come to lay aside the character
which superstition had given them ; that great example will be
imitated by their colleagues. It is thus that the minions of
despotism concur in its destruction: it is thus that soon the
French Republic will recognise no other worship but that of
liberty, equality, and eternal truth, which, thanks to your im
mortal labours, will soon become universal.' During several
weeks, daily abjurations by the constitutional clergy took place at
the bar of the Convention. On the 10th November, Sigyes ap
peared, and abjured like the rest. 'I have lived,' said he, 'the
victim of superstition. I will not be its slave. I know no other

THE FIRST VIAL. 325
worship but that of liberty; no other religion but the love of
humanity and country.'
" Shortly after, a still more indecent exhibition took place be
fore the Assembly. The celebrated prophecy of Father Beaure
gard — ' Beauty without modesty was seen usurping the place of
the Holy of Holies !' Hebert, Chaumette, and their associates
appeared at the bar, and declared that 'God did not exist, and
that the worship of Reason was to be substituted in his stead.'
Chaumette said — 'Legislative fanaticism has lost its hold; it has
given place to reason. Its dark eyes could not bear the light of
reason. We have left its temples; they are regenerated. To
day an immense multitude are assembled under its Gothic roofs,
which for the first time will re-echo the voice of truth. There
the French will celebrate their true worship — that of liberty and
reason. There we will form new vows for the prosperity of the
armies of the republic ; there will we abandon the worship of in
animate idols, for that of Reason, this animated image, the chef-
d'oeuvre of creation.' A vailed female, arrayed in blue drapery,
was brought into the Assembly ; and Chaumette, taking her by
the hand — 'Mortals,' said he, 'cease to tremble before the pow
erless thunders of a God whom your fears have created. Hence
forth, acknowledge no divinity but Reason. I offer you its no
blest and purest image; if you must have idols, sacrifice only to
such idols as this.' When, letting, fall the vail, he exclaimed,
' Fall before the august senate of freedom, 0 vail of Reason !'
At the same time the goddess appeared, personified by a cele
brated beauty, Madame Maillard, of the opera, known in more
than one character to most of the Convention.- The goddess,
after being embraced by the president, was mounted on a mag
nificent car, and conducted, amid an immense crowd, to the ca
thedral of Notre-Dame, to take the place of fche Deity. There
she was elevated on the high altar, and received the adoration of
all present ; while a numerous band of elegant young women, all
figurantes of the opera, her attendants, whose alluring looks
already sufficiently indicated their profession, retired into the
chapels round the choir, where every species of licentiousness and
obscenity was indulged in without control, with hardly any vail
from the public gaze. To such a length was this carried, that
28

326 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Robespierre afterward declared that Chaumette deserved death for
the abominations he had permitted on that occasion. Thence
forward, that -ancient edifice was called the Temple of Reason."
(Alison's "French Revolution,'-' vol. ii. pp. 597-600.)
Morality of every kind perished before this terrible simoon
The feelings of nature and the ties of grace Were burned up.
Nor did France alone suffer. The Apocalyptic sore, after cover
ing France, extended its baleful contagion throughout Europe,
and infected -the remotest countries. It spread with extraordinary
rapidity throughout the Papal kingdoms. Italy, Germany, Bel
gium, Spain, Holland, were all tainted to the core; all in turn
broke out. England was touched; but her possession of the
Bible, and a pure faith, repelled and neutralized the poison;
thereby demonstrating to statesmen, that it is neither army nor
navy, nor acts of parliament, that are a country's strength and
defence, but a pure faith and a Christian people; for where these
are, there God is also — a Shield and Sun. Fearful blasphemy —
cruelty incapable of being satiated — crime the way to power, and
power the platform of crime— -whatever debases, and degrades,
and defiles — were the .very air the people breathed. " These
men,"~said Sir Walter Scott, "belonged to that class of atheists
who, looking up toward heaven, loudly and literally defied the
Deity to make his existence known by launching his thunder
bolts." One of them entered the church of St. Roque, and cried
aloud, " God, if you exist, avenge your injured name. I bid you
defiance. Who, after this, will believe your existence ?" Had
the wretched blasphemer been acquainted with his New Testa
ment, he might have learned that his was not the first attempt
of the kind. It was said to the Saviour on the cross, " If thou
be the Son of God, come down from the cross." The mercy of
God is greater than the malice of men, and is not measured out
according to our demerits. God does not work a miracle, to
please fools. "It was to such men as these," says Sir Walter,
" that Heaven, in punishment of the sins of France and of Europe,
and perhaps to teach mankind a dreadful lesson, abandoned- the
management of1 the French Revolution." (Scott's "Napoleon,"
vol. ii. p. 61.)
Mr. Elliott, in his "Horae Apocalyptic^," -has collected the

THE FIRST VIAL. 327
epithets bestowed upon this dreadful Revolution by distinguished
contemporaneous writers, who never dreamed of connecting it in
any way with the Book of Revelation ; and has thereby shown
that the Apocalyptic symbol is so just, that it occurred to the
master-spirits of the last century. Burke, the most eloquent
orator of the day, called it, " the fever of Jacobinism" — " the
epidemic of atheistical fanaticism" — "an evil lying deep in the
corruptions of human nature" — "the malignant French dis
temper" — ¦£' such a plague, that the precaution of the most severe
quarantine ought to be established against it." The result was
"the corruption of all morals," "the decomposition of all So
ciety"— genius thus unintentionally attesting the truth of Reve
lation. Such, it seems to the best and most judicious interpreters of
prophecy, is the fulfilment of the First Vial — the field, the
spread, and the blighting effects of its awful contents. It was
during this terrific era, that "the whole head was sick, and the
whole heart faint : from the sole of the foot even unto the head
there was no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, and putre
fying sores."
From this awful era many salutary lessons may be learned.
Among these, we cannot fail to note the utter inefficiency and
worthlessness of every claim, assumption, or privilege, or power,-
on the part of a church without the gospel. Never was this
more powerfully demonstrated than during the action of this
Vial. The French clergy had monopolized a large share of the
wealth of France. They claimed to be the only body who were
arrayed with awful and mysterious attributes: they professed
to carry at their girdles the keys of the kingdom of God ; being,
as they alleged, at once the representatives of heaven, and the
imperially recognised of earth. They were placed in the midst
of outward circumstances the most powerfully calculated to con
ciliate the awe' and reverence of the people. But they neither
knew nor preached the words of everlasting life; and therefore
failed to attract, either to themselves or to the faith of which
they professed to be the ministers, the affections or veneration of
the people. "By their fruits ye shall know them," is a test
which mankind universally defer to. No name, however august —

328 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
no pretensions, however sacred — no lineage, however ancient —
can cover with glory, or conceal from execration, an unfaithful,
an unholy clergy. A national church, with a spiritually-minded
and devoted ministry, needs few arguments in its defence; and
without such a ministry, all the eloquence of a Demosthenes, and
all the patronage of princes, cannot shield it. It is the gospel
alone that is the wisdom of God and the power of God. In its
faithful truths are treasured up the prosperity of nations, the
happiness of individuals, the stability of thrones, and the alle
giance of subjects. Its minister will be most respected where he
is most faithful ; the people Will love him in proportion as they
are led to love God. The surest way of supporting the altar, is
to turn the hearts of the people to the glory that burns on it.
The casket will be valued only for the jewel's sake. That church
will have the greatest hold of the affections of the people, which
has most largely and successfully diffused among their families
the sanctifying and transforming truths of the gospel.
We learn from this outburst, the awful responsibility attached
to the Romish priesthood. They had not only neglected to teach
the lessons of Christianity, but they had inculcated principles in
every way calculated to undermine the very first principles of
morality. Mr. Elliott quotes some specimens of the principles
taught by the Jesuits previously to the French Revolution, which
alone were fitted to originate, or vindicate some of its most
dreadful excesses. One of these is, "that transgressions com
mitted by a person blinded by the seduction of lust, agitated by
the, impulse of tumultuous passions, and destitute of all sense
and impression of religion, however detestable and heinous in
themselves, are not imputable to the transgressor before the tri
bunal of God." And again, "that those persons may transgress
with safety who have a probable reason for transgressing." The
distinctions recognised between venial and mortal sins — the prac
tice of confession — the assumed power of absolution on the part
of the priest — the doctrine of purgatory, and many other analo
gous tenets — cannot but sap the very bulwarks of moral obliga
tion, and generate, wherever they are taught, wide-spread cor
ruption. These principles, however, had long been diligently inculcated

THE FIRST VIAL. 329
by the Romish Jesuits; and if the Revolutionists availed them
selves of their sanction, it was no more than might have been
anticipated. The Romish Church undermined the foundations
of morality; and if the superstructure fell, and crushed her in
the ruin, it was the catastrophe she had too faithfully precipitated,
and foT which she was peculiarly responsible in the sight of God.
It remains yet to be seen how intimately Popery and infidelity
are connected— how truly the one plays into the hands and pre
pares the pathway of the other. Certain it is, that the French
people had no conception of the Christian faith, except in the
shape of the Romish worship, and in the personation of the Rom
ish priests ; and when such a caricature of the truth is presented
to honest and inquiring minds, it is difficult to say whether it
may not be more praiseworthy to reject than to embrace it. It
is the guilt, the fearful guilt of the Popish priesthood, that they
made the very name of Jesus contemptible, by making Chris
tianity a defence of sin. A Christian, travelling through France,
saw, one day, a statue of the Redeemer clothed in the robes of a
Jesuit, and, with great truth, he wrote' on the pedestal what
might be written on the whole Romish faith : " Thus, blessed
Jesus, have they arrayed thee, lest any one should love thee."
The Papal Church had also taught the principle since the Re
formation, that sovereignty resides in the people. Prior to the
sixteenth century, the priests advocated absolute and unques
tioning obedience to the king, just because the king was taught
absolute obedience to the church : but after the Reformation,
when the German princes renounced the pope, and- declared their
conversion to the Protestant faith, and Elizabeth of England
repudiated all connection with the see of Rome, and successive
members of the royal family of France' espoused the cause of
the Huguenots, the' Papal court changed its tactics. The doctors
of the Sorbonne affirmed that the people were the rightful pos
sessors of the sovereign power ; and that they might dethrone,
and, if need be, decapitate their king. Regicide doctrines are
not only held, but are still popular with the Jesuits. Pope
Sixtus lauded the murderer of Henry III. of France; and
Mariana, the Jesuit, thus praises the regicide monk who killed
the king : "Jacobus Clemens, cseso rege, ingens sibi nomen fecit."
28*

330 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Bellarmine, the great champion of the Church of Rome, advo
cates the same principles. It is, in fact, characteristic of the Pa
pal Church, to make use of whatever instrumentality most
effectually promotes its purposes. Despotism and democracy are
of themselves equally good in her estimate. That is. preferred
which ministers most directly to her supremacy.- The inde
pendence or supremacy of the church is her first principle : what
ever enthrones and promotes it is good — whatever intrudes on it
is anathema. In the judgments which this Vial emptied on the French
clergy, we see also the. proofs of a retributive Providence. The
French priests had dyed their hands in blood in the day of their
power. The massacres of the Albigenses and Waldenses, and
the terrible murders of St. Bartholomew's daj, when sixty
thousand Protestants were butchered, at the instigation of the
Popish clergy, in twenty-four hours — the reigning pontiff causing
a medal to be struck to commemorate the carnage — a medal
which I have seen — all came into remembrance in 1793. The
leaders of the ^Revolution, in fact, quoted Bartholomew's day as
a precedent. Persecution, as if experience taught no improve
ments, is still cherished in the Papal Church, and is ready to
break forth whenever there is the power. Its past history is
written in blood. Fouchet, and Collert d'Herbois, and Marat,
were not worse than the -Hildebrands of the Romish Church.
They were less guilty, for they were less enlightened.
Let us not suppose there is any thing in the French character
essentially worse than in our own. Had England been the scene
of this horrible judgment, and her people schooled in no purer
principles, in no sublimer faith, they had just developed the same
excesses. Popery would jsluck a seraph from his throne, and
plunge him in the depths of hell. Angels, surrendered to them
selves, and severed from God, would soon show themselves only
demons. The gospel of grace makes all the difference. We had
no national sympathy with Rome in 1789, and not partaking of
her sins, we received not her- plagues.
Let us love the blessed gospel more and more; let us think
less of those trivial disputes, which, in.au age of privilege,
arc liable to stir the passions of mankind ; and contemplate with

THE FIRST VIAL. , 331
intenser gratitude, and cherish with more ardent and enthusiastic
feelings, those precious truths which are the roots of our pros
perity. The unclean spirits are at work — the last struggle is
approaching. They only who are born again will endure ; all
others shall be as chaff before the whirlwind, or stubble in the
devouring flames. Are we Christians ? ' Has the gospel touched
our hearts, and transformed our nature ? has it quickened us
with divine life ?
Let us spread far and wide that blessed volume which em
bosoms the embryo of Eden, and out of which the. millennial
glories are destined to break in all- their splendours. Let us
help forward that gospel which is the cement of society, the
sweetener Of life, the fore-light of heaven. In proportion as
nations become Christian will they be happy.
True religion is the only cement and sweetener of society, and
when it shall wrap our country like its atmosphere, and mould
and shape the whole social economy, neither the tyrant's rod
shall scourge us, nor the trumpet of sedition agitate it. There
shall be no enchantment against Jacob, nor divination against
Israel; when God shall be recognised as our Lawgiver and our
King, when God shall be kno-syn in all our palaces, our condition
will be one of increasing greatness, and our progress of uneclipsed
and augmenting splendour. Beautiful for situation, the joy of
the whole earth, will Great Britain be. The kings of the earth,
as they assemble to ' contemplate us and pass by together, will
wonder, and be troubled, and haste away ; and the wise and holy
of the earth will come from, afar and walk about our nation, and
go round about her, and tell the towers thereof, and mark well
her bulwarks, and consider her palaces, that they may tell it to
generations following.

332

LECTURE XVIII.
THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS.
" And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea ; and it became a»
the blood of a dead man : and every living soul died in the sea.
"And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of
waters : and they became blood.
" And T hoard the angel of the waters say, Thon art righteous, 0 Lord, which
art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
" For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given
them blood to drink ; for they are worthy.
" And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty,
true and righteous are thy judgments.
"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was
given unto him to scorch men with fire.
" And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God,
which hath power over these plagues : and th^y rejpented not to give him
glory." — Revelation xvi. 3-9.
I need scarcely here refer to one great design which has
guided and actuated me in all these expositions, viz. to show that
what the pen of God has written upon the sacred page, the hand
of God is performing every day in providence : in other words,
that facts in providence are the most brilliant comments upon
texts in Scripture; that God is not confined to the Bible, but that
he is in the world : God is in creation ; his creative power is felt
there: God is in providence; his superintending presence is ex
hibited there : God is in the Bible ; his mercy and his truth are
most vividly illustrated there : and to unfold the harmony of all,
by pointing out the coincidence of the facts of all, is one of the
great duties of an instructor of the people, and not the least
precious lesson that a Christian people can learn. It is one pre
dominating tendency of the age, to believe that God is in the
temple, but not in the Royal Exchange ; that God is in our con
gregations, but not in our armies; that God takes cognizance of
ministers and Christian communicants, but that his voice is not

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS. 333
•heard, nor his arm felt, in our palaces, om\ parliaments, our halls
of commerce, and all that constitutes our existence as a nation.
The fact is, there is a disposition to give God a portion of the
earth, and to keep the rest; so much for mammon — so, much for
ambition — so much for power— and so much for sin : to let a cer
tain portion of the earth be consecrated as the acre of God, and
to insist on the' remainder being reserved for man. The conse
cration of churches is thus capable — I do not say necessarily so^-
of being misconstrued, as if it implied that the rest of the earth
was not for God. I believe that when the L°rd of glory assumed
to himself a portion of our clay, he consecrated, by that fact,
every acre of the habitable globe. And, if so, there is no portion
so unholy that a Christian's knee may not bow there ; there is no
portion of it so unsanctified that the ear of the God that formed
it cannot hear us. How often have I repeated, what is worth re
petition — for the way to teach is to repeat — this great lesson : it
is the work that consecrates the place, not the place that conse
crates the work. If this vast auditory were assembled in Covent
Garden Theatre in the name of Christ, it would be a congregation
of the Lord : it would, I confess, delight and refresh me to hear,
where the language of fiction has so long prevailed, the words of
truth and reality resounding in men's ears.
In order, however, to explain clearly and consistently with all
that I have said, the allusions contained in the verses which I
have selected . for my text, let me remind you of the language
almost similar in tone, though not the same in degree, in what
were called the Trumpets. You remember that when the first
angel sounded his trumpet, there followed hail and fire mingled
with blood, and a third part of trees were burned up: when the
second angel sounded, a great mountain burning with fire was cast
into the sea, and a third part of the sea became blood ; and the
third part of the creatures which wore in the sea and had life
died ; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. And when
the third angel sounded, there fell a great star from heaven; and
it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains
of waters. And the name of the star is Wormwood; and the
third part of the waters became wormwood : and many men died
of the waters, because they were made bitter. Then the fourth

334 APOCALYPTIC. SKETCHES.
angel sounded, and tho third part of the sun was smitten, and the
third part of the moon. So that language perfectly parallel in
imagery, though different in degree, and limited to a third part,
is used on the sounding of the trumpets, to that which is used on
the pouring out of the second, the third, and the fourth vials.
The reason I refer to the action of these symbols, the trumpets,
is to show you the perfect consistency of our -exposition of the
Apocalypse, by showing that the localities that were smitten by
the woes pronounced_Jby the trumpets, are the very localities
exactly that were smitten more terribly by the woes poured forth
from the Apocalyptic vials. Under the second trumpet, then, we
have read that, as it were, a great mountain burning with fire was
cast into the sea, and the third part of the sea became blood: you
will recollect I explained that to mean that the third part of the
maritime power, the naval power, and commercial greatness of the
apostate Roman empire, was smitten at the time when the blast
of the third trumpet was heard, and that the judgments which that
blast conveyed fell upon them; if I was right in interpreting the
action of the third trumpet, as affecting the maritime and com
mercial power of the western Roman empire, — in order to be con
sistent I must presume that the second vial has its action restricted
to the very, same thing, namely, to the maritime power, the com
merce and the colonies, of the great Papal countries which had
colonies and commerce, namely/France, Spain, and Portugal, and
that these were blasted or destroyed at the pouring out of the
second vial.
Last Sunday evening, you recollect I endeavoured to show you
that the noisome sore bursting forth from within and" spreading
over the body, irritating and full of disease, was chronologically
fixed, and symbolically explained to be the French Revolution.
I have now to show you that the second vial following after it, is
the action of the same revolutionary and infidel spirit, descending,
in some shape, upon the maritime power, commerce, and colonies
of France and Spain and Portugal. England, the great bulwark
of Protestantism, was selected to be the instrument — the hand
that took the vials from God, and poured out their contents upon
the maritime forces, colonies, and dependencies of the Papal
empire.

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS. 335
To show that the revolutionary spirit, which includes the con
tents of the second vial, fell upon the maritime provinces and
colonies of France, I refer to what took place at the very com
mencement of the French Revolution. No sooner had the red
cap been hoisted by the populace, and the tree of liberty, as it
was called, — surely called so in mockery, — been planted in the
midst of Paris, than the French in St. Domingo, the most popu
lous and flourishing^colony of France, caught the contagion of the
revolutionary spirit, unfurled the tricolour, planted the tree of
liberty — proclaimed liberty and equality- through all the island,
but with one of those accompaniments which make almost ridi
culous some of the efforts of man, for while they proclaimed the
equality of the whole human race, and freedom and equal rights
for all, they made, as our American brethren seem disposed to
make still, the exception of the black population of the island.
Strange inconsistency ! to pronounce the equality of all in words,
and in deeds to contradict it — to make a little shade upon the
inner skin so grievous a defect, that whoever had the least tinge
of African blood in his veins, or the least remains of African sun
upon his face, should not have a right to be considered the equal
of the rest of the inhabitants of the island. The blacks, how
ever, had the good sense to see that if the tree of liberty could
give shadow ^to the white, itought not to withhold its shadow from
the black ; and if its fruit were good for one, it could not be bad
for the other; and they insisted on being, free too. The French
revolutionists, the advocates of liberty and equality, protested
against this: conflict therefore began, and that sanguinary servile
war was carried on for years, in the course of which 60,000 blacks
were slaughtered, the French ultimately driven from their choicest
colonial dependency, and the island of Saint Domingo erected
into the negro republic of Hayti. Thus the French, in the loss
of one of their first and most productive colonial possessions, felt
the first sprinklings Of that vial upon their maritime dependencies
throughout the world. Immediately after this, still further to illus
trate the outpouring of the same vial upon the sea, and upon the
maritime dependencies of France, we shall see recorded a series
of naval battles, the most disastrous to France that history has
recorded. Recollect the vial was to be upon the sea, including the

336 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
isles, colonies, and dependencies of the Papal nations : and again,
it was to be poured out partly by the British nation, whose hand
received the vial as the cup of retributive judgment upon the
Papal nations., ' We read, then, that the naval war between Eng
land and France began in 1793 with the pouring out of the second
vial, and ended with its dregs in 1815. In 1793 the French fleet
was almost utterly destroyed by Lord Hood, near Toulon. In 1794
Lord Howe gained a signal victory over the French off Ushant,
which was followed by the capture of nearly all the Spanish,
French/and West Indian islands. In 1795, Lord Bridport gained
a naval victory and captured from the French the Cape of Good
Hope: In 1797 was gained a victory over the Spanish fleet — a
very memorable one in history- — off Cape St. Vincent. Then fol
lowed Lord Nelson's memorable victory of the Nile, in 1795 : Co
penhagen was fought in 1801, and Trafalgar in 1805; forming a
series of successful naval battles gained by Britain, and most dis
astrous to France. In the course of these naval battles, the
French and Spanish nations lost 200 ships of the line, 400 frigates,
and a vast number of smaller vessels. And you will notice the
extent and depth of the disaster which I have recapitulated when
I tell you, that after his most brilliant victories — victories so bril
liant that they seemed to be achieved almost by. a supernatural
power — Napoleon uttered constantly the cry, "Give me ships', and
colonies, and commerce;" and ever as he made an approximation
to his object a higher power swept away his ships, colonies, and
commerce. The sea was literally swept by the victorious fleets
of Britain, and every effort made by France, or Spain, or Italy,
to intercept the descending judgment was crushed. By and by,
Mexico, Chili, and Peru, the Spanish colonies, imitating St. Do
mingo, blazed with the flames of revolutionary war. In that
memorable war,- France lost her best colonies^Spain her depend
encies — their fleets were annihilated — their naval powers para
lyzed, and, truly it is said, every creature that was in the sea and
had life died; and the whole presented the evidence of the action
of the vial which we have read.
I turn, in the next place, to the third angel pouring out his
vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters, and they became
blood. This must be explained by a reference again to the third

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS. 337
trumpet. When the third trumpet sounded, a' burning star fell
from heaven upon the third part of the rivers and the fountains
of waters, -and they became wormwood, and men died of them.
I explained this to denote the wars and sanguinary victories of
Attila the Hun, pouring down his forces along the Danube, the
Rhine, the Po, and their tributaries, and staining with blood every
capital and city and plain on the banks of these rivers. I con
sistently assume the same locality for the action of the third vial,
and draw the inference that this vial poured put upon the" foun
tains of waters and upon the rivers, denotes the action of this
great revolutionary power, which I depicted last Sunday evening,
upon the cities and towns and countries on the banks of these
rivers, the Danube, the Po, the Rhine, and their several tributa
ries. Let us then appeal to history for -the comment on the
chapter. Let us read the judgments, not in the language of the
symbol as contained in the Apocalypse, but in the language of
fact, as we extract these facts from history.
In 1792, war was declared by the French National Assembly
against the German empire, and, immediately after, against the
king of Sardinia : the French and the Austrians fought at Worms,
at Mentz, and at Spires, and on the banks of the Meuse, a tribu
tary of the Rhine : a second French army marched into Savoy
and Piedmont, and in 1794-5, the middle Rhine was one fearful
scene of carnage and of bloodshed: in 1796, Bonaparte marched
against Sardinia and the Austrians, and stained the Alpine rivers
on which these nations bordered with blood. Successively the
Bormida, the Tanaro, and the Adda, with its memorable bridge
of Lodi, of which you must all have read, and the Adige, and the
Mincio, were fields of battle; and, literally, the Alpine fountains
and rivers were turned into blood : and, as if to identify the scenes
on which the judgments of the third vial fell with those in which
the judgments of the third trumpet took place, Napoleon uncon
sciously remarked, "I will prove another Attila to Venice." In
1799, Suwarrow swept the districts, bordering on the Danube, the
Rhine, and the Po. Iu 1800 these scenes were again visited by
Napoleon, and the memorable battle of Marengo was fought.
The tide of war under Moreau rolled toward the Danube, and the
29

338 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
sanguinary battle of Hohenlinden, fought on the Iser, a tribu
tary of the Danube, took place :
"When sh'ook the hills, by thunder riven;
When rush'd the steed to battle driven;
And, louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flash'd the red artillery."
In 1805 the memorable battle of Austerlitz was fought like
wise upon a tributary of the Danube — the republic of Venice
was extinguished — the king of Naples was compelled to pay
tribute. Never, in short, in the history of the nations of Europe,
were there more sanguinary scenes on the valleys of the Rhine,
the Danube, and the Po, than at this memorable era at which we
have now arrived — there was not an acre on the banks of those
rivers that was not furrowed with a soldier's grave — scarcely a
river Or tributary stream that rolled to the main that was not
tinged with a soldier's blood — nor was there a forest, nor a wood,
nor a capital, nor scarcely a cottage, that was not ploughed by
the wheels and torn by the shot of the most terrible artillery that
was ever dragged into international warfare; these being the ful
filment of the prediction that the nations upon whom the contents
of the second vial were poured should thus suffer. But it is added
here, immediately after this had taken place, "Thou art right
eous, 0 Lord, which art aud wast and shall be, because thou hast
judged thus;" and then the reason is assigned, "for they," i. e.
these nations, "have shed the blood of thy saints and prophets,
and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy.
And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, 0 Lord, true
and righteous are thy judgments." Now this song, which is ap
pended thus to the pouring out of the third vial, teaches us that
these sanguinary battles — rthese terrible judgments, were not ac
cidents — as indeed less things are not — but that they were, what
they are here pronounced to be, the retributive judgments of God
upon a guilty people. To show you that these people, thus visited,
were specially guilty, I need merely remind you of the cruelty
of the French to the Waldenses, prior to the Reformation, and
of their yet greater cruelty to the Huguenots, the descendants
of the Waldenses, subsequent to that period. I need not remind
you of the cruelties of the kings of Piedmont and the dukes

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS. 339
of Savoy to the Vaudois, in -the 13th and 14tli centuries. I need
not tell you of the barbarity and proscription exercised by the
house of Austria against the Hussites and the Lutherans when
ever it had the power. So that Alison himself, that great histo
rian, from whose pages these facts are extracted, struck by the
nature and peculiarity of these judgments, says, "The impartial
justice of Providence made that terrific period the means of pu
nishing the national sins of the contending parties;" and strange
to say,- if you will read the history of these battles, and mark the
places where they were fought, you will" find that every spot on
which a Frenchman, a Spaniard, or an Austrian suffered, was the
spot on which the same race triumphed as murderers, and the
Protestants or witnesses were smitfen down as martyrs. Thus
true it is that national sins will ever, in the retributive providence
of God, be followed by national judgments.
The next vial to which I must turn your attention is the fourth,
which contains another act in this awful and stirring drama; it is
in these words : — " And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon
the sun, aDd power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the
name of God, which hath power 'Over these plagues: and they
repented not to give him glory." Now again, I would refer to
the language used when describing the fourth trumpet. There
it is said, the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun,
and of the, moon, and of the stars were darkened. You will re
collect what I explained this to mean. I stated that the sun, the
moon, and the stars meant, as we have understood them through
out our exposition of the Apocalypse, the civil powers — the
reigning civil powers. I showed you that Odoacer the Goth,
when he marched to Rome, commanded Augustulus, the last
emperor of Rome, to abdicate the throne, and to retire into private
life; and then and there I showed you was the fulfilment of the
fourth trumpet, that the sun and moon should be darkened. Now
then, in the sequel of the history of the French Revolution,
which comprehends the time and the facts of the contents of
these vials, do we find any thing which explains the darkening
of the sovereign and imperial sun, moon, and stars throughout
the Papal empires ? We have only again to open the page of his-

340 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
tory, and we shall soon find that the facts of the annalist arc tho
comments on the text of St. John. We read, first of all, that
the king of Sardinia was extinguished by Napoleon. I wish your
attention particularly to the following fact, as it coincides exactly
with the same incident which took place on the sounding of the
fourth trumpet. After the battle of Austerlitz; Napoleon com
pelled the emperor of Germany to renounce his title of Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire, which he had held for a thousand
years, ever since the days of Charlemagne; and thus the imperial
sun of Christendom was literally extinguished at the bidding of
Napoleon. Soon afterward, the power of Prussia was overthrown
at the battle of Jena, and half the dominions of its king was
swept away: and Napoleon 'showed himself the most complete
creator and extinguisher of political suns and stars that ever ap
peared in the history of Europe; for at that very time, and during
the days of this vial, his brother Jerome was made king of West
phalia — his brother Louis was made king of Holland — his brother
Joseph was made king of Spain — his general, Murat, was made
king of Naples — ancient dynasties, were overthrown — new ones
were created; and between 1806 and 1818, the period compre
hending the pouring out of the fourth vial, more kings were made
and unmade than ever in the whole history of Christendom before.
And, at last, the emperor of Austria, after the most desperate
efforts to clear off the eclipse that covered the imperial sun, was
obliged to yield at the celebrated battle of Wagram. The em
peror purchased a momentary respite by giving his own daughter
in marriage to Napoleon, who dictated the terms. So truly, then,
does history illustrate by its facts the incidents here recorded to
have followed the pouring out -of the fourth vial.
But, it is added, in the next place, "power was given unto
him to scorch, men with fire." The angel received the commis
sion; but he may have worked, as I have formerly shown you
that such angels did work, by means or through agency. You
will also recollect, that last Sunday evening I showed yoii,
that while every prophetic symbol had its great moral fulfil
ment in the accomplishment of facts, it had frequently its literal
fulfilment in being literally brought to pass : as when it is stated
that a star shall come out of Jacob, every commentator under-

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS. 341
stands by that star, Christ; but it was not only fulfilled by the
fact of Christ's coming, but it was fulfilled also by the, subordi
nate fact of a meteor-star literally appearing, and guiding the
magi to the manger of the new-born Christ. Now just so here,
it is said "men were scorched with great heat." I have not a
doubt that it is to be interpreted morally ; and means, as I shall
show you, a sore and terrible torture that was inflicted during
the action of this vial; but, as I have said, it may also 'be ex
plained as coming literally to pass, and I do not hesitate to say,
that "scorched with great heat" is used as the description of a
literal fact, as well as the symbol for the infliction of a punish
ment. The very name given by his soldiers to Napoleon was
frequently that of the king of fire; and it is well known to every
one acquainted with history — and I would recommend every
Christian to read Alison's History of the French Revolution, as
the best commentary upon this portion of the Apocalypse — that
Napoleon brought into the field of battle an amount of artillery
which had not been brought into any previous battles : he called
his artillery the right hand of all his victories; and his fire,
whether, of artillery or musketry, is described by Alison to have
been the most overwhelming of any ever experienced in modern war
fare; and to show the manner in which he made use of it, Alison
gives the description of the destruction of the most splendid cavalry
that perhaps ever appeared upon the earth, at the battle of the
Pyramids, when Napoleon invaded Egypt. He describes the 6000
Mameluke cavalry, each mounted on the finest and strongest
Arab horse — each soldier, a man trained from his very infancy
to direct his horse, as if it were a portion of himself — armed to
the very teeth with all sorts of offensive and defensive weapons.
He describes the tramp of 6000 steeds, as they rushed to the
battle, and made the very earth, on which Napoleon's battalions
stood, quake and vibrate with their hoofs as if it were smitten by
an earthquake. He then describes the solid squares of infantry
instantly formed by the French to receive them, and their rolling
fire of musketry, so fierce and so sustained, that, in the course of a
few hours, there was scarcely a saddle that was not empty —
scarcely a Mameluke who was not stretched upon the field of bat
tle — a description therefore of that fire, which wa3 the scorching
29«

342 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
element of Napoleon's progress, as if he had been the actual com
mentator upon the predictions of the Apocalypse. But while this
prophecy is literally fulfilled, I cannot pass by its great design, its
moral accomplishment, which is not the literal occurrence of lite
ral fire, but the severe pain and torture inflicted on the French
themselves, and on the nations whom they visited. Both the
French that conquered, and their foes that fell, suffered most
terrible things. To refer to the French alone, the conscription
drained France of its finest youth — its very life-blood. The
married were seized and formed into battalions— the protector
of the widow was taken from his home to live the life and die
the death of. a soldier: every young man, who was old enough
to carry a musket, was seized, and made a soldier under Napo
leon ; -and to refuse, was to be covered with a dress of infamy, to
be sent to the prisons, and loaded with chains : and so dreadful
was the conscription, that, after the celebrated incursion into
Russia, females, in France, were nearly three times the number
of the men ; all the life-blood and strength of the nation were
drained out of it to be poured forth in Napoleon's wars, as offer
ings to his insatiable ambition. " Again, the way in which he
made war is another evidence of the torturing character -of Na
poleon's battles. When he made war, he did so without maga
zines and without 'hospitals; the inducement held out to his
soldiers was, that if they gained the battle, they should have
glory, and plenty of plunder also. The French army was inva
riably poured into a foreign country, and with no preparation
of food or hospitals.
Mr. Cuninghame received from official reports the following
statement: — "The distress and destruction which marked the
countries through which the French army fled from the bloody
field of Leipsic were altogether indescribable. Dead bodies
covered the roads, while districts were depopulated by disease.
For a month after the retreat, no human being, no domestic
animal, no poultry, not even a sparrow was to be met with, only
ravens feeding on corpses." So trulv were men scorched with
fire, or tormented with the inflictions of this vial.
But it is added here, "they repented not of their sins, but
blasphemed the God of heaven." As I shall have occasion, in

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS. 343
explaining the fifth vial, which immediately precedes the most
momentous of them all, the sixth, to comment upon their repent
ing not, and continuing to blaspheme God, I shall not enlarge
upon this, which was one characteristic of this vial. But I need
not tell you that all the punishment inflicted by the French upon
Austria, Italy, and Spain, and upon France by the conscription,
did not, in the very least degree, cause the people to put away
their superstitions, and to repent of their sins. France, indeed,
did make a change, but it was from the religion that believed
nothing at all to the religion that believes every thing. It was
a change - from atheism, which proclaimed the horrific notion
there is no God, to Popery, which proclaims the superstitious
and no less blasphemous notion, that the Virgin Mary is our
mediator. And, so far from there being any thing like a re
formation among the people, you will find that, in France, at this
day, men are wanting among the worshippers; the churches are
filled, nine-tenths of them, with poor females and children. I
heard a foreigner make the remark, that the number of men in
our congregations in this country was astonishing to him : and, I
understand, that many other foreigners have made, still more
forcibly, the same remark with reference to the audience here.
It is obvious to you all, that three-fourths, at least, of this vast
audience in Exeter Hall at this moment consists of men. I
think I understate rather than overstate the proportion. This
shows, indeed, the deep interest that you take in this subject,
but it is not so favourable to our collections. It has been calcu
lated that, at a collection sermon, one lady is equal to thirteen
men — that is, she gives thirteen times the amount of money
toward any charitable and ' benevolent purpose. The number
of men. will, in a great degree, account for the deficiency of some
of our collections. But if the men present have derived any
benefit froth the lectures, and have any. perception of the duty that
devolves upon them, when we have a collection next Sunday for
our schools, for which we are in want of money, they will have
a locus penitentise, an opportunity of repelling the charge made
against them, and of showing that, if they have heads that can
more clearly comprehend, they have hearts that do not less
keenly feel.

344 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
I have thus described the second, third, and fourth vials. My
great difficulty has been how to give you facts, and not to weary
you : but if you will only read, on the one hand, the vials in
Revelation, and Alison's history on the other, I think you will
be quite satisfied that my exposition is a just and correct one.
I will now draw one or two lessons for ourselves "from what we
have been studying.
First, history is not a mere series of tumbling accidents.
God is in the facts of history, as well as in the texts of the
Bible. Even events that we cannot understand, are essential,
like the pins or rachets in a complete system of machinery. To
the eye of a superficial beholder, these little things appear
utterly worthless ; but to the -person who made the machinery,
and comprehends its structure, the smallest pin appears so
indispensable to the whole, that loss of it would be the destruc
tion of all. Dear friends, God is not in great events, in con
tradistinction to little events, but he is in all. Let me take the
period when the French Revolution broke out in 1792, and from
that period downward to the conquest at Waterloo in 1815.
Give me the power to put in a pin-point in any place I shall
choose during the lapse of those twenty-three years, and the
destiny of Europe will be immediately changed. Then, I say,
if a pin-point could alter the destiny of Europe, give a new tone,
a new current, a new impulse, a new result to events, can we
resist the idea that God is in the minutest event that happens,
as well as in a mighty battle, a glorious conquest, the over
turning of a dynasty, or in the desolation of a nation ? Poor
Napoleon thought he was the great original — he was but the
mere instrument in the hands of God. Napoleon thought he
was the statuary that could carve out things according to his own
pleasure. Poor man ! how little he knew ! He was but the
chisel, and not the statuary; and each result that he accomplished
was a result contemplated or permitted in the providence of
God. We learn another lesson, and not a less important one — how
clearly a retributive providence is exhibited in the history of
nations; as such I wish we" could all feel this lesson— nations
cease to exist in eternity: nations are temporal things; indi-

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS. 345
viduals are eternal things; but the corporation called a nation
has only existence in this world : hence it is true that national
sins are not punished in eternity as individual si-ns are,, but they
are punished in time. Whenever, therefore, .a nation sins, that
nation is sure to be scourged : each wicked action of a nation
awakens a thousand retributive echoes : national crimes will ever
be followed by retributive judgment and desolation. The land
that has been stained most deeply with -national sins, will be
swept most sorely by national judgments, God has said it, and
all history conspires and co-operates to demonstrate and to prove
it : and, if it be so, let old England, so spared, .so unscathed,
watch and pray — let her take. care not to have any alliance with
that system that dishonours God, tarnishes his glory, ruins souls,
and has corrupted the nations of the earth. The Papal nations
have .been bitterly judged — read their history — read the history
of Spain — the Spanish nation aro in a continual ferment; the
population, .politically looked at, are on the brink of a -volcano —
the population, morally looked at, are, those who are above the
clay, no better than those that sleep- beneath. And Italy, how
often visited ! how often judged ! how locked in darkness, in
superstition, and in slumber still. Pauperism and Popery are
twin sisters-. Look at Austria, bayonets its only battlements.
Look at Portugal, a wretched quagmire. Look-at France, where
its monarch cannot" calculate upon a year's immunity from the
insurgent or the bullet of the regicide.* Then compare with
these lands our own : what land is like it ? what fields so green !
what sky, with all its fogs, so fair ! what land equal to that we
live in ! a land where the slave touches its shores and his
shackles drop off: where we can lie down beneath the over
shadowing pinions of the public peace, and sleep sweetly — a land
where we can leave our children and know that they will be
freemen, and hope that they will be Christians^— a land, with all
its faults, unrivalled amid the nations of the earth. And what
has made it so ? It is the church of the living Qod in England's
heart that is the strength and stability of the diadem' upon the
* What evidence of the hollow state of -these realms described in tho texi
by me in 1847, is presented in 1848 !

346 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
queen of England's brow. Let the religion of our country die,
and its loyalty, its peace, its happiness, will die also.
Righteousness alone exalteth a people. Political sagacity
makes blunders; philosophy never made a people holy nor
happy J national wealth corrupts ; military power is a calamity,
for war is surely a curse. Even if it is ever expedient, it is not
always just. The soldier — the existence of the soldier— is a
stern and terrible necessity : much as we are indebted to hita,
necessary as he is, we should breathe a prayer that the time may
come when that sword shall be turned into a ploughshare, and
that spear shall be made a pruning-hook. What has war done
for any of the nations of the earth ? where is Xerxes with his
myriads? where are the legions of Rome ? where is the military
grandeur of Napoleon ? what have they left behind them ?
Babylon was once as secure as London — she had stronger walls
— she had 'as brave a people — Rome had as heroic and numerous
soldiers — Tyre had comparatively as mighty a navy — Athens as
profound a philosophy. A few bricks are all that remains of
Babylon — malaria closes upon Rome, now presided over by a
superstitious hierarch — Athens is a horde of banditti. If the
illustrious characters — the philosophers — the soldiers — the states
men, that now sleep amid the ruins of their respective countries,
could speak again, they would say, " We had no power to avert
these disasters — we could only grace the ruins of the country
we tried to save." You must look to something better, as the
safety of a nation, than military strength, or philosophy, or
power, or literature; and that something is what the Bible tells us,
" Righteousness exalteth a nation ; sin is the ruin of any people."
And now, my dear friends, much has been written about
church and state ; much has been argued pro and con, on that
subject. I am not called upon now to pronounce any judgment;
but this I say, that the man who himself becomes a true Chris
tian, does more to make his country Christian, than the man
who delivers the most eloquent speeches upon the connection
of church and state. One stone laid upon the earth is worth a
thousand castles built in the air : and if you become a Christian
indeed, you make a greater contribution toward the Christian-
ization of the nation or the world than all that the ablest and

THE SECOND, THIRD, AND FOURTH VIALS. 347
most excellent statesmen ever proposed about church and state.
If all men would become Christians individually, the whole nation
would become Christian collectively. Let me, then, my dear
bearers, close my remarks upon these three vials by asking you,
are you children of God ? are you believers in Christ ? have you
washed your robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb ? Do you feel that every moment the judgment-day is
coming nearer to us, and that we are hurrying to the judgment-
seat. There is not one hour of which you can say, I shall see its
close. Some who have appeared in this hall since I first ad
dressed you, have now passed to the judgment. Who can tell
but that some happy heart, that beats beneath some countenance
radiant with health this evening, may never beat here again. I
wish, my dear friends, that you would not forget that, if I have
told you of events which concern nations, and expounded to you
the mysteri.es of God's word, I have told you also that there is
precious blood which has been shed for our sins — that there is
a righteousness which will cover you — that there is a coming
Saviour — that there is an everlasting God ; and if you^erish, you
will perish with the sounds of mercy and the invitations of love
sounding in the depths of your heart. Men and brethren, the
avenger is. at your heels; Christ is the only city of refuge — the
storm is bursting forth ; Christ is the only ark that can save you
— the destroying angel has spread his wings on the : blast ;
nothing but the blood of sprinkling can shield you from de
struction. Let me then ask you as you value the safety, of your
soul — as you would prize the hopes of glory, as you would be
not only holy, but, as I told you this morning, as , you would be
happy, let me beseech you to leave every question upon earth
unsettled, if you like, but oh ! leave not this question unsettled,
" What must I do to be saved ?" Let me speak to you as to
men of good sense, of reason and understanding. Is it, let me
ask you, it is reasonable that you should ascertain how you stand
commercially, how politically, how socially, how you are circum
stantially, but should leave unsettled this question — Will that
eternity into which I am carried as upon the crest of a rapid
wave, and into which I must plunge, and that very soon — will
that eternity be to me one of everlasting rest, or will it be to ma

348 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
eternal misery and wo ? Why, if there be no heaven, if there
be no hell, then, my dear hearer, say so — avow the fact, and not
only avow it, but learn to act upon it. If there be no God, if
there be no heaven, if there be no hell, burn the Bible; do not
enter the house of God again; be out and out consistent. Why
this shivering ? why that hesitating ? why that suspicion that it
may be true? why that want of confidence that you are right?
Oh, you know you are wrong — your conscience tells you that
you are wrong. If there be a God, if there be a heaven, if there
be a hell, if there be a Saviour, if there be a lost soul yet to be
saved, and this soul yours, then resolve as did the poor prodigal,
"I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him,
Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee,' and am no
more worthy -to be called thy son." And do you think that
you will be rejected ? Recollect the history of the prodigal.
The father, we are told, "saw him when~he was yet a great way
off, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed
him." The father Was standing on the roof of his house, for
they had flat roofs in that country; he saw at first a speck in
the distance ; he thought it might be an Arab travelling, or a
merchant disposing of his wares, but the thought did strike him
that it might perhaps be his poor prodigal. He looked and
looked again, and as the shape became more distinct, he recog
nised the features of his son : his full heart could not wait for
his son ; he ran to meet him, fell upon his neck and kissed and
welcomed him, "for this my son was dead and is alive again,
was lost and is found." That Father is God. God looks for
you : waits for you. The first movement that you make to God,
God will respond to it by a glorious and gracious one to you,
and all heaven will rejoice that some lost sinner is found — some
poor prodigal restored to his Father's home. And when other
judgments far more consuming than those of these vials shall
light upon the earth, he" will address to you' the gracious pre
monition, ." Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and
shut thy doors about thee : hide thyself as it were for a little
moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the
Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the
earth for their iniquity."

349

LECTURE XIX.

THE EIETH VIAL.

"And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon.fhe seat of the beast; and
his kingdom was full of darkness ; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,
"And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores,
and repented not of their deeds." — Revelation xvi. 10, 11.
It is necessary to remind you, by way of preliminary remark,
of what I have established in a previous lecture, that the wild
beast here spoken of is the same wild beast that came up from
the abyss, and is the head of the Great Western Apostasy. Its
Apocalyptic portrait is fulfilled in its actual history. Thewseat of
the beast is not his kingdom or his empire, in its range from Rome
to its distant provinces ; but the metropolitical spot on which this
head of the Apostasy — this wild beast from the abyss — sits and
reigns. In short, it is at Rome, and in the temple of God, where
he sits and says he is God. I may also add, that the word in the
original Greek, here translated "seat," is Opowz, literally "throne;"
and you will find, by reference to ecclesiastical history, that about
the end of the fourth century, just when the Roman Apostasy
approached nearly to its full development, the seat of the bishop,
or the archbishop, the ruling power in the Christian church, came to
be called, what it is still, called in some portions of the Protestant
church, the throne of the bishop, or archbishop, or pope. Thus
the language alone, here employed, indicates the seat of an eccle
siastical, as much, at least, as the seat of a civil power; and, when
associated with the wild beast from the abyss, whom we proved
to be an ecclesiastical tyrant, we can have no doubt that the
locality here indicated is Rome.
Now, then, we must expect from this chapter the commence
ment of those judgments which are detailed at length in the
chapter we have this evening read. We may expect, from the
language descriptive of this vial, and from the effects that followed
30

350 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
its effusion, that a series of judgments must have begun at that
time to light upon the very chief seat and throne of the beast, to
which every Roman -Catholic looks as the great centre of the
Christian universe, the -capital of Papal Christendom. The fourth
vial closed its action at the battle of .Wagram and the second
subjugation of the Austrian government. And just at that very
period, and after that memorable victory, which prostrated the
Austrian power, when the humbled emperor gave his own daugh
ter (whose death has just occurred) to the conqueror, in order to
stave off ulterior results; we read that Napoleon issued his. me
morable decrees from Schoenbrunn, in Germany, which decrees at
one fell swoop abolished the temporal power of the pope, and
incorporated the Roman States as part and parcel of the French
empire. This, I say, was the Ultimate result; and the steps that
preceded this I will now endeavour to unfold and open up. I
shall show you, also, how completely that portion of the seven
teenth chapter, which describes the conduct of the kings of the
Roman earth, was fulfilled under the operation of the fifth, vial;
I shall adduce historic facts to prove that the ten kings, one of
whose kingdoms, namely Britain, you will always recollect was
separated by the great earthquake at the Reformation, began to
feel cold to the great head of the Romish Apostasy, and even to
commence a. series of attacks, which all but vitally wounded that
power, and certainly smote it with- a paralysis, under the effects
of which it now shakes and trembles on the throne of Italy. I
may also here state that this period, the commencement of the
French Revolution in 1793, when these judgments began to be
poured out upon the seat of the beast, was the close of the 1260
years to which I have so frequently alluded.- In the year 529, or
533, the celebrated code, called the Justinian Code, was promul
gated; by which the Papal ecclesiastical power was armed with
wide civil jurisdiction, and it was authoritatively declared to be
heresy, and worthy of death, to dissent from the Roman Catholic
religion; and from 1789 to 1793, Napoleon's celebrated codes,
which constitute the closing period to the 1260 years, were pro
mulgated. These made a change in the constitution of Europe
just as marked and as sweeping as that made by Justinian 1260
years before. We therefore conclude, that the era of the French

.THE FIFTH VIAL. 351
Revolution was the end of those 1260 years, during which the
witnesses were prophesying in sackcloth. It was no slight symp
tom of the shocks to which the Popedom was soon to be exposed,
that, so far back as the year 1727, the hearts of the ten kings
began to grow cold toward Antichrist, as was observed by the
Venetian ambassador : " Something unnatural is coming to pass in
the sight of all, for the Catholic governments are beginning to
unite in hostility to the Roman court." In the year 1758, Be
nedict XIV.', the then reigning pontiff, made concessions, in order,
if possible, to stave off the evils that menaced him; but, like all
partial reforms when sweeping ones are needed, they only preci
pitated that revolution which nothing could arrest but a great
moral and scriptural reformation., Ominous symptoms increased
in number and in meaning : Rome continued to shake — the hostile
powers grew more hostile,' till, in the year 1793, the period to
which we are now alluding, France, which had been for 1300
years the eldest son of the ehurch, the great bulwark of the Pa
pacy, broke loose from its subjugation, and in that- disruption
shattered and shook the Papal influence throughout the world.
In 1789, one of the first steps by which this. was gradually. ac
complished was taken by the National Assembly of France when
it abolished the tithes, which the pope held to be especially sacred
to himself and his priesthood, and substituted a small rent-charge
on estates for the payment of the Popish clergy. France next
confiscated the lands belonging to the church, in spite of a long-
established maxim, that the pope alone could alienate property
that belonged to the support of the church.
Thus, in the confiscation of all the lands and property belong
ing to the support of the Romish/Church in France by the secu
lar power, we see the first sprinklings of the vial "on the extremities
of the church — the beginning of those terrible retributions
which shook the system to the very centre. Soon after this, four
thousand monastic houses, full of riches and the fat things of the
earth, were suppressed and rifled. Next, the clergy of France,
the Roman Catholic priesthood, were required — and here was
almost the crowning stroke in France — to abjure all allegiance to
the pope. The Roman religion was, by act of Assembly, abo
lished. Many of the Romish churches were overturned — their

352 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
altars plundered — the bells taken down from the spires, and
melted into cannon for the use of the imperial army. The
cathedral of Rheims was converted into a gunpowder manufactory.
-St. Denis was plundered of all its ornaments, and the leaden
coffins, in which was the dust of ancient kings of the noblest
dynasties, were turned into musket bullets ; and, in a report read
to the French National Assembly in 1795, it was stated that
15,000 cannon could be cast out of church bells, and orders were
given that this should be done. And a traveller in France at
that period writes thus : — " On turning the corner of a street as
we entered Rouen, I suddenly found coach and horses and all in
the aisle of an ancient cathedral. The church having devolved
to the nation as its property, was sold for stables to one of the
owners of the Rouen diligences. An old cab occupied the place
of the altar, and the horses were eating their "Oats in the sacristy."
And the Rev. Dr. Waugh, whose name is cherished in the grate
ful recollection of thousands, who was as distinguished for his
beautiful character, as he was for his pure piety and eminent de
votion to all that was benevolent and Christian, states, that in
1802 he " visited the various churches in Dieppe, and found, in
one of the most beautiful, two men winnowing wheat before the
pulpit, and another splendid church was filled with wheat," being
turned into a granary. At the period of which- we have been
speaking, 4000 Roman Catholic priests were massacred under
circumstances of unparalleled cruelty, and those who escaped this
too justly merited retribution with their lives, passed into this
country, and found shelter beneath the shadow of that throne,
which affords a refuge to the persecuted whatever be his princi
ples, and refuses not its shelter to the sufferer) from whatever
clime or country that sufferer may come. In this tragedy these
very Roman Catholic priests, who were either massacred, or fled
for refuge to this country, seem to have been made to drink the
blood which they had so fearfully shed upon previous occasions ;
and they afford us fresh evidence that never did a man draw the
sword of persecution against his fellow-man, without the sword
exchanging hands, and being turned fatally upon himself. Hatred
of. the Romish Church and the Romish clergy grew, and in no
place experienced an abatement. Belgium, and Italy, and Germany

THE FIFTH VIAL. 353
were all severally more or less affected with this anti-Papal feeling,
and at last Bonaparte, unsatisfied because he could not be satisfied
— and every conqueror who has swept the earth, like a simoon
has" only left the traces of the fact, that when the world itself waa
conquered, the conqueror must sit down, like another Alexander,
and weep because there was not another world to overrun and
conquer still — Napoleon, I say, dissatisfied with all that had yet
been done, at length moved toward Rome itself, the seat of the
beast. At this crisis, when the French army was gathering like
a portentous cloud- upon the more distant provinces, and appeared
ready to concentrate on the very seat or throne of the pontiff,
the pope sagaciously parried the last blow, by giving up to Na
poleon Ferrara, Romagna, and Ancona, called Peter's Patrimony
— that is, the special property of the pontiff, paying down fifteen
hundred thousand crowns, surrendering the military stores, and
one hundred of the choicest pictures in the Vatican. In short, he
made every sacrifice to keep the conqueror at bay, and save Rome
from utter desolation. The French ambassador thus writes from
Rome to Napoleon with prophetic significance : — " The payment sti
pulated by the treaty of Tolentino has totally exhausted this oldcar-
cass, ice are making it consump by a slow fire." So truly does history
fulfil the words, " These kings shall hate the whore, and shall make
her desolate and naked, and burn her as with fire." Rev: xvii. 16.
Near, however, as these judgments were, they were not yet
near enough. The contents of the vial had yet to sprinkle the
throne of the pope. One day the pope was seated on his pon
tifical throne, in the Sistine chapel of the Vatican, the ante-hall of
which (the Sala Borgia) is covered with frescoes representing the
massacre of St. Bartholomew's day. The cardinals, in their
gorgeous robes, bad all assembled round him to congratulate him
on the anniversary of his elevation to the popedom. While he
was receiving the congratulations of the conclave, the noise of
axes and the battering of doors fell unexpectedly on his ears :
inquiry was made, and the awful tidings, which almost broke the
heart of the pontiff, were conveyed that the French were thun
dering at the very doors of the Vatican, and were come to de
mand his holiness as a prisoner. In a few moments they were in
the midst of the church ; the pontiff was arrested as a culprit
30*

354 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
and made a prisoner ; the episcopal ring, which was the symbol
of his marriage to the church, was torn from his finger, and he
was marched amid files of soldiers from the Sistine chapel,
through that memorable ante-hall, in which were the pictures of
the murdered saints of St.- Bartholomew's day, and the recorded
expression of Papal thanks to the French king for slaughtering
so many thousands of the Protestants of France. Surely the
echoes of that fearful day must have rung in his ears as if his
own death-knell ! Surely the conviction must have flashed across
the pontiff's mind, that now was the hour and power of righteous
retribution, and, having murdered the saints of God, he was now
in turn committed to the tender mercies of the murderers of man
kind ! He died in exile in 1799.
Thus the vial began to sprinkle the very throne of the beast;
and, as if a Roman cardinal were raised to give evidence of the
fulfilment of Apocalyptic prophecy, Cardinal Pacca, who was seen
standing near the pope, exclaimed, in the agony of his soul,
" Consummatum est !" — there is an end of the Papal empire !
all is over ! the end of religion is come ! True, the words were
uttered too soon. Rome was to be punished, but not yet utterly
to perish. The Apostasy is to be consumed — it is the language
of Thessalonians — " by the spirit of the Lord's mouth :" and it
began to consume at the end of the 1260 years, in 1793, but it
is to be destroyed only by the brightness of the Redeemer's com
ing. The cardinal, therefore, anticipated the time ; the first
stroke was struck ; the presentiment of ruin was felt ; the beast
upon his throne began to be destroyed by the judgments of God.
In 1804, the then reigning pope was summoned by Napoleon
to Paris, to lend the consecration of his presence to the crowning
of Napoleon, a strange and wonderful event ; that the sacerdotal
hierarchy, who made kings quail upon theirthrones — who made
the nations quiver and tremble if their names were but uttered —
that pontiff, so awful in the past, so irresistible in his power, was
commanded by one who was recently a subaltern in the French
army, to march to Paris and do the biddings of a greater tyrant,
seated on a yet greater throne. Napoleon had no faith in the
pope's pretensions. All he designed was to dazzle the Parisian
crowd, not to honour the pope ; and to show this he departed from

THE FIFTH VIAL. 355
all previous order in his coronation. It had been usual that a
minister of religion should place the crown upon the king's brow,
and pray, as was most proper, for blessings upon the head that
was to wear that crown ; but, on this occa'sion, Napoleon put the
crown upon his own head; but, while he did so, he felt it would
not be prudent to appear to his vast empire to be hostile to reli
gion ; for this purpose he ordered the pontiff to come from Rome,
not to put the crown upon his head, but, by his presence as a
vassal, to swell the pageant and swing the censer of incense to
Napoleon's ambition, and make his people believe that; while he
was an infidel at heart, he had no apparent indisposition to play
the Papist for the nonce. The Directory wished to extinguish
the pope, and put an end to Popery at once-5 but Napoleon saw
that would not do." He therefore retained the pope merely as
an appendage to his autocratic throne — a sort of- nimbus round
it, being as willing to act the Romanist in Europe as he was to
play the Mohammedan in Asia.
After this followed the decrees of Schoenbrunn, to which I
have referred, as the crowning stroke, and the ten kings, England
always excepted, as having severed from the Papacy, gave in their
adhesion to the decree of Napoleon : there was Louis, king of
Holland ; Jerome, king of Westphalia ; the princes of Bavaria,'
Wurtemburg, and the Swiss cantons; the Austrian emperor; the
kings of Italy, Naples, Spain, and Portugal — all concurred in
these decrees, and thus acted in concert together against the Ro
man pontiff: so that it may truly be said that the ten kings should
" hate and strip naked, and consume the beast, as it were, by fire.'-
The substance of these decrees was as follows : — First, the
total abolition of the temporal power of the pope ; next, the in
corporation of Rome as the second city, not the first, in the French
empire; thirdly, the appointment of a committee for the civil
government of Rome ; and, lastly, a pension settled on the pope
on the withdrawal of all his temporal immunities, and the " Vicar
of Christ," the great head of the Apostasy, thus made a mere
dependent stipendiary of the king or the emperor of France.
You ask, perhaps, how the pope's proud heart brooked all this ?
He brooked it ill; he protested loudly against it; and, at the
very time that this was done, he issued one of his ancient bulls,

356 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
containing all the bitter and proscriptive language of the Middle
Ages; but bis thunders had lost their power; they bore the
aspect of theatrical thunder — his bolts hurt none, and Bonaparte
smiled at the old priest's parchment, and the nations saw that the
voice that once shook the world had lost its magic, though not
its spirit, among the people.
Thus the hierarch who had ruled the souls of men was made
a stipendiary of France — the idol to whom 1260 years had offered
incense was struck from its pedestal, and ultimately carried to
Fontainebleau, where he signed a concordat, the first condition
of which was his abandonment of Rome ; and afterward to Paris
as a captive, subject to the bidding of his imperial master. His
final destruction, however, was not yet come ; the vial was poured
out, as we are told in the text, upon the throne of the beast; his
kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for
pain, but the day of the utter destruction of the beast was not
yet arrived ; for, after Napoleon's fall, evidence was too plainly
presented, that the hour of the final overthrow of Antichrist was
not yet come, inasmuch as Popery was again recognised in France,
not indeed as the only religion, but as one among the European
sects. In Spain, Romanism rules, but with all its property con
fiscated ; in Portugal it holds also but a lingering existence ; and
there seems to be, in short, clear evidence that the fierce ecclesi
astical despotism that reigned over the nations of Europe is crippled
as a civil power.* The continental nations know Popery by bit
ter experience. The only people that seems to give recognition
to Rome, is the nation that was severed from it 300 years ago,
now so oblivious of the past as to be ready to relapse into it again.
It is said " they blasphemed God, and repented not of their
deeds." This is writ upon the history of Europe, as well as
upon the history of Rome. The nations that had been scourged
by Napoleon, and crushed by the pope, felt the judgments, but
they repented not of the crimes that brought them down. The
expression blasphemy, I need scarcely explain to you, denotes to
give to idols the attributes of God, or for men to assume the pre-
* Tho third French Revolution, February, 1848, renounces all payment of
the Romish or any other priosthood. Lacordaire, the eloquent priest, advocates
this.

THE FIFTH VIAL. 357
rogatives of God : so in one passage, " Why doth this man speak
blasphemy ?" It is then explained what blasphemy is. " Who
can forgive sins but God only 1" Then, again, " Your fathers
burned incense unto graven images," that is the exercise of idola
try, " and blasphemed me ;" showing that to assume God's pre
rogative is blasphemy, just as much as to attribute that preroga
tive to an idol. The nations punished for their sins, and idola
tries, and persecution of the truth, relapsed into their former
crimes, and subservience to spiritual, if not to political Popery.
A deputation from the London Missionary Society, at the head
of which was Dr. Waugh, of whom I have before spoken, visited
France. After the revolutionary storm had passed away, and
one would have thought the crushed and bleeding heart of hu
manity would have turned to God, the living God, we read that in
Paris it required a search of four days among the book-shops to find
one single Bible, and this was supposed to be the state, not of Paris
only, but of a' great part of France. In Germany, which had
been punished so severely in the revolutionary wars, morality
became utterly stagnant, and the bonds of the social fabric and
the ties of relative life in numerous instances dissolved. In
Spain, as Blanco White shows, the priests were the chief cor
rupters of the people, and the people loved to have it so. -. In
Italy, which was the very throne of the beast, where we might
have expected repentance and reformation, if judgments could
produce it, morality was prostrate on the earth ; the marriage
vow was then, as now, practically superseded ; licentiousness pre
vailed in the ranks of the nobility till whole families were extin
guished ; contamination tainted the masses of the people. In
Florence then, as now, no lady of fashion appears abroad without
a second and subordinate husband ; and, in Naples, this arrange
ment is generally in the marriage contract. An historian of the
day states, an assassin might be hired in Naples to murder any
one for fifty livres, and a hackney swearer might be had for
twelve to exculpate him.* Ireland and Italy have the same reli
gious roots, and bring forth very much the same fruits. In the
Romish Church itself no reformation took place in its dogmas ;
* Since the first edition of these Lectures, a wholesale illustration of this
fitness for massacre has occurred at Naples.

358 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
no attempt was made at retracing its steps ; weeping Madonnas,
supposed to have disappeared during the desecrating marches of
the French, now appeared in every town ; images of the Virgin
were set up in every church' and cathedral throughout the States
of the Church ; miracles, it was stated, were wrought in every
portion of the Italian nation. Instances of the Virgin's approval
of the faithfulness of the faithful manifested themselves in shapes
the most grotesque and absurd, while the restored pope; borne
back to his scorched seat by four heretical kings, though he had
felt so much the force of a tyrant's power, and so substantially
the generosity of royal heretics, yet abated not one particle of
his intolerable pretensions, for Pius VII. declared " that the pe
nalties of confiscation, so far as concerns private property, is de
clared by the bull of Innocent III. ; and as concerning sovereign
ties and fiefs, it is the rule of the canon law, that the subjects of
princes manifestly heretical are released from all obligations to
them, and are dispensed from all allegiance to them, although
we are fallen on such calamitous times that it is not possible for
the spouse of Christ to practise, or even expedient to recall, her
holy maxims of just severity against the enemies of our most-
holy faith." (Donnoghue, vol. ii. p. 447.) I need not tell you
perhaps, for you probably know it, that it is an established prin
ciple of the Roman Catholic Church, and I can quote canons of
their councils and decrees of their popes to prove it, that the
allegiance of subjects to princes that are Protestant is, ipso facto,
dissolved, and that they owe such princes no loyalty or obedience
whatever. Now, after four heretical princes had carried back
the pope to his palace, and placed him again upon his throne,
and, after the peace that followed 1815 had dawned upon the
world, we find not one trace of repentance or of reformation, or
modification of his persecuting spirit; on the contrary, we read
that the pope, just before he entered Rome, borne almost upon
the shoulders of heretical princes, proclaimed himself " God's
vicar upon earth — the vicar of the Lord Jesus Christ." "At
Ancona, a miraculous wooden Virgin, according to Abbe Alber-
tine, appeared, which opened and closed its eyes, and turned them
in all directions, to the indescribable delight of the people." On
May 13, 1814, Pope Pius VII. crowned the image, and attached

THE FIFTH VIAL. 359
a plenary indulgence to all who should visit it and offer devout and
suitable prayers to it. After this, we read that he restored the
Jesuits, who had been dissolved by Gregory XIV. as "an- intole
rable nuisance," and issued his celebrated encyclical letter against
the Bible Society. Pope Pius VII. thus addressed all Roman
Catholic prelates and priests in Christendom : —
"The Bible Societies endeavour to translate,- or rather corrupt^
the Holy Scriptures into the tongues of all nations, which gives
us just reason to fear that we may there find, instead of the gospel
of Christ, the gospel of men, or what is worse, the gospel of the
devil." Thus Pope Pius VII. cursed the translation of the Bible; thus
Gregory XVI., aS I have shown you, denounced the duty of un
derstanding the Bible; and, lastly, Pius IX., the reigning pon
tiff, so liberal in politics, but so rigid in Popery, has condemned,
with equal virulence, and equal plainness, the circulation and un
derstanding of the word of God. In 1825, Pope Pius VII. pub
lished a bull of Jubilee, in which he invites the faithful of every
land- to visit the exhibition of the actual cradle of our blessed
Lord.* So little did they repent of their superstitions or reform
their principles. About this time, also, Pope Pius VII. renewed
the reading of the bull in ccend Domini — a bull that is now in
force in Ireland, though declared by the civil powers in various
countries to be utterly incompatible with the very existence of
loyalty and allegiance to the .throne. In that memorable bull,
which was read every Maundy Thursday at Rome, till within a
very recent period, and may still .be so, we shall find the following
extract : —
"We do, in behalf of Almighty God, the Father and the Son
and the Holy Ghost, and with the authority of the blessed apos
tles Peter and Paul, and with our own, excommunicate and ana
thematize all Hussites, Wickliffites, Lutherans, Calvinists, and
all and sundry other heretics, by whatsoever name they may be
reckoned." Such is the power claimed by the pontiff. I wish to read you

* Lately there has been a grand procession at Rome, Pius IX. at the head
of it, on the recovery of a head of St. Andrew.

360 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
a striking illustration that these pretensions do not./become obso
lete with the lapse of years. You have heard me speak of the
assumed liberality of the pontiff that uow occupies the Papal
throne ; you have heard, too, our Roman Catholic fellow-country
men declare that the pretensions of the pope to have dominion over
the subjects of England to have been exploded long ago, and were
the absurdities of a bygone and effete superstition. Now there
is a newspaper published in London, which is the organ of the
Roman Catholic body, called the Tablet, written with much talent,
and containing much information on the Roman Catholic contro
versy: the Tablet writes upon this very point; and- urges the fact,
that the Romish priests in this country are "the subjects of the
pope," and that he "commands," not exhorts them.
Now nothing can be more plain than this, that the popes of
Rome have not abjured the pretensions of the past, nor repented
of the absolute sovereignty that they assumed over the subjects
of the queens and kings and princes of the earth. Whatever
men may think, the wild beast from the abyss, and the great cor
poration of which he is the head, change not. That system re
mains the same, amid the light of the nineteenth century, that it
was when Hildebrand made Europe echo his thunders, and pros
trate kings bow their necks upon the earth. Rome may array
herself in the drapery of outward meekness, wreathe her face
with smiles, and deck her brow with the crown of toleration, but
she still holds fast the principles, and will carry those principles
into practice when she has the power, that made the soil of Europe
red with the blood of saints, and its winds to be the vehicles of
the lamentations of saints and the moans of the martyrs of Jesus.
And I believe that one of the most complete pathways for the
return of Romanism into this country, is the belief which plausi
ble priests and Jesuits endeavour to impress upon you, that Rome,
like wine long kept, has improved itself in quality, in flavour,
and in all respects : but when a Roman Catholic priest tells you
so, he himself secretly laughs at your credulity in believing him;
for if Rome has changed, her infallibility is gone. She must
have been fallible if she erred. She may err again. Before such
an admission she would fall. If what was infallibly true in the
fifteenth century has become infallibly false in the nineteenth,

THE FIFTH VIAL. 361
Rome has changed, she is not the church which she pretends to
be : her right arm is from that moment paralyzed, and the defer
ence of the nations will be utterly withdrawn from her : but she
claims to be the same to-day that she was a thousand years ago :
she cannot be improved, she must be destroyed : she is, not to be
converted, she is to be destroyed; God's people are to leave her,
but the great fabric is to be overwhelmed by the brightness of the
Redeemer's coming.
And now, my dear friends, having noticed thus the judgments
of the fifth vial, as poured out upon the seat of the beast, and
having seen, in the course of these five vials, the frightful effects
of infidelity, when rampant, the one day, and of Papal supersti
tion, when dominant, the next, let us learn the great lesson, that
pure and scriptural religion alone is the life-blood of England, —
the palladium of her people, her only element of safety amid the
wreck of nations. In pleading this day for your aid to our
schools,* if I be asked, what, under God, will save us from the
contamination of the blasphemies of the skeptic, or from the con
tagion of the superstitions of the Papist? I say, Bible education.
If you ask me, what will replenish old England with sons worthy
of their sires, and make those Sons stand erect beside the ashes
of their fathers, and pronounce them, with thanksgiving to God,
blessed ? it will be Bible education. If you ask me, what will
save our country from the scourge of war — what will prevent it
from becoming the victim of intoxication and licentiousness —
what will save it from being exhausted by civil feuds, or torn up
by the shattering ..artillery of war? my answer is, Bible educa
tion. If you ask me, what will save us from that infidelity that
revels in its license without control, and from that superstition
that exercises a despotism over soul and body ? if you ask me,
what will save us from those wild and sensual opinions that rise,
like miasma, from the fens and marshes of popular ignorance, or
what will protect us from those deadly passions that breed like
reptiles beneath a scorching sun ? my answer is, Christian edu-
* Schools are now built adjoining the chureh in Crown Court, capable of
holding five or six hundred children, at an expense of nearly £3000, for which
the author earnestly asks aid. 31

362 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
cation^ The good and the pious of past ages have left us noble
heritages; we are bound to perpetuate them. We have received
from our fathers an open Bible, we have been taught to read, to
understand, and to rejoice in its truth; let us resolve, that when
we lie down, as we must lie down, upon the last bed, and when
our children shall gather around us to bid us a last farewell, to be
able to tell them, If we have not increased the blessings of- your
ancient heritage, we have not impaired them — if we have not
added to your religious freedom, we have not crushed it — if we
have done nothing to make you nobler, holier, happier, we have
done nothing to make you worse. Let us resolve, by the grace
of God, that wherever the pall of Papal superstition shall spread —
wheresoever the waters of the Tiber shall roll their pestiferous
torrent — wheresoever the torch of Christian freedom, and of manly
patriotism, and of true faith, shall expire, it shall not be in that
land that was watered by the blood of saints— in the bosom of
which the ashes of our Cranmers, and Latimers, and Knoxes, and
Wilberforces, and others, still repose. If any one in this assem
bly shall be found so faithless as to betray the sacred trust, or so
callous as to refuse to perpetuate it, the hearts of those sainted
men will surely become quick in their graves; and beat beneath
the sod with indignation — or rise to protest against the sacrilege
as dishonourable to God, and discreditable to us all. If we desire
others to see our land the most beautiful of the isles of the sea,
happy, holy, religious, with its establishments for charity, its
asylums for the aged, its hospitals for the sick, its shores on which
slavery cannot forge its chains, and on which freedom, an exile
from the earth, can find a footing and a home — if we wish to per
petuate a land where Sabbath light shall not be dimmed with the
smoke of the factory, and the chime of whose Sabbath bells shall
not be mingled with the discord of the railway whistle — if we
wish to see it remain a land in which we can lie down and not
fear, under the overshadowing wings of public sentiment, and
public purity, and public justice — let us give the generation of
outcast children, of whom there are literally many' thousands
around the site of the schools, now rising around their sires, the
blessings of a Christian, a Bible education.

363

-LECTURE XX.
THE SIXTH VIAL.
" And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates ; and
the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be
prepared. "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the
dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false
prophet. "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which, go. forth unto
the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle
of that great day of God Almighty." — Revelation xvi. 12-14. " *
The great river Euphrates, as I. have already shown, denotes
the Turkish or Mohammedan power. Like a stream that had
overflowed its banks, the Turko-Mohammedan nations had over
spread vast portions of the earth, and impressed their principles
completely over a great part of Christendom. "From the Chinese
frontier," says Gibbon, " he stretched his jurisdiction west and
south as far as the neighbourhood of Constantinople, t^he holy
city of Jerusalem, the spicy groves of Arabia Felix, an extent
of dominion which surpasses the Asiatic reign of Cyrus and the
caliphs." The evaporation of this Euphrates was fixed by Daniel, chap.
viii. 15-25.
Bicheno, in A. D. 1797, fixed the commencement of the 2300
years at the year B. C. 480, and predicted the commencement
of its decline to be 1819. Mr. Elliott calculates that 1849 will
finish the Turkish power, and break up and scatter all its national
cohesion. On the same data he determines Daniel's prophecy,
xii. 11, "And from the time that the daily 'sacrifice shall be
taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up,
there shall be 1290 days. Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh
to the 1335 days."

g64 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
The first portion of the 1335 days expired at the French Re
volution, A. D. 1793 ; the second expired at the beginning of the
decline of the Turko-Mohammedan power — or drying up of the
Euphrates, A. D. 1820. -The last portion will expire A. D. 1865,
at which, or soon after, will be the advent of Christ, and the
first resurrection, and beginning of the Millennium.
It has been disputed whether "kings of the east" really de
scribes the Jews. The original an' avazoX.wv does not necessarily
mean that they shall be in the east at their conversion as a nation;
but that they are originally from the east, or of eastern origin.
At the same time it is not unimportant to add, that there is
an express prediction of their progress westward, and from the
regions in the east, at the time of their call in Isaiah, xi. 14,
"But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward
the west, they shall spoil them of the east together."
"The drying up of the Euphrates" began about 1820. In
that very year, accordingly, the revolt of Ali Pacha took place.
In 1822 the Greek provinces rose as by an irresistible impulse,
and warred successfully against their Moslem oppressors. Russia
next entered into conflict with Turkey, and exhausted her re
sources and crippled her energies. The Janissaries were next
broken up — the peculiarities of Mohammedanism have disappeared
one after another — and even in 1834, so far had this drying up
or progressive wasting of the Ottoman empire proceeded, that M.
Delamartine, in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris, unconsciously
illustrated the truth and fulfilment of the Apocalyptic vision,
when he said, "The Ottoman empire is no empire at all; it is a
misshapen agglomeration of different races without cohesion
between them — with mingled interests — without a language —
without laws — without religion — without unity or stability of
power. You see that the breath of life which animated it —
namely, religious fanaticism — is extinct. You see that its fatal
and blinded administration has devoured the race of conquerors,
and that Turkey is perishing for want of Turks.
"How far the angel's vial has taken effect," says the author
of the "Kings of the East," "and in what manner it has per
formed its commissioned work, will be best seen by taking a
retrospective glance at Turkey, and by comparing her state

THE SIXTH VIAL. 365
twenty years ago with her condition now. During the wars of
the French Revolution, while the armies of France desolated
Spain, Portugal, Germany, Holland, Russia, Prussia, Italy, and
Austria, Turkey escaped comparatively harmless. The ' Annual
Register" records, in 1820 — 'The Ottoman empire, by a long and
unwonted good fortune, found itself at the commencement of the
era (1820) freed at once from foreign war and domestic. rebel
lion.' "We see, then, Turkey, at the beginning of 1820, blest with
more than ordinary repose — 4he fearful calm which too frequently,
however, denotes a storm. Peaceful within and without, she
appeared to the world, and was respected, as a powerful and
mighty nation. Contrast her present condition — distracted by
rebellion among her provinces — stripped of large portions of her
empire, Greece, Egypt, Algeria, Wallachia, Moldavia, and all
which she possessed north of the Danube — unable to defend her
self against her own vassal — obliged to ask for aid from her
great enemy, the Russian, to protect her capital, and from other
nations whom she has" for years regarded as the great enemies
of her faith. Her treasury ^.exhausted, her trade and manufac
tures destroyed; without her wonted tribute from the provinces,
and all the sources of wealth dried up; she sits an object of
pitiable helplessness amid the nations."
Dr. Keith, in his " Signs of the Times," has stated the troubles
which since 1820 have in succession been, poured upon Turkey.
"In the summer of 1820, Ali PaCha of Albania declared his
independence. In the November of the same year the Suliots
returned to their country from the Ionian Islands, and raised the
standard of rebellion against the Sublime Porte. In April, 1821,
the Greek insurrection broke out at Patras, while the empire was
distracted at the same time by insurrections in various provinces.
" Theodore, at the head of 10,000 insurgents, raised the
standard of revolt in Wallachia. Prince Ypsilanti revolted in
Moldavia. Candia refused the usual tribute, and all Greece was
in arms. In September, 1821, two irruptions were made into
the Turkish dominion by the Persian princes, Mohammed Ali
Mirza and Abbas Mirza. The prince royal crossed the frontier
toward the end of July, 1822, and defeated an army of 52,000
31*

366 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Turks, who fled in disorder from the field. On the 13th of tha
same month, Aleppo, the capital of Syria, was destroyed by an
earthquake. Antioch, formerly its capital, was also overthrown
by the same visitation. In 1823 the war in Greece raged with
unabated fury;
" The year 1824 was peculiarly signalized by the triumphs
of the Greeks both by sea and land; and while these insurgents
were universally successful, fresh dangers threatened the Otto
man empire.
"In 1825 both the populace and the Janissaries in Constanti
nople were in a state of great fermentation. The Janissaries
revolted and rebelled, pillaged the palaces of the Porte, and
committed the most frightful excesses throughout Constantinople.
The sultan in consequence determined to destroy them utterly;
and on the 15th July, 1826, he caused the Etmeidan, where the
Janissaries were assembled in a dense and tumultuous crowd,
to be surrounded by 60,000 men : the attack began on the part
of the sultan, by a murderous discharge of grape-shot; many
were killed on the spot, and the survivors retired to their
barracks. These, like the Etmeidan, were surrounded by cannon,
and the buildings set fire to, in which horrible situation the
whole body of the Janissaries perished.
" In the next month a great fire broke out, and destroyed
6000 houses in the most wealthy and magnificent parts of the
city. "In 1827 the battle of Navarino was fought, and the de
struction of the Turkish and Egyptian fleets gave the command
of the Euxine to Russia, and paved the way for fresh disasters
to the Turkish empire.
"On the 26th of April, 1828, Russia declared war against
Turkey, and immediately afterward attacked the sultan in his
Asiatic pashalics.
" In 1829, after successively defeating the Turkish armies to
the east and north, in Anatolia, and on the shores of the Euxine,
the Russians passed the Balkan, and fixed their head-quarters in
the city of Adrianople. On hearing the near approach of the
victorious Russians, the Sublime Porte submitted to the terms
of peaco dictated by the viotors. Liberty from the Turkish

THE SIXTH VIAL. 867
yoke was secured to the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia,
and not a Turk was permitted to reside north of the Danube.
The liberty and independence of Servia, and the region inhabited
by Franks in the, European dominions of Turkey, had their
liberty secured, — Greece being already free.
"In 1829 the French seized upon Algiers, and converted a
province of Turkey into a French colony.
" In 1828 the pacha of Egypt determined upon the conquest
of Syria ; and, under the pretence of putting down an insurrection,
sent a fleet well supplied, to execute his purposes. His pre
parations soon alarmed the sultan, who sent an envoy to the
pacha at Alexandria; who, seeing through the measures of the
wily vassal, demanded of him plainly, 'What is it you really
require from the Sublime Porte ?' ' My object,' said the pacha,
' is to keep what I have got. In a few days Acre must be mine :
if the sultan consents to my keeping it, I shall stop there ; if
the sultan refuses, I shall take Damascus : if Damascus be
granted me, there I shall stop; but 'if it be not, I shall take
Aleppo. If the sultan will not grant it me — then — who knows
— Allah Kerim — God is merciful !'
"The sultan rejected the terms, and Ibrahim advanced vic
toriously forward till Acre surrendered, after a siege of eight
months, in May, 1832. Continuing his forward movement, the
army of Ibrahim soon overran all Syria, and driving before him
the forces of the sultan, passed the defiles of the Taurus., defeated
the army under the grand vizier, in the plain of Koniah, on
the 19th December, 1832,
"Be had now only to march upon Constantinople, and give a
meaning to the incoherent expressions of his father. Nothing
remained to oppose his progress to the capital. In this dilemma
the sultan applied to Russia for aid, who immediately sent an
army of 50,000 men, and ten ships of the line, with several
frigates, to Constantinople. The Russians occupied the heights
of Unkiar Skelessi, and placed themselves between Ibrahim and
his prize. Ibrahim had, however, arrived at Brussa before the
news of the armistice between the sultan and his father reached
him. On the 5th of May, 1833, the sultan entered into a
convention with Mehemet Ali, giving up to him Adana, and the

368 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
whole of Syria. From this period the pacha of Egypt considered
himself the sovereign of Syria, and sent, in 1835, an official
note to the governments of Austria, France, and England, to
obtain their consent to the consolidation of his power over his
conquests. The British ambassador opposed, and the conquest
of Syria was never recognised by the European powers.
"The .inhabitants of Syria from 1834 to 1837 were in fre
quent, if not constant, rebellion. On the 8 th of May, 1839, the
sultan pronounced the pacha of Egypt and his son Ibrahim
deposed; and appointed Hafiz Pacha, the Ottoman general,
governor of Egypt."
"'Within the last twenty years,' (says Mr. Walsh, as quoted
by Dr. Keith,) ' Constantinople has lost one-half of its population.
Two conflagrations happened while I was at Constantinople, and
destroyed fifteen thousand houses. The Russian and Greek wars
were a constant drain on the Janissaries of the capital. The
silent operation of the plague is continually active, though not
always alarming ; it will be considered no exaggeration to say,
that within the period mentioned, from three to four hundred
thousand persons have been prematurely swept away in one city
of Europe, by causes which were not operating in any otlier, —
conflagration, pestilence, and civil commotion. The Turks,
though naturally of a robust and vigorous constitution, addict
themselves to such habits as are very unfavourable to population :
the births do little more than exceed the ordinary deaths, and
cannot supply the waste of casualties. The surrounding country
is therefore constantly drained to supply the waste in the capital,
which nevertheless exhibits districts nearly depopulated. If
we suppose that these causes operate more or less in every part
of the Turkish empire, it will not be too much to say, that there
is more of human life wasted, and less supplied, than in any
.other country. We see every-day life going out in the fairest
portion of Europe, and the human race threatened with extinc
tion in a soil and climate capable of supporting the most abun
dant population.'" (See "The Kings of the East," pp. 2-11.)
From that time the Turkish nation has rapidly wasted ; the ,
last streamlet is barely discernible in the once full, and over
flowing channel of the great Euphrates. The shadows of

THE SIXTH VIAL. 369
Russia and Britain are at this moment, by a strange combination,
spread over it to prevent its entire evaporation. They will not
succeed. God has pronounced its doom, and no power on earth
can prevent its speedy accomplishment. ' Yea, all efforts to
arrest, will only precipitate the sure catastrophe. The Crescent
must give way to the Cross — the mosque must one day resound
with the Name, and shine with the glories, of Jesus. That river
whose streams make glad the city of our God, shall flow where
Euphrates has long rolled its flood. " There is one God," will
then, as now, be the Turkish faith ; but there will be this, to its
professors, new and happy addition — "and Christ is the bright
ness of His glory, and the express image of His person." The
decay and waning is almost complete; the day also of its re
generation cannot be far distant.
Thus, then, the wasting and removal of the Mohammedan power
will be contemporaneous with, or will precede, the movement
of the Jews to their long-lost land- — their gathering home to
Jerusalem once more, in new and glorious circumstances. The
facts of the day are the literal fulfilment of this prophecy : the
interest felt throughout Christendom in the Jews — the excite
ments and kindling hopes ofrwhich they are almost universally
the subject — the growing political as well as religious importance
of Palestine — all indicate the preparation of the -way of "the
kings of the east."
The present existence of the Jews is perhaps a "chief sign
of the times in which we live. Their very being is a miracle.
Like the bush on Mount Horeb, they have survived amid the
burning flames of incessant persecution. The names of Athe
nian, Roman, Theban, Spartan, live in the records of the past
only, their existence is- registered on their tombstones; but the
Jew walks every street, speaks and dwells in every capital, trans
acts this world's business on every exchange, and relieves the
monotony of the nations by his presence, as that Of an Eastern
and unincorporated family. They are reft indeed of the Urim
and Thummim, the mitre and the glory on the altar, and the
overshadowing cherubim, and the Temple of Jerusalem, their,
joy; but they themselves remain distinct, and incapable of amal
gamation with the tribes and kindred of the earth. Like streams

370 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
from some remote fountain whose waters are of strange and
characteristic flavour, they have rolled along the successive cen
turies of time without blending with contemporaneous or even
opposing floods. The Jewish nation is at this day the most
striking seal of the truth of the sacred oracles. There is no
accounting for their perpetuated isolation — their depressed but
indestructible existence, on any principles save those revealed in
the word of God. They have been sprinkled like millions of
globules of quicksilver over the length and breadth of the world,
every drop incapable of absorption, and all destined to coalesce
and reflect bright beams upon the past, and mirroring forth the
morning of a glorious future.
Avarice, prejudice, superstition, have all in turn expended their
violence upon them; they have been arbitrarily charged with
monstrous crimes as pretexts for plundering them. They have
been described as monsters, that they might be plundered. No
means have been deemed too base, if they served to enrich the
Gentile at the expense of the Jew. During the Middle Ages they
were proscribed the ordinary streets and dwelling-places of the
Gentiles — assigned distinct municipal localities, treated as a mean
and ignoble caste, deprived of civil rights, massacred in popular
outbursts, by decrees of councils, and by royal rescripts. They
were occasionally baptized by force : the bribe, the fagot, the
prison — all were made to bear on their conversion, absorption,
or extinction — and all have failed. There are still left upward
of three millions of Jews waiting for the Messiah. How is this ?
Geography, arms, politics, do not explain the mystery of their
existence; time, climate, customs, do not unravel it. They are
found under the regime of every dynasty — sharing the protection
of just laws, -and enduring the proscription of cruel ones — using
every tongue, and living in every latitude. The snows of Lap
land chill them, and the suns of Africa scorch them. They drink
of the Tiber and the Thames, the Jordan and the Mississippi.
The wreck of Israel still stands in sublime misery. On the one
hand they are characterized by meanness, approaching to dis
honesty — Mammon their god, and money their constant medita
tion; and on the other hand they look backward along many
thousand years to an ancestry, beside which that of our peers

THE SIXTH VIAL. 371
and princes is but of yesterday— and press forward on the wings
of hope to a long-expected day, when they shall exchange the
degradation of helots for the dignity of a royal priesthood. The
race is a perpetual miracle, evidence of a God, the reluctant and
living Amen to the truth of the promises and predictions of Scrip
ture. What is equally remarkable, they have in their darkest
hours cherished the. love of literature as well as the hopes of the
fathers. This must have resulted mainly- from the ardent
attachment they have ever cherished to their sacred books. Their
faith is enshrined in the richest literature; their dearest hope is
embalmed in the songs of David, and the strains of Isaiah. The
paths that lead to their God are strewn with the choicest flowers.
The very hosannahs they raise weekly to the God of Abraham,
are couched in the most thrilling, because inspired poetry. But
perhaps the first circumstance that drew attention to them not
long ago were the events at Damascus in 1842. The Papacy
charged on certain Jews in that town the murder of Padre
Tomaso, a Capuchin monk, for purposes Jews ever have abhorred.
Ten or twelve of the chief Jew merchants of -Damascus were
subjected to every degree of torture, and some of them to death,
the pacha and the' French consul seeking to extort from inno
cence a confession- of guilt. The emperor of Russia has felt it
necessary to deal with the state of the Jews. Pius IX. has
unexpectedly mitigated the severity of their lot in Rome. Ger
many is agitated with the Jewish question. It is the question
of the day in Britain. Right or wrong, the prime minister has
introduced a bill into Parliament, which will give the Jew a place
among the Gentiles he never had in this country before.
Whenever we behold a Jew, we see a monument of the right
eous anger, and a memorial of the unchangeable truth of the
Almighty. They are the scattered, deathless, and reluctant wit
nesses to Christianity — the crucifiers of her Lord, and yet the
credentials of his glory. They tried to crush Christianity in her
cradle, but they only raised her to the chariot of her triumphs,
and gave the first impulse to her progress. They still reject the
religion of the Messiah, and yet they are the living evidences
of his majesty- — their silence is powerful eloquence — their resist
ance to truth their ablest apology. The j-udgments that light

372 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
upon them on the plains of Babylon — on the sands of Senegal —
on the banks of the Jordan — or on the shores of the Caspian
Sea — are as intimations from on high, telling to a skeptic world
that they are the men of- destiny — the world's emphatic phe
nomena — heaven's trumpet-tongued prophets, recording afresh to
each successive generation the truths of creation — the deluge —
the cross; reflecting on each new light, and on all together new
harmony, and throwing forward into the dark region of the future,
rays that unfold a panorama of grandeur and magnificence too
vivid for man's unpurged eye to dwell upon. On that poor
avaricious Jew there rests a curse, no doubt; but that curse con
ceals the roots of a sublime consummation. The race is clothed
in the mean rags of the slave, but is associated, nevertheless, in
the promises of truth, with the heritage and the royalties of an
endless sovereignty.
But however inflexible may be the purposes of Providence
with reference to the sufferings of the Jews, it is surely not the
duty of Christians to become the executioners of the curse which
has been denounced upon them. We are called upon to obey pre
cepts, not to fulfil prophecies. He who inspired the prophecy
will secure its fulfilment. And so far is it from being the duty
of any of the followers of the Christian faith to attempt to pour
forth upon the Jews the vials which have been destined for them
in the mysterious purposes of heaven, that, on the contrary;
special punishments are denounced on those who "help forward
the affliction" of that people; and it would not be very difficult
to prove that those very nations which have made themselves
most infamous by the persecutions they have inflicted on the Jew,
have been visited with the most signal and wasting judgments.
The Protestant church has pleaded and toiled for them. It has
been the unenviable distinction of Rome, to have persecuted
them root and branch — to have danced round the fires that
burned them, and to have gloried in the murderous cruelty, as
if it were acceptable to God. Russia, imitating with almost
undistinguishable minuteness the creed of Rome, seems lately to
have begun to copy her practices also. Nicholas will not be
behind Ferdinand and Isabella. If the emperor be sensitive to
public opinion, he may yet change his purposes, and revoke his

THE SIXTH VIAL. 373
exterminating mandate. But if too high to be reached by the
waves of popular feeling — if too callous to be penetrated by the
cry of the oppressed, the appeals of the injured — he may one
day find that the throne of -all the Russias is not beyond the
reach of the judgments of- heaven, nor royalty itself irrespon
sible at that bar at which no appeals can be received.
Some think these unjustifiable and successive persecutions
which the Jews have lately experienced, are meant to loosen
their hold of the various countries in which they have found a
temporary asylum or pursued a profitable traffic, preparatory to
that sublime signal which shall lead them back again to the land
of Judah; like the ancient wilderness-pillar, kindling the- night
by its beams, and cooling the noontide by its shade. If true,
the prospect is a glorious one. They will praise, in the streets
of Jerusalem, Him their forefathers persecuted-^-enthrone on
Mount Moriah the Man of Sorrows as -the mighty God, and
crown as the King of Glory, on Golgotha, him whom they cruci
fied between two thieves, as the guiltiest of the three. Perhaps
a Christian bishop in the heart of Jerusalem — the horror of the
"Puseyite" and the scorn of the skeptic — may be a forelight
of the approaching outburst — an early star to indicate the near
ness of the new day — the presage of the long-predicted morn.
The increased outward oppression of the Jew may thus be the
token of the proximity of his deliverance. If it be so, the pros
pect will thus give him patience. The tyrant may confine his
body, or crush his limbs, or spoil him of his goods; but he
cannot extinguish hopes of celestial origin, or impede a destiny
which is linked to Omnipotence itself, or blight one flower or
blast one acre of that true Canaan which would seem to be theirs
in reversion,
I anticipate, then, the restoration of the Jews to their father
land, and that, too, speedily. Many texts are my witnesses
here. Nor is it in vain that their hopes still converge, and
kindle as they converge, from a- thousand points to Jerusalem;
and that their affections nestle, even amid its ruins, as in their
beloved and congenial home. It is true there is much supersti
tion associated with their veneration for the city of David ; but
there is also much that is truly significant. Not a few of the

374 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Jews believe, that every Israelite that dies out of Jerusalem
must perform a subterranean passage • back to it, that he may
rise at the last day; and that to die in Jerusalem is certain
salvation, and that the Rabbis in the midst of it are still inspired.
There is one part of the ruins which the Jews are allowed to
approach ; and every Friday evening, when the Jewish Sabbath
begins, numbers of their most venerable rabbis kneel amid the
d&bris, and kiss the stones, and breathe prayers through the
crevices; believing that their supplications are specially heard
on that ground, of which Jehovah has said, " Mine eyes and my
heart shall be there perpetually." Many of the stones are worn
.smooth with the tears and kisses of these exiles of Judah.
There is something in all this very impressive-. Than this, the
captives on the banks of the Euphrates did not present a more
touching spectacle, nor do the words of the Psalm, "Thy ser
vants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof,"
receive' a more striking illustration. The outcasts of Jerusalem
cling , to its ruins, and cherish its very dust. Like ivy plants,
they announce tho wreck, while they labour to arrest it. How
rooted is Judaism in the heart of a Jew ! — what terrible assaults
has it withstood ! — what fiery elements has it survived ! Satan
has corrupted it, indeed, but he has not conquered it. He has
overshadowed it with superstition, but he has not destroyed it.
Even after the lapse of eighteen centuries, bright sparks of the
live glory start up at intervals from the encompassing rubbish —
rays of the Shechinah occasionally leap, like lightning splen
dours, athwart the clouded canopy which once glowed with stars
as the city of God. There are traces of divinity legible still in
Zion, Moriah, and Calvary ; and shaded and obscured, the
"pillar of -fire by night, and the pillar of cloud by day," walks
the streets of dismantled Jerusalem — these are signs and gleams,
too, of the twilight that ushers in Israel's endless noon, signifi
cant of its approaching glory. Josephus asserts, there were
heard, in the days of Vespasian, awful and mysterious cries in
the holy place of the temple of Jerusalem, " Let us go hence,"
as if the voice of the departing God. May it not be, that the
tidings which have lately come so often from Judea, are the
deepening eohoes of the returning footsteps of Jehovah to reign

THE SIXTH VIAL. 375
over all the earth — to close the days of Zion's mourning — to
shine before His ancients gloriously — to rekindle on Mount Zion
that pyramid of light that shall flame to heaven, and wrap
Europe, Africa, Asia, and America in one glorious apocalypse ?
Many and multiplying are the signs of its appearing.
There can be no doubt that a new era in the history of Israel
has arrived. The Church of England has now built a Christian
church on the very ruins of the temple in Mount Zion, where
they found layers of stone so large that these ancient foundations
are now the foundations of a Christian temple; and the words
of the sublime liturgy of that church — "0 Lamb of God, that
takest away the sins of the world" — shall soon be heard in Zion.
On the Rock of Ages, and amid the lingering shadows of Levi,
there will soon arise a second and more glorious fane, vocal with
perpetual melody. Its walls, the attributes of God — its cement,
redeeming love ; with no need of sun or moon, for " the Lord
God Almighty and the Lamb are the light thereof." The Church
of Scotland became, as by an impulse from on high, so impressed
with this great subject, that she sent a deputation of clergy and
laity to search out and report the present state, hopes, and
accessibility of the Jews. I need not at length refer to their
most interesting Report. One fact, however, they found every
where the same : it is, that the Jews can be preached to in every
country. The Dissenters of London have also lately formed a
Society for the Conversion of the Jews. Thus all classes begin
to be interested in God's aneient people. .
In Tuscany and Leghorn, and other parts of Italy, a Pro
testant missionary dare not preach to the Romanists. The pro
clamation of the gospel in these countries, the circulation of
tracts, the distribution of Bibles, are all visited with pains and
penalties ; but in every one of them any missionary may preach
to the Jews.
In Palestine,. Egypt, and Turkey any attempt to proselytize
the Mohammedan population would be visited with death or
exile; but in all these lands, in Tyre also and Sidon, Sychar,
Tiberias, and Acre, the deputation of our church found unfettered
opportunities of addressing the stray sheep of the house of
Israel.

376 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
In the bazaars and other places of traffic, a missionary may
stand every day and preach to hundreds of deeply interested and
attentive Jews. In Wallachia and Moldavia, and other provinces
of the Greek empire, there is the same easy access to the
children of Abraham.
In Cracow there are upward of 20,000 Jews ; and though a
missionary dare not speak on their fatal errors to the Papal
papulation, to all these Jews he may speak freely. A wide door,
and effectual, is palpably open. This pleads their cause better
than eloquence. I do not expect the Jews to be converted piece
meal. Portions of the race will appear at intervals as seals to
ministerial toils, and monuments that God has not forsaken
them ; and I feel it one of the sweetest recollections in my
ministry, that I had the high privilege of baptizing a Jew
brought to the knowledge of the truth in my own church ; and
that recollection is deepened by the fact, that he has since
sacrificed all for Christ. I believe they will be converted in a
day, and as a nation ; but whether before or at the second
personal advent of Christ, I am unable to say. It is a remark
able fact, that a portion of the Holy Land is at this moment
the subject of national dispute to Russia, France, and Britain.
Turkey even gives toleration to the Jews. All confirm one
conviction, that we are now at the verge of the pouring out
of the Seventh Vial. Our children, if not we ourselves, are
destined to see events and manifestations which skeptics may
sneer at, and even reluctant Christians undervalue; but thereby
they only confirm the truth, " For as it was in the days of Noah,
so shall it be at the advent of the Son of Man." "Behold,
I come as a thief," is the watchword of the present hour. God
grant " the Lamb's wife" may make herself ready !
The wasting of the Turkish power, the position of Egypt, the
state of Europe, the feeling of the Jews in Poland and in
Constantinople, all prognosticate no ordinary epoch. The hour
is at our door when the nation of the Jews shall hear the voice
of the Son of God, and live. Like streams from a thousand
lands, they shall' roll toward Jerusalem, there to testify against
the murderous deeds of their misguided fathers, and to weep at
the remembrance of the evil spell of infatuation that bound

THE SIXTH VIAL. 377
them. The glory that dwelt between the cherubim shall be re
kindled, never to expire. The " Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world" shall be hailed as their quickening hope. The
Everlasting Priest -shall sit upon the throne of David, walk the
pavements, and watch over the, reclaimed tribes of Palestine.
In every country the Jews are more or less loosened, preparatory
to their mighty march ; and the foreshadows of their approaching
resurrection lie both broad and deep upon the face of Europe.
Jerusalem itself has become an object of political arrangement
among the Gentiles. The apathy with which politicians, patriots,
and even Christians looked upon the Jew has been broken up.
They~, command, the attention and the intervention of imperial
cabinets — of consuls, diplomatists, and statesmen. The dry
bones, exceeding many and exceeding dry, begin to be stirred in
a thousand valleys; -and nations that once stood neutral, or
positively hostile, wait and marvel what will be the upshot.
The throes of a great birth are already felt. The groans of
Judaism and the travail of Christianity indicate the approach of
great things. A cycle in the high purpose of God draws to its
accomplishment. The prediction shall be literally fulfilled :
" Then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity; and have com
passion on thee, and will return and gather thee from all nations,
whither the Lord thy God hath, scattered thee. If any of them
be driven out to the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence
will the Lord thy God gather thee ; and the Lord thy God will
bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou
shalt possess it." Most glorious consummation ! " The widowed
land of Judah shall soon meet the everlasting husband. The
weary-footed wanderers of Salem are near their perpetual rest.
The first sounds of the last Jubilee are already caught from afar.
The very wrecks of Jerusalem repose in the sunshine of a
beauteous resurrection. Golgotha shall be made glad, and Cal
vary itself exchange its association with the cross for the pos
session of the crown. The air that was once rent with "Crucify
him, crucify him," shall resound with " Hosanna to the Son of
David." The very scenes where Jesus suffered, and was spit on
and shamed, shall witness rabbis, and priests, and people
exalting his name above every name, and glorying in the Cross
32*

378 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
as the cradle of their better being. Mount Carmel shall echo
back to Mount Zion the7 joyful sound. The cedars of Lebanon
shall rejoice; and the face of Jordan reflect to the face of
heaven, "Mercy and truth, which have met together; righteous
ness and peace, which have kissed each other." If we are the
children of Abraham, we too shall share in their joy, and be
fellow-heirs with them of the inheritance of the saints in light

379

LECTURE XXI.
THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS.
(THE SIXTH VIA1 — CONTINUED.)
" And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the
dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false
prophet. " For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto
the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of
that great day of God Almighty.
"Behold, -I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watchetb, and keepeth his
garments, lest he walk naked, and they -see his shame." — Revelation xvi. 13-15.
We have two great duties to discharge in the church of Christ.
The minister of the gospel is not only to show himself a pastor
to feed the sheep, but he is bound also to make good his claim to
the office of the watchman, to defend the fold from the wolf. It
is not merely his duty to minister nutriment to the saints of God
— and this is his most pleasant duty, or rather his privilege — but
it is also his office, however painful, to awaken attention, by
every means in his power, to the perils that loom in the distance,
to analyze the principles of threatening mischief, and to expose
the poison that lurks under the most plausible garb, lest those
who are safe should be, in the least degree, contaminated or in
jured, and that those who are without the fold may not be carried
away beyond recovery by some fatal or mischievous delusion.
This evening I must act the part of the watchman : I must tell
you of peril in earnest — of poison mingled with the living bread
— of danger.
We have arrived at the close of the era' in which we now live ;
the prophecy I have read depicts the hour that sweeps by. < The
Turkish dynasty, as I have told you, wastes and wanes ; and, if
the data which I have assumed be true, the utter waning of the
Crescent would seem to take place two or three years hence. I

380 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
have shown you that -the way of the "kings of the East" will
then be free ; so that we may live to witness the august and im
pressive spectacle of the Jews, shaking loose from every land,
and moving like the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of
flame by night, a procession of glory and beauty, to the land of
their fathers — that land that cleaves closest of all sublunary
things to their memory, and vibrates with their heart-strings — to
whieh the Jew looks in the nineteenth century as David looked
centuries before, as to" the land of promise, then the beauty and
the joy of the whole earth. But while this process is going on
on the one hand — namely, the Wasting of the Mohammedan
power — and while the way of the "kings of the East" is pre
paring on the other hand, we are told that three unclean spirits
are to go forth from their respective sources ; which are to con
taminate the kings and nations of the earth, and prepare them
for that last and final earthquake which precedes the winding up
of the destinies of that drama in which we play so solemn and so
responsible a part.
The nature of these spirits, or the principles which they infuse,
we must determine, plainly, by the source from which they are
nere alleged to spring. I say the class and character of these
"unclean spirits like frogs" we are to define by examining the
source from which they arise. The first, we are told, comes from
the dragon. I need not refer you to my previous lectures, where
I showed that the dragon is Satan in his own character, animating
the infidel, pagan, and heathen world- — the undisguised devil —
the archangel fallen. From Satan in this form, and so inspired
by Satanic wickedness, the first unclean spirit proceeds. We
may therefore infer that this undisguised Satanic spirit proceed
ing from the dragon, is the infidel or skeptic spirit. The second
unclean spirit is to proceed from the beast, or the " wild beast"
that rose from the abyss — the symbol of the great head of the
Apostasy, the popes of Rome. We may infer, therefore, that the
second unclean spirit is Popery. The third unclean sphit pro
ceeds from the false prophet. I showed you that the false pro
phet, or the lamb-like beast — the beast that looked like a lamb,
and spake as a dragon — was no other than the Romish clergy, or
priesthood, as distinct from the pope, and acting, as I showed you

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 381
in a previous lecture, in their own strength and incorporate capa
city. We may therefore expect that this unelean spirit is the
spirit of the priesthood, or Puseyism. For what is Puseyism?
Popery without a pope — the antichristian spirit and- pretensions
of. Popery without the supremacy of its antichristian head, or
ruler, the pope.
Having thus, then, ascertained what these three unclean spirits
are, let me now proceed to show you the scenes and evidences' of
their action. This, of course, must be on a very limited scale ;
I can do no , more than hint to sources of information : time
would fail me fully to unfold them.
The spirit of the Dragon is the first of these three spirits. He
fell from heaven by pride, or claiming to live and act in antago
nism to or independently of God. The influence of this spirit
showed itself in the conduct of the antediluvians when they cast
off the fear and worship of God; it developed itself long pre
viously in Cain, the fratricide; and it still shows itself, -wherever
it exists, either in living without God, or living in antagonism to
God. This infidel spirit is very often proved, in the history of
the world, to be the correlative of Romanism. History shows
that wheresoever Popery has been rampant the One -century, in
fidelity has come to be supreme in the next/ The' one blasts the
fair, the green, and the beautiful with its baleful fires ; the other
lives in the space it has thus withered and blasted, as in a con
genial home. Hence Popery and infidelity, though they look
like the antipodes to the eye, soon make it known, nevertheless,
that, like Milton's Sin and Death, when they have met and com
pared notes, that they are sisters in affinity, in affection, in arms,
and rivals only in renown.
I will first show evidence of the presence .of infidelity in its
strict sense, not as opposition to God, but as living without God.
The first scene of its action to which I will refer is the great city
in which we live, and of which we are, at present, either the na
tives or the citizens. We call England a Christian country, and
we speak of London as the metropolis of a Christian land ; but it
has been found that there are more true Christians in some of tho
distant isles of the sea, to which we send missionaries, compara
tively with their population, than there are even in London, the

382 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
centre of civilization, and the mighty spring of those influences that
influence the earth. I state, as too plain evidence of this, such facts
as have been brought to light and detailed at length by that most
valuable institution, the London City Mission. It first brought
prominently before the Christian public the fearful moral state of
subterranean strata not believed to exist before. Within a radius
of eight miles of St. Paul's cathedral there are about two millions
of people— the largest population ever assembled within the limits
of a city. If all the churches and chapels — Protestant, Established,
Dissenting, Roman Catholic, and Socinian — were as full as they
could hold, there would not be within them one-fourth of that
mighty population. But not' only are the churches and chapels
of London, as a whole, not full, but if you take them at any time
— I will not take them at the present time, when, I am told, they
are nearly empty, in consequence of the prevalent epidemic — but
if I take them at a season when the weather is fine, and the public
health good, and every thing is favourable, you will find the ave
rage attendance to be each only about one-fourth full. If that be
the average, the result will be that there are never more in
church on one Sunday, in all denominations, than, if 1 take the
largest, about 200,000 people, out of a population of two mil
lions. And how many, do you think, of that number, are com
municants ? Startling fact ! awful stain upon the missionary
zeal — the aggressive efforts of the metropolis ! there are scarcely
60,000 communicants in all the churches and chapels of this vast
city put together ! There are only 60,000 who so far profess the
gospel as to avail themselves of the opportunity of commemo
rating the dying love, and receiving the pledges of the second
advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. So true is this, that the steam
boats and the railways alone carry from the metropolis every Sun
day morning a greater population than all the churches and
chapels together any one day contain.
Out of the population of London, there are, it is calculated,
nearly 200,000 Roman Catholics; and these Roman Catholics,
let me tell you, are not, like many of you professing Protestants,
more shams — men that have the form of their" faith, but not its
power nor its reality : these Roman Catholics are thorough ones;
they are in earnest — they are prepared to die themselves or to

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 383
burn you, just as may be expedient or convenient in the exigency.
In other words, they are thoroughly in earnest; and to cope with
these nearly 200,000 Roman Catholics, we have about 60,000
Protestants only who can be assumed in charity to be vitally im
pressed with the gospel, and devoted to its spread, and ready to
live for Christ and die for him, if needs be.
In the next place, the state and employments and character of
the out-population are truly distressing. There are in London
12,000 children trained professionally to pick pockets, with the
greatest tact, speed, and success, or to plunder houses with the
best chance of escape. The schools for these children are la
mentably defective ! I do say that our schools are our greatest
disgrace. I do feel that while we are sending money abroad —
and far be it from me to attempt to shut or, repress missionary
effort — but, while we are sending money to the ends of the earth,
for the conversion of the Turk, the heathen, and the Jew, I do
feel that -we are . not concentrating an adequate or corresponding
expenditure at our own doors,. and on our own perishing popula
tion. There are in London 3000 receivers of stolen property;
4000 are annually committed for crimes ; there are 10,000 gam
blers ; 20,000 live by begging ; there are 30,000 regular thieves
in London ; there are 150,000 habitual gin-drinkers, a melan
choly fact surely ! I do not know what is the best remedy for
this ; sometimes I have thought our teetotal friends are right ;
sometimes I have doubted whether to agree with them or not ; I
do feel, however, that he is not acting wisely who tries to crush
a machinery which, whether as perfect in its structure and con
stituent elements as might be, or otherwise, is achieving great
physical and moral good. Again, there are. in London 150,00,0
of both sexes, who lead a life of debauchery and licentiousness.
Thus there is a greater number of ostensibly depraved and aban
doned characters in the service of Satan, than there are during
Sunday in the house of prayer. This great city sends annually
a million of money for the conversion of the ends of the earth,
and rightly so, — but alas, there are millions more needed for the
conversion of the population at home. And, melancholy and
painful spectacle ! in the midst of this scene of demoralization,
ignorance, and eriine, the ministers of the everlasting gospel are

384 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
found quarrelling and disputing with each other about details of
discipline and forms of worship, just as if the captain and crew
should fall to quarrelling in a ship which is sinking inch by inch
in the fathomless abyss, or as if the inmates of a house were to
begin to quarrel about the dress they should wear, while every
rafter and timber is blazing in the flames of an irresistible confla
gration. I do sincerely hope that the ministers of the everlasting
gospel will more and more merge their ecclesiastical disputes, or,
if not merge them, postpone them for decision till the Millennium ;
and, in the mean time, consecrate that strength and energy, whieh
they waste in internal quarrels, in the evangelization of our lands,
the reclamation of the drunkard, the sanctification of the guilty,
the salvation of perishing souls.
I have thus spoken of infidelity in its form " without God" — let
me now speak of it as " against God." I have spoken of the
a-theism — let me now allude to the anti-theism of London. Thou
sands of young men are speculative infidels — not by the convic
tion of their minds, but by the pressure of their consciences.
They will not lead the life prescribed by God's holy law, and
they therefore try to get rid of the sense of the inspection of
God's omniscient eye. Like the frog they live in uncleanness,
like the frog, they croak infidelity in chorus, and like the frog
they dread the approach of that light which discovers and dis
quiets them. Instead of the rejection of Christianity-being the
evidence of a gifted mind, it is always, in my judgment, the
symptom of a diseased heart. No man who believes he has dis
covered that this blessed book is a lie, would speak lightly of that
discovery. He would make known such a discovery with tears,
and in solemn sorrow. Yet no man, let me add, who has either
weighed the evidence on which it rests, -or studied its glorious
truths, can come to the conclusion that it is a lie. I was tainted
while at the university by this spirit of skepticism. I thought
Christianity might not be true. The very possibility of its being
true was the thought I felt I must meet and settle. Conscience
could give me no peace till I had settled it. I read, and I have
read from that day for fourteen or fifteen years, till this, and now
I am as convinced, upon the clearest evidence, that this book is
tho book of God, as that I now address you, or that you now hear

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 385
me : it bears upon its brow the imprimatur of divinity — the signa
ture of its Author — -the autograph of Deity; and the man that
reads it most thoroughly, and understands it most clearly, is the
man who will come to the conclusion, to which the good, and the
gifted, and the wise of past generations have come, that it has
God for its author — truth, without any mixture of error, for its
matter — eternal happiness for its glorious issue. I may be speak
ing to not a few skeptics in this assembly. Let me show you
what Was the croaking of a great arch-frog, if I may use" the ex
pression, who led the other unclean spirits of his day into the
marshes in which he himself wallowed. I refer to the gifted
David Hume. Hear what he says in his book on Human "Nature —
I read from vol. i. page 458. — " I seem," says Hume, "affrighted-
and confounded with the solitude in which I am placed by my
philosophy. When I look abroad, on every side I see dispute,
contradiction, distraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find
nothing but doubt and ignorance. Where am I ? or, what am I ?
from what cause do I derive my existence ? to what condition
shall I return ? I am confounded with these questions. I begin
to fancy myself in a most deplorable condition, environed with
the deepest darkness on every side." Such is a specimen of the
croaking of that frog. Hear also the croaking of another arch-
frog, equally gifted, but not so fastidious in his mode of express
ing himself — I mean Voltaire. " The world," says he, " abounds
with wonders, and also with victims. In man is more wretched
ness than in all other- animals put together." How did he judge
of it ? — by his own hea,rt. He adds—" Man loves life, yet knows
he must die; spends his existence in diffusing the miseries which
he has suffered — cutting the throats of his fellow-creatures for
pay — cheating and being cheated. -The bulk of mankind are no
thing more than a crowd of wretches, equally criminal, equally
unfortunate. I wish I had never been born !" So said Voltaire :
such is the creed of this unclean spirit. Such is the happiness
revealed in skepticism. Listen to these words: — "I have fought
the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which
the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." What
a contrast ! can you hesitate which to adopt ? Does not every
33

386 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
heart in this assembly address the professor and the personator of
such a creed as the last — " Where thou goest I go, where thou
lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God
my God!"
I have thus spoken, first of the skepticism that lives without
God; and next, of the skepticism that lives in antagonism to
God ; but I wish to remark, in addition to all that I have said,
that the skepticism we have to fear in the present day, is not' the
dry, metaphysical skepticism of Hume or Voltaire. The unclean
spirit adapts its development to circumstances. The fact is, jnan
is not a mere creature of intellect; he cannot live on logic. He
needs more than syllogisms can furnish. Abstract infidelity is a
cold .icicle — a petrifaction — an empty negative.. Man has within
him a power that reasons, in its most solemn moments, of death
and judgment and eternity; and all^the logic that was ever
chopped — -all the syllogisms that were ever spun — must fail to give
peace to the conscience in which the peace of God has hot been
planted by the God of peaee. I feel, therefore, that metaphysical
skepticism, unless it be with some very metaphysical spirits, has
the least possible chance of a wide influence or permanent hold
on human mature. Satan knows this, and therefore now-a-days
he decks it in meretricious finery — makes skepticism palatable by
gilding it with sensuous charms — fitting it to men's passions as
well as convictions ; and thus securing for the unclean spirit a
more easy and powerful access to the corrupt human heart.
Hence I look upon the sensuous Philosophy of France, the Pan
theism of Germany and America, and the Socialism and Chartism
and Communism* of England — very much crushed, I believe,
but still too dominant in some of its secret and more sequestered
haunts — to be modern developments of this frog from the mouth
of the Dragon or' Satan. I refer to Socialism not so much for
its repudiation of the Bible, as for its assault upon the very struc
ture and .vitals of the social system. It thwarts the spread of
Christianity by keeping its victims out of its reach.
I one day visited a Socialist halL . I found in it the keeper
* A strong proof of the infidel character of Chartism, is its holding its publio
political meetings on the Sunday.

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 387
only; none of the company were present. I found he was, a
countryman of my own, and labouring under a disease that was
carrying him to the tomb. I spoke gently to him of his position ;.
I tried to converse with -him about things unseen and eternal.^ I
put this question to him, at last — You- have cast off Christianity,
let me ask you,' are you now happy ? And> with a candour that
did. him credit, he" declared he was a wretched and miserable' man.
So, my dear friends, it ever will be. If I address some young
man in this assembly trying to make blinds of skepticism, in
order to keep the light of God's truth from his conscience, I tell
him he merely puts off while he increases the terrible reaction of
the evil day : you know, young man, that it will not do. You
feel that Christianity may be true — you are not yet satisfied that
your disproof of God's truth is conclusive. You have a feeling
and presentiment within you — a presentiment that is a pulse from
the very ocean of eternity— that there is-before you a judgment-
seat, a death, and a righteous retribution. So long as you are
not satisfied that your disproof of Christianity is conclusive, so
long you must tremble. The very suspicion that the book which
describes your state, and declares your doom, may be true, must-
banish all peace from your heart. I refer, however, to Socialism,
as I have stated, not so much for its repudiation of Scripture, as
for the peculiar form of assault which it directs. It has attacked,
and attacked most vehemently, what I conceive to be, next to the
gospel, and what is a'lruit of the gospel, the greatest cement of
all that distinguishes civilized humanity — -of all that makes our
homes and our families to be happy. It has" levelled its most
desperate assaults against the rite and institution of marriage.
" It is,", says an arch-socialist, " a Satanic institution." ' " It is,"
says the same frog, "the source of more demoralization, crime,
and mischief, than any other single cause, with .the exception of
religion ! and of property." Now, were the spirit of the demon
that here break's forth to overflow the land — were this frog to in
crease and multiply, and gain the ascendency in our' land-1— it
needs no prophet to predict what would follow. Woman, who is
at once the charm and the ornament of society, — whom Chris
tianity has enfranchised, whose greatest glories are borrowed, not
from skepticism, or from nature, but from the gospel, — would, be-

388 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
come so degraded and so crushed beneath its withering influence,
that she would long for the grave ag her only respite from the
cruelty of the brute visited on the sensibilities of the woman.
Home, that word which the English tongue claims as peculiarly
English — home, the very utterance of which is replete with mu
sic — would cease to be what it has been among us, the fairest
spot oh earth — the shrine and the sanctuary of holy and happy
sympathy. Children, caressing and caressed, would only be the
cattle impounded in this new Socialist system; responsibilities
and paternal -and maternal cares would cease; and out of the'
ruins of these sacred relationships would evolve, not grave men
and chaste women, and happy homes, but the harem in the circles
of the rich, houses of infamy in the habitations of the poor ;
and society, like a rope of sand, withdrawn from its compressing
elements, would fall to pieces.
I wish I could say that the press was, in all its departments,
pure. The weekly issue of ungodly and unclean publications is
beyond belief. There is a vast amount of infidel literature cur
rent in some, and even the choicest portions of the press lack
much of the spirit of "the gospel. I do feel the vast importance
of the press, and I am quite sure that if the apostle Paul were
living he would lay hold upon the press as well, as occupy the
pulpit. If' I address any one in this assembly whose duty it is to
wield this powerful engine — this sovereignty which is mightier
than the Sceptres of monarchs — this element which makes
opinions, and thus moulds and shapes the laws — I beseech you to
consider the frightful responsibilities under which you lie. I
hope there is not in this assembly one father of a family who
would encourage what I look on as openly profane, irrespective
of its contents — a Sunday newspaper. The newspaper is asso
ciated, by its very name, with the world — it has, therefore, no
business on the Sabbath-day table, or with the Sabbath-day title.
The' very title it assumes, a Sunday newspaper, proclaims on its
forehead that it wilfully tramples under its feet the fourth com
mandment of the living God. I know there are excuses made for
it, but, in my judgment, they are untenable. I cannot speak of
the contents of Sunday newspapers, because- I have had neither
opportunity nor desire to read them. I hope- you will all remain

THE THREE UNCLEAN. SPIRITS. 389
in the same happy ignorance of their contents. Sequester the
Sabbath for the study of things above.
If we look abroad at other countries, we shall find this infidel
spirit more rampant than it is at home. France is full of infidelity
of creed — and no less so of infidelity of social relationship, and
immorality of life; and, as if to show the frog glorying in its
shame, the most distinguished paper in France, the- Journal des
Debats, made the remark, the other day, "In France we believe
in every thing : we believe in Mohammedanism, and we believe
in Christianity — we build churches and we build mosques. The
banner of France waves equally over the cross and the crescent."
The person who wrote this bombast is no doubt a skeptic,. but he
cannot be a person of common sense: — surely he cannot believe
contradictions. There is, therefore_, no risk, we would think,
that such absurdity would gain ground with reasonable beings.
But the recent disclosures of crime in France, even on the part
of some of its distinguished and prominent statesmen — the late
melancholy Praslin tragedy, of which you have ull read^are only
the volcanic eruptions indicating the depth of depravity that fer
ments below. Tin* following is an observation of the proeureur-
royal, some time ago, at a public trial of a would-be regicide :—
"France has two corrosive and fearful sores — those of infidelity
and revolutionary spirit." In Switzerland, war is carried on be
tween the Jesuits and the infidels ; and I see symptoms, from the
writings of Michelet and Quinet, who have done, great service in
putting down Popish error, but very little, and can do very little,
in spreading Christian truth — of a collision between the infidel
and Papal spirit, and that soon. In Spain and Portugal, infi
delity is rampant among the masses ; Italy rests upon a volcano,
ready to burst forth any moment.
I now prpceed to consider the second unclean spirit, namely,
the spirit that came from the mouth of the wild beast — the wild
beast from the abyss,' which I have already described. I need
not dwell on the principles of Popery : these I have unfolded so
often, and so fully, that I think there' is little chance that you
will admire them, and still less that you can be ignorant of them.
I will state, however, the progress that Romanism has made within
33*

390 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the last few years, and I shall do so very much from personal
inquiry and actual statistics.
First of all, then, the Roman Catholic bishop, Dr. Wiseman —
who is to be archbishop of Westminster, having laid aside the
usual title, Roman Catholic or Vicar Apostolic — stated, after the
opening of a cathedral in the midland districts, that Mr. Pugin
has built, within the last seven years, sixty new Roman Catholic
churches, some of which are larger and. none less than the largest
parochial edifices in the kingdom.. Some of these are cathedrals,
and one, St. George's in the Borough, is to have a spire higher
than that of any church in London, excepting St. Paul's ; and
it hqs been rumoured in the papers, that Pius IX. is to come
over to open and to consecrate it. It is also stated by Dr. Wise
man that, during the same period of seven years, twenty-six
nunneries and convents have been opened in England ; and I
cannot pass, through Southampton-row without meeting two and
two of the Sisters of Charity, each with a basket, one containing
Romish spiritual, the other containing English corporal nutriment,
and both labouring to make proselytes of the poor to the Roman
Catholic religion.
I only wish we had Sisters of Charity, not of the Popish or
Puseyite breed, but of the right Bible and Protestant stamp,
attached to our churches, in order that we may have the full
apostolical complement. There were deaconesses in the apos
tolic church, and I do not see why they might not be revived
with considerable advantage in the church of the nineteenth cen
tury, and thus furnish to our Puseyite opponents one proof, at
least, that we only have the true apostolical succession. I may
also state that there are throughout England, at this moment,
within one or two of 800 Roman Catholie churches and chapels.
There are in England and Scotland alone nearly 900 Roman
Catholic priests. As many Popish priests, nearly, as there are
parochial clergymen in the Church of Scotland. They have also
one large Quarterly Review, two or three monthly; one very
talented weekly newspaper, conducted plainly by Jesuits; they
have apologists in indifferent statesmen and senators — advocates
in Roman Catholic representatives — abettors in suicidal Pro
testants — a fair field, in short, here, which Protestantism has not

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 391
in Rome — and plenty of favour throughout the length'and breadth
of England. One single press at Derby, conducted by a profess
ing Protestant, I lament to say, or one that calls himself so, has
issued two millions of Roman Catholic publications within the
last few years, and these publications are distributed through the
whole of our country,
The Propaganda at Lyons, established there in preference to
Rome, had an income last year of £200,000. The Wesleyan
Missionary Society, which has, I believe, as large an income as
any of our missionary societies, has an annual income of, I believe,
only £116,000; aaad they reach that income mainly, I believe,
by each Wesleyan feeling that he is not a mere cumberer of the
ground to occupy a pew, but is, what -every Christian ought to
be, a missionary, or gatherer of missionary means, in his place
and vocation, for the Lord Jesus Christ.' In the year 1829, the
Propaganda expended none of its money upon England ; in the
year 1834, it expended only £4,000 upon England; and in 1845,
it expended £40,000 on England alone in missionary machinery.
In France, prayers are offered up every Thursday for the con
version, or, strictly speaking, perversion of England. In con
versing with the Roman Catholic priests in Belgium, whom' I
visited, and with, whom I conversed, I learned, among other
things, that they expected the speedy conversion of the whole
Church of England, and that they had agents in that church
busily preparing and ripening the people for this great consumma
tion. I have reason to believe they are not at all satisfied with
some of the recent converts; and I believe most justly, because
one Dr. Pusey in the midst of the Church of England is worth
twenty Dr.. Newmans outside that church, for all Romish pur
poses and projects.
But there have joined the Church of Rome within the last. few
years seventy clergymen of the Established Church, about 120
persons connected with the nobility-and gentry of the country;
and the Roman Catholics calculate, justly or otherwise, on more
since Maynooth has been endowed with ampler funds, funds to
which every individual in this room is obliged to contribute in
order to enable the professors of that .college to inculcate"" what I
am ready to prove to the satisfaction of any statesman, bishop, or

392 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
clergyman in. Great Britain, to be idolatry, and persecution as
sanguinary as ever stained the practices or inspired the creeds of
Rome. I lament and grieve at this.
I find, too, that wherever we have Protestant missions, there
the Roman Catholic Church has interfered. Tahiti groans beneath
the 'antichristian tri-colour flag. China has been deluged by its
priests — India is visited by Popish bishops, and America yields
rapidly to its contagion ; and wherever Protestantism has planted
the cross, there Popery, with anexpansive energy that does credit
to her industry, but deeply to our damage and regret, has reared
the crucifix. So- confident are they of success, that the Tablet
newspaper calculates, that if Romanism should go on in this
country increasing during forty years to come, as it has gone on
during the last- forty years, two-fifths of the population of England
will be Roman Catholic in 1888; and if we had two-fifths of
Britain Roman Catholic, with almost the whole population of
Ireland so, then we should have a majority of the people of this
country Roman Catholic.
The maxim also adopted by statesmen now is, the creed of the
majority ought to be established by law; so that if this majority
should come to be Roman Catholic in this country, the Roman
Catholic religion must be the established church. And the argu
ment used is this : — We have established Episcopacy in England,
Presbytery in Scotland, why not establish Popery in Ireland ?
Now this theory plainly proceeds upon the hypothesis that Popery
is just as good as Protestantism ; and it really comes to this, that
because we give wheaten bread to Englishmen,-and oatmeal bread
to Scotchmen, therefore we ought to give prussic acid, or arsenic,
to Irishmen. Such reasoning needs only to be stated in order to
disclose its utter absurdity.
America is overrun with Popish priests ; in that country, where,
I may remark, there is no established church, Puseyism and
Popery are rampant. In the New York Evangelist, the state
ments made on this point are perfectly astounding ; so much so,
that I see in.it the working of a spirit that is supernatural — but
it is a spirit that is not from above, but from beneath. Popery
is so- adapted to human nature, that the wonder to me is not so
much that so many become Romanists, but that many more do

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 393
not. I wonder that every unconverted man does not -become a
Roman Catholic : the system that allows men to sin on this side
the street, and to receive absolution on the other — that allows
you to live as you. like, yet guarantees your ultimate safety, and,
if somewhat protracted, arrival in- heaven — that permits you 'to
be lax in morality, if -you are only rigid in ceremony — that sub
stitutes-maceration of the flesh for the" mortification of its lusts, is
the religion that human nature- loves and rejoices in. This sys
tem, too, has an infinite adaptation. It grows in all soils — it is
an upas tree that flourishes in all climates. It calls for repeal in
Ireland, and tries to crush liberty in France — it is -a democrat in
America, and an autocrat in Russia — it tolerates no "other faith
\yhen it has power — it whines and weeps that it is persecuted
when it has lost that^power. It is heard in royal cabinets and
in republican congress ; its hands touch the sceptre, and arrange
the ballot-box. It gives tutors to the children of the great, and
opens frge-schools for the children of the poor. It enters the
asylum, and mingles with its bread Romish poison — it finds access
to the hospital, and gives prescriptions from the Vatican to be
blended with the 'prescriptions of the physician. It lives in all
climes: — it breathes all airs — it drinks all streams — it makes any
sacrifice — it assumes any shape — sleeps or springs — its consuming
and absorbing aim is dominion over soul and- body — its effort is
to contaminate the one and crush the other,' and to make captive
to itself of the energies and influence of both. Its progress -and
ravages are recorded in every journal — its croakings are heard in
every corner of the land, and the foul traces of its trail are seen
wherever tolef ation has opened a pathway for its presence. •
Such, then, is a sketch of the progress of the-Jseeond unclean
spirit, which proceeds from the mouthof the wild beast from the
abyss. The next is the spirit of the false prophet-. T showed
you that he was identical with the lamb-like wild beast ; and I
proved, as you may see in the lecture upon that subject; that this
was the clergy or the priesthood, in their collective capacity as
distinct from the pope"; and I think that the .sudden rise of Pu
seyism, its rapid spread, and living energy, form some "of the
strongest' reasons for my identifying that movement- with the frog
that came from the mouth of the false prophet". ' For what, as I

394 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
said, is Puseyism ? Just Popery without the pope.. It' is the
wild beast's body without the wild beast's head. All the princi
ples, the policy, the passions, the ambition, the end of Popery,
without the topstone of supremacy that Italian Popery possesses.
The following is the history, of the system, according to the state
ment of Mr. Rose. There was a great popular movement in the
year 1833, that led certain sagacious divines to believe that the
Established Church was to be overthrown. They imagined that
what is called the voluntary principle was destined to gain the
supremacy in this country. Believing this, they said to them
selves, "It is quite clear -that if the Establishment- be overthrown,
we shall be denuded of those claims of superiority and of trans
cendental dignity which we have never sacrificed, and be placed
on a. level with the ministers of denominations not sustained by
the state." They said, "under such circumstances, we must
have something to fall back upon when the state falls off. We
will fell back upon the assumption, that we are the church, and
that all churches or communions, extrinsic to ours, are heathen
men and publicans." They forthwith commenced their operations
with consummate skill and with growing success. The fourth
century -was assumed as the great model of a Christian church ;
and they laid it down, that the nearer they approximated to it,
the nearer they approached to perfection. The Hon. and Rev.
Mr. Perceval said, there were three leading principles on which
this system was based, and on which they must proceed, namely,
the participation of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist;
that the mystery of his body and blood was confided only to the
hands of the successors of the apostles and their delegates; that,
since the apostles, those who derived their suceession from- them
in a direct- and unbroken line, by the imposition of hands of
bishops, are the only priests to give this body and blood unto the
people. These were the three principles on which they proceeded.
Many who patronized them at first, left them, and very wisely;
others adhered. Other divines, however, began to read the
fathers as well as they, and other scholars to study the ecclesias
tical records of the fourth century, and of the Ante-Nicene Church,
as closely as they; and, when it was shown to absolute demonstra
tion, that to transfer the Nicene Church of the fourth to the nine-

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 395
teenth century, would be the resurrection of contamination, and
a positive calamity to the most corrupt church in Christendom at
the present moment, Mr. Newman,, who had the learning to dis
cover an'd the candour to avow this, saw that any defence of the
modern church by a reference to the Nicene Church, was alto
gether untenable; but he" was no less, convinced, that the end,
viz. Popish supremacy ,-jnust be gained by other means, if such
could be. discovered. Instead of quoting the Nicene Church, as
the- model for the church of the nineteenth century, he struck
out, or rather resuscitated, the following theory : that the apostles
left behind them the mere seeds of truth; these seeds of truth
were intrusted to the church, -by which -word Traotarians and
Romanists mean the hierarchy, to be gradually developed. They
were successively developed, and expressed in the Council of Nice,
then in Ephesus, in Constantinople, the Councils of Lateran, and
ultimately in the Council of Trent,' where, they were fully de
veloped ; and the Council of Trent is therefore the full develop
ment of the principles intrusted to the apostles and their suc
cessors. The idea is this : that the seed cast into the earth at
Pentecost, grew up into what the Romanists would call the glo
rious and overshadowing tree of the Council of Trent, the foliage,
as it were, of the modern Roman Catholic Church. In reading
this book of Newman on developments, it is not difficult to detect
the fallacy. The fallacy is this : he confounds development
with accretion, the living increase of a""plant with the mechanical
increase of a snowball in motion. Popery, instead of being, as
Mr. Newman thinks, seed developed in perfection in the Council
of Trent, is a small snowball starting from a mountain-top, and
rolling down, gathering, in its course accretions of wood, hay,
stones, stubble, earth, &c. &c, till it rests at the bottom a frozen
mass of all heterogeneous materials — an iceberg — in short, the
Church of Rome.
The Traotarians, so called from the Oxford Tracts, or Pu-
seyites, so called from their chief leader, by and by advdcated the
withdrawal of the doctrine of the atonement from the pulpit, or
its being regarded as a doctrine of reserve. Justification by faith
was "a Satanic doctrine;" the" apostolical succession, a vital
truth ; the 'episcopacy, not, as Hooker contends, a lawful eccle-

396 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
siastical polity, but essential, vital, the substance of a church.
The surplice was regarded as a sacerdotal robe ; the communion
table .was turned into an altar ; the Scotch Church was described
as Samaria; the Dissenters were coolly consigned to the uncove-
nanted mercies of God.' Mr. Palmer says, " I should like" to see
the patriarch of Constantinople and archbishop of Canterbury go
barefoot to Rome ;" — mark the quiet proposal — " go barefoot to
Rome, andfall upon the pope's neck, and kiss him, and never
let him go till' — when do you think? — " till they persuaded him
to be reasonable ;" an attempt about as likely to succeed as that
of persuading a lunatic asylum to ^develop itself into Exeter Hall.
Dr. Hook, the vicar of Leeds, made the statement, on a recent
occasion — "There is not 'a bishop, priest, or deacon, who cannot,
if he please, trace his own descent to Peter and Paul." Now,
poor as I am; I will engage to raise a thousand pounds for the
vicar of Leeds, if he will trace his own descent to Peter or Paul,
or any of the apostles. The archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whateley,
justly observes, " There is not a minister in all Christendom who
is able, with any approach to certainty, to trace his own succes
sion to any one of the apostles whatever."
These doctrines were spread in tracts, reviews, novels, ro
mances, and, at last, seventy clergymen, and a great body of lay
men, went ,over, with creditable consistency, to the Roman
Catholic Church. Such is the unclean spirit from the mouth of
the false prophet, or lamb-like beast.
Nevertheless, much as England seems in some of her recent
acts to incline toward Popery, yet it is very remarkable that
there is no intimation in the Apocalypse that the -tenth kingdom,
that is, Britain, which separated from the Apostasy at the Re
formation, shall be again joined to the ten kingdoms, and become
subject once more to the Roman Catholic Church. This gives
me hope that our country may not be contaminated to a fatal, if
it be to a terrible extent. It will no doubt be scourged for its
tampering with the Apostasy, as well as for its sins, and its in
sensibility to privilege ; but old England will not again become,
what England once was — the serf of the Apostasy. I trust there
will continue in the midst of her, by the blessing of God, a faith-

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 397
ful Protestant people, until the splendours of a Protestant reign
blend and mingle with the glories of the millennial period.
It has been thought by some highly probable that France is to
De the great national advocate of Popery,, and to lead. the move
ment against the Protestantism and Christianity of the world. I
need not tell you that there are not wanting growing symptoms
of this. I quote the following remarks from the Times news
paper : — " The king of the French is resuming for France its
old position as the defender and patron of Romanism. France is
becoming daily more and more the supporter of Popery through
out the world." And what seems to cast light, on this, is the
curious historical fact, that the ancient national arms of France
were not the tricolour or the fleur de lis, but three frogs, as if
there were conveyed some allusion in the Apocalyptic symbols to
the part France is to play in connection with the unclean spirits
like frogs.
I have thus given a sketch, and merely a sketch, of the charac
ter, the actions, apd progress of the three unclean spirits : let me
show now what symbols there are of the approaching consumma
tion of many prophecies destined to be fulfilled in these words,
" Behold, I come as a thief."
First, there is the drying up of the Euphrates, or wasting of
the Ottoman power, one of the last signs of the last age of our
present economy. The deepening interest that is felt in every
Christian church in the conversion of God's ancient people, the
Jews, is the very sign that "the set time to favour Zion is
come ;" for the fact is immediately added, " for thy servants take
pleasure in her stones." The interest felt among the nations of
the earth in the position of the Jews, seems to me to be an
evidence that they are about to be finally converted as a nation.
They were admitted as constituent members of the Chamber of
Deputies in France. In Prussia, a discussion is going on
whether the Jew shall be admitted to German rights there. In
Sweden there is the very same discussion. Pius IX. is doing
one good thing, in mitigating their sufferings. I need not tell
you, that in England, be it right or be it wrong, the great ques
tion to be discussed in a few weeks, is, Shall the Jews be ad
mitted as members of the senate of our country ?
U

398 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
The next evidence of the approaching termination of the age,
is the universal preaching of the gospel. " This gospel shall be
preached for a witness to all nations, and then shall the' end
come." It is not said all nations shall be converted, but all shall
, see or hear its testimony. Now there is not a nation in any part
of Europe, Asia, or America, to which the gospel has. not been
preached by missionaries ; and there is not a tongue into which
the Bible has not been translated.
Another sign is that stated by Daniel : — " Many shall run to
and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." What evidence of
this have we in the wonders of steam, in the development of the
almost unearthly powers of electricity as exhibited in the electric
telegraph, and in other discoveries, accumulating so rapidly, that
it seems as if things hurried to that glorious epoch, when they
shall minister to the spread and add to the splendours of the
kingdom of the Messiah.
The present energy of Romish missions is also premonitory, as
I have said, of the last consummation. I believe the Romish
Catholic Church is doomed to reach a prodigious, but a very short
ascendency. I believe she will set her throne among the stars,
that the stroke that precipitates her to hell may be only the more
terrific and destructive.
I may quote, from authors who will not be suspected of any
thing like fanaticism, evidence that we are now at the last crisis.
Schlegel, the celebrated German philosopher and critic, says,
"Never was there a period that pointed so strikingly and so
clearly to the future, as the very hour in which we live." Pro
fessor Bush, of America, says, "We have now arrived at the very
borders of that period which is to be signalized by the winding
up of that drama which has for ages been enacted in Christen
dom." Professor Robinson says, "Before another half-century
shall have rolled away, there will be seen revolutions in the
Oriental mind such as have never been witnessed, or even dreamed
of before." Dr. Arnold, who had u, most sober mind, and showed
it specially upon this subject, says, " Modern history seems not
only a step in advance of ancient history, but the last step.
Modern society seems to bear marks that the fulness of times is
come — that there will be no future history ; and if this be the

THE THREE UNCLEAN SPIRITS. 399
case, that we are living in the last age of the world's history, that
no other race remains behind to perfect what we have neglected,
to restore what we have ruined; then, indeed, the interest of
modern history becomes most intense !"
" The day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night :" — " For
when men shall say peace and safety, sudden destruction cometh
upon them, as travail upon a woman with child." And " as in
the days of the flood, they were eating- and drinking, marrying
and giving in marriage, until the days that.Noah entered into the
ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away;
so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." No man knows
when the crisis shall come. But, whether our Lord shall come,
like the lightning flash, rending — striking, before it warns — con
suming ; or whether he shall send -the influenza, or the cholera,
which hovers on our horizon, and is suspended at our shores,
waiting to do its havoc, and discharge its mission the instant that
God permits ; or whether he comes for us, or calls us to him, are
you ready ? You that love father and mother more than Christ
— you that love traffic, and goods, and profit, more than your
souls — you that are not ready to take wing, and fly like doves to
that eastern window — you that, like Lot's wife, are looking back
at the things of the world you have left behind — you that cannot
say, like Simeon, " Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" — you that are strangers
to the power of the truth of the blessed gospel — what is your
hope ? Two thousand per week are now dying above those that
have died in the corresponding period of other years in London
alone. The pestilence walks at our doors — the plague is on the
wing — some of you, to-day, healthy and vigorous, may never again
hear the gospel in Exeter Hall, or elsewhere. Oh ! what a re
sponsibility, then, falls upon us both ! If you perish without a
Saviour, if you are not washed in that blood, I know of nothing
that remains for you but an eternal and'irretrievable hell, "where
their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." The avenger
is at your heels — flee, my dear hearers, to the only Refuge ; the
destroying angel is on the wing, have recourse to the precious
blood of sprinkling ; the day of death may come to-morrow ; and
naked, with nothing but your responsibility upon you, you must

400 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
stand before that God, before whose eye all hearts are naked, and
all secrets disclosed. And, oh ! my friends, a lost soul ! what
language' can describe it ? what a wreck 1 what a terrible ruin !
what a loss — irretrievable, hopeless, eternal ! And yet you are
perishing beside the very tree of life — you are ignorant amid the
light of heaven. The Saviour bids you believe. The Son of
God stretches out his arms to reclaim you. God the Father waits
to bless you. Let every such soul in this assembly, this very
night, before he retires to rest, fall down upon his knees, and
say, 0 my Saviour, wash this guilty soul in " thy blood — fill this
blighted heart with thy Spirit — make me thy child ; and then,
whether thou comest to me, or takest me to thyself, I shall be
able to close my pilgrimage in time, which is the commencement
of my inheritance in glory, by saying, " Come, Lord Jesus, come
quickly." Amen.

401

LECTURE XXII.
THE SEVENTH VIAL.
"And the seventh angel poured out his. vial into the. air; and there came a
great voice .out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.
"And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings ; and there was a great
earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earth
quake, and so great.
"And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations
fell : and great Babylon .came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the
cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.
"And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
"And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the
weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail ;
for the plague thereof was exceeding great." — Revelation xvi. 17-21.
We saw in our description of the sixth vial, on which I ad
dressed you last Sunday evening, that the three unclean spirits,
whom I identified, had gone forth through the length and breadth
of the world to prepare kings and nations and people for • that
great day of conflict and decision which, approaches us every hour.
We read that while these unclean spirits are in action, and just
previous to their retirement from the field, the seventh angel pours
out the seventh vial; and that vial, we are told, is not poured
out, like the others, upon definite localities, but. upon the air, or
the atmosphere we breathe. You may recollect, that at the sound
ing of the trumpets, under which Mohammedanism was to rise,
it was said that its "smoke darkened the air;" that is, tainted the
whole social, political, and moral economy to the extent of its
virus, and according to the limits of its action. So here the air
is to be affected by this vial.
The sixth, I have told you, is already poured out; its effects
are nOw in action. Nations feel it. The seventh is ready to be
poured out; or, if not already pouring out, we are upon 'the very
verge of its being so. It trembles in the hand of the angel.
34 »

402 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
The effect of its action, the moment it is poured out, is that the
air of heaven — the symbolical air mainly, I believe, though the
literal air, according to others, may be included also — will be af
fected, or darkened, or tainted, in some way, by its influence.
Certainly we gather from this prophecy one fact at least, that the
action of this vial will not be, like previous ones, local, but uni
versal. The air is the most universally present element we have
or know. It surrounds the globe like a zone — reaches to the,
highest — descends to the lowest — embraces in its scope the re
motest, and penetrates the most secret. We may expect that,
during the action of this vial, the mountaineer amid his fast
nesses — the miner in his subterranean caves — the voyager upon
the ocean's bosom — the Arab in his desert — the Moslem in his
mosque — the Cossack on his steppes — the king upon his throne —
the mother in her household — the babe in the cradle — all will feel
its vibrations — receive the taint of its influence, and respond in a
thousand echoes to the voice from above, "It is done."
I endeavoured to show you, on a previous occasion, that the
symbols in the Apocalypse are to be understood mainly in their
moral and figurative import; but I also observed, as you will re
collect, at the same time, that while they have their moral, which
is their first meaning, they have generally a literal, which is their
secondary meaning. I quoted an illustration of this from that
ancient prophecy of Balaam, when he spoke of " a star from the
East," meaning by that star, the Messiah. The advent of Christ
was the fulfilment of that symbol; but, at the same, there was a
literal meteoric star that heralded the advent of Christ; and thus,
while its main meaning was its figurative one, its secondary mean
ing was its literal one. So we may expect here, that this tainting
of the atmosphere is, primarily indeed, a moral and a social in
fluence ; but, secondarily and subordinately, a literal and actual
influence on the atmospheric air. We may, therefore, expect
that the physical air will be tainted as well as the moral one;
and may I not venture, without attempting to identify too mi
nutely, to ask, are there not signs that indicate the taint that is
here alluded to ? Let me ask you, though the influenza has visited
us before, let me ask the medical men in this hall to say, whether
the universal idea of that epidemic be not that it is a taint in the

THE SEVENTH VIAL. 403
atmosphere, and communicated, not by personal contagion, but
through the air that we breathe? If it be true that the cholera
is suspended on our shores, floating, like a fearful miasma, upon
the outskirts of our beloved land, ready to rush upon the empire
the instant that the repressive providence of God is withdrawn,
has it not been, let me ask, the almost unanimous verdict of scien
tific and medical inquiry in this matter, that the cholera is not
contagious from one to another? I would go to the sick-bed of a
dying man in the agonies of cholera, just as I would go' to the
sick-bed of a man dying in consumption or any other disease.
The Apocalypse speaks of contagion in the air as its source.
Science adds its Amen to Scripture, and says it is so. Therefore,
if we are to be visited by that plague, my dear friends, do not
shrink through fear in attentions to the dying. Go to their bed
sides and minister to their comfort,- and, if possible, to their cure.
Take the discovery of science that it is not contagious by. personal
contact, as the human precaution; take the 91st Psalm as the
divine prescription, and remember the seventh vial — that the air,
not personal contagion, will be the source of that calamity should
God be pleased to send it.
Of course, in thus identifying disease with the atmosphere for
its vehicle, I have descended, perhaps, to what some may call a
needlessly minute reference. But we can conceive what has al
ready taken place to be magnified a thousand-fold; and, when that
calamity shall come, we may recollect, when we see its ravages
around us, that Scripture has not only its moral, which I admit
is its main reference, but also its literal, which, I have said, is its
secondary or subordinate reference.
Its main reference, however, I proceed to remark, is, that the
moral, social, and political atmosphere will be disarranged and dis
turbed, probably disorganized, as soon as this vial is poured out
upon the air. Are there no signs and symptoms of this in the
present day ? Is it not the fact, that great political parties are
at this moment totally disorganized, and great leaders, worshipped
a few years ago, are now either cast off, or execrated by many?
Matters are worse beyond the Channel. There men high in office
have fallen in succession, under the most humiliating and mise
rable eclipses. Is it not obvious to every beholder, that at this

404 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
very present moment, there is such a fusion and confusion of
social, political, ecclesiastical parties, that it seems to resemble
that dislocation and disintegration of atoms which, in the physical
world, precedes new, startling, or, it may be, more glorious com
binations? We have only, therefore, to look "abroad upon the
political world, without being politicians, to see that the social
and political atmosphere of the present day is affected and dis
turbed to a great and menacing extent. But the atmosphere will
not only be disturbed, it will also be tainted; we may expect that
there will arise frightful views and notions of divine truths;
strange and awful heresies ; misconceptions of fundamental prin
ciples ; new and extraordinary schemes for the regeneration of
mankind : old principles will be superseded; new theories will be
broached. In such circumstances, Christians will find that the
only charter they can go to, the only loadstone that can guide
them, will not be the traditions of men, or the dicta df great
synods or whole benches of bishops, or the conclusions of councils,
but only " the law and the testimony," the word of the living
God. There will be rocking thrones; there will be subverted dy
nasties ; there will be dislocated systems :* there will be nations
scattered and shaken as by a whirlwind, and the hearts of the great
and the mean, the rich and the poor, trembling for fear of the
things coming on the earth. I gather this by inference. I may
be mistaken : I think I am right : time will determine the import
and the nature of the prophecy.
This is also further illustrated in the 18th verse : " there was
a great earthquake, such as was not seen since men were upon
the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great." The French
Revolution, you recollect, was signalized by an earthquake. I
need not state that the most eminent writers who have made any
reference to that Revolution called it so. Thus Alison, whose
history I have recommended to you before, calls the French Re
volution "that great earthquake." I may here pause to state

* What fearful evidence of the' first effeots of the pouring out of this vial
have we, whilo this sheet is passing through the press, in Paris ! The great
earthquake of the seventh vial seems to be now shaking tho earth.

THE SEVENTH VIAL. 405
the very remarkable fact, that, dating time from the commence
ment of the globe, and on the supposition that the Jewish idea
is a right one, that as there are six days in the week, and the se
venth is the Sabbath, so there will be six millenaries, or periods
of a thousand years in the lapse of time, and the seventh will be
the Millennium. It will follow from that interpretation — which
I omitted to state in my previous lecture — that we are now at the
close of the thousand years that constitutes the world's Saturday ;
and on the very dawn of the seventh thousand years, that shall
constitute the world's Sabbath. On the advent of that glorious
Sabbath — the Millennium — I will speak next Lord's day; and, I
trust, I shall speak the language of soberness, solemnity, and
truth. It may be then, if this be so, as it is described in the
words of Cowper, the best and noblest of England's poets, because
exemplary as a Christian in all he wrote, as well as in all he
lived : — "Six thousand^ years of sorrow have wellnigh
FulfiU'd their tardy and disastrous course
Over a sinful world j and what remains
Of this tempestuous state of human things
Is merely as the working of the sea
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest."
To return — it is stated, as the result of this earthquake, that
the great city was divided into three parts. I explained, in pre
vious lectures^, what that city was. I showed that it was the
Romish ecclesiastical system; its centre Rome, its circumference
almost the limits of the globe. I showed you, too, that hereto
fore, for 1300 years, the nations that were subject to Rome had
counted ten — the' ten kingdoms, or decem-regal governments — and
constituted the nations of the Apostasy. Now, you will notice
that, under the seventh vial, the ten-kingdom form is no longer
to be the distinctive characteristic of the Romish nations ; they
are to assume a new shape ; they will be divided into a tripartite
shape : three great masses will be the ultimate form into which
all the nations of Europe and of Christendom will be divided;
and as soon as you see three great leading powers coming into
collision, with broad Europe for their battle-field, and the evening
of the world for the hour of their conflict, you may expect that
the downfall of Babylon, and the advent of Christ, and the dawn

406 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
of the Millennium, are near. It is probable that this tripartite
division will consist of France leading its hosts upon the one side,
as the great partisan of the Papacy ; the Autocrat of all the Rus-
sias, who has more than once played a cruel game, may lead the
second part; and I have some idea that this Old England of ours,
so illustrious by its sainted sufferers, its noble army of martyrs,
its devoted Christians, its preached gospel, its spreading Chris
tianity, its circulated Bibles, will be also the third part; and,
when the conflict comes, it will be, as of old, England against the
world — the Truth of God against the apostasy of Satan and the
infidelity of man.
It is then added after this, that not only was that great city,
which I have shown to be an ecclesiastical system, divided into
three parts, but "the cities of the nations" also fell. I have as
sumed that the great city was an ecclesiastical power, i. e. the
Romish ; I must, in consistency with this interpretation, assume
that the cities of the nations are the established churches of the
nations too. Now, I know not the nature of this vast audience
now listening to me ; I know not the component parts of which
it is formed, and therefore I speak not to offend, nor to please, but
to enforce truth. I feel sure that the hour which seals the ruin
of the Church of England, and the Church of Scotland, and the
Church of Ireland, and all ecclesiastical establishments, is at our
very doors. Some may deplore it as a bitter and painful event ;
others may rej oiee at it as " a consummation devoutly to be wished
for." The greatest friends of our established churehes will admit
they have grievously sinned against God, and come short of their
duties to souls ; and their greatest and their bitterest foes surely
cannot deny that they have done noble things in their day, and
have still many bright and glorious feats to commemorate.
Churchmen, make not idols of your churches; dissenters, make
not fierce and ungenerous attacks on them. Churchmen, cease
to rail at dissenters; dissenters, cease to attack churchmen.
Churchmen and dissenters, forget the altars about which you
strive in your remembrance of the common glory which must burn
for ever. Forgive the shape, the structure, the material of the
vessels, and rejoice that so many faithful men are found in each,
who " count all but loss for the excellency of Christ," are ready

THE SEVENTH VIAL. 407
to forsake all in order to win Him. I know not, nor dare I pro
phesy when the last shock will come, but I fear the signs of the
approaching destruction begin to multiply and gather every day.
I tell you candidly, I love the church I belong to ; and in its place,
and on the proper occasion, I shall not shrink from the duty of
being its champion and its defender ; but I cannot deny that it
has been weakened more than once by secessions; and you may
already see that the very last week, the thin edge of the wedge
has been introduced, which is destined, in all likelihood, to split
and sever the powerful ecclesiastical establishment of England
into a thousand splinters ! Well, come what may, the gospel will
not perish. When the alabaster-box is broken, the fragrance will
spread more widely; when the earthen vessel is shivered, the
God that made it will create another, and fill it with yet richer
elements. It is. added also, in this chapter, that there was a great hail
storm. Vitringa and others' understand it literally. Mr. Elliott
understands it literally in its secondary meaning, but primarily
in its figurative meaning ; and supposes, by a hailstorm is. meant
Northern invasion, an irruption of one of the great powers of the
tripartite division ; and this seems to me the probable interpreta
tion. It is at this crisis, you observe, when the air is tainted by the
touch of the seventh vial, when the great cities of the nations
fall, that Babylon, as it is stated in the 19th verse, that " Ba
bylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup
of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath." The 17th and 18th
chapters, and the portion of the 19th, which I have read, contain
the particulars of the downfall and destruction of the Church of
Rome. Now let me show you, first of all, that it is the Romish
Apostasy which is the subject of these terrific judgments. First,
she is described here as an unchaste and unfaithful woman, just
as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is described as the bride
of the Lamb. The one is the true church — the other is the
Apostasy ; and that relationship which the marriage tie implies,
is always employed, throughout the word of God, to denote the
communion which subsists between the people of God, arid their
living Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the apostle says, (2

408 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Cor. xi. 2,) "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by any
means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, through his subtlety, so your
minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ."
Now the Church of Rome is regarded as having been thus cor
rupted from the simplicity that is in Christ, and her character,
as I might prove at length, had I sufficient time, responds com
pletely to the character of the fallen and guilty woman, whose
doom, as the representative of the Church of Rome, is so gra
phically depicted in the 18th and 19th chapters. She is repre
sented as giving to the kings and nations of the earth, "the wine
of the cup of her fornication." The gospel is likened unto pure
wine, the wine of the kingdom : " Ho, every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters, yea, come, buy wine and milk without mo
ney and without price."
The doctrines of the Church of Rome, on the other hand, are
symbolized and set forth by a deleterious mixture, called the wine
of her fornication. That wine is not the pure and nutritive truth
of the gospel, but the poisonous mixture of an unhallowed chalice.
The nations of the earth have drunk of it, and have become in
toxicated, and perished in their intoxication for ever. And, as if
to show the strict propriety of the application of this symbol,
Mr. Elliott states the fact, that in 1825, when the last jubilee
was celebrated, the pope caused a medal to be struck, upon one
side of which was the figure of himself, and, on the obverse side
of that medal, a woman holding in her right hand a golden cup ;
while it was written below the woman, according to the pope's
direction : " Sedet super universum," She sits upon the universe ;
or, in Apocalyptic language, she sits, like the woman in this
chapter, " upon many waters."
It is said this woman was clothed with purple and with scarlet.
One need scarcely proceed to identify these ; no ordinary minis
ters in any Protestant church in Christendom, nor the chief mi
nisters of any section of the Protestant church upon earth, none,
save and except those of the Church of Rome, are clothed dis
tinctively with purple and scarlet. I might quote the descrip
tions of her own priests ; I might give you the sketches of histo
rians and visitors to Rome, who all combine in testifying to the

THE SEVENTH VIAL. 409
fact, that her cardinals, and her chief ecclesiastical officers, are
clothed in those very robes whose colour and shade are so dis
tinctively and minutely described in this chapter. , Then it is
added, that " she was decked with gold, and precious stones, and
pearls." You have only to "read the records of their medieval
grandeur, or to visit the shrines that Napoleon did not plunder,
and the churches that the revolutionaries did not dismantle, or
such churches' and chapels connected with Rome on the continent
of Europe as have been restored and replaced in all their 'ancient
grandeur since the French Revolution, in order to find proof of this.
Bishop Newton, in speaking of one chapel, that of Loretto, at
Rome, says, " the gold and silver lamps, and the jewels and finery
that were heaped upon it, was beyond the power of language to
describe ;" and I have myself seen, on the continent of Europe,
altars covered with gold; the altar rails decked with Valenciennes,
and Brussels, and other sorts of lace, the value of which I was
told was almost incalculable. Even around the mouldering bones
of their saints there are crowns, the jewels in which are of very
great value. But I need not dwell upon this : any historian will
show you that she is the church that has been careless of her
moral, anxious only about her material grandeur— whose effort has
been, not to save the soul, but to fascinate the senses — whose reli
gion consists in splendid altars, in golden shrines, in carved images,
in attractive rites, while she has neglected the weighty things of
the kingdom, "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."
The next characteristic of this woman is, that she is called
" Mystery." I state one striking proof of the application of
this, that on the ancient tiara of the pope — the tiara being three
crowns fastened upon one, and explained by some of the schoolmen
to denote that the pope has power in heaven, and power in earth, and
power in purgatory — there was written, by their own consent, this
very title, " Mystery." And, whether that title be assumed by Rome
or not, it is unquestionably the. distinctive characteristic of the
system. I think I explained the reason of this to you on a pre
vious occasion. Infidelity has no mystery about it ; Socinianism
has no mystery about it"; but Popery is a great mystery; and in
this lies one of the secrets of its success ; it is every thing and any
thing — truth and yet a lie — a Proteus, a chameleon, and possessed
35

410 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
at the same time of the most subtle adaptation. Persecuted in
one text,, it will literally flee to another text ; driven from one
argument, it will fall back upon another ; and the most difficult
thing in the world is to exhaust the resources of a Popish priest,
or to extinguish all the sophisms of a Popish controversialist.
But its peculiar claim to the epithet " Mystery" is this : it ad
mits every truth that we admit; it proclaims its identity with
our belief up to a certain point. Only last week I was speaking
with two Roman Catholic priests, both of whom were Jesuits,
and one of them said, "We Roman Catholics must be saved, for
we hold every truth that you Protestants hold ; we only hold a
little more ; so that," said he, " if you have one loaf, we have a
loaf arid a half. If you therefore have enough, it follows of
necessity that we also must have enough." Now this seemed
very plausible ; but the real state of the question is, is it indeed
half a loaf added to the whole loaf? If it be so, well. But I
contended, and was ready to show them, that it is not half" a
loaf, but half a pound of arsenic, or half a gallon of prussic
acid ; not the excess of wholesome bread, but the addition of
deadly poison. She admits every truth ; but, at the same time,
applies to that truth the corresponding heresy that neutralizes and
destroys it. Hence her creed, as I think I explained to you, which
consists, first, of the twelve articles, which Constitute what is
called the Nicene Creed — that is, the creed drawn up by the
Council o'f Nice in the year 325, which contains a short epitome
of the truths of Christianity ; then, after admitting these twelve
true and orthodox . articles, she adds to them twelve other arti
cles, and these two twelves or twenty-four articles constitute
what is called Pope Pius IVth's Creed, whieh every priest and
convert subscribes as true : so that, if -a Roman Catholic were
just to clip his creed in two with a pair of scissors, the first
half would be pure Bible Christianity, the last half pure Popish
heresy. The Roman Catholic deals thus with you : he intro
duces you into a large and well-lighted room, and says, " Just
look around in this room ; you see in it twelve windows that
give free access to the light of heaven ;" and he asks with sar
castic triumph, "Is the religion of the Church of Rome that sys
tem which Protestant fanatics in Exeter Hall describe it to be 1"

THE SEVENTH VIAL. 411
You are constrained to admit that the hall is filled with pure
light from the, sun ; you are pleased; you are convinced that his
church has been misrepresented and calumniated; you cast in
your let with him, and you come to that which the priest knows
is the crowning thing ; he brings you at once before him as a peni
tent ; you unbosom the secret thoughts of your mind — the deepest
affections of your heart — the sins that have tainted or troubled it —
the thoughts that have crossed it — in order to receive absolution.
The priest thus soon knows your heart and history just as well as
you know them yourself; and the man that knows my heart as tho
roughly as I know it myself, is my master for the rest of my life,
and I am his poor and crouching slave. Thus, when the priest has
got you so far, he holds you a helpless victim within his meshes.
He then keeps you in this room, as yet filled with clear sunlight;
he puts on shutter after shutter of the last twelve articles of the
Creed of Pius IV., and, when the room has been totally dark
ened by the application to it of the twelve blinds, he lights up
his own blue lights on his ancient candelabras, which the Traota
rians try to mimic or to steal., and soon convinces you that the
pure light was admitted into the room through the twelve win
dows, only to fascinate and allure you, in order that he may put
on the twelve shutters, and kindle the light within, which will
only light you to your everlasting destruction.
But not only is she called " Mystery," but she is likewise called
the " Mother of harlots." That is, if the mother church is called
the harlot, then the subordinate false churches are c&lled harlots
also. Thus, then, the Apocalyptic description of her is -" the
mother of harlots;" and what do you think is the language of
the twelfth article of the Creed of Pope Pius IV., as held by
every one who embraces that creed ? It is in these words : — " I
acknowledge the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church,
the mother and mistress of all churches." Every Roman Catho
lic unconsciously adopts almost the words of the Apocalypse,
and thus identifies the church of Pius IX. with the Apocalyptic
picture "of the Apostasy.
It is then said that she is " drunk with the blood of saints."
Need I verify this characteristic of the Church of Rome ? The
sounds of the Sicilian vespers have not yet died a tray upon the

412 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
ear; the blood that stained the fertile soil of France may be
concealed by vineyards, and by the golden corn that grows upon
the surface, but it is seen by God, and will be remembered in
the hour of his judgments. The Marian reign in our own coun
try and Smithfield are not yet forgotten by those to whom Fox's
Book of Martyrs* is any thing more than an old almanac. And,
without touching upon any thing beyond the province of a mi
nister of the gospel — touching only upon that which all parties
admit, let me ask you to look across to that country whose Pro
testant clergy were too long unfaithful, and who have only be
come faithful when their ruin seems to be all but inevitable.
Look across the Channel at poor, blighted, miserable Ireland :
the excellent and the upright man is denounced from the altar, not
upon a Sunday, as is publicly charged and denied, but upon the
Monday, which is not denied, and he is shot by the Monday
night; and so fearful is the havoc, that the records whieh come
every day tell you that it is better to be in the field of open bat
tle, where you have the foe gallantly to contend with, than to
walk into your own ground, and go out from your own home car
rying your death-warrant in your own pocket. My dear friends,
you may disguise it as you like, and statesmen may think what
they please about it, but Popery is at the root of all this. It is
the upas tree ; it is the root of bitterness — eradication is the only
cure. I bid you look to the north of Ireland, where Protestants
abound; comparatively how peaceful! how quiet ! how prosper
ous ! yet it is the most sterile province of the four. The con
trast between it and the south is almost between Paradise and
Pandemonium. Compare the Protestant cantons of Switzerland
with the Roman Catholic ; every traveller can tell you the differ
ence. Compare Scotland with Ireland; every acre in Ireland,
in point of fertility, is worth four acres in Scotland ; how vast
the moral difference ! It all goes to establish the fact, that true
religion elevates a land to the sunshine of Paradise ; while super
stition and infidelity exhaust its value, and degrade and ruin it :
the old maxim holds good — " Righteousness exalteth a nation,
and sin must be the ruin of any people."
* Let me commend to the notice of tho reader tho edition of -Fox's Book of
Martyrs, published by Virtue, Ivy Lane.

THE SEVENTH VIAL. 413
Let us notice the next characteristic of this great city. This
woman whose' crimes had provoked the judgments of Heaven- —
who is described as Mystery, and drunk with the blood of saints,
the mother of harlots — is declared to have her seat — -her main
seat — upon a " wilderness." You ask, then, is it a fact that the
head of the Romish Church, " the mother and mistress of all
churches," is enthroned upon a desert. Just let us recollect
what is the name of the place that surrounds the city of Rome,
and which the crown of the pope at this moment specially go
verns ; it is called the Campagna. In the day when John wrote
the Apocalypse, it was literally the most fertile and the most
beautiful spot in the whole, continent of Europe, and were St.
John alluding to the Campagna upon which Caesar sat, it could
not have been called a desert with truth ; but, recollect, he is
describing the spot, not on which Cassar sat in his day, but on
which this mother and mistress of harlots sits in our day, and he
calls it a wilderness. Has any change taken place in it since the
Caesars reigned ? I open the pages of Gibbon, and I find him
stating, that, at the close of the sixth century, just after the Ro
man empire had passed away, and the Popish empire had taken
its place, " the Campagna about this time was reduced to the state
of a dreary wilderness ; the land became barren, and the waters
impure ; and the inundations of the Tiber rushed with irresistible
force into the valleys of the seven hills, and bred pestilence and
fever from the stagnation of the deluge." So that at this time;
to which John here refers, it is literally true that Rome sits upon
the desert ; and it is no "less true that that desert, which she can
neither drain nor cultivate, extinguishes her population year by
year, showing that, whatever reforms may have dawned upon
Pope Pius IX., the sanitary improvements so admirably pressed
in the present day, and so truly needed, have not yet been thought
of in the march of pontifical intellects,
Now the 18th chapter details at length the successive judg
ments that shall fall upon this great Babylon. There comes
down an angel radiant with glory, who cries aloud and proclaims
" Babylon is fallen." He first, however, addresses the people of
God in the midst of Rome, " Come out of her, my people, that
ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her
35*

414 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
plagues." Then the scenes of her last desolation sweep in suc
cession, and with terrific grandeur, before the .eye of the seer,
unfolding an awfulness of ruin unparalleled in any other doom
delineated in the sacred volume.
It is stated two or three times in the course of the Apocalypse,
that she shall be consumed by fire. Several expositors think
that this refers to the kings of the earth who shall be driven
utterly to destroy her; but I showed you that their part was
fulfilled at the commencement of the French Revolution, when
the pope was marched from his capital, and made a prisoner'
under the emperor of France, and with the acquiescence of
other kings. I believe, therefore, that the fire that is to con
sume the Romish mother and mistress of churches — the great
Babylon-r-the Mystery that is -enthroned upon the desert — is a
literal and not a figurative flame. I do not see how it can mean
that the kings of the earth will destroy her, because they are
represented as mourners at her ruin, not as burners hastening^
that ruin. I cannot think that the great ones of the earth can
be referred to, for they are spoken of as weeping for her fall, not
precipitating and accomplishing that fall. I believe, therefore,
that Rome will be destroyed by literal fire. . Can we say how ?
First, it has been ascertained by geologists, in the course of the-
last few years, that the interior portions of that very globe, oh
the crust of which our houses are built, is one vast mass of liquid
or molten fire ; and that earthquakes, the vibrations of which we
feel, are but the shocks of those fiery waves lashing those deso
late subterranean shores, and thjit those volcanoes are but the
safety-valves that allow the excess of its action to escape, lest the
crust of the earth should be riven in pieces, and all its popula
tion perish. And in that very fact, which modern geology has
discovered, I can see the explanation of the 3d chapter of the
Second Epistle of Peter ; and here I cannot but observe, that
the ministers of the gospel must, and that right speedily, take
up science as it bears on the Bible, and the Bible as it bears on
science, and show what will be found to be fact, that the purest
science is the highest testimony to the truth of revelation ; so
that neither the hammer of the geologist shall break the Rock
of Ages, nor the telescope of the astronomer detect one flaw in

THE SEVENTH VIAL. 415
the Sun of Righteousness, nor the discoveries of man dim the
revelation of God ; on the contrary, I believe that the day comes
when science through all-its organs, and literature through all its
channels, and statesmen from their cabinets, and kings and
queens from their thrones, shall join together, and sing with one
song, and utter with one voice, " Behold the Lamb of God that
taketh away the sins of the world." But, in order to show still
more minutely how probable it is that Rome will be literally de
stroyed by fire, I will quote the testimony of those who have ex
amined the very place on which she is enthroned, and have disco
vered that Rome itself is placed upon the ashes of a volcano.
It is stated that the whole chain of the Apennines, which stretches
across Italy, is volcanic in its origin. Gibbon himself, in speak
ing of Italy, describes it as containing beds of sulphur, and nu
merous volcanoes, of which those of iEtna, Vesuvius, and Lipari
are but specimens. Again, an eminent German naturalist says,
" From Rome to Tivoli the soil is made up of volcanic ashes,
and all the land about Rome is generally volcanic." This seems
as jf it were a, preparation for the future judgments ; and her
desolation shall be so sudden that- it shall come in one day, and
so complete as to " leave not a rack behind." It is followed by
its "smoke ascending up for ever and ever;" and hence the con
clusion is forced upon the mind, that Rome is to be overthrown
by judgments, not to be converted by the agency of the gospel,
or to be exhausted by political assaults. She is literally to be
consumed by fire.
Now, at this solemn and momentous hour, we read that a
voice is lifted up, " Come out of her, my people, that ye be riot
partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."
I believe that that voice is sounding now through the length and
breadth of the very land in vfhich we live; I might mention
religious societies, and the names of Protestant men, all of whom
are known to you, and must be revered by all who know them ;
these men are now lifting up this faithful warning- — calling upon
those in the midst of Rome, or who are infected with the poison
of her principles, to " come out of her, that they be not par
takers of her sins, and that they receive not of her plagues."
How startling was that voice which Robert McGhee lifted up in

416 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
this very hall some years ago — a disclosure that in healthier ¦
times would have been followed by rigid examination. The
Romish powers showed they felt the irresistible conclusiveness
of all that he proved by fastening upon the only error he com
mitted : the man of sin watched every charge he made — knew
well that Protestant rulers would not listen, they were silent
while reply was useless ; and were only too glad when a misap
prehension occurred, to have a chance of escape from universal
execration. Need I quote the names of McNeile, and Stowell,
and, Hartwell Home, and others that must be known to you, in
order to show the interest felt in this subject, and the response
that comes from many. hearts, in the present day ? Need I refer
to the conflict that has taken place in high places, and to the
symptoms that daily multiply, and show that the last struggle in
this country between Protestantism, as it is cherished by Pro
testant churchmen and Protestant 'dissenters, and Popery, as it
is held by the Papal powers, and the Puseyite Tractarian divines,
is rapidly approaching.
Let me notice another fact; namely, that at the close' of the
destruction of Rome, there is heard a new and remarkable song :
" Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." "And
again," it is added, "they said Hallelujah, and her smoke rose
up for ever and ever;" and, "I heard a great voice of much
people in Heaven, saying, Alleluia; salvation, and glory, and
honour, and power, unto the Lord our God." I showed you that
the drying up of the Euphrates is to prepare the way for the con
version of the Jews. Now notice here, the first Hebrew word,
in the songs of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, occurs in this
very passage, namely,. Hallelujah : all the expressions have been
Greek before ; but now a Hebrew voice is heard in the canticle
of harmony, sounding Hallelujah. I believe that this is just the
fulfilment of what I have sketched in a previous evening, viz.
the promises of the conversion of the Jews, their restoration to
their own land, and their worshipping Him on Zion whom their
forefathers crucified on Calvary. And it is a most remarkable
corroborative proof of this, that Kimchi, a very celebrated Jew
ish commentator, makes the following observation : — " When
Papal Rome shall be desolated, then shall come the redemption

THE SEVENTH VIAL. 417
of the people of Israel." A Jewish commentator is led to the
conviction, that the desolation of Rome shall precede the imme
diate conversion of his people ; and how glorious will that song
be, when Jew and Gentile shall combine to raise it — " Hallelu
jah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!" I have heard the
Hallelujah chorus of Handel in this hall, and I should go to
hear it again, if Englishmen would have the good taste and the
Christian principle to give up the barbarous and Gothic practice
of stamping approbation with their feet when the God of heaven
is praised in strains the most beautiful and words the most holy ;
but till that barbarous and Gothic practice is utterly removed, I
cannot feel as I would wish to feel, when 'I listen to the sublime
strains of Handel, ministering their service to the sacred words
of the Apocalypse. But, if to hear it from five huudred voices
in this hall be all but overpowering, how magnificent, how glo
rious, will be the crash of harmony that shall echo from the
firmamental ceiling, and rebound and reverberate from the plat
form of the «arth, when Jew and Gentile, constituting orie com
pany by grace, shall cry with one heart, and as with one voice,
" Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth !"
I felt it, my dear friends, to be to me truly refreshing, when
I met, in one of the omnibuses of the. city, a minister of the
Church of England, who said to me, " I hear that great crowds are
in Exeter Hall listening to your preaching; and," he added, "I
have prayed that you might be so guided and directed by/the
Spirit of God, that not a few hearts might live as tokens of your
faithfulness, and tributes to the grace of God." I desire and
pray to find it so. Not more than a third of those who are
crowded within this hall can be accommodated within the walls
of my enlarged church : let me therefore speak of Christ while
so many hear, and invite you, in the language of this chapter,
on this the last Sunday but one on whieh T shall address you, to
" the marriage supper of the Lamb." Blessed are they who are
invited to that feast : " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to
the waters; yea come, buy wiue and milk-witho.ut money and
without price." You have heard great and startling truths;
those truths may have been mixed with human errors: forgive
the presence of the alloy, cherish and be thankful for the gold —

418 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
forget the minister, think only of the Master: My desire and
effort has been to interest your minds in God's word. Oh ! that
I might convey one quickening seed, to be an element of life to
some dead soul in this 'audience. How dreadful, dear friends, if,
after the truths you have hoard, any of you should perish ! I
shall meet you all — all without exception — at the judgment-seat
of God. Between me and every man in this assembly, a tie has
been knit by your hearing and my speaking, which the blaze
which consumes great Babylon — which the shock that convulses
the very universe — which the light of the judgment-day — shall
not sever or destroy. You must answer for what you have
heard. I must answer for what I have spoken. And, oh !
dreadful the thought, if I should see some countenance that I
have gazed upon in this hall, darkened with the shadow of an
everlasting eclipse — driven from that platform on which all
destinies are wound up, and the condition of all flesh settled
irreversibly for ever. No man, however, need perish ; salvation
is free for every one; the blood of Jesus is accessible to'every
one; God waits to welcome you; Christ asks, "Why will ye
die 1" Ho invites you, " Come unto me, all ye that labour and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." My dear friends, I
feel, when I address you, emotions too vast for language to
express. I can always speak most easily when I feel least
deeply. But when thoughts and sympathies are too intense for
utterance, then * * * Oh may the Spirit of God kindle thoughts
in your hearts that may not die, and give me the happiness, and
you the joy, of surrounding the throne, nearer and nearer 'to
which we are drawing every day, and join with Jew and Gentile
in tho millennial blessedness, saying, " Hallelujah ! for the
Lord God omnipotent . reigneth." "Blessed are they that are
called to the marriage supper of the Lamb." Amen and Amen.

419

LECTURE XXIII.
THE CHURCH DURING THE EFFUSION OF THE VIALS.
" And the seventh angel sounded ; and there were great voices in heaven,
saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and
of his Christ j and he shall reign for ever and ever." — Revelation xi. 15.
"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting
gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and
kindred, and tongue, and people, ^
"Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour
of his judgment is come : and .worship him that made heaven, and earth, and
the sea, and the fountains of waters." — Revelation xiv. 6, 7.
" And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire : and them that had
gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and
over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of
God. "And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the
Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just
and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.
"Who shall not fear thee, 0 Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art
holy : for all nations shall come and worship before thee ; for thy judgments
are made manifest." — Revelation xv. 2-4.
This scene, which I shall- endeavour to analyze, is in some
degree retrospective; but it is a retrospect that necessarily
follows from the chronological position at which we have arrived
in our expositions of the Apocalypse. Last Sunday evening I
explained the seventh vial. I showed the scenes it disclosed,
and the prospects which it leads us to anticipate. The first vial,
or symbol of judgment, began in 1792 ; the , last via,l is now
trembling in the angel's hand, or rather is pouring out its con-.
tents; its first sprinklings .smite the earth; and at this hour the
nations begin to feel its influence, and thrones to rock beneath
the first of its vibrations. But having dwelt, as you perceive,
upon the seven vials, which have been seven epitomes of judg
ment, seven successive scenes of desolation inflicted, on the earth,
the question will naturally occur to you, " What has become of

420 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
the church of Christ all the while?" We have heard the
crashes, and seen the effects of judgments upon the world, as
well as judgments upon Babylon, but where has been "the
hundred forty and four thousand," " the bride of the Lamb,"
the true and spiritual church, " redeemed out of every kindred,
and people, and tribe, and tongue 1" Surely she has not
perished. It is my province to show you, parallel with the
effusion- of the vials, the mystery of the church of the Lord
Jesus Christ — to point out beneath the turbid torrent that bears
darkening judgments on its bosom, a bright and beautiful and
silver streamlet, speeding onward in all its pristine purity, to the
infinite and everlasting main — to show you, amid the smoke that
rises' from the judgments that overspread the earth, the bright
sparks that are the foretokens of the approaching glory, and thus
to let it appear, that when one hemisphere was darkened by the
clouds of righteous retribution, the other hemisphere began to
glow with the forecast light of approaching day.
First, then, I explained, you recollect, that the seventh seal
was the epitome, or in brief, of the seven trumpets; and that the
seventh trumpet was the epitome, or brief description, of the
seven vials ; the twenty-one constituting the history of Christen
dom, an'd the seventh of each being the abstract of the contents
of the seven 'that were to follow. Now, you will notice that, in
the description of the seventh trumpet, the first passage read by
me is by way of anticipation — the seventh trumpet being an
abstract of the contents of the seven vials. It is an anticipatory
song, an outburst of prophetic feeling, "the kingdoms of this
world are become," that is, when the seven vials contained under
the seventh trumpet are all poured out, "the kingdoms of 'our
God and of his Christ." This was anticipatory : no judgment
comes upon the earth that does not cast its shadow before, and
no blessing shines from heaven that does not reflect backward
some beams~ of the glory which constitutes that blessing; and
therefore the Apocalyptic seer John, witnessing all the desolations
of the past,' and catching in his prophetic eye some bright and
glowing visions of the future, burst forth into the paean, the tri
umphant song, as if he already saw the great consummation ar
rive ; as if he said, " The kingdoms of this world are no longer

THE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS. 421
enslaved by Satan, crushed by tyranny, infected by sin, but I see
them become the kingdoms of the Lord, and I hear their song of
praise, intimating that the reign of Satan and of sin is terminated
upon earth."
After this we have another symbol, to which I shall specially
allude ; and that is, that an angel, just after the beginning of the
pouring out of the vials, i. e. of the French Revolution, in 1793,
an angel comes from heaven — a symbolic angel spreads his pinions
on the air — -that air, recollect, that I showed you last Sunday
evening was to be tainted and disturbed by the pouring out of
the seventh vial — the angel spreads his wings on the air, sweeps
over the length and breadth of the globe, and he carries in his
mission, not judgment, as the preceding trumpet angels did — not
desolation, 'as the vial angels did — but the glorious gospel of the
blessed God, to preach " to every nation, and kindred, and tongue
and people." The point which I will specially attempt to prove
this morning is, that, contemporaneous with the pouring out of
the vials, and the fearful judgments that fell upon apostate Chris
tendom, there was an expansion of the truths of the gospel, an
outburst of Christian principle and missionary zeal, unparalleled
since the day of Pentecost itself. This, I think, is the explana
tion of the angel flying through heaven with the everlasting
gospel. The third point to which I shall particularly allude, is that
beautiful and truly Apocalyptic picture, the harpers harping with
their harps upon the glassy sea — a sea mingled with fire. These
harpers are described in the original by a most peculiar expres
sion. They are not called merely conquerors, or those who have
gotten the victory over the beast, but they are called vu&zar; ix
zoo &r]piov, not only conquerors over the beast, i. e. the Papal
power, as I have showed you, but also victorious separatists from
him. So that those harpers on the glassy sea are not only con
querors over the beast — and I explained that the beast, as you
may recollect, is the Roman Catholic Apostasy — and over the
image of the beast, the General Councils ' that reflect his mind
and sentiments — and over the mark of the beast ; and the num
ber of the beast, and you cannot have forgotten the word Xazetvos,
the letters of whieh, X, a, z, <;, i, v, o, c, make up the number 666,
36

422 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
which is declared to be the number of the beast, as I explained
on a previous occasion ; these, I say, are called not only con
querors over him, but separatists from him, and that had the vic
tory over the number of his name : and thus I believe that those
harpers on the glassy sea are not only those who deny the supre-.
macy of the pope of Rome, but those persons who repudiate and
abhor the peculiar principles of the Church of Rome in all their
shapes and degrees. The Traotarians d-my one great dogma in
Popery, and almost the only one — the supremacy of the pope. I
admit they are not Papists, but I contend they have got upon
them the mark of the beast, and will be numbered with him in
the hour of trial; and if you desire to escape those crushing and
consuming judgments that are destined utterly to overwhelm him,
you must not only be separatists from the supremacy of the pope,
but separatists from his principles and his practices ; separatists
from all that is Popish, and -allied with all that is Scriptural,
Evangelical, and Protestant.
Now, then, these harpers on the glassy sea mingled with fire,
are said to sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb ; and this
instantly refers us, by allusion, to that beautiful song recorded in
the Book of Exodus. You will remember that when the Israel
ites had passed the Red Sea, they stood upon the opposite shore
and sang their sublime song of victory, as they looked across the
Red Sea — that sea that was the promenade of the people of God,
and the sepulchre of the chivalry and chariots of Pharaoh — with
the pillar of fire by night that flashed its splendour upon the
hosts of Egypt, and the pillar of cloud by day that concealed
from them the Israelites whom they pursued. It has been said
also that the Red Sea is so called from the effect of the sun's rays
shining upon it; for an ancient writer says, "that the mountains
west of the Arabian Gulf, when the rays of the sun rest upon
their peaks, exhibit the appearance of glowing coals, red with
fire ; and the splendour reflected from the mountain-tops dyes the
sea with the colour of red, or fire." The statement here of their
standing on the brink of the sea over which they had passed in
safety, and singing the song of Moses and of the Lamb, conveys
an allusion to a fact in the history of Israel, which becomes
typical of a fact true of our country, and rendered probable by.a

THE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS. 423
consideration of the chronology of the epoch to which I am now
directing your attention.
It appears to me, that Great Britain and the shores of England
were, in the antitype, what the shores of the Red Sea and the
triumphant Israelites were in the type, during the outpouring of
the vial judgments upon Europe. Is it no evidence of this, that
when the great destroyer swept. Europe on a wing that never tired
— when, from Moscow onward to Madrid, every capital blazed
with revolutionary fires — when the cup of trembling was placed
in every nation's hand, and every nation was constrained to drink
it to the dregs — is there no fulfilment of the Apocalyptic allusion
in the fact, that we alone were unscathed? We heard the distant
vibrations only borne on the winds, of the earthquake that
hurled down thrones, upset dynasties, and cleft kingdoms in
twain; we saw but the reflected glow across the Channel of the
sea of those fires that blazed over all the continent of Europe;
and the Christians of England, in their chapels and -in their
churches, stood upon this side of the glassy sea, and praised God
that they were saved from the judgments that overwhelmed the
rest of the world, as they heard but the echo of the sound of
falling thrones, 'and saw merely the smoke of crumbling dynas
ties. And that song shows us, from the very nature of 'it, that
this interpretation is not an imaginary one. The children of Is
rael thus sang : "The Lord is my strengthand my song; he also
is become my salvation ; he is my God, and I will prepare him
an habitation ; my father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord
is a man of war; the Lord is his name," &c. Exodus xv. 1-19.
You will see that this song well represents the feeling that many
true Christians expressed, and most Christians entertained, when
they saw this isle, built up in the bosom of the deep, begin to be
most gloriously illuminated with the rays of an expanding gospel,
at that time when scarcely a nation on the whole continent of Eu
rope was exempted from the destroying scourge ; and when the
song of Moses speaks of Pharaoh and his captains buried in the
Red Sea, who can have forgotten the constant cry of Napoleon,
for "ships and commerce :" and who can be ignorant, who has
read Alison's History of Europe, that never- did he bring his
fleet to sea without the flag of Old England waving victorious

424 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
over its wreck ; so much so, that our country, for years upon
years, never advanced but to gain splendid victories, and never
retreated but to cover its retreat with- a greater and a brighter
glory than its advance ?
On the supposition, then, that this period was the period when
our country was thus victorious — when the captains of the great
destroyer were overturned, and all his hosts buried in the depths
of the sea, and when we, standing on our isle, separated from all
the rest of the earth, celebrated God's mercies, and thanked him
for his goodness, and felt under a deep sense of responsibility our
obligations to him — I proceed to show the next feature, and which
is a most'important and interesting feature in my statement, that,
contemporaneous with the judgments inflicted by the vials upon
Christendom — contemporaneous with Britain's separation from
the rest of the world, and alone echoing with the song of victory,
the song of Moses merged in the song of the Lamb — from the
year 1793 to the present hour, the angel spread his wings, and
has continued to carry the blessed gospel to every creature under
heaven. In order now to show you this, and thereby to fix more
completely the justice and accuracy of those data which we have
already established, I take leave to notice that God never begins
a work, in this dispensation, without an instrument. You will
recollect the evidence of this at three great epochs. You remem
ber when I was treating, at the commencement of my course,
upon the rise of the Apostasy, the mysterious efficacy attributed
to the sacraments, when one was made an exorcism, and the other
began to be worshipped as an idol, that I mentioned as one of the
God-sealed in opposition to the man-sealed, one of the God-baptized
in opposition to the man-baptized, the name and character of St.
Augustine — and that the influence of Augustine's evangelical re
ligion was felt throughout Europe, even onward to the Reforma
tion itself. You will also recollect that at a second crisis, when
the darkness was no less dense, God raised up another instrument
in Europe, to carry on that work which had been long overspread
by superstition, and had almost perished from the earth, the great
work of the everlasting gospel, that lion-hearted and indomitable
man, Martin Luther. We ¦•are now come to the third crisis: it
seems almost invidious to specify, and I should not dare to have

THE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS. 425
done so, if Mr. Elliott, on grounds that seem to bae truly satis
factory, had not previously done so ; he thinks, and I thoroughly
concur- with him, that the great instrument employed for first
leavening all classes with the truth, and commencing and carrying
on to a very great degree the missionary movement, was that sin
gularly eminent and truly spiritual man, the late William Wilber-
force, Esq. You have perhaps heard so little of the man, that
some, at least, may not be aware of the mighty part that that
great and eminent man played in reviving religion in this country.
It seems to me very interesting to notice, that in the 4th cen
tury a bishop was used to revive religion, — in the 16th century
an Augustinian monk was employed to do it, — and in the 19th
century a Christian layman; and here I cannot but notice, too,
what I think it is only dutiful to Christians of the present day
to impress, that the clergy are not the church. I believe in this
matter there is a leaven of heresy among the laity which ought
to be rebuked as firmly as the heresy that grows among the clergy ;
the Christian people are the church, and the clergy are only its
leaders. Would you call the officers the army? No, you see the
absurdity of this ; the soldiers, you would say, are the army, the
officers are but the leaders? Why, then, should. you call the
clergy the church ? -When a person has been ordained, it is common
to use the obnoxious expression, "he has entered the church;"
enter the church ! he ought to have entered it long before he
applies to be ordained. Christians, you are the church; the mi
nisters are the leaders; an enlightened people will be the best
guarantee for an enlightened clergy; and the Bible in the hands
of the many is the best pledge that they shall not be deprived
of it by the traditions of the few.
Having noticed, then, Wilberforce as the leading spirit in the
third revival and restoration of vital and scriptural religion, I
.will now show you what was the character of the man, as given
by his contemporaries of various political parties, Lord Erskine
made this remark on him : "Wilberforce urged on the lingering
progress of the human mind more than any other man." His
biographers, one of whom is a bishop, said, " Wilberforce was the
centre of a great moral system, and unquestionably gave an im
pulse to the age." Madame de Stael says, "Wilberforce is the
36«

426 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
man the most remarkable of the whole of England." He had
great mental power — he had vast parliamentary influence ; and
Pitt, the celebrated conservative minister, who was his intimate
friend, gave this opinion : " Of all men I know, Wilberforce seems
to me to have the most natural and.effective eloquence." I quote
these remarks as tributes to the strength of his genius. . I admit,
that genius without grace would, have made him as powerful for
evil as he was-powerful for good. But in him the two were com
bined; his genius was consecrated by his religion, and all his in
fluence was wielded for God. When, and how, it may be asked,
did he become a Christian ? I do not know that his son, who is
a bishop, would like ¦ to confess it. I know that many who are
Tractarian, which I believe the bishop is not, would desire this
part of his biography to be concealed, but dutifulness to truth
compels us to declare, that Wilberforce, who moved the age and
impressed on it the influence of Christian feeling, was converted
to God by reading the production of a Dissenter, namely, Dod
dridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. God thus
shows us he will not, have man to glory in sects or in systems.
On the Apocalyptic stage, and in its solemn drama, distinctions
of sect and denominational system are treated as non-entities,
great evangelical truths alone are regarded as substantial, great,
and enduring.
To show more clearly the character of Wilberforce, I will allude
to his most remarkable work; a work I would recommend every
one in this Hall to possess and study, " Wilberforce's Practical
View of Christianity," edited by Bishop Wilson, the eminently
pious and Protestant bishop of Calcutta. Dr. Wilson states, in
the preface to this work, " Never perhaps did any volume by a
layman on a religious subject produce a deeper or more sudden
effect. It came upon the whole world of statesmen and literati
and divines quite by surprise. It was a thing unprecedented for
a leading parliamentary speaker to publish any considerable work,
much less a work on religion. Every one talked of it — every one
was attracted by its eloquence. It was acknowledged that such
an important work had not appeared for a century." P. xvii.
It is eminently desirable to reach the mind and secure the con
victions of the higher classes on the subject of divine truth;

THE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS. 427
their conversion is of great moment. It is quite true, that three
thousand peasants are just as precious in the sight of God, and
their souls are just as dear to him, as three thousand of the high
est nobles in the world; but if one can only leaven with the truths
of the everlasting gospel those who occupy prominent and power
ful places in the land, it is plain that one such person, brought to
feel the force and to espouse the interests of divine truth, will
send around him an influence for good the most powerful, an in
fluence which distant churches and statesmen, otherwise inacces
sible, may feel. It is a law, almost universal, that all influence
descends, it very rarely ascends : it is a rare thing that, when the
masses become Christian, the great men immediately become so;
but when the distinguished and noble men become Christian, how
frequently do you observe a transforming influence instantly de
scend, and shoot like an electric spark through the, population,
and create, by the blessing of God, a moral if not a religious
people; and thus it is that there is reflected far and near^ the in
fluence let down from a religious court and throne. Hence, my
dear friends, we ought to make it a special subject of prayer, not
only in public, but in private, that our most gracious queen may
be, what I believe she is, a Christian and a Protestant;, and that
those that are around her throne, lords and senators, may be truly
Christians too ; and that, when they open their lips upon religious
questions, they may not fear to refer to God's word as alone de
cisive — (jb-at word that settles all religious disputes, and gives just
and true conclusions on those points which unaided reason never
can attain to.
The Apocalyptic vials, as we have seen, began to be poured
out in 1793, emitting the judgments that overwhelmed Europe,
and awed, though they could not convert, the nations of the
earth; and about this very period, when the eclipse was deepest,
that book, which was to be associated with the expansion as well
as the revival of true Christianity in England, and indeed the
world, made its appearance. Bishop Wilson proceeds : " As a
noble appeal to a degenerate age, as a work which forms an era
in the history of the times, we must go back, in order to find a
parallel to it, to the primitive church."
Such is the testimony of Bishop Wilson to this very remark-

428 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
able production ; and I believe that Bishop Wilson either has
not studied prophecy, or thought of connecting Wilberforce's
work with it; at least he has not expressed his acquiescence in
the prophetic views that Mr. Elliott has so clearly and, I think,
so conclusively established.
The immediate effect of this great work was, by the grace
of God, a new and rapid spread, in the minds of statesmen, sena
tors, and Christians, of Bible and evangelical religion. Inquiry
and excitement followed apathy, religion grew into absorbing
importance, and became the topic of discussion in every coterie ;
and the instant that people felt they were Christians, that instant
they believed it their duty to become missionaries. As soon as
they felt they were saints, as soon as they saw that they incurred
the responsibilities of stewards: they believed then, as in every
kindred movement, they could not claim the gospel as selfishly
their own, and withhold it from the masses that needed it; ac
cordingly, no sooner had that work exerted its mighty influence
in the conviction and conversion of souls, than the angel went
forth, according to the second Apocalyptic passage I have read,
spreading his wings upon the air, and carrying the everlasting
gospel to every kindred, and tribe, and people, and tongue.
You ask for the evidence of this ? Facts are our proofs. Evi
dence is so full and so striking, that he that runs may read it.
The Baptist Missionary Society, like the highest Alpine peak,
caught the first rays of the rising sun, having been founded
about the year 1793, the very commencement of the great
French Revolution. It is an honour to that society to have been
thus first in the field. I congratulate it; I forgive its differences
with me in minor matters, on the ground of its advocacy of that
glorious cause, the cause of missions, which shall burn and
brighten till Christ come with his many crowns to take the
kingdom to himself, and reign from sea to sea. After the Bap
tist Society, the London Missionary Society emerged, like another
Alpine peak, burning with the rays of the rising sun, and in the
rivalry of Christian love sent forth its faithful missionaries in
1795. Immediately after the London Missionary Society, the
Wesleyan Missionary Society appeared, in the year 1800, and
has become one of the most powerful, and not the least success-

THE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS. 429
ful, of the whole. Close upon this followed an institution not the
least important or least blessed, the British and Foreign Bible So
ciety, which has circulated twenty millions of copies of the word of
God, up to the year 1847, and has translated the Bible into nearly
140 tongues — almost all the tongues of all the nations of the earth.
The biographer of Wilberforce says, "amid the din of warlike
preparations, the foundation-stone was laid of this institution
which was to leaven all nations with the principles of peace."
We have, following these in bright and glorious succession, the
Church Missionary Society,, which has been eminently blessed
amid the missionary institutions of the earth, and on whose
agents in every land, especially in India, has rested r/o ordinary
benediction. Wilberforce saw these beautiful gems emerging
from the night, and sparkling in the beams of the Sun of Right
eousness, with no sectarian or exclusive feelings. In the midst
of the Parliament of England he made the remark, which it
was perilous to make at that day, and which it might not be safe
from sneers and scoffs to make even at the present day — though,
judging from recent debates, one must admit there seems to be
more Christianity in modern than in ancient parliamentary
debates — the magnanimous remark respecting the Baptist Society,
and its devoted champion, Dr. Carey:1 "I do not know," said
Wilberforce, "a finer instance of the moral sublime than that a
poor cobbler, working at his stall, should have conceived the idea
of converting the heathen to Christianity : yet such was Dr.
Carey : Milton planning Paradise Lost, in his old age and blind
ness, was nothing to that poor cobbler at'his stall." ' Such was.
the catholic and just eulogy pronounced in Parliament, amid the
acquiescence of all, by Wilberforce on one of the most devoted
servants of the earliest of the missionary societies of Britain.
After this appeared the Jews' Society,- founded in the year
1809, designed-to expound our duties and obligations to God's
ancient people as one of the very first responsibilities that arise
from the experience of the power of the gospel of Christ. Then
there was in Scotland the Scotch Missionary Society, composed
of Scottish Churchmen and Dissenters, who afterward separated,
peacefully, and not without great advantage to both ; for the
Church of Scotland, according to the plan of that eminent and

430 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES
devoted clergyman, Dr. Inglis, adopted her magnificent scheme,
the foreign missions, which she has prosecuted every year with
increasing energy; and I cannot but state, in this place, a strik
ing evidence of the overruling providence of God, in his provi
dential dealings, the late unhappy disputes that recently took
place in Scotland, and which ended in the secession from that
church of many pious ministers, viz. the interesting fact, that the
seceding ministers have increased their funds for missionary
purposes to a great extent, and the income of the Established
Church for missionary purposes has been, what at that time I
predicted it would be, positively greater in 1847 than it was be
fore . the secession in 1843. Thus out of our sins even God
educes good, and overrules the disputes of imperfect Christians,
who see through a glass darkly, to the clearer development and
more rapid progress of his own great and holy cause.
After the missionary spirit had been thus excited in our coun
try, the gospel was preached in the East and West Indies, in
Africa, New Zealand, New South Wales, in Greenland, and in
North America. The Brainerds, the Martyns, the Careys, the
Hebers, will all occur to you as eminent missionaries of the ever
lasting gospel; who spread the joyful sound
"Prom Greenland's icy mountains
To India's coral strand;"
till at length there is scarcely a nation on the earth that has not
heard the tidings of redeeming love; a. fact that teaches us the
solemn conclusion I have endeavoured to establish, that when
the gospel shall have been preached in every nation, and ended
not in the conversion of all, but in being a witness to every
nation, then shall the end come.
Now, let me ask, where is there not evidence of this apostolic
outburst of missionary zeal? what nation is there that has not
been refreshed by its influences? If 'you go to the isles that lie
on the bosom of the great Pacific — you will hear the heralds
of Christianity there. Amid the sultry air of Hindostan, or the
cinnamon groves of Ceylon, you may find the preacher of the
glorious gospel; or you will see him preaching by the rivers
of India, or in the plague-smitten atmosphere of Turkey — pray
ing amid the ruins of Athens, or having his pulpit on the rocky

THE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS. 481
heights of Mount Lebanon; you may trace the course of the
missionary with the Arab in his "ship of the desert," the
laborious and patient camel; or on the scorched plains of Africa,
finding shelter from its burning sun beneath the palm-tree's
shade; or sharing his coarse food with the Laplander, or travers
ing with the Greenlander his everlasting snows; amid the Rocky
Mountains, or amid Tartar hordes — in the Arab's tent and on
the Cossack's steppes — amid the prairies of Western, America, or
in the lanes and byways and alleys of London, addressing rich
and -poor, great and small, Jew and Gentile, barbarian kings and
savage tribes; and wherever he has spoken he has left the evi
dence of the power of. a preached gospel, and the impress of a
God, who has blessed his efforts; till, animated by the results,
we begin to anticipate the day for which we pray, when
"Arabia's desert ranger
To Christ shall bow the knee,
And Ethiopian stranger
His glory come and see;
"When he shall have dominion
O'er river, sea, and shore,
Far as the eagle's -pinion
Or dove's light wing can soar."
I have thus, then, shown you, first of all, our country triumph
ing in its immunity from the judgments that darkened the rest
of Europe,, an immunity secured by its attachment to the truth,
and personated in the harpers on the glassy sea, singing the song
or victorious anthem that commemorated their safety. I have
shown you, next, the commencement of a new era in the spread
of Bible religion, beginning about 1793 or 1795, through the in
strumentality of the excellent and devoted Wilberforce. I have
described, as the result of this revived missionary spirit, the angel
flying with the everlasting gospel'; that is, the different religious
societies thus symbolized, spreading the Scriptures throughout the
whole earth, and preaching the gospel unto every oreature.
I believe, then, my dear friends, in the shortness of the time
that remains; I believe it to be very short : but we are not of
those who will therefore show themselves slack in the use of means.
If I were told by a voice from heaven, that in three years Christ
will come, this intimation would not make me relax one solitary

432 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
duty. I would take leases, if I felt that it was in the way of duty
to do so; I would enter upon engagements plainly dutiful in the
providence of God; I would go on precisely as I am going on
now, fearing God and loving my fellow-men. It is our duty not
to come out of the world mechanically, but to be severed from
the world spiritually ; not to desert our. place like cowards that
run from the field, but to stand at those posts where our great
Captain has placed us, to fight the good fight of faith, and to an
ticipate his return right speedily, and to be supported and cheered
by the anticipation of the glorious crown which the Lord, the
righteous Judge, will give us at that day. And because the time
seems to me to be short — because the hour of judgment looms
and darkens like a terrific cloud upon the distant horizon, because
things seen are on the verge of removal, I feel only more com
pelled to contribute more largely^to preach more heartily — and
to pray more fervently for a blessing upon all our great mission
ary institutions., I cannot rest while I see British literature
studied on the banks of the Ganges, and read on those of the
Mississippi and the Missouri — while I hear of British travellers
penetrating all rivers, and extending their influence and transac
tions to all coasts and tribes — while I see- our sails whiten every
shore, and our ships ride upon their shadows in every harbour —
without making commensurate efforts to save and bless the nations
of the earth : the nearness of the advent makes me feel the more
the duty of praying and of toiling, that wherever our conquering
standard has been unfurled, or our victorious drum has been
heard, the one may precede the banners of salvation, and the
other be a prelude to the everlasting jubilee; and that the armies
of England, to whatever land they may direct their march, may
be but the van of the army of Christ, which shall follow after to
nobler and more lasting victories, until it come to pass that where
soever Old England's power is felt, there men may feel and taste
her mercies too.
My dear friends, the only balm for the world, whether at home
or abroad, is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Were that
gospel universally felt, and its principles universally practised,
there would be few wrongs to be redressed, because there would
be few inflicted; our prisons might be turned into churches, our

THE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS. 433
policemen into beadles ;^"the whole land would be transformed,
men would live happy, and would go down to their graves as the
pearl-diver of Ceylon goes -down into- the ocean, only to come up
laden with precious treasures, to breathe the air and bask in the
glorious sunshine of immortality.
In concluding this. retrospect of missionary feeling, coeval with
judicial visitations, let me ask you, not are you curiously inquiring
into chronology, but seriously and prayerfully looking into your
own hearts?- If the Lord be at hand— if, as I believe, without
saying you are not Christians if you^do not concur with me — if,
as I believe, and shall endeavour to show, Christ's advent is to
be, not post-millennial but pre-millennial, — if we are on the very
verge, a few years only intervening, of the first resurrection from
the dead — if all things are rushing to that august and solemn^
crisis— and does it not seem, if you look around you, as if every
man stirred his energies in his peculiar walk, as if he felt the
day is short, and .that we shall scarce have time left to finish what
we have, to do? Does it not seem as if all men were hastening
with express speed to that consummation of the nearness of which
they have a deep presentiment? If this be so, are you prepared
for it? Has the gospel taught you to lean in faith and confidence
on Christ? Has grace touched your souls and transformed them
by its touch ? None but living men will survive that crisis — none
but living men — men quickened by the Spirit of God, can then
lift up their heads, and know their "redemption draweth nigh."
While I shrink from the vagaries into which that noble-hearted,
but misguided man, Edward Irving, fell — while I can have no
sympathy with his wild and extravagant "dreams of prophecy — -
still less with his awful language about the human nature of Jesus
our Lord, desiring to be silenf where God's word is silent; yet I
believe that the voice that has been lifted up by many faithful
men within the last twenty years, is God's own voice, speaking
solemnly in. tones of mercy and warning to an indifferent and
careless world: "Prepare to meet your God!" Let me ask you,
then, Are you ready ? Is' your foot upon the Rock pf ages ? Is
your robe washed in the precious blood of Jesus ? Are you. God-
baptized, and not merely man-baptized ? What is Christianity to
you ? Is it a - mere collection of fables for schoolmen to fight
37

434 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
about, or is it life and power to the soul? Has the gospel made
you, my dear friends, what it ought to have made you, conscien
tious in business, temperate in pleasure, humble in prosperity,
patient in suffering, religious in all things? Do you feel duty to
be sacred, though all men should scoff at it? Do you deem it
imperative, though nobody should accompany you in the discharge
of it? In other words, can you stand alone if consoious God is
not far off? You must die alone — you must be judged alone —
you must bear the sentence alone. Can you stand in this world
without leaning upon fathers, or bishops, or councils, or traditions,
with nothing beneath your feet but the Rock of everlasting ages,
and nothing in the horizon before you, but "a crown of glory
that fadeth not away ?" If so, how blessed are you ! You may
lift up your heads, for the . lightning that rends the sky, and
startles with its fires the unbelieving millions, shall only be the
chariot that shall waft you to your home, and the judgments that
overwhelm the world shall be to you but the signal that bids you
let loose and make for a haven of everlasting and glorious peace.
I shall preach one Sunday more in Exeter Hall, and I must
again tell this vast audience, who for six months have listened to
the gospel within these walls, that you have incurred most solemn
and weighty responsibility. Is it not a very solemn fact, that
not one person who has heard me preach the gospel, however
humbly I may have preached it, who has not been placed in a
new position of responsibility; and there is not one person whose
case and my case will not be compared together at the judgment-
seat of Christ. It is calculated that upward of §000 have to
gether listened in this hall at each service : it is probable that
we shall never all meet again upon earth — I mean after this hall
is closed; but we must all meet in the vast congregation that will
be assembled at that day; and then each man's heart will not
only be transparent to his Maker, but it will be transparent like
wise to his neighbour. You will see what I have thought, and I
shall see what you have thought. Oh ! gracious God, forbid that
any one that has heard in this hall the overtures and invitations
of a free gospel, should cry out at that day "to the mountains,
cover me, and to the hills, conceal me from the wrath of the
Lamb;" yet, my dear friends, as sure as this Bible is true, there

THE CHURCH DURING THE VIALS. 435
are but two alternatives; you must become new men— converted
men — sanctified men, or you must be ruined for ever; you must
take your place with the Lamb, or with those who are opposed
to him : men perish not only because they have rejected the gos
pel, but because they have neglected the gospel : " How shall we
escape," says the apostle, " if we neglect," not reject, "if we neg
lect so great salvation ?" The ofteneriwe hear and repudiate the
truth, the more prepared we become to reject it again; our in
sensibility increases in the ratio of our neglected opportunities.
The peasant that lives near- a waterfall, who was unable to sleep
at first on account of its roar, becomes at length so habituated to
it, that it acts as a lullaby, and he sleeps the more soundly. This
is the result of ever hearing and never obeying the truth.
Brethren, hear as responsible beings; hail every opportunity of
learning what is the will of God as of solemn moment; meet it
with prayer, and concentrated attention, and patient listening,
and diligent .practice.

436

LECTUEE XXIV.

CHRIST S SECOND ADVENT PRE -MILLENNIAL.
"And I saw heaven opened, and hehold a white horse; and he that 6at upon
him was called -Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and
make war.
" His eyes was as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns ; and he
had a name written, that no man knew, hut he himself.
" And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called
The Word of God.
"And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean. *
"And out of his month goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite
the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the
winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.
" And ho hath on his vesture and on his- thigh a name written, King op
kings, and Lord of lords.
"And I saw nn angel standing in the sun;_ and he-cried with a loud voice,
saying to all tho fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather your
selves together unto the supper of the great God j
"That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh
of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the
flesh of all men; both free and bond, both small and great.
"And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies,
gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against
his army.
"And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought
miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark
of the beast, and them that' worshipped "his image. These both were cast alive
into a lake of fire "burning with brimstone,
" And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse,
which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with.
their flesh." — Revelation xix. 11-21.
" And I -saw an angel coroo down from heaven, having the key of the bottom
less pit ap'd a great chain in his hand.
"And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and
Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
"And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon
tiiin, that ho should deccivo tho nations no more, till tho thousand years

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT PEE-MILLENNIAL. 437
should be fulfilled : and after that he must bo loosed a little season.". — Revela
tion xx. 1-3.
I HAVE endeavoured to open up that startling and remarkable
symbol, the seventh vial, the record of which is contained, as
you may recollect, in the sixteenth chapter, where it is said,
" The seventh angel poured out his vial into the air, and there
came a great voice out of the temple of the heaven, saying, It is
done." I showed you that soon after that vial is poured out we
may expect the destruction of Rome, the great central metropolis
of theJPapal Apostasy. I showed you, next, that after the
unclean spirits had contaminated all the nations of the earth —
and I gave you proof of their powerful and progressive action — -
the voice would be raised like a trumpet-note of warning, as if
the great Lord of the universe had descended and made it thrill
through the hearts of universal humanity, " I come as a thief."
After that I expressed my sense of difliculties in determining
whether we are now under the dregs of the" sixth vial, or at the
commencement of the pouring out of the seventh. I stated that
the first action of the seventh vial would be upon the air, and I
explained to you that every symbol in the Apocalypse had not
only its figurative meaning; which is its real and its ultimate one,
but also its literal meaning, which is its subordinate and inter
mediate one; and that, while the influence of this vial on the
air would denote political, social, moral, and ecclesiastical revo
lutions, it would also denote a literal disturbance of the air which
we breathe, by storm and hurricane, by the propagation, probably,
of pestilence, cholera, influenza, and disease, all of which would
be an appeal from Heaven to a world that was dead in trespasses
and sins to arise and prepare to meet their God.* I also made
the incidental remark — a remark of great practical importance,
with respect to those contagious diseases, one of which we have
recently passed through, and another of which we may most
* If the recent continental convulsions are the first heavings .of the last great
earthquake, of the seventh vial, — as I think they are, — I may notice the state
ment in the Times of this day, (June 18th, 1848,) that a storm of lightning and
tempest has overflowed and torn up Germany a week ago, unparalleled in fury
and extent in the memory of man ; — its mere droppings, like the remote in
fluences of the earthquake itself, reached us on June 19th.
37*

438 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
certainly expect— r-that the real explanation of them is that they
are, first, judgments from Heaven; secondly, emanations from
the air ; and lastly, in no respect contagious from person to
person. , Since I made that remark I have received from my
friend, Dr. Milroy, a pamphlet proving, by incontestable facts
and evidence, that the cholera is not contagious by ordinary con
tact, in the popular meaning of that term. Therefore, my dear
friends, if that disease should visit us, and if you should be
called to the bedsides of the infected, do not shrink ; go and
soothe them with the 'last "offices of humanity and the first conso
lations of Christianity; and I can say, by the grace of God, if
any of my own people are visited by this influence of the tainted
air, I shall just as freely visit the victim of the cholera, as I visit
the victim of any- ordinary and every-day disease. Having
stated, as another result of the pouring out of this vial, that the
great metropolis of the Roman Apostasy is destined to be over
whelmed, I added next my view of the prediction that " the
cities of the nations" should fall, and in their fall there would
ensue not only the desolation of what was corrupt; but the
destruction of much that is beautiful and good. I stated, among
other things, my belief that the established churches of the
empire will share, in the tremendous crash; and whether you
regard them as good, or whether you denounce them as evil,
their doom is sealed — their destruction is at hand. Many must
lament the havoc as the loss of the useful, the beautiful, and
the good; others will rejoice at it as the removal of what they
think an obstruction to, the spread of the gospel ; but whether
we be churchmen, or whether we be dissenters, let us learn, the
one to cease to idolize them, and the other to attack them ; the
time is short, Jet us merge the microscopic points on which we
differ, and melt them into the majestic and glorious things in
which we are at one.
I now come to the events that immediately precede and begin
the millennial kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus. And
entering on that great and beautiful subject to-night, I hope to
complete it, and the main mass of my lectures on the Apoca
lypse, as far as historically explained, next Sabbath evening,
having yet another Sabbath to worship with you in Exeter Hall

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 439
A voice of praise, I told you in the course of my last lecture,
arose on the destruction of Rome, in which were heard sounding
in heaven the words, "Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent
reigneth." I noticed the fact that this is the first Hebrew tone
heard in the universal jubilee, — there being in all the songs of
the redeemed prior to this, no Hebrew accent. But in this song
of joy sung at the destruction of Rome, we hear, "Hallelujah,
for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." I showed this to be
the fulfilment of prophecy I had previously explained, the con
version of the Jews, manifested in their deep-toned Voices
blending with the voices of the Gentiles, and sounding from, the
floor of earth to the .firmament of heaven, "Hallelujah, for the
Lord. God omnipotent reigneth," the expression of their gratitude.
We then find heaven opened, and Christ, fhe King of glory, de
scending on a white horse, the symbol of uninterrupted triumph,
prosperity, andgrandeur j we find the saints of God accompanying
him on his progress, and he himself is then manifested to be in
fact, what he had been proclaimed to be in revelation, and was
predicted to be in prophecy, " King of kings, and Lord of lords."
We then find an angel standing on the sun. This denotes the
universality of his appearance, for we cannot conceive a spot in
the universe more central than the sun, nor can we conceive an
object to become more universally visible than some one standing
on or in the sun. This may not be literally fulfilled, though this
is not improbable; it is doubtless figurative, and means, that
there will be a universal indication to all the inhabitants of the
earth to come and gather themselves together unto the great
feast of the great God„ This feast is, of course, a symbol ; we
have -its illustration in the prophet Ezekiel, who tells us, in chap.
xxxix., "And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord God,
Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field,
Assemble yourselves and come; gather yourselves on every side
to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice
upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink
blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the
blood of tbe princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats,
of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat
fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my

440 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled
at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and
with all men of war, saith -the Lord God." The Apocalyptic
allusion is clearly illustrated in that of Ezekiel. Both indicate
the utter destruction of the enemies of Christ — the incontestable
fulfilment of awful prophecies, and of yet more awful threaten-
ings. We read that, after the destruction of Rome, the Papal Anti
christ will himself be consumed with all his converts, finally and
completely, together. After this destruction and utter over
throw of its Antichristian head, the Millennium, as described in
the 20th chapter, — where the angel comes down from heaven,
and lays hold on the old dragon or serpent, and chains him for a
thousand years, — will commence, and to the outlines of this I
shall now specially turn your attention.*
First, an angel comes from heaven, lays hold on Satan, and
chains him for a thousand years. We know not whether that
angel is figurative, as the chains must be ; but this we are sure
of, that during the period described as a thousand years, whether
these be literal, or whether they be prophetical, Satan, who is a
person, the archangel fallen, the great seducer of the saints,
shall be chained, or fettered, or repressed from infecting the
earth. At present he is not possessed of omnipresence, but he
is possessed of ceaseless activity, he " goes about seeking whom
he may devour;" and I have been surprised at the inconsistency
of those who admit the personality of the Spirit of God, yet
deny the personality of Satan ; for the construction of the
language that describes Satan as only figurative, must necessarily
lead to the interpretation of the language that describes the
Spirit of God as figurative also. Hence it generally happens that
those who maintain that Satan is but a figure of speech, are
specimens of the victims of Satan as a triumphant seducer, for
they are led to deny, and consistently so, the personality of the
Holy Spirit, as the third Person of \the glorious Trinity.
We next read that in the Millennium there are thrones of
glory and of beauty, and that on these thrones of glory and
* I hope to give a moro minute analysis of it in my own church.

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 441
of beauty ¦_ Christ's saints sit and reign with him a thousand
years ; and among those who occupy the loftiest places of
these thrones, are those " that were beheaded for the witness
of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped
the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon
their foreheads, or in their hands." These are described in the
sixth chapter of this, book, wherein the saints that were mar
tyred for thetestimony of Jesus, are represented as crying out
from beneath the throne, "How long, 0- Lord, holy and true,'
dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on
the earth ? And white robes were given unto every one of them ;
and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little
season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that
should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." The descrip
tion of their' joy in the 20th chapter is the response to that
prayer : their resurrection to rise and reign with Christ for a
thousand years, in glory and joy, and light -and peace.
Now here contest or dispute begins. It is here that conflicting
views come into play. First, is the Saviour's advent to precede
the Millennium during which he reigns in person, or is his ad
vent to succeed it ? Secondly, is this resurrection of the just, so
frequently alluded to in Scripture, separate from the general
resurrection proclaimed to take place at the close of the millen
nial kingdom? In expressing my conviction,_ I. ask you not to
take my opinions as if they were undisputed ; weigh well and
impartially what I say; I enunciate conclusions to which I think
fair criticism leads me, and will, I hope, lead you, too ; viz. that
Christ will personally come prior to the Millennium, and that the
first resurrection precedes and does not succeed that epoch.
These views, of course, must not be taken on the strength of
the opinions or acceptance of men, — they must be received or
rejected upon the authority of the word of God; and this even
ing, therefore, I will submit to you, first, , the various opinions
entertained upon the subject; next, the grounds on which I come
to the conclusion I have now expressed. One circumstance,
however, must strike us at the beginning of our inquiry. We
are constantly told in Scripture that " we know not when Christ
comes," and " the day and the hour no man knows," and

442 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
we are told to be constantly watching and looking for him.-
Now, if it be true that a thousand years of millennial peace
are to precede Christ's adve'nt, it is plain we shall be able
to specify, during any part of the Millennium, the very day, al
most the very hour, when Christ will come; they, I submit with
all respect, are the rash fixers of dates' who say Christ's advent
is post-millennial; they leave it as God's word has left it, in
sublime and -significant uncertainty, who bid yourlook for Christ
in the clouds at any moment, and anticipate the Millennium as
the bright sunshine that follows,, not precedes, that risen Sun.
The first opinion which I will quote, respecting what is called
the resurrection of the just, and the nature of the millennial
reign, was held by Tatian, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, and Tertul
lian, four of the earliest writers' in the history of the Christian
church, one of whom has expressed the most beautiful, scrip
tural, and evangelical sentiments. The opinion of these ancient
writers is as follows : — First, that, at the advent of Christ, Anti
christ shall finally be destroyed ; next, that there is to be a bind
ing of Satan and a repression of all the powers of hell for a
thousand literal years ; that the government of the earth is to be
in the hands of Christ, and that his saints shall be co-equal, or
like to thelmgels ; that all false religion shall be rooted out; the
Jews converted, and restored to their own land, and Jerusalem
again become the sacred metropolis of all the nations of the
earth; and, at the end of the Millennium, these ancient writers
believe that Satan will be let loose once more, and that the ene
mies of God, some where on the outskirts of the earth, repre
sented by the names Gog and Magog, shall make war against the
people of God ; that these his enemies shall be totally and finally
destroyed ; - and then shall be the resurrection of all that are in
their graves — the casting of Satan into the lake of fire — and the
full and unsuspended reign of everlasting life and glory and felicity
in heaven.
The second theory is the theory held by a father no less emi
nent than any I have mentioned, namely Augustine. Augustine
believes that the resurrection here spoken of is purely spiritual ;
that the commencement of it was when Christ came into the
world to suffer, and that a resurrection takes place ever as a soul

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 443
is converted and raised from the death of sin to the life of
righteousness. The third solution is that held by Grotius and Hammond, and
some other divines subsequent to the Reformation. Their idea is,
that the first resurrection was jsurely ecclesiastical, and that it
began in the days of Constantine, when the church of Christ was
established by law; that the Apocalyptic beast was not Papal
Rome, but Pagan Rome — a series of assumptions utterly and
altogether untenable.
• The l^st view is that espoused by Whitby, and held by many
other eminent modern commentators; it is this: that the first
resurrection is not a resurrection of the bodies, but of . the prin
ciples and doctrines, and spiritual character and life of the Chris
tian martyrs; that the first resurrectjon is to be partly spiritual,
partly national, partly ecclesiastical ; that the pope is to be de
stroyed, the Jews converted and restored to, their own land, and
the splendour of the Millennium, at the close of which Christ
will come, is to merge in the heavenly glory, and both be one.
These are the four solutions of this chapter that have been offered
by eminent expositors.
It is obvious that the first and last are the only two worthy of
discussion. " The two intermediate theories, the second by Au
gustine and the third by Grotius, seem utterly untenable. They
are contrary to the plainest principles we have established before,
and as obviously inconsistent with fair Biblical interpretation,
-and I do not think it worth while to discuss them. The first
theory, therefore, that held by Justin Martyr, Ignatius, and Ter
tullian, on the one hand, and the last theory, or that adopted
by Whitby, and held by many Christians at present, are the only
two worthy of patient and impartial examination.
There are difficulties connected with both — this is too" plain.
¦ What subject has no difficulty ? It is the law of God that, in
this dispensation, there shall be no truth that projects not a sha
dow around it : the leaves of the tree of knowledge are not to be
altogether luminous in this dispensation. In the better world
those leaves will all be luminous — truth will have no shadow —
the Sun of Righteousness will be naked— we shall meet with no
difficulty — ail will be so plain, that he that runs may read and

444 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
understand. But while the first theory has difficulties, the
second seems to have insuperable ones.
I proceed to give a few of those reasons which induce me. to
believe that the second, namely, Whitby's, is untenable. His
argument is this : the resurrection of the martyrs, declared in the
twentieth chapter, means the resurrection of their principles,
their spirit, and their life, and he quotes Ezekiel's vision of the
dry bones, as a case parallel and illustrative of -it. The Jews
are nationally dead, and they are represented by bones exceeding
many and exceeding dry — the breath of heaven passes overthem
—the bones are clothed with sinews, and the Jews experience a
resurrection from the dead. This is a symbol;, so is the millen
nial resurrection. "So," says Whitby, "it will be with the
first resurrection of the martyrs and those that have not the
mark of the beast." He also- gives another instance — that of the
prodigal son. The prodigal was dead, that is, spiritually ; when
he was restored to his father, he is pronounced to be alive, i. e.
to be risen from the dead; and, in the light of these two in
stances, he views the resurrection of the martyrs and saints de
scribed in this chapter. He has confounded things that differ.
What looks like illustration is really not so. When we read of
those resurrections to which he has referred, we likewise read of
deaths corresponding to them ; in other words, we judge of the
nature of the resurrection by the nature and requirements of the
death. Thus, the death of the Jews is shown in the imagery of
Ezekiel to have been national — their resurrection, therefore,
must be necessarily national too. The death of the prodigal
was spiritual — the resurrection of the prodigal was necessarily
spiritual too. But the death of the martyrs in Revelation
(chap, xx.) is pronounced to be individual, literal; they
were "beheaded for the testimony of Jesus;" they were de
clared in the previous chapter to be individually slain as witnesses
for and to the truth of Jesus ; and therefore, instead of Whitby's
conclusion necessarily following, it seems to me that ourSj or the
very reverse, is the result of his reasoning, viz. that as national
death, in the case of the Jews, implied that their resurrection
would be national — as a spiritual death, in the case of the prodi
gal, implied that his resurrection would be spiritual — so the lite-

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 445
ral death, in the case of the martyrs of Jesus, implies that their
resurrection must be literal and personal too.
But there is yet another difficulty in the way of our aocepting
his interpretation. He says this resurrection means the resurrec
tion of the spirit, that is, fearlessness of death — fixed constancy —
and victory over persecution of the martyrs. This seems unna
tural, if we suppose, as he does, the previous existence of a Mil
lennium of perfect happiness and unsuspended peace. How shall
there be martyrs during the Millennium, when there will be no
murderers? How shall any one manifest the spirit of a martyr
when there can.be- none to manifest the. spirit or conduct of mur
derers? How shall any suffer pain when there is no one to inflict
it? We are forced to conclude that the resurrection of the mar
tyrs signifies, not thqt persons will be raised up who should have
the spirit but not die the death of the martyrs, but that it implies
the literal resurrection from the dead of those among others that
died and sealed their testimony with their own blood. But an
objection to this interpretation of ours is deduced from the words,
"I saw the souls of them that were beheaded;" from which it is
argued that, as souls are spoken of, it cannot mean persons; but
every reader of the Bible cannot but know that the "soul" is
frequently used to describe the whole man. "Soul, take thine
ease," is an instance of this — and, in the 6th chapter of this
book, it is said, " the souls of those that were beneath the altar
cried, How long?"
I therefore conclude that the first resurrection is the literal re
surrection 'of the just or saints, and of them alone, to reign per
sonally with Christ throughout the thousand years that follow.
That Christ's advent, at which this resurrection is to take place,
is to be pre-millennial, I think is evident from Matthew xiii. alone,
where we read as follows, at ver. 24:— "Another parable put he
forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto
a man which sowed good seed in his field : but while men slept,
his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his
way.' But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth
fruit, then appeared the tares also. The servants of the house
holder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good seed
in thy field ? from whence then hath it tares ? He said unto them,
38

446 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES:
An enemy hath done this. The servants said untc him, Wilt
thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay;
lest while ye gather up the tares ye< root up the wheat also: let
both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest
I will say to the reapers, Gather ye, together first the tares and
bind them in bundles to burn them," — the desolation of Antichrist
and all his followers, — "but gather the wheat into my barn."
Now I infer from this, that the wheat, or true believers, and the
tares, or apostate and unrighteous, will grow together until the
end of this dispensation come; the tares are to be first consumed,
as I showed you in a previous lecture, the wheat is then gathered
into happiness — i. e. the saints are raised from the dead, and reign
with Christ a thousand years.
The next evidence of this I will give you is from 2 Thess. ii. 4,
where we have the description of the man of sin, "who opposeth
and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is wor
shipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, show
ing that he is God. Remember ye not, that when I was yet with
you, I told you these things? And now ye know what withhold-
eth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of
iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let,
until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked
be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of his
mouth," — the wasting of Rome first, — "and destroy with the
brightness of his (napooaia) personal appearance." What does
this passage prove ? That the great Apostasy, predicted by St.
Paul, is to prevail during the whole period from Christ's first to
his second advent, and that this hoary Apostasy is to be consumed
and utterly destroyed only by the personal advent and appearance
of the Son of God. At that very period, the apostle speaks of
"a. gathering together unto Him," which he calls by the expres
sion, (f-KtauvaYurpj,) "a collection together unto" Christ of the
risen saints, when he comes to consume and destroy the great
Papal Apostasy by the brightness of his coming.
Then, in Luke xiv. 14, our Lord speaks of "the resurrection
of the just," as if that resurrection were totally distinct from the
general resurrection, and to take place at Christ's pre-millennial
appearance. Then, in Matt, xix., "Verily I say unto you, that

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 447
ye which have followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of
man shall sit in the throne of his glory, y.e also shall sit upon
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." We read- in
the Acts of the Apostles of Christ remaining in heaven " till the
restitution of all things," or "till he restore all things:" we read in
Rom. viii. "that all creation is groaning and travailing in pain,
waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God." And respecting
this manifestation of the sons of God, we read its definition, " wait
ing for the adoption, that is, the resurrection of the body." And
you recollect the apostle says; in Phil, iii., "if by any means I
might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." On this last pas
sage I may observe, there is no doubt all will be raised at the,last,
or attain a resurrection : in this sense, no man need wish to attain
the resurrection of the dead, because it is matter of certainty that
all will attain it : the apostle, therefore, evidently had before his eyes
the first resurrection, and the peculiar phraseology he employs on
this occasion proves it to be so — "if by any means I might attain
(zrjV Igavdazao-tv za>\> vexpaiv) the resurrection from among the dead ;"
just that resurrection of which it is said, "Blessed and holy is he
that hath part in the first resurrection."*
I might quote more texts, but it would probably weary you,
and besides, time will not permit me to do so : I must state, briefly,
the conclusion I have come to. -
I believe, from these and other reasons, that very soon Christ
will come upon the clouds of heaven, and that, when he comes,
the dead in Christ shall hear the sound of the trumpet and shall
rise and meet him in the air, and that they shall reign with him —
whatever may be the special nature of that reign and its details —
a thousand years, and after that shall be the general resurrection
of the dead, when the rest shall rise and be judged, "according
to the deeds done in the body."
On no other view can I explain the language of Scripture :
" As it was in the days of Noah, so shall also the coming of the
Son of man be. For, as in the days that were before the flood,
they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,

* Scholz's reading is still more marked, t%v i\ava(rr<wiv tV ek vsKpaiv, the resur
rection, the one from among tho dead.

448 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until
the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming
of -the Son of man be." How truly in keeping with this is our
Lord's own statement, " Behold, I come as a thief !" Hear also
what St. Peter says, in 2 Pet. iii. 3^: "Knowing this first, that
there shall come in the last days scoffers,' walking after their own
lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since
the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant
of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the
earth standing out of the water and in the waters- whereby the
world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But
the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are
kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and
perdition of ungodly men." On Which verse I may note, that
the expression "reserved unto fire," is literally translated "stored
with" or "having a treasure" of fire; and this criticism leads me
to remind you of what I told you last Sunday evening, that the
discovery of modern geologists is, that this earth was once liquid,
like liquid lava, that it is only cooled down upon its outer crust,
and that the interior Of the globe is still an ocean of liquid or
molten fire — the earthquakes we feel, the concussions of its rolling
waves — the volcanoes, the safety-valves for its escape; and so the
last discovery of science casts its light upon the statement of
Scripture, and gives, in this instance, but the earnest of that day
when all science and all literature shall combine to testify "God's
word is true." " But the day of the Lord will come as a thief
in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great
noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth
also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." And
when Christ comes, how startling shall be the. hour of the advent !
The dead that fell asleep in Jesus, and have slept many thousand
years, shall hear, when he comes, the approach of his footfall, and
recognise the sound of his voice, and shall rise and meet him in
the air. The living that are in Christ shall hear his approach,
too, and recognise the tones of his voice, and shall rise and meet
him and the risen and quickened dead in the air, and reign with
him a thousand years. Abraham, and Noah, and Job shall hear

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 449
his voice in their silent sepulchres, and join him in the air.
Paul, and Peter, and John, and Luther, and Wilberforce, and
Simeon of Cambridge, and Venn, and Williams, and Chalmers,
shall obey his summons from their sequestered and separate
tombs, and gather around their glorious Lord. One grave' shall
cleave in twain, and its buried tenantry shall rise and meet the
Lord, and the other grave, that looks equally green, beside it,
shall fail to be pierced by that sound, or its dead dust to be
moved. The cemeteries of stone and the monuments of bronze
shall rend, and the dead saints that are there shall come forth —
its sleeping dust shall be quickened in every sepulchre; and the
stones of cathedrals, and the vaults of churches, and- the green
turf, and the marble mausoleum shall alike explode, and pour
forth into the air their troops of awakened dead. Nor less start
ling will be the scenes that occur among the living; some families
shall be met together speaking of the things of this world — in an
instant, and without warning, one shall hear a sound significant
to his heart of glory, and rise as upon the lightning's wing, and
with its splendour, and leave without a farewell the rest that know
not Christ, and remain astonished behind. Oh ! great day of se
paration of families — of dislocation of households — of severance
of the dead — of removal of the living — of astonishment to the
world — of glory to the Lord Jesus — of happiness to the saints !
But, you ask, what shall become of those that are left behind?
The earth, having given up the silent dust of the saints that sleep
beneath it — and every living saint that lives upon the earth hav
ing heard his voice, and responded to its call — then the fire that
is treasured up, as I explained to you, in the very centre of the
earth, shall burst forth at ten thousand crevices — ¦" the elements
shall melt as with fervent heat" — the solid rocks shall blaze as
if they were wax, and the rivers as if they were oil, and the weary
old earth, having undergone the ordeal of the last fire, shall re
gain its pristine purity, and become fit for the immediate presence
of the descending Saviour and his risen saints. The earth shall
be made new — its soil restored — paradise regained. The deep-
toned miserere of humanity that has risen for six thousand years,
shall be lost in the everlasting jubilee. There will be no tears —
no sighs— no crying — no storms shall disturb its calniT— there will
38*

450 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
be no decay in its verdure — no serpent's trail amid its flowers—
but happiness and love, and joy and peace, for a thousand years
in the presence of Christ and his saints.
Some say, will not this be an earthly heaven? My dear
friends, earth is not essentially corrupt : there is nothing sinful
in the clods of the valley — nor inherently polluted in a rose, or
in a tree, or in a stone. I have seen spots upon the earth so
beautiful, that if no clouds of winter would overtake them, nor
the sin of man blast them, I could wish to live amid them for
ever. Take sin from the earth — the fever that incessantly dis
turbs it — the cold, freezing shadow that creeps over it — let my
Lord and my Saviour plant his throne upon the earth, and his
hand wave its consecration, and make it the presence of Christ,
and where can there exist a lovelier spot? what fairer land can
man desire to live on ? would it not be joy unspeakable and full
of glory 1 To me it is heaven where 'Christ is, whether he be
throned upon earth, or reigning amid the splendours of the sky
— if I am with him, and he with me, I must enjoy unsullied
and perpetual happiness.
I have thus, then, given you, not an elaborate exposition of
the twentieth chapter, but a short, and, as I conceive to be, a
fair and honest outline of its predicted events. It does not
become me to attempt to play the prophet. We are only fallible
expositors of the word of God. I may have formed wrong
conceptions of its symbols. I may, perhaps, have rashly intrud
ed where "angels fear to tread. I do not ask you to take my
opinion because it seems to be plausible, but to study that blessed
book, on the very threshold and vestibule of which are written
the inspired and inviting words, "Blesged is he that readeth
and understandeth the things that are written in this book." If
it be true that the Jews are soon to be restored — within, as I
think, a very few years ; if it be true, as I have likewise indicated,
that twenty years more will introduce some of the last startling
phenomena to which I, have alluded — for it is remarkable that
most prophetic interpreters take the nearest time of the first
resurrection to be A. D. 1864, and the remotest time to be A D.
1885 : take the nearest or the remotest, I conclude that, between
those bounding periods, the dead saints who are in their graves

CHRIST'S SECOND ADVENT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 451
shall hear the peal of the resurrection trumpet, and the living
saints that are on earth shall hear it too, and their hearts shall
leap for joy; and the dead in Christ, and they that are alive
in Christ, shall meet the Lord in the air, and reign with him a
thousand years. Great and solemn crisis, I cannot but again
exclaim ! One in a family shall be taken, and the other shall be
left — the mother will be snatched up to the Lord, her son will
be left to perish in the flames ! The husband will be left, and-
the wife will be taken. My dear friends, our separations now
are but dim shadows of that last terrible one. Oh ! fathers,
mothers, sisters, brothers, in this assembly, if you desire your
circles upon earth to be happy, how should you pray that you
may be happy together throughout eternity ! Mothers, if you
wish to meet your babes in glory, teach them to love their
Saviour now. Sons and daughters ! if you wish to see the gray
hairs of your parents amid the throng that surrounds the Lord
Jesus, pray for them- now. Sund'ay-school teachers, if you would
take those children to heaven with you, and have them for the
jewels in your diadem, teach them to love and know their
Saviour now. Masters, you are responsible for your servants —
servants, for your masters — children, for your parents — parents,
for your children — each, for his neighbour. Let each pray and
strive, and spend and be spent, that each may meet the. other
where there shall be no separation — no pain — no sorrow — but all
shall be one for ever with the Lord.
I ask you again, each individually, as before God, are you a
Christian ? My dear friends, here is your unhappy misappre
hension. When I bid you be religious, you fancy I am urging you
to take some nauseous and unpalatable drug, necessary in order
that you may be saved, but which you would rather postpone to
the very last moment. In beseeching you to be Christians, I bid
you be happy; in inviting you to come to Christ, I invite you to
be a partaker of a joy and peace which you have never tasted
before. In bidding you be holy, I bid you cease to be miserable,
and learn what it is to be instantly and unspeakably happy. I ask
you, are you the children of God? Are you Christians indeed?
Do not leave the question unsettled. It can be settled. You
need not leave it in uncertainty. The man whose heart is

452 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
changed, and he alone, has settled it. The man whose trust is
on the Rock of ages knows that he is so. Examine yourselves.
Judge ye. - 1 speak as unto reasonable men. " If any man be
in Christ he is a new creature : old things are passed away, be
hold, all things are become new." "If any man believeth not
on him, the wrath of God abideth on him." 0 God, grant
that at that day, and that hour, which I have attempted thus
darkly to describe, we may be found having our lamps burning
and our loins girt, and ready to obey the Saviour's voice, and to
rise and reign with Him in glory. He cometh with clouds, and
every eye shall see Him.
"The Lord shall come, the earth shall quake,
The mountains to their centre shake,
And, withering from tho vault of night,
The stars shall pale their feeble light.
Can this be He, who, wont to stray
A pilgrim on the world's highway,
Oppress'd by power, and mock'd by pride,
The Nazarene! The Crucified?—
While sinners in despair shall call,
i Rocks, hide us — mountains, on us fall j
The saints, ascending from the tomb,
Shall joyful sing, The Lord is oome."

453

LECTURE XXV.
THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT.
"Behold, I come as a thief.' Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth -his
garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." — Revelation xvi. 15.
I think I have proved there can be no Millennium "upon
earth until there burst upon it first a revelation of the light of
the Sun of Righteousness. I showed, I think, by texts that are
conclusive, that the Millennium is to succeed, not to precede, the
Redeemer's second personal coming, and thus to be the reflection
of the shining light of the manifested - Sun of Righteousness.
I adduced the parable which describes the present dispensation
of the church as being a mixture of the tares and the wheat
together, and showed that this condition of the visible church is
to remain till the great harvest-man shall come to sever the tares
from the wheat; to preserve the one, and to cast away and
everlastingly consume the other. I proved that the advent of
Christ, from the chronological views which we have endeavoured
to establish in expounding the Apocalypse,' must be very near ',
and I showed you the nature of that advent : He will come, like
the lightning, unexpected on a world that looks not for him :
"As it Was in the days of Noah, so shall it be, also in the day
when the Son of man cometh. They were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered
into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them
all away." And again, it is written, "When the Son of man
cometh, shall he find faith on the earth ?" And again, " I
come as a thief;" denoting the unexpected and sudden nature of
his advent. Now, putting a fair construction upon these passages,
I cannot come to the conclusion that there will be first a thousand

454 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
years of millennial peace, andthat at the close of this Millennium,
Christ shall come and sit upon his throne and judge the world.
On the contrary, I am driven to the conclusion, which I have
endeavoured already to express, that the second advent of Christ
is the great hope" of the Christian church for the future; and as
the blessings of the gospel flow from faith in a personal Christ,
so all the splendours of the millennium day shall be reflected
from a present personal Christ. 1-
I think I see throughout Scripture clearly enunciated two resur
rections. These two are stated in the 20th chapter of this book,
and that the literal meaning is the true, I think will appear, if
you notice a peculiarity in the language of the Apocalypse, which
I omitted to refer to, viz. that invariably after St. John had stated
some g^eat symbol, he introduces a parenthetic explanation of it,
which is of necessity literal. Thus, when he sees seven candle
sticks, he appends the explanation of it ; the seven candlesticks,
i. e. the symbols, are seven churches. The statement, they "are
seven churches," is a literal explanation of the symbol, "seven
candlesticks ;"- so here, when he states that those that had not the
mark of the beast shall rise and reign with Christ a thousand
years, he adds the explanatory remark, exactly parallel with
those cases I have quoted — " This is the first resurrection."
This last expression is not a symbol to be further explained by
some literal fulfilment, but it is an historical or explanatory state
ment of a symbol which literally describes the literal fact. But
this distinction in the resurrection of the dead is not at all pecu
liar to the Apocalypse. I find the apostle Paul, as I have stated,
saying, "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection
of the dead." Now, on looking at the English translation, we
do not precisely understand the hope of the apostle ; for all will
attain the resurrection of the dead; the just and the unjust must
rise from the dead. Then how could this resurrection be an ob
ject of glorious hope to the apostle, as distinct and separate from
the hope of the rest of the world ? Every scholar, or rather
every one that understands the rudiments of the Greek tongue,
has only to open his New Testament, and he will find the apos
tle's language is peculiar and distinct. His words are not zrtv
avdazaatv zmv vexpaiv, but zijv iqavdo-zaatv ex zwv vexp&v — which

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 455
means literally, " if by any means I may attain to the resurrec
tion," not z&v vExpmn, " of the dead," but that marked, peculiar,
and well-known resurrection, that great one, "from among the
dead." It is the most expressive combination of Words to describe
the first resurrection ; and shows that the apostle understood that
there was a resurrection peculiar to the people of God, and dis
tinct from the resurrection of the unjust. Our Lord .also speaks
of this first resurrection, in language that plainly implies its dis
tinction from the last or second. In Luke xx. 35, the very same
expression, ttjc ' avdazao-ew: -nj? ix zmv vexpmv, "that resurrection,
that one from among, or of the number of, the dead." Thus it
seems to me that John refers to this resurrection as one well
known and universally admitted, as if he said — "This hope which
Paul cherished in his trials — this which is the subject of the Sa
viour's promise — this which is the hope and ardent expectation of
his saints — this is. not a strange, a figurative, or symbolic hope,
but a substantial and a real one " — " this is that resurrection, that
great one, from among the dead."
I have showed you what will take place at that resurrection,
when Christ shall come, " who is the resurrection and the life."
The moment that the cloud shall waft him on its wings from the
throne on which he now sits, and bring him within the range and
the attraction of the orb on which we now stand — that instant
every grave that has a saint beneath it, though the ocean's pres
sure or the Alpine hills and avalanches be upon it, shall split
asunder, and its awakened dead shall come forth ; and every grave
that contains the dust of an unrenewed and unconverted man —
le.t it be covered with a beautiful tablet, or inscribed with holy.
epitaph — let it be a cathedral vault, or marble mausoleum — be it
what it may, the summons will be unheard, and. the dead dust that
is there will lie as still and as quiet as the dead in the ohurchyard
were you or I to say to them, " Come forth." You will see
emerge from one grave a cloud of saints that have heard the
sound of their Saviour's voice in its inmost caverns, and rise to
reign with Christ a thousand years, and you will see the graves
of the dead who are not in Christ remain still and motionless as
if the wind only swept over them. But the living, what is to be
their case? "The dead in Christ shall rise first," says the

456 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
" apostle ; " then we which are alive and remain,- shall be caught
up to meet the Lord in the air." What a sublime spectacle that
will be ! What awful and startling severances! I look into that
home ; one rises as he hears a mysterious biddings and ascends
under a mysterious attraction, and meets the Lord in the air : the
mother is taken, the daughter is left — or two rise, and the rest re
main. Suppose that .the hour that is rushing by were this evening
the close of this dispensation — suppose that dread sound were to
reverberate through Exeter Hall, what would follow ? Men and
brethren, what spectacle shall we anticipate ? where and what shall
we be ? Shall-I say a thousand or two thousand will rise as on
eagles' wings, and unmoved thousands remain behind? God knows.
Now be at peace with God. Now lay down the weapons of rebellion
¦ — if one soul shall be found that day unawakened, in his stirring
home, or in his silent grave, by that royal sound, that soul will
have for his portion the worm that never dies, and the fire that is
never quenched ; and feel he will for ever what he will utter in his
endless agony, " I did it all myself : I neglected the gospel, and
perished in my sins ; I loved the world more than I loved my
Lord, and all this ill is the result of my own doing, and of nothing
else." Such, then, shall be the awful severance that will take place
when Christ shall come. They that sleep in Christ shall rise, and
only they, and they that are alive and live in Christ, and only they
shall join them; and the dead whose souls are not united to the
Saviour, resting in their graves, shall remain; the living, whose
hearts are not renewed by the Holy Ghost, and with the Saviour,
shall remain also. The instant that this earth has been thus con
signed to be the habitation of the dead in soul and the dead in
body, the fire, which I told you geologists have admitted, and
which the Scripture confirms, to be a large ocean of restless and
of liquid lava, that rolls and heaves in the innermost recesses of
the earth, of which our volcanoes are but the safety-valves, and
our earthquakes as the reverberations of its ceaseless waves lash
ing its desolate and dreary shores, shall burst forth at a thousand
orifices; the gases that compose our atmosphere shall ignite, and
"the heaven and the earth," meaning this visible economy around
us, " shall melt," in the language of the apostle, " as if with fer-

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. -457
vent heat:" Christ's people in the air — the people that are not
Christ's on the earth — the living punished on it, the dead buried
beneath it.
Such is the solemn finale ; and when this has taken place, this
puri£ed earth shall be the residence of the saints of God. ' In
deed, the impression has struck me, that the twenty-first and
twenty-second chapters of the Apocalypse, — on which. I cannot
enter in this hall, but some of the- points of which I shall have
occasion to allude to in a second series, — it strikes me that those
two chapters contain a description, not of the church in everlast
ing glory, but of the church upon this very world : I do not ad
vocate a carnal or -a sensuous .heaven : a .holy and huppy earth is
not carnal. There is nothingsinful in a stone. There is nothing
naturally tainted and impure in the grass that grows, or in tho
trees that bloom, or in the waters in the ocean, or in the streams,
or in the rivers that flow toward the boundless main. It may be
restored and purified by fire, consecrated by the descending foot
steps, of our descended God — the earth may be made the vestibule
of glory, the- twilight of a day in whose splendours we shall live
and glow for ever.
After this resurrection has taken place, the Millennium will be
gin ; for a thousand, years Satan will be chained, all the-powers
— the Satanic powers — that have tempted mankind, will be re
pressed during^the lapse of a thousand years, and the- earth shall
be the holy platform, the consecrated temple — the altar-ground
on which congregated- Saints in their resurrection bodies, free
from all sin, shall worship and adore the Lord. Every flower
that' decks the earth shall reflect the splendour and send up as
incense the fragrance of the Sun of Righteousness; every sound
in creation — the chime of waves, the breath of winds, the hum
of bees, the song of birds, the lowing of cattle — shall lose the
minor sound that now -runs through them all, and with Christ
for their key-note shall be woven into the harmony of a jhappy
universe ; every mind shall be light, every heart love, and every
tongue shall be praise.
Such is the Millennium as it is described in Scripture; but
one difficult point remains ; it may be my own delusion, ,but it
lines strike me that I have found the explanation of a univer-
39

458 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
sally perplexing point — a confessed difficulty : if there 's to be
a Millennium of a thousand years with' Christ and his own peo
ple, in the midst of the earth, how is it that when Satan shall
be -loosed, that there shall be found a people in the four corners
of the earth called Gog and Magog, who shall be gathered
together in battle, and war against the saints of God in the
resurrection body ? .Now, I admit there is great difficulty about
this; but observe, the difficulty that occurs to the mind and
theory of a pre-millinnialist is not greater than the difficulty
that occurs to the theory and exposition of a post-millennialist.
I will give what I think the probable solution of an admitted
and perplexing difficulty. Do you perceive that it is here stated
that when the dead in Christ have risen and ascended to the
Lord, the rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years were
finished? I suppose, then, that "the rest of the dead," that is,
the unconverted, are raised from their graves just at the moment
that the thousand years are completely closed, and that "the
rest of the dead" raised in their bodies, are those enemies who
make war with the saints in their resurrection bodies; the unjust
shall arise as well as the just; the one shall have their bodies
restored as well as the other, the imprimatur of eternity stamped
upon the one, the imprimatur' of eternity stamped upon the
other-— the one an eternal capacity of wo, the other of bliss. I
suppose — and 'I believe it is the true solution -of the difficulty —
that the enemies that come from the four corners of the. earth,
are just "the rest of the dead," raised at the close of' the Mil
lennium, and then and there, with all their vices unextirpated,
their natures unregenerated, their hearts in the gall of bitterness,
they shall be headed by the archangel's energy, and the arch
fiend's hate, and shall make one last, dying, and desperate attack
upon the saints of God that dwell in the new Jerusalem, and
who there magnify and worship the Lamb.^ Now the cause
of the difficulty has generally been, that at the eleventh verse
of chap. xx. it is stated, "I saw a great white throne, and him
that sat on it, from whose face the earth arid the heaven fled
away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the
dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were
opened : and another book was opened, which is tho book of life :

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 459
and the dead- were judged out of those things that were written
in the books, -according to their works." I think this will con
firm my exposition :¦ it is not said, when the statement is given
about the great white throne, that the rest of the dead then rose:
it is remarkable that in the commencement of the chapter it is
saidn " the rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years were
finished;" and when the great white throne'is set, it is not said
that the rest of the dead were summoned from their graves, but
it presupposes that they had already arisen, and perhaps' implies
an interval, during which interval they make their last attack;
it is stated that all had risen at the end of the thousand years,
and they stood before the great white throne, to receive judgment
according to tho deeds done in the body ; " and as- many of them
as were not found written in . the Lamb's book of life Were cast
into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.','.
It is thus, then, that I attempt the solution of a difficulty so
perplexing.- I only ask you to study it : -if you see reasons for
rejecting this view, do so; if you see the confirmation of it, you
should be thankful that you find the "solution of a difficulty that
has perplexed almost every commentator on the Apocalypse, and
which I submit as a -thought that has occurred to. my own mind,
as probably the true and just solution of a, great and. acknow
ledged difficulty.
Now having gone thus far in stating the nature of the Mil
lennium, I know that many questions will be asked, such as have
been asked before, to which no answers are given in , Scripture,
and to. which I profess to,be able and willing to give none. If it
be asked, What shall be the nature of the personal- manifesta
tion of the Lord of glory? Shall we see the traces of the nails'
in his hands ? - Shall we see the mark of the crown of thorns
about his brow? Where will he be throned? In what portion
of the earth will he -be seen? How will he talk or walk in the
midst of us ? To such' questions Scripture has given no answer;
and where God's word is silent, it is hot for me to speak. Again,
the question will be asked, What will be the nature of the resur
rection body of the saints? What will be its employments, its
physical characteristics? To these and a" thousand kindred
questions, the Bible gives no reply, and I attempt to give gone.

460 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
I look forno sensuous Blillennium — no pagan Elysium. On tho
contrary, I would not have a Millennium without Christ, but rather
Christ without a Millennium. The believer's safety is in Christ, the
believer's heaven is in Christ, and wherever Christ is, in the firma
ment above, or in the earth below, it matters not—there I desire to
be, and there perfect happiness will be. But I believe this high hap
piness will be realized upon earth — restored and regenerated earth ;
we shall enjoy a felicity and a glory and a peace on this orb, in its.
resurrection state, which poet's imagination- never dreamed of, and
which painter's pencil would attempt in vain to embody. I "be
lieve that the groans of this wearied world shall close, that the
cry of sorrow that has risen perpetually from its inhabitants
shall be stilled for ever — that it shall cease -to be an. aceldama
of the living, or a charnel-house of. the dead. I believe that
the simoon- shall no more sweep its - soil, nor the earthquake
upheave it, nor the lightning's flash rend its. trees any more.
This earth shall put off its ashen garments, and doff its raiment
of sackcloth; all creation shall cast aside from its eyes the
dark shroud -of sorrow that has dimmed them; and we shall,
see 'amid the glorious Apocalypse, the sun that shall rise to set
no more. " Come, Lord Jesus, even so, come quickly !" I be
lieve that our poets shall lay aside their mourning garments, and
put on their priestly robes; and philosophy shall be the hand
maid ministering at. the altar of the gospel;' and all literature,
and all science, and all knowledge, shall become instinct with
glorious inspiration, and shall blend their voices in deep-toned
and perpetual harmony", "Blessing, and glory, and honour, and
thanksgiving unto God, and to the Lamb who was slain, for
ever and ever."
But I dwell toq much on scenes on wliich imaginatiqn would
love to expatiate — scenes, nevertheless, which, if before our eyes
more continually, would make all that is in the world grow very
pale and dim. A man that can anticipate a crown' in glory,
would see fainter charms in a crown on earth. That man who
has not- an acre below; but who has an inheritance incorruptible
in reversion, would have less desire for the lands and houses
of this world. . Just as the sun shining on the brightest fire puts
that fire out, so a handful of the beams that come from' the cen-

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 461
tral sun of that millennial morn would extinguish all that dazzles
men's eyes, and captivates men's minds, and rivets man as a
slave and a drudge to a miserable and a dying world.
But I passion to notice the signs of his advent. I will quote
first a very few texts which. allude to it. His advent is attended
with "times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord;" and,
with " the time of the restitution of all things." The appearing
of Christ is called "the revelation of Christ;" "looking. for that
blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and
Saviour." In Matt! xxiv. 30, it is written, "And they shall
see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power
and great glory .-" In 2 Thess. i. 7, 8, we read, " When the Lord
Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in
flaming fire, taking vengeance on them' that know not God."
In Acts i. 11, it is declared, "This same Jesus, who is taken up
from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have
seen him go into' heaven." In Mark xiii. 35, "Watch ye, there
fore; for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at
even, or at midnight, or at cock-crowingror in the morning: lest
coming suddenly he find you sleeping." In 1 Thess. v. 2, " The day
of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night;" i. e. unexpectedly,
suddenly. ^ Matt. xxiv. 27, "For as the lightning cometh out of
the east and shineth even unto the west" — the lightning gives no
premonition of its approach — " so shall also the. coming of the
Son of Man be." And what shall take place -when he comes ?
"In that day the heavens shall pass away with a great noise,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth ^also,
and the works that are therein, shall be burned up." In 1 Thess.
iv. 16, 17, "The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with
a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the ' trump
of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we which
are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in
the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air,' and so shall we ever be
with the Lord." Can there be plainer language than that of
Isaiah xxiv. 23, " The Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion,
and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously."- Dan. vii.
14, " And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a king
dom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him ;
33«

462 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass
away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."
Then we read what is the character of the saints in reference
to it — " waiting for that blessed hope ;" "waiting for the coming
of the Lord." .The Lord Jesus -promises that we shall reign
with him— that we " shall appear with him in glory." No
sooner had Jesus left, the >earth at the ascension, than the cry
was instantly raised, " Come, Lord Jesus." The bride is not
satisfied with the home and the. fortune, it is for the bridegroom
that she longs. No earthly substitute can satisfy the church.
He only can who is her Lord. A paradise without the tree of
life would have no attraction. The Millennium without Christ,
a Millennium of glory and beauty without Christ, would have
no charms for a Christian. It would be like a tune without a
key-note — it would be tangled harmony — it would be worse — it
would be intolerable discord. It is a personal "Christ on which
the believer trusts' below; it is for a personal Christ that the
believer looks. Faith rests not upon a, dogma, even justification
by faith : it rests upon the living personal Christ, the Lord our
Righteousness. Hope expects not- a mere Millennium, it expects
the Lord of the Millennium. The disciple who wrote the
Apocalypse, and who leaned upon the Saviour's bosom^and he
was neither sensual'nor carnal, the instant that the Saviour said,
"Behold, I come quickly,", added the deep-toned Amen, which
rose from the very depth of his soul, "Even so, come, Lord
Jesus, come quickly." -The night cometh first, and then the
morn. I see the shadows nf a dark night already forecast
upon the world — I see dark and ominous, shadows creeping, like
birds of night, from every point of the horizon, all giving tokens
of an approaching storm that will rend and split Europe into
fragments. We may very speedily have to witness men's souls,
looking with fear for the things that are coming upon the earth ;
and thinking men, like Arnold and others, who did not study
prophecy, but -who, looked at facts, phenomena, and science, felt
their hearts, as I shall show by a quotation by and by, fainting
because of what they saw coming upon the world. But the
darkest night has its morn. The cloud that is blackest has a
rainbow gilding it. That night shall pass away, before the rise

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 463
of a glorious sun ; and the instant that sun rises on a benignted
world, the morn. of the millennial day shall overspread the earth
with a new and glorious aurora- — a zone of bright splendour — an
atmosphere of beauty unparalleled.
Let me notice, however, some of the clear signs which indicate
the approach of. that period. I described, in the course of a
recent lecture, the unclean spirits that go out to deceive the
nations of the earth under the sixth vial; and I showed you by
incontestable proofs, that those unclean spirits are at work in
the midst of our people. The first, I showed you, was Infidelity
— the spirit of the dragon. I told you that it consisted not
gimply in antagonism to Christianity, but that it consisted, like
wise, in the absence of Christianity. I believe that one half of
the professors of the gospel- are nothing better than practical
infidels. My dear friends, if our hearts had God's light and
love in -them, the very statement of the. gospel would persuade
us to embrace it. I need no evidence of the .corruption, the
desperate Corruption, of man's nature, but just this, that he can
hear truths that electrify the redeemed in glory, for one sound of
which the lost in hell would give a thousand worlds; and he has
no sooner heard them, than he goes forth, one to his farm, and
another to his field, and other to his merchandise, and lives
retaining all his .responsibility — for of that he cannot divest
himself — but without one portion of holiness, or loyalty, or
prospect of . peace. We are told that the last-age will be
characterized by selfishness; and this is a predominant charac
teristic of the present state of our world. Let any man take his
station on any of our great thoroughfares, as, for; instance, near
St. Paul's, ' and let him look along, the living mass that pours
down Cheapside ; it seems as if every man were ,so absorbed in
himself, that if the man who runs before him were to fall, he
would just make him a stepping-stone from which he would take
a greater leap- that he might the sooner reach the .Exchange.
So truly selfish does human nature .show itself — so selfish has
human nature become ! What do you do for the cause of Christ?
What- do you give' ? You give, perhaps, some £10 a year for
wine and spirits, both probably useless. You give for other
luxuries and gratifications of sense other £10 a year. How

464 'APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
much do you give to the cause of Christ ? — a guinea a year, and
you thinkyou have thus acquitted yourself of all responsibility
before God. What a contrast are we to those in that day " who
rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name's
sake," and gave up riches and home, and all that they had, as
the choicest gifts they could lay upon the altar of their Lord.
Hear what men shall be, and let the people of London sit for
the contrast. Hear the inspired sketch, look to the living men,
and see if there be not a perfect coincidence. In the last days
men shall be, first, "lovers of their own selves;" secondly,
"covetous;'' thirdly, "boasters;" fourthly, "proud;" fifthly,
"blasphemers;" sixthly, "disobedient to parents;" that beauti
ful, that musical sound, father, is being banished, from Eng
land's homes, and that horrible importation from France, " our
governor," is being substituted in its place. Men shall be
"unthankful;"' what evidence of this in our churches, in our
Exchange, in the streets of our city ! " unholy, without natural
affection." An awful' and terrible characteristic of those days is the
increase and spread of Popery. If Ilook around me^I see on
every side Popery pluming its wings, and that great religious
maniac, for that is his true name, who has reigned at Rome for
eighteen centuries, whose lunacy; and madness ,the Apostle fore
saw when he says, " the mystery Of iniquity doth already work,"
putting forth new and too successful efforts. His madness once
rose to such a height that the kings and sovereigns of the earth"
conspired together to drag him from his throne for the sake of
their own safety. England had felt him to be so intolerable a
curse, that she raised walls high and thick 'between herself and
all contact and communion with him. This maniac- has now
made honest Englishmen believe that he is a liberal pontiff;
that he is anxious for liberty and freedom, and all good -things;
but you may depend upon it,, it is but the cunning of the maniac,
seeking to find scope for the development of his terrible passions.
See whether I am a prophet of truth or a prophet of error when
I state that that power, so unsuspected by the generous, and
open, and unsuspecting. hearts of Britons, will yet obtain a grasp
of our country^ if we court him, so terrible, that the throne and

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 165
the altar will rock and reel beneath it; arid you will mourn the
day when you despised the predictions of the prophet, and trusted
to the conclusions of the " march of intellect," or the philoso-.
phers and savans of the day.
I need not give you proofs of the spread of that terrible sys
tem. I can only say that its basilisk eye is riveted on all that is
dear and precious to us. Traetarianism.is just the- smoke that
arises from it, and conceals from the eyes of the masses the un
clean locusts of the spiritual Egypt. I believe that these Traota
rians are just the back- woodsmen of Popery — its pioneers making'
room for it — caterers to the pope; some of them his acknow
ledged servants. And there is no class or description of his janis
saries on whom Pope Pius" IX', looks, yrith more consummate
complacency than on those who. sign nobly Protestant articles,
and at the same time preach thoroughly Popish doctrine ; who
take bread left for Protestant ends, and eat it, while they propa
gate the yeryrerrors against which they have sworn solemnly to
protest. I see, then, in the spread of Popery, andin"the spread of that
which I have called Popery without a pope, the evidence that we
are at the close of the sixth vial, or passing from under it to the
seventh, and that the Lord- is at hand. I may mention another
characteristic Of these latter times here — and I wish to state it
without expressing any particle of political preference r it is the
utter dislocation of parties; there is no such thing as party now.
The old names that used to be the, watchwords of the different
parties in the state are no more. It. seems as if. some explosive
force had entered the hearts of all political, parties and split them
into a thousand splinters. . What does this indicate ? It is a law
in nature, that, when a disintegration of particles has taken
place, it is always preparatory to new combinations. The same
law holds good in morals and in politics ; it seems as if when all
parties are thus dislocated and' disintegrated and broken up, it
were the preparation for'that tremendous "conspiracy, against God
and against man which is the perfect and full, development of
Antichrist, on whom the judgments of God shall descend, and
who shall be cast, with all that bear his mark,- into the lake that
burneth for ever and- ever. There is just one thing on which

466 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
almost all statesmen of the present day are agreed — they differ
on almost every topic but this, viz. that the chains wound around
the Romish priesthood shall be taken off. I am not'in favour of
penalties in these matters, if it be possible to dispense with them-;
but is it not fair, when great statesmen are' convinced that the
time is come for removing from the statute-book all restrictions
from the Church of Rome, that we should ask for, at least, a re
cognition of our generosity ,by requesting the pope to remove all
pain's, and curses, and penalties against us from his statute-book ?
In vain we ask him to do so ? Pius IX. boasts of his liberality,
and calls upon us to remove all pains and penalties that were
directed against him for our defence ; but he tells you he would
as soon remove from the Vatican itself as remove from his
statute-book one exterminating bull, or expunge one decree that
consigns us, from' our noble queen upon her" throne to the mean
est of her subjects, to destruction of soul and body in- time and
in eternity, because of our opposition to him, and our refusal to
submit to his authority ; and yet strange it is that we should
expect any other treatment from this quarter !
Another sign of the last-times, besides the increase of Popery
and infidelity, and this dislocation and disintegration of parties,
is the increased interest, as I have told you, which is felt in the
Jews. This is one of the startling phenomena of the age, one
of the premonitory signs of closing cycles, and of a coming
Lord. As I told you in the morning, there is not a nation on
the continent of Europe that is not more or less agitated about
the state and position of the Jew. This excitement is the more
strange, inasmuch as those Jews are. not troublesome political
disturbers ; their power as a party is nothing, and, as for them
selves, give them twe'nty per cent, and they will feel Contempt
for all the political privileges which you can bestow upon them ;
yet, is it not a fact that' every state seems afraid lest it should be
suspected for a moment that it withholds one political privilege
from the Jew? Poor, weary- footed wanderer! give him, for a
little, a home in your land — let him, for a few days, have the
possibility of it in the midst of you, I will promise he will not
trouble you long ; he is the denizen of a nobler clime — his heart
leans towarci Jerusalem, as the needle to the 'pole. Amid the

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 467
debris of every dynasty, his eye rests upon Salem, and his heart
beats and pants for the coming of the great Messiah — -the true
Solomon — -the hope of Israel. When I look upon a Jew, he
reminds me of some discrowned monarch, swept from his throne
for some great offence, cast into the midst of a strange land : his
very looks indicate a consciousness of some dread crime, by whieh
he is haunted everywhere. The Jews are a national phenome
non, which nothing can explain but the gospel — a phenomenon
that shall play a part in the history of Europe the grandest and
the most momentous in all the records- of the past.
I may notice, also, as a prelude to our Lord's advent, the great.
efforts that are made in every portion of the globe at self-per
fection, or rather^ as it has been called, self-regeneration. Do I
not see throughout the length and breadth, of society .the most
strenuous, and in their place the most Commendable, efforts to add
to the perfection of our nature, to expedite the full development
of all we are capable of— in short,, if possible, to hring on a mil
lennium .of happiness without Christ, in the midst of our earth.
For instance, our sanitary improvements, the most proper and
the most -laudable, are pointed to by some as if they could bid
defiance to the judgments of. God, and even to death itself; and
hydropathy, and homoeopathy, and successive pathies, concocted
by the talent of man, are set forth, one after another, as the true
elixir of human life. Men seem to feel that they ought, to. live
forever ; and, recollecting their original glory, they seek to grasp
any thing which will promise to enable them to do so.
Chemistry writes -its books and pursues its brilliant disco
veries, as if persuaded that a world that groans beneath the curse
has in it the germ or secret, of millennial blessedness.
Education is the great demand of the day. Men are not
agreed in what they should be educated. Some say they must
be educated in the absence of all religion, which is just as, absurd
as that it is enough to cultivate the intellect, and dwarf the heart — •
to teach the young the knowledge- of the creature, bat not of the
Creator. But if men are not agreed what must be taught, they
are all perfectly, agreed that men must be taught ; and science,
and geology, and astronomy, are' constantly toiling and boasting
of their discoveries, and some of them are brilliant ; and scientific

468 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
institutions, and mechanics' institutions and athenaeums are growing
up on all sides of us : all this is knowledge running to and fro, and
increased ; and what will be the result of it all ? After the most
successful efforts have been made in cultivating the earth, till it is
almost overspread with mllleunial crops — after science, geology,
astronomy, have done their utmost to make man happy by making
him wise and rich, man will feel that he has failed to reach the
happiness of which our nature was made originally capable, and
the cry -will rise from the still aching heart of disappointed hu
manity with more piercing intensity, "Come, Lord Jesus;" and
he. will come and make it happy for ever.
Another feature of the times that will preqede the last day,
will be great activity on the part of Satan. , That activity shows
itself now in a thousand shapes : sometimes Satan appears as -an
angel of light, in all the splendours of the archangel fallen ;
sometimes as he is. In all his efforts, howeyer, he combines the
wisdom of the archangel with the malignity of the archfiend.
He seems now as if dreading the everlasting fires in which- he
must soon live, and -suffer, and is, therefore, anxious to attain a
footing in some nook or corner of the globe where he may stave
off, if not for ever, at least for a, longer time, the great judgment
which he knows must ultimately overtake him.
We see another symbol of the last days in the rank^ystems
of error that grow up about, us. Germany and America are
overrun with fanaticism^ of the most hideous description. Even
England is not without its fanatics; and, as religion becomes
more earnest in the hearts of the few, fanaticism will become
rampant In the hearts of the many. Men can never be without
a religion. They must have a religion of some sort.
We may expect also in the last days, and immediately prior to
the advent of Christ, great and awful judgments, as our Lord
himself has predicted, and tribulations such as have not been even
since the world began. The signs of these loom in the distant
horizon. I showed you some of -them in the pestilence that fell
upon the vegetable world — in the crashing' that sounded through
the length and breadth of our commercial system within the last
few. years, the remains of which are now visiting the respectable
tradesmen of our country, like the mists that settle first on moun-

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 469
tain heights and then descend to the valleys that lie around them :
we see it in the state of things across the Channel — all society
fermenting and ill at .ease. There is not a nation of Europe, that
does not deprecate war, but there is not a nation of Europe that
does not place its hand upon its sword-hilt, and hold itself ready
for war. Preparation for it is laid down as a duty. " Men's
hearts failing them for fear of the things that are coming on
the earth," is literally true. Hence that profound thinker, whose
biography has improved so many- — Dr. Arnold — made this re
mark, andpit is striking as coming from so severe and disciplined
a mind as -his: "My sense of the evils of the times that are
coming, and of the prospects to which I am bringing up my poor
children, is overwhelming; times are coming in which the devil
will fight his best, and that in good earnest." He was no fanatic
who said this, but a man of a calm and reflective mind.
Another sign of the near approach of the advent of Christ will
be the spread of knowledge. Daniel gives us this indication when
he says, "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be in
creased." Do we not see the signs of this around us? A cen
tury ago, if a man made a discovery in science and art, it was
likely to be his fortune; but now, if one makes a discovery in
chemistry, in science, or in any department of knowledge, on
which one would have staked a fortune in former times, he will
find that a discovery made, in 1848 is superseded by a more
brilliant one before the year has closed. We see steam running
and executing the errand of man, and carrying five hundred at
once at the rate of fifty miles an hour ! Man has made the great
est approach to the power, though he has not made a correspond
ent approach to the holiness of God, when he takes the lightnings
and makes them carry his messages. How true is it that many
run to and fro, and knowledge is increased ! We have explored
the depths of the ocean, and searched the caves of the Alps; the
march of intellect is the name with which the present age has
christened itself. Not that we Christians should fear. Let that
chemist work in his laboratory; encourage that astronomer, who
spends the night in cataloguing groups of stars; let that mathe
matician pore over books, and waste the midnight oil; let that
schoolmaster prosecute his work; let all men work hard, and work
40

470 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
constantly, they are unconsciously under an impulse of which they
see not the end. That impulse is a divine one; they are opening
channels for the gospel; they are decking and dressing those
handmaids that are to accompany the bride when she meets the
Bridegroom; they are lighting new altar-candles, and polishing
new gems for his temple; it is the rush of the waves of science,
and literature, and knowledge, that roll ohward and upward to
the presence of the everlasting throne, there to reflect the glory
of Him that made them, and the riches of Him who is throned
upon the very riches of the universe itself; and as if it were a
forecast light of this blessed result, every discovery made within
the last few years has been a discovery contributing to show the
truth and the harmony of the gospel with the facts of the universe.
For instance, when we were told, in that. very unphilosophical
book, " Vestiges of Creation," that there is in a certain part of
the firmament a mass of nebulous matter, and that this nebulous
matter gradually forms itself into a shape, till, fully developed, it
becomes a greater orb, a world in our planetary system; Lord
Rosse turned his telescope to the alleged nebulous matter, which
was said to be proof positive that worlds were made without a
maker, and he discovered that instead of being unmade embryo
worlds, it consists of clusters of stars, or worlds already made,
and larger than our own. Science is one of those which Tjill out
last the Millennium itself, as the interpreter of the book of nature.
When I look up into that spangled and illuminated sky — when I
look at those countless altar-fires that burn perpetually, and when
by their light I see star beyond star, and planet beyond planet,
and when I have viewed by the most powerful telescope the re
motest stars of our system, and when I find that those remotest
stars are but the sentinels and the outposts of that mighty host
that lies scattered throughout the plains of infinitude, silently
hymning perpetual praise around the* throne of Him that made
them, and giving glory to Him that lighted them up with all their
splendour, I see in these the indisputable evidences of deity, and
I am constrained to pity the man who can speak of a creation
without a Creator, as I am constrained to pity the man who can
think of such a revelation as that of the Bible without the recog
nition of God as its revealer.

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 471
Let me notice another evidence of the nearness of the Saviour's
approach in the present day, and that is, increased missionary
effort. I showed you that the missionary enterprise began to be
carried out during the outpouring of the vials with augmented
energy. All the great Missionary Societies are the offspring of
the last fifty years. The Baptist Society arose in 1792 ; then
came in succession, like mountain peaks, catching successively
the rays of sunrise, the London Missionary, the Church Mission
ary, the Church of Scotland schemes, and the Wesleyan Mission
ary societies, all of which fulfilled that Apocalyptic picture of the
angel flying abroad with the everlasting gospel unto all the nations
of the earth : and what does Christ himself say ? " This gospel
of the kingdom shall be preached unto all nations ;" for what
purpose ? Is it said, to convert them, and then shall the end
come? No: "this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached
among all nations, for a witness;" and what then? and "then
shall the end come." Now the Bible has been translated into
the tongue of every nation, and the gospel has been preached to
every people. At length, China, which stood out so long, has
been stormed by the soldiers of the gospel, and the Christian ban
ner has been unfolded in the midst of it. The event that follows
is the advent of Christ.
Another sign of the approach of our Lord is the apathy and
unbelief that shall' be felt with regard to it. One of the signs
that Christ is near is the fact that even Christians will explain
this nearness away. There is no one thing stated more fully or
more frequently in the word of God than this, that, in these last
days, men shall say, " Where is the promise of his coming ? for
since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from
the beginning of the creation." "When they shall say, Peace
and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them." Is not
this what men are saying now ? I doubt not some will retire
from this hall and say, " What folly and fanaticism we have heard !
we cannot believe a word of what he has said." Well, if you
like, reject all my views of Apocalyptic chronology — reject all my
historical explanations; but at leastido not reject this, that Christ,
who died upon the cross, will come, and when ye think not, and
reign, wearing his many crowns, and sit on his glorious throne.

472 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Look for him, and the^same Christ will come again, the Husband
to the widow, the Bridegroom to the bride.
When I think of what succeeds the time when he does come,
I can scarcely realize that glorious Sabbath which will overspread
the earth ! that noble song which will be heard when the saints
shall sing together, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts!
What a flood of beauty, magnificence, and glory will roll over
this now shattered orb, like the countless waves of an illuminated
ocean ; illuminated by Christ, the great central Sun, around whom
all systems revolve, and from whom all beauty comes. And, my
dear friends, if there be the least probability in what I have said,
that Christ is at hand, is it not our duty to pause — to ponder, to
search if it be sq? When men heard that there was a new star
somewhere to be detected in the firmament, there were some
thousands of telescopes every night directed to the skies, and
countless star-gazers searched, if, peradventure, they might dis
cover it. My dear friends, a Star comes, brighter and more beau
tiful than any other, "the bright and morning Star," too long
concealed by clouds which are about to be chased away; why
should not our hearts look for him? why should not the believer,
who has shared in the bitterness and in the blessings of his cross,
pray and pant'for him, if, peradventure, he "may share in the
splendours of his crown ? Is not the' Lord welcome as he is dear
to us? Crushed and bleeding humanity, under the suffering of
its thousand wrongs, cries, " Come, Lord Jesus." The earth,
weary with its groans and the sobs of its children, cries, "Come,
Lord Jesus." The persecuted saints in Tahiti and in Madeira,
in the dens and caves and solitary places of the earth, cry, " Come,
Lord Jesus." And, surely, many a heart in this hall, that has
been warmed by his love — that has been refreshed by his peace,
and sanctified by his grace, shall likewise raise the same cry,
"Come, Lord Jesus;" and the sublime response will descend from
heaven like a wave from the ocean of love overflowing men's
hearts, "Behold, I come quickly." As in some great and po
pulous city, the train comes thundering along uninterrupted and
unobstructed to its destination, so I believe Christ will come in
the shariot of the gospel; right through all the traffic, and tho

THE SIGNS OF THE SECOND ADVENT. 473
arts, and the sciences, and the literature of the world; all things
giving it an impulse, and none presenting an obstruction.
Brethren, I will this day close my lectures in Exeter Hall. I
thank this vast audience for the solemn silence with which they
have listened, and I praise God for the striking effects of which
I have heard. I anticipate the day when I shall meet some of
you in "the first resurrection," and rejoice together with you in
the presence of God and of the Lamb. As I have told you, my
delight in the study, and my joy in preaching to you, have been
more than a compensation for all the toil I have gone through.
What I have preached to you were not lectures got up in a day, but
they have been, more or less, the gathering of years that are passed.
These lectures, I know, have been blessed to many : and, my dear
friends, if there has beert any effect produced by what I have
said, that effect has arisen, first, from the weighty truths I have
enunciated; next, in that I have spoken just what I felt, and
stated just what I believed, and nothing more. And no man
speaks from the heart without reaching the heart. I have ad
dressed all sorts of persons in this hall, from almost the very
highest in the land down to the very lowest. I have heard of
crowds of Episcopalians, Independents, Baptists, Wesleyan s, and
numbers of our Free Church brethren ; I have addressed all as
forgetting and forgiving minor differences, and thinking of that
glorious cement that will bind us perpetually in one. I have
given offence to some ; it was impossible to avoid it : I never can
consent to pass along like a footman, apologizing, to every person
that he touches for the trouble and inconvenience he inflicts : I
must go right on upon the rails that God has laid down : I have
no object but to speak the truth, and the whole truth; and whe
ther you will hear, or whether you will forbear, this only relieves
me, He that judgeth me is God : it is a light thing to be laughed
at by some ; it is a lighter thing to be scorned by others ; it is a
glorious and a blessed thing to know, that He that judgeth me, and
He that approveth, is God.
And, my dear friends, think again that we must all appear,
some in the first, and some in the second resurrection: oh, if
these be realities, let me put it to you, why should any one of you
hesitate whether you shall be in the first or in the last resurrec-
40*

474 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
tion ! Why is it, when precious atoning blood is offered, and
a glorious Saviour is preached to you — and an instant welcome
addressed to the worst and the very vilest of sinners — let me ask
you — let me put it to you — dear friends, bear with me for a mo
ment while I put it to you — why should you die ? why perish ?
why not be saved? .When I bid you be Christians, I just bid
you be happy. My dear friends, you will allow me to speak
from experience. I know what the gospel is, because I have
tasted its sweetness ; and I am perfectly convinced that no man
can be happy, even in this world, who has not a personal interest
in the Son of God. It is only when you can lift up your hearts
and say, " The Rock of ages is my trust — infinitude, with all its
grandeur, is my home — eternity, with its ceaseless ages, is my
lifetime — the great God my Father, the Lamb upon the throne
my Saviour ;" that you can add, " Come weal, come wo, come life,
come death, come revolution, and earthquake, and tumults of the
people, nothing can separate me from Christ." Oh ! with what
an elastic footstep will you walk the world ! with what courage
will you brave its surges, and its storms, and its trials, conscious
that all things work together for good to them that love God, and
are called according to his purpose !
My dear friends, I say to many of you, Farewell; and I say
that in a sense in which it is not often uttered. I say it not
lightly, but solemnly. May you fare well in the first resurrec
tion. May you fare well at the judgment-day. May you fare
well in time. May you fare well in eternity : and at that day
when sighs and farewells shall cease, may we meet before the
throne of God and of the Lamb, and so be for ever with the
Lord ! Amen, and Amen.
Come, then, and, added to thy many crowns,
Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth,
Thou who alone art worthy. —
Thy saints proclaim thee King ; and in their hearts
Thy title is engraven with a pen
Dipt in the fountain of eternal love.
Thy saints proclaim thee King ; and thy delay
Gives courage to their foes, who, could they see
.The dawn of thy last advent, long desired,
Would oreop into tho bowels of the hills,

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 475
And flee for safety to the falling rocks.
The very spirit of the world is tired
Of its own taunting question, ask'd so long,
" Where is the promise of your Lord's approach 1"

LECTURE XXVI.
ABSTRACT OP LECTURES.

"Behold, I come as a thief. -Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his
garments, List he walk naked, and they see his shame." — Revelation xvi. 15.
This evening, as I announced, my Lectures in Exeter Hall on
this most interesting book draw to a close. I cannot help re
peating that the weariness I have felt in my researches, and the
exhaustion which I have endured in the delivery of them, have
been more than compensated by the delight I have experienced in
study, and the positive profit they have brought to my own heart.
I have this day, -on this first Sabbath of another year, having ad
dressed you on the last Sabbath of the year that is closed, to re
mind you that there will be a last day as well as a last year, and
that last day is the day that we ought to anticipate, and realize
more than any other day in our whole biography. This is the
last day on which I shall address you here : the first Sabbath of
a year that we have seen begin, but the close of which who
among us shall see? The youngest may die; the oldest must
dip soon : and there is not one in this vast congregation that can
insure his life- for 1848. But there is not one that may not in
sure a crown of glory that fadeth not away, by taking into his
heart the price and purchase of it — the precious blood of the Son
of God.
But I have thought, my dear friends, that, as many of those
who regularly assembled in the morning did not hear the evening
lectures, it might not be unprofitable, if I avail myself of a sug
gestion made to me by a member of my own flock last Sabbath-

476 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
day, and give something like a resumS, or a sketch of the leading
points I have successively brought before you. In the morning
of each Sabbath, as you are aware, I have preached on the dis
tinctive characteristics of the gospel of Jesus :* .in the evenings
of the successive Sabbaths we have assembled in this hall during
nearly six months that are now closed, I 'have expounded to you
what L conceive to be the just and true meaning of the Apoca
lypse ; and I think that it will not be uninstructive if I slightly
touch on the various points to which I have turned your atten
tion, and bring, as it were, the whole Apocalyptic drama in one
bright vision, as shortly as I can, before your minds.
My first lecture consisted of an exposition of the claims of the
Apocalypse to occupy its place in the sacred canon. I showed
you the incontestable evidence by which it is proved to be divine.
I laid before you, too, the various links of evidence by which it
is proved to be the composition of John, the beloved disciple who
leaned upon the Saviour's breast. I showed you the place of its
composition, Patmos; the year of its composition, A.D. 96; and
then I stated what I conceived to be the duties of an impartial
commentator on the Apocalypse — to be careful not to attempt to
play the prophet while discharging the humble duty of an expo
sitor of the Scripture. I urged, too, that the failures of the past
were no reasons why there should be failures in the future. I
showed you that every wreck that lies in the Channel has the
bhoy attached to it, by those whose duty it is to attend to it, and
by that wreck other navies are preserved from destruction. In
the same manner, every failure to explain the Apocalypse is only
a guide to future expositors, and affords a stronger presumption
that the next attempt shall not fail. Each successive commenta
tor casts light upon it, and brings forth truth from it; and as the
day approaches when the great drama shall be closed, and all its
mysterious contents shall be made known, we shall then wonder
that we doubted where we ought to have believed, and shrank
from study where we ought to have prayerfully and patiently
investigated. * I propose publishing a volume containing my Sabbath morning discourses
in Exeter Hall.

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 477
In my next lecture I laid before you what I called "the Gos
pel according to the Apocalypse," from the text, "Unto Him that
loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath
made us kings and priests to God and his Father; to him be
glory for ever and ever." I showed the distinction that seems
to subsist between the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, and the Gospel according to the Apocalypse. In the
first Christ is the priest, in the second Christ is the. priest and the
king. In the Gospel of St. John he is exhibited with the cross;
in the Apocalypse of St. John he is displayed with many crowns
upon his head. In the one he has the suffering to undergo — in
the other he has the royalty to receive. In the one he is in the
midst of his agony and bloody sweat — in the other he is seated
on his throne, and cherubim and seraphim adore him. The one
is the completion of the other — the Gospel of St. John would
have -been incomplete without the Apocalypse of St. John : each
gives a profile, both give the full face of Him who is the " bright
ness of the Father's glory — the express image of his person."
In my third lecture I endeavoured to describe, or rather to
open, those symbols which are known and revealed in the Apoca
lypse by the name of the Seals. I stated that God, in revealing
things that were future, made use of symbols, for this reason :
If there were no symbols, but marked predictions of the most in
evitable events, man's agency, responsibility, and free-will would
be hampered. If, again, there were no predictions of the future
at all, in any shape, or in any way intelligible, there would be
nothing to cheer man in the prospects of 'the future, or to confirm
man in the statements of God's holy-word. He has therefore
given us symbols so dark that man's freedom and responsibility
may not be crushed, and yet so luminous that the patient and
prayerful inquirer will find light if he will only study them. I
explained that the chief of these symbols were divided into three
great divisions : first, seven Seals, denoting seven successive his
torical conditions or states of the great empire in which the
Christian church was to play so prominent a part; then seven
Trumpets; then seven Vials: the seventh seal being an epitome
of the seven Trumpets, and the seventh trumpet being a sketch
in brief, or an epitome of the seven Vials; and the whole twenty-

478 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
one symbols embracing a complete history of the future from tho
year 96, when John was in Patmos, till the close of the century
that now is, when the mystery shall be complete, and the great
drama of mankind shall be wound up.
• The first seal, you will recollect, was thus stated: "I beheld a
white horse, and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was
given unto him : and he went forth conquering and to conquer."
I showed you first that the horse is used in this book as the sym
bol of the Roman empire. The reason I gave you for it was
very plain — the horse was the national symbol of Rome. If you
speak of the thistle, you mean Scotland — if you speak of the
shamrock, you allude to Ireland — if you speak of the rose, you
refer to England; so, if you speak of the horse in the symbolic
sense, you make reference to Rome. Rome was called the "gens
Mavortia" — the nation of Mars: the horse was the animal con
secrated, or sacred, to Mars, and on certain Roman coins there is
found upon the one side the horse, and the word "Roma" over it,
and upon the obverse the portrait of the reigning Roman emperor.
In the first four seals, therefore, I showed you that as the horse
was the symbol of Rome, Rome must be the nation referred to,
and that the successive states, or phases, or colours of the horse
must denote the successive states of that empire. "White is the
symbol of prosperity, and the emperor is represented as going
forth conquering and to conquer. He' is also represented as hav
ing a bow in his hand. I showed you that the bow was the sym
bol of Crete, just as the shamrock is the symbol of Ireland, the
thistle of Scotland, or ' the rose of England. The Apocalyptic
symbol of a Roman emperor with a bow in his hand would seem,
therefore, to convey an allusion, more or less remote, to Crete;
and thus it turns out in history that Nerva was the first emperor
of Rome who was of a Cretan family, and he commenced the
Cretan dynasty ; the Apocalyptic symbol pointing out the historic
fact with perfect and minute accuracy. Thus, then, under the
first seal, the Roman empire is represented as in a state of great
national prosperity.
The words of the second seal are these: "And there went out
another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat
thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 479
one another; and there was given unto him a great sword." And
you will observe that in the original it is to take, not peace, but the
peace (ztjv siprqvrjv) — i. e. the peace established under the previous
seal when all was prosperous and peaceful. Red, I explained to
you, was the symbol of bloodshed : and I illustrated this passage
by referring to the fact that the reception of a sword, in the lan
guage of Rome, was equivalent to the constituting a person a
pretor — a pretorian-prefect, or one of the highest military officers
of the empire : the statement of the reception of a sword pointed
therefore to that office ; and the power of these officers to take
peace from the earth, together with the previous part of the sym
bol, indicated a time of internal bloodshed and of war. Such a
time did eventually take place. The first seal extended from tho
year 96, when John wrote the Apocalypse, to the year 180, com
mencing with the reign of Nerva, and ending with that of Mark
Antonine. The second, from that period to 249, during which
time Rome was visited with the most fearful bloodshed and in
testine war.
The next seal is thus described : " I beheld, and lo, a black
horse, .and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand;
and I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts, saying, A
measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for
a penny, and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." I showed
you that this referred to a period in the history of Rome when
the whole land was oppressed by injustice — the balances evidently
relating to the administration of the justice of the empire, as I
showed by reference to the symbol; and I historically demon
strated the fact, that the grinding exactions of 'the governors of
Rome, in the language of Gibbon, had brought the empire to the
very verge of exhaustion and ruin.
I then referred to the fourth seal : " I looked, and behold a
pale horse : and his name that sat upon him was Death, and hell
followed with him. And power was given unto them over the
fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword, and with hunger,
and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." I showed
you that this " hell" was Hades, or the grave — I showed from
historic fact, that from the year 248 to the year 268, pestilence
overflowed the length and breadth of the land — "The wild

480 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
beasts," in the language of the historian, " from man's failing,
and the supplies of man's existence being withdrawn, rushed into
the cities and completed the havoc that death had begun ;" and
the symbol of Death riding on the pale horse, with the grave
opening at his heels to receive the victims that he mowed down,
was an exact symbolical picture of- the real state of the empire
from the year 248 to the year 268.
Then the fifth seal was the spectacle of those under the altar
that were slain for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of
God, saying, " How long ?" This I explained to you to repre
sent the persecutions of the Christian church from the year 303
to 313.
Then we have the sixth seal, where some great change seems
to have taken place immediately after the fifth seal had been
opened, and after the sealing had taken place. That change I
showed to be Rome casting away its idol-gods — sweeping the
Pantheon of all its idolized tenantry — recognising the gospel as
the national religion, exalting its ministers, rightly or wrongly, to
the highest places in the state; and Christianity, from being the
religion of the catacombs, the-dens, and caves of the earth, be
coming the religion of the palace, of the cathedral, of churches
magnificent in architecture, and protected by the sceptre of the
reigning monarch.
Immediately after this exaltation of Christianity, there follows
the sealing of the 144,000. That, as explained to you, signifies
that Christianity, in the hours of its prosperity, suffered more
than it did in the days of its depression — that the gospel was a
purer and a nobler thing when crushed by the persecutions of
Nero, than when it nestled beneath the shadow of the imperial
throne of Constantine ; and whether it was right or whether it
was wrong thus to elevate the gospel, it is matter of fact that in
the catacombs and caves of the earth the church retained her
garments unsullied — her communion with her Lord unbroken ;
but the moment the heads that were exposed to the tempests
were crowned with mitres, and the catacombs exchanged for
cathedrals, she laid aside her robes of beauty and of glory, put
on the gorgeous dress of Caesar, became shorn of her real strength
and her attributes of grandeur, and ground, a miserable drudge,

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 481
at Csesar's mill, and at Cassar's bidding. I am, not called on in
this place to pronounce whether that elevation were scripturally
right or wrong : I merely -comment on historic facts, the substance
of which I have now stated.
But in the midst of all Jthis I showed you, while the visible
church thus enthroned by the emperor had ceased to be scrip
tural, God was. bringing out his true church. The Apostasy was
now gathering strength every day — the visible church was ceas
ing to be -the true church, God therefore causes to emerge the
144,000- sealed, ones, i. e. his own election, his own redeemed
people — the true links -of the true succession, the sons of God in
the world, but pot of the world.
Now, having shown you that the visible -church becameapos-
, tate, and. that the true church was restricted only to the few or
the handful, then a series of judgments was poured out upon the
apostate church, described under the symbolical figure- of the
seven trumpets. I may here digress to observe that God has
thus dealt with nations in almost every part of their existence.
You recollect that passage in Amos where God is about to judge
his people for their manifold transgressions, (Amos iv. 6-12.)
Now, if I should-classify these verses under Apocalyptic symbols,
you would see the complete harmony that exists >in God's deal
ings in all dispensations of his 'grace. Thus, in verse 6, there
is the first trumpet : — " I have also given you, cleanness of teeth
in all your cities, and want' of breadi in all your places; yet
have ye not returned unto, me, saith the Lord God.". Thus-one
trumpet sounds ; but the result is no repentance. It istherefore
followed by the second trumpet, if I may use the expression : —
"And also I have withholden the rain from you when there were
yet three months to the- harvest : and I caused it to rain upon one
city, and caused it not to rain upon another city; one piece was
rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So
two or three ."cities wandered unto one "city to drink water; but they
were not satisfied : yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the
Lord." There ,is the second'trumpet. Then the third trumpet
sounds:- — "I have smitten you- with blasting and mildew : when
your gardens', and your vineyards, and your fig-trees, and your olive-
trees increased, the palmer-worm devoured'them : yet have ye not
41

482 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
returned unto me, saith the Lord." Then the fourth- trumpet
sounds : — " I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner
of Egypt : -your young men have I slain with the sword, and have
taken away your horses ; and I have made the stink of your camps
to come up unto your nostrils : yet have ye not returned unto
me, saith the Lord." There is another trumpet :— " I have over*
thrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and ye were as a firebrand plueked out of the burning : yet have
ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord." There is the sixth
trumpet. Now what is the seventh ? — " Therefore thus will I
do unto thee, 0 Israel : and because I will do this unto thee,
prepare to meet thy God, 0 Israel." There is the sounding of
the seventh. God's -judgments "in the past are all in harmony
with God's judgments in the future ; both are his commissioners
to walk the world, and do the behests of his will.
I endeavoured to open up to you the meaning of the seven
trumpets in the same manner that I explained the seven seals, by
historic facts. I showed you that trumpets, in the Levitical
economy, were used, first to proclaim feasts or festivals to the
people, or to proclaim war against the enemy. So they are used
in the Apocalypse. -The first trumpet sounded after Christendom
had become apostate, and the" judgments of that trumpet we read
fell upon the Roman empire in the shape of "hail and storm :"
i. e. desolating and destructive judgments, mingled with blood
or bloodshed, and they were cast upon the earth : " and the third
part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up."
You read that Alaric the Goth burst upon the empire at this time,
swept it with his victorious sword, deluged it with blood, and it
almost fell beneath the severity of the onslaught. We read that the
second angel sounded, "and, as it were, a great mountain burning
with fire was cast into the sea, and the third part of the sea became
blood ; and the third part of the creatures that were in the sea, and
had life, died ; and the third part of the ships were destroyed." I
showed you that, under this trumpet, the maritime shores of the
Roman empire, its ships and fleets, were the subjects of suffering.
I opened history, and read that, as Alaric fell upon the land, and
swept it with fire, and deluged it with blood, in order to fulfil
the symbols of the second trumpet; so Geneseric, according

ABSTRACT OF- LECTURES. 483
to this trumpet, fell upon the ships and maritime power of
Rome. Three times the fleets of the empire were opposed to
him — three times they were almost annihilated ; and, as if to
show the mysterious nature of his mission, when his pilot asked
Geneseric to what coast should he steer? the reply of the Goth
was, " Leave that to the winds of heaven — they will waft us to
the guilty coast." He desolated every island, and smote with
destruction every shore, and totally" exterminated the fleets of
Rome. Suddenly he drops from the stage, and all again is still.
The third trumpet sounds, "And there fell a great star from
heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part
of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters." I showed you
that the rivers and fountains of waters, wherever they are alluded
to in the Apocalypse, denote the people that dwell upon the banks
of the rivers — the. great rivers of Europe, the Danube, the Rhine,
and the Po. Accordingly we read, when the third trumpet
sounds.; that Attila, who was. called the Scourge of God, instantly
descended upon the banks1 of the Rhine, the Danube,'and the
Po, and swept from them every nation that opposed him, and fell
like a burning mountain from the sky, upon every section of the
geographical territory so graphically described in these symbols.
The fourth trumpet sounded, " And the third part of the sun
was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part
of the stars ; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the
day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise." I
explained to you that the sun and moon in" the Apocalypse
denote always the imperial or. sovereign power. Accordingly,
we read, in history that Odoacer, the last of the Gothic dynasty,
marched upon Rome, after Alaric had fallen upon the land, and
Geneseric upon the sea, and Attila upon the rivers; and swept
the whole imperial territory ;" the sun was darkened : and ac
cordingly we read that Odoacer marched upon Rome, the capital
itself; -commanded, with his drawn sword, that Augustulus, the
emperor that then reigned, should abdicate his throne, resign the
insignia of sovereignty, and that all the emblems of empire
should be transferred to Constantinople. Here we have the sun
darkened, or the imperial power withdrawn.
And when the fifth trumpet sounded, we read that " A star

484 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
fell from heaven, and to him was given the key of the bottomless
pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a
smoke out of the, pit, as the smoke of" a great furnace ; arid the
sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.-
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and
urito them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have
power," &c. (Rev. ix. 1-12.) I showed that this' star falling
from the firmament — a star denoting rank in office^was Mo
hammed, who was the descendant of a royal but degraded
house. He retired to a cave in the neighbourhood of Mecca,
where he concocted that horrible scheme of delusion and blas
phemy which has overspread vast portions of Asia and of Europe ;
which depends for success on the scimeter of its preacher, and
on the sensuality of his auditory. We read that the result of it
was that the whole sky was darkened by this moral smoke.
The locusts, I showed you, by the strange accompaniments by
which. they are. characterized, represent the Saracens rushing to
the battle. " Their shapes," we are'told, "were like unto horses
prepared unto battle ; and on their heads were as it were crowns
like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men ; and they
had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth
of lions. And they had breastplates as it were breastplates. of
iron ; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots
of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like
unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails, and their
power was to hurt men five months." You may remember my
explanation of that. First, the star was Mohammed; secondly,
the, smoke was Mohammedanism; thirdly, the Apocalyptic locusts
are evidently symbols; because, according to natural history,
the picture is most absurd ; according to symbolic or hieroglyphic
description, it is most_expressive. The locusts were, I showed
you, the Saracens, and the reason they are likened to locusts is,
the locusts come never singly, but in swarms, and from the east
— the Saracens burst in innumerablej hordes upon the length and
breadth of Europe. They had crowns upon their heads — -the
Arab's aphorism says, that " ho has his turban for his crown."
They had "the faces of men." They were characterized by a
peculiarity no Roman had— namely, the moustache worn upon

ABSTRACT OP LECTURES. 485
the" upper lip, which gave them an appearance of fierceness.
They "had hair as. the hair of women." The Arabs were
distinguished by their long flowing hair. In addition to this,
"the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of
many horses running to battle." Cavalry was their strength and
main reliance. "And they had tails like unto scorpions,and
there were stings in their tails, and their pnwer was to hurt men
five months." The expression "power" in the original is,
i^ouo-ia, which means "authority," the official authority was
theirs. The allusion to tails is thus explained; In one of the
earlier battles of the Saracens, the standard was lost ; their leader
instantly cut off his horse's tail, placed it upon a pole, told his
troops that' must be their standard/when they marched to battle,
and ever afterward, to this day, the horse's tail has been the
Turkish. standard — a pacha with one, two, or three tails, denoting
the rank, office, or authority that he holds — and their actual
hurting is in the history -of their injustice and oppression; and
I showed, by the- most minute analysis, that this trumpet con
tains the description of the spread of Mohammedanism and Sara
cen conquest as a judgment upon an apostate and a God-denying
church. The sixth trumpet sounds, which, as I proved, describes what
was called in" other portions of the Apocalypse, the Turkish wo.
And there you remember that the Turks passed the great river
Euphrates, received the permission from Him who alone had
power to give it, to come " forth for a day, a month, and a year,
and the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred
thousand thousand : and I heard the number of them." I
showed that this was fulfilled in the successive triumphs of the
Turks who^had received the Mohammedan delusion, and marched
over great portions of Asia and Europe, spreading, havoc where-
ever they exhibited their presence. I stated also, that the
allusion here made to smoke, and brimstone, and fire, might be
an allusion to the fact that for the first time, on a large and
gigantic scale, artillery was used at the siege of Constantinople
by the Turks, and gunpowder, though it was invented several
years before, then first came to be employed on a large scale, and
to play a prominent part in modern warfare. I showed that in
41 *

486 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
that siege Constantinople fell, and thus the mistress of the East
was laid prostrate upon the ruins of the mistress of the West —
the Apostasy reigned in the. Christian church — Mohammedanism
overwhelmed the eastern portion of Europe^-a world without
God — men without hope — a, church without religion — and all
things prognosticating some fearful catastrophe; so much so,
that many of the Christians of that time anticipated the speedy
arrival of the judgmentday, and the appearing of the great
white throne.
Such, then, is a brief sketch of my exposition of the Seven
Seals and the Seven Trumpets. I know that many of the state
ments I have made will appear to some of you almost unwar
ranted, because, some of you have 'not heard the successive facts
by which I have proved them ; but I am now giving only a
sketch, merely to refresh the memories of those who have
attended the delivery of the whole, and not to carry conviction
on the present occasion.
The next great event we read of, is that glorious one,- the
blessed Reformation. The church had become" apostate — de
struction was its merit, reformation was God's gracious purpose.
I gave you a picture of the church before the Reformation — the
pope worshipped as God — tha Jtoman Church rampant and su
preme — kings puppets in the hands of the pope — their diadems
kicked from their heads by his pontifical foot — some of them
deposed from their thrones. And, I may here remark, I have
always felt this, that the danger of the church of Christ, if we
may judge of the present and the future from the past, is not
the popular power, nor the kingly power, or, as it is called by
some, the Erastian power, -but I solemnly believe it to be from
the priestly power ; little do I fear from the people, nor do I
fear much from the crown, but I have much fear of. the priest.
Watch the priests and the people and the crown, pray for all
three, but protest against the usurpations of any of them.
The Reformation then came, and Milner states that - " after
ages of superstition, we see the Sun of Righteousness rising over
Europe with healing under his wings."
You may recollect the interesting sketch that I gave of the
Reformation. Leo X. was enjoying uninterrupted and undis-

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 487
turbed supremacy, when a poor Augustinian monk lays hold of a
dusty volume which had. not been, opened for centuries, in the
library of the university of Erfurt. Startled by its appearance,
he unclasps it : the unclasping of that book was the first act of
the Reformation, and in that book lay all-the privileges, the
freedom, the hopes, the blessings that you possess. If Martin
Luther, humanly speaking, had not unclasped that volume, your
grand philosophy, your great discoveries, your steam-engines,
and your steamboat, and your electric telegraphs, and your , rail
roads, would never have existed. 0 scientific scorner, little
dost thou, know the debt that thou owest to that poor Augustinian
monk in the convent of Erfurt ! When he perused the contents
of the Bible, he discovered in it truths that he had never heard
of before : he saw that, the breviary and the missal contained
mere fragments of the Bible, and he read and read again; he
discovered that glorious truth which was the lever that lifted
Europe from its, thraldom, and shook the Very throne of the
pontiff,.-" we are justified by faith alone in the glorious righteous-
.ness and finished sacrifice of the Son of the living God." When
he discovered this, the hope of souls, he could not be silente^he
began to speak out.. .The pope tried to terrify him by his de
crees and to alarm him by his thunders : Luther continued for
some time doubting ; but at length he discovered that the pope
was not Christ's minister, but Antichrist, and that Popery was
not, the church at all, but the Apostasy. As soon as he was
satisfied of this, he feared no man's face, he cared for no man's
frown", he went like the cannon-shot through all opposition right
to his course, feeling that there was none to/judge him but" God,
and none could stop him when Gdd had given- him his mission.
The result of Martin Luther's appeal was that all Europe shook,
as if beneath the vibrations of an earthquake; — Truth, long
chained, burst its shackles — even the Vatican itself rung with
strange and mysterious echoes, indicating that an unexpected
visitor had come into the midst Of it, and reasoned in the pon
tiff's hearing "of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to
come." The echoes of that monk's voice reached -England, and
sounded loud, and long amid the convents and monasteries of
"Scotland, till, at last, the sentiment he uttered in a corner be-

488 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
came the confession of Europe, and truth, planted as a living
seed by that monk, grew, sometimes watered by the blood of
martyrs, until it shot up into those glorious trees which over
spread England, Scotland, and Germany, and mighty sections of
America, beneath which the nations find shelter, and Christians
food that is sweet and pleasant to their taste. Deeply are we
indebted to Luther : we regret the faults with which he was
chargeable as a man, but we bless God for the excellence by
which he was distinguished as a saint; and that church, or rather
that section of a church, which denounces, in the language of
one, Luther and Jewell as "irreverent dissenters," and that
proclaims the Reformation, in the language of another, to be
like "a limb badly set and which needs to be broken again,"
and to be a calamity, a curse rather than a blessing, has lost its
firstJove, and has need to do the work of repentance, and arise
and go to her Father, and ask forgiveness for the past and grace
for the future.
After describing the Reformation, you will recollect I gave
you a sketch of the two witnesses; which I explained to be a
retrospective sketch- of the church of Christ during the dominion
of the Apostasy, beginning with the time when the sealing vision
took place, and" terminating only with the Reformation. I men
tioned that they were two, because fewer than two witnesses do
not constitute a valid testimony, and two to denote that the people
of God would be reduced to the lowest possible ebb in the course
of a dominant and supreme Apostasy. The two witnesses I
traced first in the Eastern line, through those called the Pauli-
cians ; next in the Western line, through Augustine, Vigilantius,
Claude of Turin, Agobardj Peter Waldo, until both lines met in
the Waldenses, and merged in the glories of the Reformation
itself. You recollect also how I explained the slaughter of the
witnesses. I showed that because the witnesses were symbolic
persons, their death must be symbolic, and their resurrection
must be symbolic also. I showed you that in the year 1513,
the last Council of Lateran met in the broad or prominent place
of Christendom, namely, in the Lateran at Rome. I showed
you that they issued a summons to all the heretios, Bohemians,
Waldenses, and Wickliffites, to appear in the council in the next

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES: 489
year, on the 5th of May, 1514, and' there defend themselves or
submit to the church. ' I showed you, by the testimony of histo
rians of the Christian church, that they, the Protestants or wit
nesses, were all but extinct, and when the summons was issued,
not one responded. Now it is a remarkable fact^ that the" here*
tics," i. e. true Christians, were never, but on this one occasion,
summoned to a council at which, they "did riot appear. Luther
appeared when summoned, both at Worms and at Spires; Huss
appeared at Constance ; and so with others; but at this council
no appearance was made. On May 5, 1514, the council met.
It was asked, "were the heretics present, personally or by de
puty?" All was silent, and the orator of the council mounted
the pulpit, and amid the plaudits of all present, pronounced
the words, "Nemo reclamat; nullus obsistit." "There is not
one that makes opposition, or that manifests any protest against
us." And, instantly, it is added, when the witnesses were slain,
"they of the nations" — and I pointed out the fact that the idea
of representation is-conveyed in the original^— the representatives
of the nations sitting in the council, celebrated feasts/sent pre
sents to each other, and congratulated themselves that the wit
nesses were slain — they flattered themselves that heresy was ex
tinct, and the church triumphant.
The witnesses/we are told, were to lie unburied for three and
a half prophetic days, i. e. for three and a half literal years.
Now from Mayk5, 1514, to October 31, 1517, is precisely three
years and a half; did any thing' take place about the end of that
period, which would answer to the resurrection of the witnesses?
On that very day, October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his
ninety-five theses on the gates of the great' church of Wittem
berg; in which he asserted Protestant truth, and protested
against Popish error : that was the first sound of the Reforma
tion. The resuscitated witnesses now rose from the tomb,
ascended in the ' sky, were prosperous, and dominant, and great,
in the presence of all the nations- of the earth.
I then, illustrated the same church of Christ in the Apoca
lyptic symbol, called the woman in the wilderness; I explained
that the,woman was another symbol employed to denote the true
church of Christ during the almost universal prevalence of the

490 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
Apostasy, having fled into the wilderness, there to be concealed
for 1260 years. I showed that both these symbols were meant
to impress upon us the nature of Christ's true church : it is com
pared to "the woman in the wilderness," or to "the witnesses in
sackcloth," to denote that the true church is not the magnificent
thing that charms the sense, but the spiritual and moral thing
that is only to he spiritually and .morally discerned.
After describing this, I showed you that the wild beast from
the abyss, delineated in chap, xiii., and characterized by attri
butes so clear and unequivocal, that if it were described in the
page of history, the pope, of Rome would instantly present him
self to the mind of any person, as the individual intended to be
represented by these symbols. I pointed out that the Church
of Rome has tjeen characterized by apostasy from the truth, and
that it has been literally "drunk with the blood of saints," and
has persecuted and proscribed the children of God in every conn-
try and in every age. Itjs the same as the little horn of Daniel,
the seer that had eye's and saw; it is the same with the Man
of Sin of St. Paul, in 2 Thess.; it is a graphic description
of him whose tyranny and ambition have been his most domi
nant characteristics, and whose sanguinary cruelty has been his
greatest and most branding sin. Then I showed you what the
other wild beast was that was like unto the first. This I showed
to be the Papal clergy, the Jesuits, the janissaries of the pope —
a body perfectly distinct from the pope — consolidated by celibacy
into one powerful organization, having nothing that unites them
to the world, but all that unites them to the church— having no
circles of their own to distract them in their homes — only onev
great object to contend and to struggle for, the supremacy of the
pope and of the church of which he is the ruler.
I showed you next that the image of the beast was the Gene
ral Councils formed of the collected cardinals, bishops, and
clergy of the Church of Rome^ — the representatives- of the pope :
and the word here used, viz. ehrnv, is applied to the General
Council by writers. I also defined the wild beast by one remark
able feature; it is stated, "his number is the number of a man,"
and that number is said to be 666. I explained that the Greeks
and Romans had no numerals, as we have, but they denoted their

ABSTRACT, OF LECTURES. 491
numerals by the letters of their alphabet-^a, one, /?, two, y,
three, and so on ; then a point over any letter makes ten. Thus
if you take the Greek letters that make up 666, and put them
together, they form X, a, t, e, t, v, o, c, XazeXvos, and there is no
other word corresponding to it. There are many words that are
an approximation to it, but there are plain reasons for rejecting
them, and the most powerful reasons for believing that this- word,
Xarelvog, is the true word here intended. The Church of Rome
is marked by Latin canons, Latin missal, Latin breviary, Latin
Bible — Latin bulls, encyclicals, decrees, canons; it is empha
tically the Latin Church — "the Man of Sin — the Antichrist — the
wild beast from the abyss.
After having given you a description of the great character-:
istics of this church, I proceeded to give you an exposition of the
Seven Vials. The first vial, we find, was poured out, by the
angel commissioned to do so, upon the Roman earth; the result
of its effusion we read in chap, xvi.: "There fell a noisome and
grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast,
and upon them which worshipped his image." I showed you
that that sore was that -dreadful scourge the French Revolution,
and that those- who had so martyred the saints then felt in their
turn that they that throw the arrow of persecution, always re
ceive it again, sooner or later, into their own bosoms. .This sore
fell upon the capital of the earth, the eldest daughter of the
church, and the scene that accompanied jts pouring out I need
not recapitulate.
The second vial was poured out upon the sea; and just as we
explained "the burning mountain" falling into the sea to .mean
the destruction of the maritime and naval powers of Rome, so
must we consistently explain the pouring out of this vial upon
the sea. What then took place? We read, that immediately
after the great outburst of the French Revolution, all the naval
forces and fleets that France could muster against our country,
as "her only hope of destroying us, were swept from the sea in
rapid succession. Her islands and colonies— St. Domingo and
others — became the scenes of servile and terrible warfare: the
French, on this occasion exhibited a very strange peculiarity
of human nature; they proclaimed, at their Revolution, equality

492 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
of all the members' of the whole human family; the blacks m
St. Domingo, their most powerful colony, caught the sentiment,
and believed it too; and they proclaimed equality for" all. But
it seems that .the French meant, when they proclaimed liberty
and equality for all, for those only whose faces were bleached
by a northern climate, for they excluded all those whose counte
nances had the least tinge of a southern sun. This is just the
feature that some of our American brethren in the Southern
States exhibit at the present day. There the black man is not
permitted to travel in the same coach, or the same steamboat, or
railway carriage, with the white man, nor even to approach the
same communion-table, where .one would suppose all distinctions
pf caste were utterly annihilated," as if Christ died for the white
and not for the black. Shame upon those ministers of the
gospel, -then, who know it, and do not protest against it; and
still more so on those who sanction it because it supports them.
I think, by the grace of God, if I were there, I should show the
greater preference to the black men rather than to the white,
upon that beautiful principle of the gospel, that the weakest
ought to be first supported.
The very first effect of the action of this" second vial was, that
alj the colonies of France were lost to her, and her navies anni
hilated. The victories of the Nile, Cape St. Vincent, and Tra
falgar, and many others, the most splendid in any country's
annals upon earth, were gained by our own country, to whom
seems. to have been intrusted the dread mission of pouring out
this vial. It would occupy too much of your time were I in this
syllabus to recount allthe brilliant triumphs of our- country on
the ocean, or the names of that cluster of illustrious admirals
who appeared about this time— men whose appearance on the
ocean was the prelude of victory to our arms, and the signal of
confidence to our sailors. Napoleon cried out, "Let me have
ships and a navy, and perfidious Albion will be crushed:" but no
sooner had he obtained them than they were burned in the har
bour or blown from the deep. The reason of this was not that
we had braver seamen, or greater heroism, but that God had pro
nounced the doom on the guilty nation, and all the power and

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 493
bravery of France, sustained by the consummate skill of Napo
leon, could not avert it.
The third vial, we read, was poured out upon the rivers; and,
accordingly, we have in history the evidence of the fearful scenes
of bloodshed which soon took place upon the banks of the Rhine,
the Danube, and all the great rivers of continental Europe : in
fact, there was hot a capital from Moscow to Madrid, from St.
Petersburg to Paris, that was not blazing beneath the flames of
the French invasion; nor a city on the Danube, the Rhine, or the
Po that did not give evidence of the action of some terrible judg
ment upon the earth.
The fourth vial was poured out upon the sun. I told you that
the sun denotes, in Apocalyptic symbols, as I have explained be
fore, the kingly power. Here, then, the sun is said to scorch the
nations of the earth. This has been explained by Mr. Elliott,
and I think justly, to be the power given to that imperial sun,
Napoleon, to scorch, that is, severely, punish the nations of the
earth, in just and righteous retribution. It is surely allusive to
the manner of his doing so, since we read that he was called by
his own soldiers " the little sun ;" his battles were signalized by
the rolling fire of musketry and artillery, which last he brought
into the field to an extent unprecedented in the history* of Euro
pean warfare, and upon this he depended so much, that he called
artillery his "right arm." He may justly be said to have scorched
the nations of the earth, literally and figuratively too. Having
done his work, he passed from the stage, for Napoleon had his
mission, and when he had done it, he was swept away in order to
make room for other agencies. His rise, his empire, and his re
treat, are alike supernatural.
The fifth vial was poured out upon the throne of the beast. I
showed in a previous"iecture, that this wild beast is the symbol
of the pope : is there, then, coincident with this symbol in pro
phecy, a fact in history which shows that the Papal power, in its
central seat, was visited about this time with any signal and over
whelming judgments? We read in every history that the mar
shals of Napoleon appeared in the midst of the sacerdotal capital
— burst upon the pope and his cardinals — took the ring, that in
dicated his marriage with the church, from the pope's finger —
42

494 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
marched him to Paris a humble prisoner; and thus he, who had
awed the nations by his word, was dragged at the chariot-wheels
of Napoleon, introduced at the ceremony of the coronation of the
emperor, not to. crown, but to grace the coronation, as a puppet
at the spectacle ; for Napoleon placed the crown on his own head,
while the pope stood by to gild the scene, but not to perform the
ceremony. How truly was the prediction fulfilled that this vial
should be poured out upon the throne of the beast !
We now turn to the sixth vial, under the last dregs of which
we now are. Under it the premonitory symptoms of the. approach
of Him who is to reign for ever develop themselves. Under
this vial the river. Euphrates was to be dried. I showed you, in
a previous lecture, that the Euphrates was the symbol of the
Turkish power: what has been the fact? From 1820 down to
the present time, Turkey has been wasting — the crescent waning.
The Janissaries, its powerful police, are extinct; the head of the
empire is adopting European customs; laws that were peculiar
distinctions of Mohammedanism are repealed, and, in the language
of Chateaubriand, "Turkey is dying for want of Turks." And,
in the course of a very few years more, the last streams in the
channels of the Euphrates will be exhausted, and Turkey, the
great oppressor of the church in the days that are past, will be no
longer a reality am'ong the nations. Then the drying up of the
river was to make preparation for the return of the kings of the
east. The kings of the east, I showed you, are the Jewish people,
and that, contemporaneous with the wasting of the Turkish power,
there should be the rise of an interest in the Jewish race; and
when the Turkish power is utterly exhausted, the Jews should be
illuminated with a divine light, march in columns to the land of
their fathers, and, in the midst of Jerusalem, praise with hosannas
Him whom their fathers crucified. And such an interest is ac
tually taken in their destiny at the present day : Sweden is agi
tated about the position of the Jews in that country : the king
of Prussia is in difficulty about the same thing. That despised,
persecuted, money-loving race, is about to occupy a new and more
prominent position in the affairs of Europe. In our own country,
is it not one of the great topics of the day ? I pronounce not
here whether it be politically right or politically wrong, but when

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 495
I read the speeches of Lord John Russell and Lord Ashley in the
House of Commons, the former in support of the measure, and
the latter in opposition to it, I was struck by the deep and solemn
sense of responsibility that seemed to be fejt by both those states
men, and the impression rushed upon my mind, prime ministers
and members of parliament may, as they conscientiously desire,
pursue their own plans, and seek the accomplishment of their
own ends, but they are but instruments in the hands of God",
working out his glorious will — his predicted purpose.
I noticed, also, the three unclean spirits that go out, under this
vial, to deceive the nations of the earth. I showed that the first
was Infidelity : and, remember, I am only now stating results,
not giving you the data : I showed that the first is Infidelity, con
sisting in the absence of religion; and next, in antagonism to
religion. I showed that the second unclean spirit from the mouth
of the beast was Popery : I need not here recapitulate the evi
dence of its remarkable presence among us. Some fifty years
ago there were only fifteen or. twenty Roman Catholic chapels in
England; now there are about 700. In the course of six. years
they have built 60 churches, several of which are cathedrals, all
are as large, some larger, than the largest parish churches in this
country; they have between 800 and 900 priests labouring
throughout the country; nay, more, there is not a place of any
importance in which there is not some Jesuit labouring with un
tiring energy — unwearied zeal — and unequalled cunning for the
supremacy of his church. Then I showed you that the third
unclean spirit is Tractarianism,^as distinguished from Popery; in
other words, P,opery without, a pope ; all the venom of the ori
ginal without its consistency and fulness of development. . I have
seen much of this system in recent instances, and it has made me
feel more than ever that 'the priestly power is the main element
that we have to dread. The dissenter says, whether truly or not
I need not now pronounce, that the church ought to be totally
separate from the- state, and to be in no degree within the reach
of Caesar's touch. The churchman says, rightly or wrongly I do
not now determine, but most consistently, that the church and
state should be united to one .another, and live in good friendship
and happy brotherhood : but the Puseyite does not adopt the sen-

496 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
timents of either; he says that the state must obey the church;
the priest must be the ruler, the prince must be the subject. I
say the priestly power is the element we have to dread — the ele
ment which makes gigantic progress, and aims at unmitigated
supremacy. We came, last Sunday evening, to the opening of the seventh
vial, which is the grand consummation of those prophecies that
bud every hour into performance. Under it, I believe, Christ
comes. Now, I do believe that Christ's advent is not post-mil
lennial, but pre-millennial. I believe there will not be a Millen
nium till Christ come; I believe that when He comes there will
take place two resurrections, the one only of the just, the other
only of the wicked. Need I remind you of what St. Paul says,
"If by any means I may attain unto, the resurrection" (ix zaiv
vexpaiv) "from among the dead." And our Lord speaks of the
resurrection of the just in particular : and St. Paul speaks plainly,
" the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and
remain shall be caught up together with him in the air." My
dear friends, when Christ comes, what a startling spectacle will
the world present ! Every grave that contains a dead saint shall
rend, while every grave that contains the ashes of the lost remains
unagitated. In every churchyard one grave will open, and its
dead, quickened by an impulse from on high, will rise and meet
the Lord in the air; but the grave that is next to it shall remain
Still unchanged as it was before, and unmoved by what has taken
place beside it. So in a family, one person shall be snatched
away, it may be at midnight, and rise to meet the Lord in his
resurrection-body, and another shall be left. The mother shall
remain, the child shall rise; or the son shall remain, and the
mother shall be taken away. And then, when all Christ's dead
saints .are quickened and risen, and all Christ's living saints have
joined them, this globe, as I explained to you from 1 Pet. iii. 10,
this earth, which is stored with fire — for it is very remarkable
that the last geological discoveries prove the earth upon whieh we
tread to be a mere crust, the interior of which is full of liquid
fire, and for every one hundred feet that you go down into the
earth tho thermometer rises one degree — will split into a thousand
crevices, from which those flames will burst, and the atmosphere

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 497
which surrounds it, and is composed of gases that are igneous,
will ignite and wrap it in a shroud of flame, and the earth, thus
purified, will be the holy and the happy spot on which the saints
shall dwell and praise and magnify the Lord.
The seventh vial, we are told, will be poured out upon the air :
I showed you, last Sunday evening, the proofs and evidences of
its action ; and I also stated that, while there, was its moral mean
ing in this, there was also a literal fulfilment of it. And what
do we see taking place all around us ? Look at the potato blight
which took place two years ago ; after all that has been written on
the subject, it has not yet been explained : look at the rapid pro
gress of the influenza ; all admit that it is not contagious, yet it
breaks out in one family and goes on to another family : and see
the cholera next threatens us with its ravages ; it is proved that it
is not contagious, yet it breaks out in city after city, and country
after country — sanitary improvements, however right and however
necessary, cannot absolutely prevent it. What is the explanation
of all this ? Look at our commercial difficulties — our perplexed
merchants — our political dislocations and Chartist excitements —
all admit that they are puzzled for the explanation of these things.
I can explain it to you. The angel is pouring out his vial upon
the air — the sprinklings are on the pen, the plough, the shuttle,
on continent, and island, and sea. Our commerce, and our agri
culture, and our manufactures, and all in which we glory — feel
its blighting dews, and give token of feeling it more severely and
that speedily. "Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his
garments," for " behold, I come as a thief."*
If time would only have allowed me, I would have deduced
several lessons from all that I have now been stating, which I
think of great practical value ; but I have really drawn so much
upon your patience already, that I must close, and I only regret
that the time for my continuing these lectures has passed away :
the historical illustrations I will not pursue further, but the beau
tiful and spirited passages contained in the rest of the Apoca-

* The earthquake of the seventh vial began in February, 1848, at Paris,
the centre of Europe. — Watch and wait; we are now plainly under the seventh
vial. 42*

498 APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES.
lypse, I shall explain to my own people in my own church on
successive Sunday evenings.*
We live in years into each of which is crowded the work of
centuries. A day brings forth now more than a century brought
forth in former times. Time rushes more rapidly as it nears its
final fall, The future approaches us like a rising tide, and desti
nies solemn as the soul, heaven, and hell stretch out before us.
Are we not called on to ascertain clearly our relative position ?
What matters it that a Millennium comes if we shall have no
share in it ? What avails it that its music shall be so sweet, its
air so holy, and its people so happy, and its translucency with glory
so bright, if we shall have no part in it ? There remaineth in
deed a rest ; but it is for the people of God. Is this our class ?
Do we belong to that consecrated family ? Are we Christ's ?
This is the question of questions. Our whole interest is com
pressed in this. Oh leave it not unsolved and unsettled. "Believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "Look unto
me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved." "Behold the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." " Lord
Jesus, to whom can we go but unto thee ; thou hast the words of
everlasting life."
Let me ask, therefore, when Christ shall come upon the light
ning's wing or upon the eddying air, at midnight or at midday, if
you feel that you are prepared to meet him ? to welcome him ? to
reign with him ? He may come next year, or in five, or in ten, or
in twenty years : I cannot say. It will be at an hour when ye think
not. Near, however, his advent is — all chronology, and prophecy,
and history prove it — it is time, therefore, that we should set our
house in order, and have our loins girt, and our lamps burning.
Were I told that the end of this dispensation would come to-mor
row, I would not say to the tradesman, leave your shop — or to
the statesman, leave your cabinet — or to the lawyer, abandon
your desk — or to the soldier, your sword; but I would say to each

* The second series of Apocalyptio Sketches has been published. These
contain the Apocalyptic sketches of millennial blessedness, and I trust will
prove as interesting to the people of God as these, which were so much appre
ciated, and more appreciated than they deserved, in Exoter Hall.

ABSTRACT OF LECTURES. 499
and all, sit loose to all that is worldly; mingle not your affections
with its transitory elements ; let your hand be here, but let your
heart be in heaven ; let your treasure be beyond the skies, and
your hope in glory. Like the eagle, touch the earth only to eat and
sleep, and rise again as quickly as possible, and soar perpetually
toward brighter realms, riveting your eye on a yet more glorious
Sun. There is no obstruction to the upward flight of him who
has Christ, the password of the universe. All things shall aid
you, for God is with you ; and when the gray wing of time shall
have winnowed away things now seen, your eye, purified and
strengthened, will gaze upon a universe clear with light and pure
with Deity, no more to wane in age or wo — the Sabbath of the
world's long week — the reign of the church's long-absent Lord.

INDEX.

Abel, 249.
Abyss, meaning of, 88.
Adoption through Christ, 36.
Adrian, 48.
Agobard, 251.
Alan de la Roche, 117.
Alaric the Goth, 77.
 incursion of, 77.
 inauguration of, 77.
 progress of, 77.
¦  reaches Rome, 77.
 passage of Rhine, 77.
 mission and death of, 77.
 his burial, 77*
Albigeois, 208.
Alcuin, extract from his works, 177,
178.
Alhambra, 93.
Angels, restraining, 103.
 their commission, 1-03.-
Ante-Nicene Christians, 73.
Antichrist, 74,' 75, 81..
 meaning of, 81.
 name assumed, 81.
 description of, 81.
 John the Faster, 80.
 pope held to be, by Reformers,
148.
Antonines, 48.
' Apocalypse, meaning of, 13.
¦ — - study of, 17.
 .-.and Reformers, 18.
 gospel of, 19, 29.
 style of, 19.
•  chronology of, 19.
 and Church- of Rome, 20.
¦  • interpreters of, 24.
 the Futurists, 25.
 and caution, 25.
 allusive character of, 204.
Apocrypha, meaning of, 13.
Apostasy, 273.
 Rome held to be, by Reformers,
148.
 description of, 273.

Apostolical churchy 235. >
 contrasted with apostate church,
236.
 succession, 169.
Arabs, character of, 88.
¦  description of, 88.
Arian Goths, 222.
 invaded Rome, 222.
 renounced their Arianism, 222.
 embraced Trinitariauism, 222.
Arianism, 219.
 denounced by Council of $ice,
218.
 sanctioned by Council of Seleucia,
2 18-.
 its approximation to infidelity,
21S.
 denounced as the wo, 219.
¦  ¦ opposed by Theodosius the Great,
221.
 expulsion of Arians by Theodosius
the Great, 221.
— i — adopted by Vandals, Visigoths,
and Huns, 222. '
Arius, 217.
 his principles, 217.
 • a Socinian, 217.
— — founder of Arianism,, 217.
 his doctrine received by church,
218.
Ascending to heaven, 195,
— — figurative meaning of, 196.
Association, young men's, 154.
Athanasius, 250.
Atonement of Christ, 34.
Attila, date of, 79.
 scourge of God, 79. '
Augustine, 64, 75, 250.
B.
Babylon, 413.
 fall Of, predicted, 414. _
Balance, import of, 120.
Baptism, Cyril on, 61. 501

502

INDEX.

Bartholomew (St.) day, 301.
 massacre of, 301.
 medal struck in commemoration
of, 305, 330.
Beast from the sea, 268.
 description of, 268.
 seven heads of, 269.
¦  identical with beast from abyss,
270.
 points Of coincidence between
13th and 17th chapters of Revela
tion, 270.
 ten kingdoms extirpated by, 270.
 its head, 274.
¦  its body, 274.
 the second, or two horned, 274.
¦  seven heads of, figure Rome's
seven hills, 275".
 seven heads also figure seven
classes or lines of supreme gover
nors, 275.
¦  eighth head identical with the
pope, 275.
 seventh and eighth heads of,
opinion of' Mr. Elliott, 276.
 seventh head wounded to death
by Christian emperors, 278.
¦  remarks of Gibbon on, 279.
 ten horns of, ten kingdoms that.
rose under the patronage of Roman
pontiffs, 281.
 eighth head of, realized in th«
popes, 2S7.
 the second, or two horned, like a
lamb, the Romish clergy, 307.
-¦  ¦ number of, 31 1.-
 its stigma, derived from slaves,
soldiers, and devotees, 311.
Benevolence, 230.
 as the world judges, 230.
¦  ¦ as judged of by God, 230.
Beranger, 180.
Bible, 157.
 reading of, prohibited, 158.
¦  a sealed book prior to the Re
formation, 157.
 the Christian's rule of faith, 159.
 the value of, 159.
}*  the standard of freedom, 164.
 neglect of, 165.
— — condemned by Council of Tou
louse, 157.
 by Council of Con
stance, 157.
¦  reading of, restricted by Council
of Tront, 157.
 condemned by Gerson, 157.

Bible, condemned by James of Arra
gon, 157.  by Alexander III.,

157.

157.

¦ by Clement XL,
• by Pius IX., 157,

158.
 societies condemned by pope,
359.
 translation of, cursed by Pius
VII., 359.
 circulation of, condemned by Pius
IX., 359.
Bohemians, 208.
Bonaventure, 113.
 Psalter of, 113.
 blasphemy of, 113-115.
 ¦ specimen of Psalter of, 113.
Britain, 197.
 a part of the Roman empire, 197.
¦  its separation from the popedom,
197.

C.
Caasarius of Aries, 176.
Calvin, 252.
Candlesticks; two witnesses as, 171.
 literal translation of, 172.
 Apocalyptic meaning of, 172.
Cathari, 208.
Cathedrals, 111.
 how built originally, 111.
Chalmers, Thos., 253.
 eulqgy upon, 253.
 ¦ talents of, 254.
 mode of address of, 254.
 a geologist, 254.
 an astronomer, 254.
 a mathematician, 255.
 death of, 256.
Chiliads, seven, 200.
Christ a King, 31.
 a Priest, 31.
 a Mediator, 116.
— — Sun of Righteousness, 121.
 Lion of Judah, 121.
 expiation of, 33.
 the Lamb slain, 46.
 ¦ the Door, 54.
Christ's second advent pre-millennial,
436. the, revealed, 14.

¦ blood, its personal application, 66.
 its unchanging efficacy,70.

INDEX.

503

Christianity, its progress, 82.
 its safety and success, 83.
 its influence, S3.
 its universality,. S3.
 the bulwark of England, 83.
 its enemies, S3.
 its subjects, 84.
 its triumphs, 85.
•  sanctifies, 129.
¦  characteristics of, 30.
Christians, 230.
 sacrifices of, 36.
 character of, 27, 38, 230. -
 who are? 230.
 what are? 231.
 happiness of, 232, 264.
 follow Christ in his sufferings,
246.
 in his joys, 247.
 _ — _ with the heart, 247.
 .  openly, fully, and
constantly, 247.
Chrysostom, 250.-
Church, Christian, 215.
 rising of, 215.
 elevation of, 215.
¦  gratitude of, 216.
 Eusebius on, 216.
 brightness of, 216.
 appearance, of Arian heresy in,
217."
Church, Jewish, 42.
Church in the wilderness, 209.
 foundation of, 223.
 Christ present with, 224.
 promise given to, 225.
 visibility of, 225.
 jewels of, hidden, 226.
Church of Christ,
 firm foundation of, 99.
•  how traced in Middle Ages, 208.
 not always visible to the world,
222.
 great Builder of, 223.
Church of Rome, 114, 329.
 its principles, 329t.
 idolatry of worship, 115.
 blasphemy of, 115. -
 immorality, of, 115.
 saints of, 115.
¦  auricular confession in, 115.
 ready for all chances, 157.
Church, true, 162.
 preaches justification by faith,
162.
 firmness of foundation of, 162.
 duringthe effusion of the vials, 419.

City, tenth part of, fell, 197.
City, described in Rev. xvii.^185.
 those who were in the, 185.
 representatives in the, 186.
Clarkson, 252.
Claude of Turin, 251.
Clement of Alexandria, 259.
Clergy, Papal, 307.
 with horns as Iambs, speak as
dragons, 307.
 exercise pope's authority, 307.
 miracles of, 30S. .
 tran substantiation and, 308.
Cloud, import of, 120.
Constantine, 58*"
 and the church, 59, 60.
 and Christianity, 59.
 era of, 60, 76.
 of Armenia, 179.
Constantinople,. 104.
 mistress of the East, 104.
 siege of, 106. ...
 weapons employed at siege of,
106.
— — Gibbon on siege of, 106.
 its fall, 106.
Council of Frankfort, 177.
 protest against image worship,
177.
Council of Nice, 2d, 113.
 date of, 113.
 idolatry sanctioned by, 113.
Council of Trent, 196.
Cranmer, 201.
 his education, -202,
 ¦ sanctioned the burning of two
Anabaptists, 201.
Crown, symbol of conquering Jiing,
107.
Crusades, their object, 105.
 ¦ their instigator, 105.
 against Waldenses, 183.
Cyril on baptism, 61.

Dasmonolatry, 113.
Daniel and the Apocalypse, 271.
Demons, 112.
Destruction of cathedrals, 199.
Devil, meaning of, 112.
Diadem, symbol of peaceful king, 107.
Door in heaven, 41.
Dragon, 210.
 symbol of, 210.
 cast out of his mouth waters, 221.

504

INDEX.

Dragon, not Satan in his personal
character, 213.
 appearance of, 21.3.
 seven heads of, 213.
 ten horns of, 213.
 used as a Roman standard, 213.
 lost his power, 215,

E.

Eagle, the great, 220.
Earthquake, 52, 197, 404.
 figurative meaning of, 52.
 Apocalyptic meaning of, 197.
¦  affects Saxony, Prussia, Sweden,
and Denmark, 197.
 felt by the Netherlands, 200.
¦  Roman empire, its ten kingdoms,
197.
 Britain, one of the ten, separates
from the popedom, 197.-
 tenth of city fell, 197.
 tripartite division arising from,
405.
Edward VI., 198.
Election, 238.
 a true doctrine, 238.
 not to be rejected, 238.
¦  texts to prove, 239.
 r and responsibility, 239.
¦  difficult to bo reconciled, 238.
Elizabeth, queen, 205.
¦  defeat of Spanish armada by,
205.
 gave God the glory, 205.
 medals struck by, 205.
 the maiden queen, 206.
— — her national thanksgiving, 206.
 her efforts for the Reformation,
198.
Emperors, 276.
 laurel crown and diadem, 276.
¦  name, continuance of, 277.
 office of, changod, 277.
 Roman, 48.
 Nerva, 48.
 Trajan, 48.
 Adrian, 48.
 ¦  two Antonines, 48.
 Domitian, 48.
 —  ¦ Commodus, 48.
Epiphany of Jesus, 15.
Era of the martyrs, 53.
¦  of Constantine, 60-77.
Euphrates, river, 363.

Euphrates, drying of, a sign of the
times, 365.
 denotes Turkish power, 363.
 drying up of, 364.
 commencement of drying up,
364.
 causes which operated to the dry
ing up of, 365-369.
Eusebius, 21, 60.
 his glowing anticipations of the
future on Constantine's -establish
ment of Christianity, 60.
Expiation of Christ, 33.

F.
Faith, ages of, 109.
Fatimites, 97.
Fathers, the, 20.
 Ignatius, 20.
 Polycarp, 20.
 Irengeus, 21.
 Eusebius, 21, 60.
 Justin Martyr, 21.
 Jerome, 21, 74, 80.
 Vigilantius, 74, 179.
 Bernard, 109.
Faultless congregation, 248.
 who compose it, 248.
 Abel, 249.
 Abraham, 249.
 Lot, 249.
 Isaiah, 249.
 Luke, 249.
 Peter, 249.
 publican, 249.
 Mary Magdalene, 249.
 Paul, 250.
•  ¦ Tertullian, 250.
 Clement of Alexandria, 250.
 what are they ? 259.
 Eusebius, 250.
 Athanasius, 250.
 Vigilantius, 250.
 Jerome, 250.
 Basil, 250.
 Gregory Nazianzen, 250.
¦  Augustine, 250.
 Chrysostom, 250.
 Isaac, 251.
 Moses, 251.
 Sergius, 251.
 Claude of Turin, 251.
 Agobard, 251.
 Homy, 251.

INDEX.

505

Faultless congregation, who compose
it, Peter Waldo, 251.
 John Huss, 251.
 Martin Luther, 251.
 Calvin, 252.
 Knox, 252.
 Pascal, 252.
 Quesnel, 252.
 where are they ? 260.
 Martin Boos, 252.
 Fenelon, 252.
 Clarkson, 252.
 Wilberforce, 252.
 Bunyan, 252.
 Baxter, 252.
 John Newton, 252.
 Flavel, 253.
 Leighton, 263.
 Simeon, 253.
 Elliott, 253.
— — Henry Martyn, 253.
 Oberlin, 253.
 Robert Hall, 253.
 Andrew Fuller, 253.
 Wesley, 253.
 Watts, 258.
 Whiteneld, 253.
 Williams, 253.
 Chalmers, 253.
¦  ¦ whence they come, 258.
Followers of the Lamb, 233.
 same as witnesses, 234.
 gathered from all churches, 235.
 their head, 235.
 characteristics in common, 237.
¦  complete in Christ, 238.
 glory in his grace, 238.
 sung a new song, 238.
 great characteristics of the, 240.
 how Christians are, 241.
 what" should be their rule of
action, 242.
 their great standard, 243.
 their intercourse with the world,
244.
Frogs, the three unclean spirits of in
fidelity, ]*opery, priestcraft, let loose
under vial six, 380.
 the old arms of France, 397.
 who are, 397.
Futurists, 25. G.
Geneseric, a burning mountain, 78.
— — ravages of, 78.
 anecdote of, 78.

Gentile church, 226.
Gibbon, an excellent illustrator of Apo
calypse, 278.
Glory to the God of heaven, 203.
 given by tho witnesses, 203.
 due to God alone, 203.
God's universal providence, 81, 98.
 jewels, 62.
Golden altar, 102.
 voice from, 102.
 antitype of Christ, 103.
Gospel and Apocalypse, 18.
 in a convent, 207.
 epitome of, 29.
 neglect of, 39; 434.
 ¦ abuse of, 39.
Gregory the Great, 174.
 king of pride, 174.

H.
Hailstorm, 407.
 literal meaning of, 407.
 figurative meaning of, 407.
Harpers, 421.
 and glassy sea, 421.
 song of, 422.
 conquerors, 422.
 character of, 422.
 separate from beast, 422.
Heaven, a door in, 41.
Henry VIII., 198.
 the instrument that detached
Britain from the influence of Rome,
198.
 a devout Papist, 198.
 renounced the pope, not Popery,
198.
 his aim, 198.
¦  his inconsistency, 198.
 his death-bed, 198.
 the instrument of Reformation,
198.
Henry, (the Italian,) the Whiteneld of
the day, 180.
Hippo, siege of, 78.
Horn, little, 270.
 of Daniel's fourth beast, identical
with eighth head of Apocalyptio
beast, 271.
 little, the great Antichrist, 271.
 made war with the saints, 270.
Horns, ten, of the beast, 290.
 three, plucked up before the pope,
290.
43

506

INDEX.

Horse, red, 49.
 black, 50.
 pale, 51.
 white, 47.
Huns, ravages of, 79.

Ignatius, allusion to the Apocalypse in
the writings of, 20.
Illiberality of the pope, 203.
Image of beast, 310.
 means Papal general councils,
310.
Indulgences, 130.
 sale of, by Tetzel, 131.
 rate of, 131.
 copy of, 131.
 popularity among people, 132.
 sale of, sanctioned by Clement
VI., 117.
 by Leo X., 117.
Infidel philosophers, 389.
 France full of, 389.
Infidelity, 381.
 its origin, 381.
 evidence of the presence of, 382.
¦  of press, 388.
Inquisition, 117.
 its author, 117.
•  its organization, 117.
 date of, 117.-
 description of, 117.
 ¦ its reorganization, 117.
 numbers burnt by, 117.
Invocation of saints, 73.
Irenseus, 21.
Irving, Edward, 23.
Islamism, 97.
 rise and fall of, 97.
 duration of, 97.

Jewish Church, 42.
Jews, 466.
 interest in sign of the times,
369, 466.
 found in every land, 370.
 their restoration, .372.
— — missions to the, 375.

John, Weeping, 45.
 vision of, 44.
Judgments, national, and national
sins, 345.
Justin Martyr, 21.
Justinian Code, 176.
pope declared supreme

pontiff by, 176.

K.
Key, symbol of, 93, 94.
Kings of East, 363, 380.
Knox, John, 129.
 his fearlessness, 130.
¦  reverence for the truth, 130.
 his epitaph, 130.
Koran, characteristics of, 89.

Lamb, song of, 47.
AarEivos, application of, 311.
Lateran, Council IV., 186.
 held at Rome, 186.
under Leo X. and Julius

nesses, 188.

II., 186.
 its object, 186.
 its decision, 186.
 —  joy at death of wit-
• persecutions of, 117.
Leo X. resolves to put down Luther,
135.
 issues a bull against Luther,
136.
 dooms Luther's writings to be
burned, 138.
— : — legate of, visits Worms, 142.
 fear at Luther's preaching, 151.
Liberty of conscience, 203.
principle of England,

203.

203.

- not granted in Rome,

Licinius and Constantine,dccree of, 214.
 dream of, 214.
Lindsay, Lord, anecdote of. 163.
Litany of Church of England, 114.
 comprehensive and scrip
tural, 114.

INDEX.

507

Locust, 87.
 employed as a symbol, 87.
 their origin, 87.
 their meaning, 83, 98.
London, moral and religious statistics
of, 381.
 atheism of, 382.
 antitheism of, 383.
Luther, Martin, 118.
 date of, 122.
 birth and lineage, 123/
 childhood and poverty of, 123.
 entrance at the university, 123.
 progress in studies, 123.
 enters a convent, 124.
 his reasons, 124.
 finds a Bible, 124.
¦  his conscience is awakened, 125.
 anecdote of, 125.
 his distress of mind, 126.
•  meets with Staupitz, 128.
¦  hears the gospel, 128.
 finds peace through Christ, 128.
 made doctor and expounder of
Bible, 129.
 bis doings at Wittemberg, 129.
 effect on the people, 129.
 his 95" Theses," 134.
¦  denies the power of the pope,
134.
 spring of his strength, 136.
 burns the pope's bull, 136.
 no thought at first of pope as
Antichrist, 140.
 no revolutionist, 141.
 sees the pope to be Antichrist,
141."
 the hero of his age, 145.
 his new commission, 149.
 revives preaching, 150.
 his first pulpit, 150.
 imprisonment in castle of Wart-
berg, 151.
 his employment in prison, 151.
 and apostolical succession, 152.
— — his undauntedness of character,
153.
 his death, 154.
 his burial, 154.
 pilgimages to his tomb, 155.

M.
Mohammed, birth and education, 91.
 his ancestors, 91.

Mohammed, called, 91.
Mohammedanism, 89.
 origin of, 89.
 a military system, 89.
Maillard, Madame, 325.
 as goddess of Reason, 325.
Man child, birth of, 213.
 symbol of Christian people,
213, 215.
 raised to dignity, 215.
Martel, Charles, 96.
Martyrs, era of, 53.
Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 301.
medal struck in

commemoration of, 305, 330.
Maximus, vow of, 214.
 decree of, 215.
 cause of decree, 215.
 ¦ death of, 215.
 date of, 215.
Melancthon, 129.
 his disposition, 129.
— .- at the funeral of Luther, 155.
Millennium, 459.
 Christ will personally come prior
to the, 441.
 the first resurrection precedes
the, 441.
 opinion of Fathers concerning
the, 442.
 Augustine on, 442.
 Grotius on, 443. ~
 Whitby on, 443.
 the glorious state of, 457.
— ¦ — difficulty, attempt at solution,
458.
— - — resurrection of just prior to, 442.
-, arguments to prove, 441,

445.

¦ opinion of Fathers, 442.

 events that immediately precede
the, 437.
 conversion of Jews prior to the,
438.
 Christ, the King of glory, de
scending on a white horse, 438.
 the universality of Christ's ap
pearance at the, 438.
 destruction of Papal Antichrist,
prior to, 440.
 thrones of glory and beauty at
the, 440.
 occupiers of the thrones at the,
441.
— ¦ — Satan bound a thousand years,
439.
Missionary societies, 429.

508

INDEX.

Missionary society, Baptist, Dr. Carey,
429.
 London, 428.
 Wesleyan, 428.
 ¦  Church, 429.
 the Jews', 429.
Missions, 375.
 interest in sign of times, 398.
Mohadi and Haroun Al Rasched, 96.
Mosheim, 174.
 extract from, 174, 185.
Mystery, 409.
¦  superscription of Rome, 409.
 called Mother of Harlots, 411.

N.
Napoleon, his march against Sardinia,
337.
 battle of Austerlitz, by, 338.
 emperor of Germany made to
renounce title by, 340.
 sun of Christendom extinguished
by, 340.
 name given by his soldiers to,
341.
 sends for pope to his coronation,
354.
 marriage of, 340.
 instrument of anger, 340.
¦  conscription of, 342.
¦  inducements held out by, 342.
 a mere instrument in the hands
of God, 344.
 Alison's description of, 342.
National sins, national judgments,
109.
 emblems, 87.
 hieroglyphs, 47.
Netherlands, seven provinces of, sepa
rate from the Popedom, 201.
Noble Lesson, the, 181.
 Faber's translation of, 181.
 extract from, 181.

O.
Oath taken by Roman Catholic bishops,
202.
Oberlin, 253.
Odoacor, 79.

Odoacer, abolishes office of Roman
emperor, 79.
Old and New Testaments, harmony ofi
271.

Pacification of Nuremberg, 195.
 the decree which followed, 195.
 result of, 195.
Pagan Rome, decline of, 44.
Paulicians, 173.
Paulinus of Aquileia, 177.
Penal statutes and Reformers, 202.
Peter de Bruys, 180.
Petition to Pius IX., 203.
Pillar of fire, 121.
Pope, sits on high altar, to be adored,
292.
 vicar of Christ, 296.
 royal submission to, 300.
 people's submission to, 301.
 Latin man, 311.
Popery, its antiquity, 112.
 contrasted with Christianity, 112.
 a system of ignorance, 159.
 antagonism of, to Christianity,
159.
 contrasted with Protestantism,
159, 225.
 distinct from Arianism, 220.
 description of, 281.
 and Nicene creed, 282.
 plausibility of, 282.
 is Puseyism at full length, 2S3.
 captivates the senses, 284.
 vulture, illustration of, 285.
Popes, progress of their ecclesiastical
power, 287.
 Celestine, one of, 288.
 styled successors of Peter, 2S8.
 blasphemies of, 288-294.
— — Popish succession, 169.
 fallacy of, 169.
 illustration of, 169.
Prayer of a Carthusian monk, 207.
Preaching fallen into desuetude before
Reformation, 150.
 revived by Luther, 150.
Priest, Christ as a, 31.
Priesthood, royal, 36.
Prophecy, unfulfilled, 16.
Prophesy, meaning of, 150.
Prophotio year, 108.
 length of, 108.

INDEX.

509

Prophetic day, length of, 108. •
Protestants, why so called, 190.
 where first so called, 190.
¦  and Romish churches contrasted,
161.
Purgatory, 81.
Puseyism, 60.
 and justification by faith, 162.

R.

Red Sea, why so called, 422.
 passage of Israelites over, and
their song of victory, 423.
Redemption through Christ, 66.
Reformation, 162, 164, 198.
 its commencement in Scotland,
198.
— r- its progression in Scotland, 199.
 in England, gradual,
- 199.
 not Revolution, 141.
 Restoration, 141.
 responsibilities arising from, 143,
164.
 its effects, 156, 157, 160, 162.
 corruption of Christendom prior
to, 117.
 described in Rev. ch. jl., 120.
 and Traotarians, 120. -
 symbols of the, 121.
 chronology of, 121.
 description of, 122.
Reformers and persecution, 201.
 and Apocalypse, 18.
Reinerus on the Waldenses, 181.
Relics, veneration of, 74.
Responsibility of having the gospel,
156, 418.
Revolution, French, .316.
• offspring of Papal sys

tem, 329.

321.

¦ the noisome ulcer, 317.
• Burke on, 318.
- description of, 319.
• tribunal of, 320.
¦ Alison on, 320, 323.
¦ the Noyades of, 320.
¦ cruelties perpetrated at,

326.

- Reign of Terror, 322.
¦ Temple of Reason, 326.
- morality abolished by,

Revolution, French, Sir Walter Scott
on, 326, 327.
 epithets bestowed on,
326.
Romanists, 36.
Rome, to be literally oonsumed by fire,
415.
 song after the destruction of,
416.
 the cry addressed to her, " Come
out of her, my people," 415.
 mistress of the world, 186.
 • meeting-place of Europe, 186.
 regarded as seat of power, 186.
 centre of Western world, 187.
 ¦ her disasters, 79.
 Pagan, decline of, 44.
 Christian, desolation of, 44.
Romish Church, fear of the rising
power of Protestants, 196.
Romulus Augustus, 80.
— — abdication of, 80.
Royal priesthood, 36.

Sabbatism, millennary, 472.
Sacrifices, Christian, 36.
Saracenic wo, 96.
 duration of, 96.
Saracens, history of, 93.
 progress of, 93.
Schoenbruen, decrees of, 355.
Scotland, 198.
 separated from the Popedom,
198.
 Reformation begun in, 1-98.
 progress of, 199.
 complete triumph of, 199.
Sealed ones, their duties, 67.
 freedom from sickness, 67.
and sorrow, 67.

Seals, seven, opening of, 41.
 first, symbol of, 47.
white horse of, 48.

 second, 49.
 third, opening of, 50.
 fourth, opening of, 51.
 fifth, opening of, 52.
 sixth, opening of, 52.
Sergius, 179.
Seven Chiliads, 200.
Seven, the perfect number, 139.

43*

510

INDEX.

Seven thunders, the, 139.
 their origin, 140.
 applied to the pope's bulls,
140.
Shrewsbury, Lord, 116.
Signs of Christ's second advent, 453,
461.
¦  shown to be near, 453.
 the sudden nature of, 454.
 the resurrection of the just, 456.
- — character of saints in reference to
it, 461.
 which indicate the approach of
that period, 463.
¦  increase of Popery, 464.
¦  activity on part of Satan, 468.
 increasing systems of error, 468.
— — Doctor Arnold on, 469.
 increase of missionary exertion,
471.
¦  the apathy and unbelief that
precede it, 471.
Silence in heaven, 71.
Slaying of men, seven thousand, 200.
Socialism, infidel character of, 386.
¦  visit to a hall of, 386.
 destruction of social system,
387.
 calls marriage a Satanic institu
tion, 387.
Socinianism, 160. ,
Socinians, 36.
Song in heaven, 215.
•  meaning of, 215.
 of the Lamb, 47.
Spirits, seven, 43.
Stars, 91, 212.
 Apoealyptic meaning of, 212.
Staupitz, 128.
 his character, 128.
Street, Greek for, 185.
 meaning of, 185.
Strype, extract from, 205.
Sultan Hunkiar, 104.
— i- his mission, 104.
 tyranny of, 108.
Symbols, use of, 43.

Tail, 107.
 origin of, 107.
 official symbol of, 107

Tail, mark of distinction, 107.
 exponent of Turkish rule, 107.
 national symbol, 107.
Testimony of witnesses, 174.
 completion of, 183.
 extinction of, 184.
 Milner on, 184.
Tetzel, 130.
 sale of indulgences by, 131.
 blasphemy of, 131.
 instrument of Leo X., 137.
Theodosius the Great, 221.
 character of, 221.
 protection of church, 221.
 opposition to Paganism and Ari*
anism, 221.
 Augustine encouraged by, 221.
Togrul Beg, 104.
 declares war against Chris-
tendom, 104.
 date of, 104.
 his progress and victories,
104.
Traotarians, their object to explain
away Popery, 272.
 their effort to introduce Popery,
272.
 their interpretation of 2 Thessa
lonians and 1 Timothy iii., 272.
Trees, olive, Apocalyptic meaning of,
171.
Tribulation, 65.
 use of, 65.
Trumpet, first, 76.
 dramatic picture of, 76.
 effects of, 77.
 second, effects on Africa and
Adriatic, 77. on Mediterranean, 77.

79.

- third, effects on rivers, etc., 78.
• fourth, effects on sun and moon,
- darkness followed, 79.

Trumpets, four first, 71.
Trumpet, fifth, 86.
 sixth, 100, 102.
 four angels loosed, 103.
— Turkish wo, 100.
duration of, 108.

 effects on the Apostasy, 109, 111.
— — symbols, 75.
 use of, under Levitioal eoonomy,
76.
Truth, to bo spoken boldly, 153.
 needs no apology, 153.
Turks, 104.
 invasion of, 104.

INDEX.

511

U.

Unfulfilled prophecy, 100.
Unrecognised blessings, 38.
Use of symbols, 43.

Vial first, 314.
 physical intimations of, 313.
 nature and action of, 315.
 agencies omployed in, 315.
 localities of, 316.
 ulcer not unfrequent emblem of
316.
 pouring out of, 316.
 prepared by Voltaire, 317.
 date of, 317.
 Sir Walter Scott on, 317.
Vial second, 332.
 Wormwood, the star, 333.
 locality of, 334.
 revolutionary spirit of, 334.
 effects upon maritime dependen
cies of France, 335.
 poured out upon the sea, 336.
 fulfilment of, 336.
Vial third, 332.
 pouring out of on rivers and
fountains, 336.
 locality of, 337.
 Napoleon instrument of, 337
 result of, 336.
Vial fourth, 340.
 Emperor of Germany compelled
to renounce his title of Emperor of
the Holy Roman Empire, 340.
 duration of pouring out of, 340.
 power given to the angel to scorch
men with fire, 340.
 Napoleon illustration of, 340.
Vial fifth, 349.
 its locality, 349.
 its effects upon Rome, 351.
 sprinklings of, 351.
 confiscation of lands of church,
351.
 the clergy required to abjure al
legiance to pope, 351.
 churches turned into stables, 352.
 tithes confiscated, 352.
 seizure of pope in Vatican, 353.
 fifth, failed to produce repentance,
356.

Vial sixth, 363.
 locality of, 363.
 date of, 364.
 three unclean spirits under, 364.
Vial seventh, 401.
 locality of, 401.
 — poured into air, 401. -
 universal effects of, 402.
 moral influence of, 402.
 literal influence of, 403.
 great earthquake under, 404.
 city divided into three parts,
406.
 fall of established churches pre
dicted under, 406.
 hailstorm, 407.
 Babylon came into remembrance
before God, 408.
Vigilantius, 176.
Virgin Mary, 116.
 miracles of, 116.
 as mediatrix, 116.
 propitiation through, 116.
winking image of, 358.

Vision of John, 44.
Volney, character of, 87.

W.
Waddington, Dean, 188.
 extract from writings of, 188.
Waldenses, 173-181, 208.
 Reinerus's testimony to, 181.
 their missionary spirit, 181.
 called sackcloth-wearing heretics,
181.
 crusades against, 183.
 persecution of, sanctioned by
Lateran IV., 183.
Waldo, Peter, 180.
War in heaven, 215.
 between Christianity and Pagan
ism, 215.
 result of, 215.
date of, 215.

Wilberforce, 425.
— — character of, 425.
 work of, 426.
Witnesses, 166.
 Greek for, 170.
 meaning of, 170.
 two, 166, 173.
 are persons, 171.
 "My,""171.
 called two olive-trees, 172.
 two candlesticks, 172.

512

INDEX.

Witnesses, stand before the Lord, 172.
 their number, 173.
 Paulicians, 173.
 Waldenses, 173.
 prerogative of the, 174.
 fire proceeded from their mouths,
174.
 their prophecy, 174.
 duration of, 174.
¦  beginning of their testimony, 174.
 chronology of, 174.
 Augustine, 176.
¦  ¦ Vigilantius, 176.
 Caesarius of Aries, 176.
 Serenus, 177.
 Council of Frankfort, 177.
 Alcuin, 177.
¦  Zwingle, 206.
 Paulinus of Aquileia, 177.
¦  Agobard, 177.
 Claude of Turin, 177.
 Gotteschalc, 178.
 Constantine, 199.
 Simeon, 179.
 Sergius, 179.
 Calvin, 206.
 Beranger, 180.
 Peter de Bruys, 180.
 Henry, 180.
— - Peter Waldo, 181.
 invulnerable to all curses pro
nounced by the Papacy, 182.
 the completion of their testimony,
183.
•  war against, 183.
 defeat and death of, 184.
¦  a succession of individuals, 184.
 figurative, 184.
 their bodies to lie in street of the
city, 185.
 complete suppression of, 187.
 denied Christian burial, 188.

- joy at death of, 188.
- to lie unburied, 188.
- length of time, 189.

 resurrection of the, in the person
of Martin Luther, 190.
 ascension of, 191.
 congratulations sent to pope on
death of, 194.
 how they ascended, 195.
 duration of sackcloth testimony
of, 210.
 enemies of the, beheld them, 196.
 gave glory to God, 204.
 in all ages for Christ, 207.
 in Church of Rome, 207.
 their principles, 207.
Wo, cry denouncing it to the inha
bitants of the earth, 217.
 cause of, 217.
 pronounced from heaven, 81.
 first, or Saracenic, 86.
 second, or Turkish, 108.
Woman in the wilderness, 210.
 appearance of, 210.
 recession of, into wilderness, 210.
 length of sojourn in wilderness
of the, 211.
 not the Virgin Mary, 212.
 ' represents Christ's true church,
212.
 and the sealed ones, 212.
 clothed with the sun, 213.
 flight into wilderness, 220.
 bestowment of wings, 220.
 Mosheim on, 220.
Woman, the harlot church, 408.
 clothed with purple and scarlet,
408.
 called " Mystery," 409.
 great characteristic of, 413.
"Write," meaning.of, 146.
" Write not," 146.

THE END.

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THE CHILDREN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

REV. THEOPHILUS STORK, D.D-

* Of such is the kingdom of heaven." — Jesus,
" How oft, heart-sick and sore,
I've wished I were, once more,
A little child." — Mrs. Southet.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION. — THE WONDERS OP
BETHLEHEM.
The " Holy Child Jesus." The Child
hood and Youth of Christ. The De
vout Simeon, with the Infant Saviour
in his arms. Jesus among the Doc
tors in the Temple. The sympathy
of Christ with little children. The
beauty of childhood. Poetical quo
tations from Wordsworth.
LITTLE CHILDREN BROUGHT TO THE
SAVIOUR.
Explanation of the scene in Mark x.
13, 14. The Disciples' conduct.
The probable reasons of their inter
ference. The Saviour's displeasure
at their conduct. His affectionate
welcome to children. How parents
now may prevent children from
going to Christ. An earnest dis
suasive from such deportment. The
importance of example. The influ
ence of the home-spirit. The posi
tive duty of bringing our children
to the Saviour.
THE CHILDREN IN. THE TEMPLE.
Pxplanatiorf of the temple-scene, Matt.
xxi. 15, 16. The hosanna of the
children. The displeasure of the
priests and scribes. The Saviour's
vindication of the children. Ps.
viii. 2, explained. The importance
of early impressions. Reformation.

National education. Sun day schools.
Facts, showing that children trained
in religion will become the cham
pions of truth and virtue. Beautiful
visions of the future.
TIMOTHY.
His early religious education. The
influence of maternal piety. Eunice
an example for the imitation of mo
thers. The "child father of tho
man." Instruction and piety com
bined. Encouragement to pious
mothers. THE INFANTICIDE AT BETHLEHEM.
Explanation of the scene. Seeming
incongruity. Vindication of Divine
Providence, in the massacre of the
infants. Infant martyrs. The scene,
suggestive of the following topics :
1. The death of little children. Sources
of consolation. Providence. Infant
salvation.
2. Mission of children. The advent
of a little child in the family. The
child at home. The sick and dying
child. The memory.
3. Children in heaven. Beautiful as
pect of the heavenly home.
4. Recognition. Difficulties of tbi
doctrine. Scriptural aspect of the
subject. David. Recognition of tha
loved and lost in heaven.
Conclusion.

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