and annotator, who, with all his aberrations, was never charged with error for holding it to be a declaration of Christ that there is to be another coming of Elias; with Victorinus, Methodius, Cyprian, and Lactantius;-with Chrysostom of the golden mouth;-with Jerome the great critic and scholar; and with Augustine the illustrious bishop and theologian. In such society it would seem hardly possible to go very far astray. To believe and teach what these with one accord have held and taught, can scarcely be in conflict with the faith, or with the duty and proprieties of a sober Christian teacher. And if with them I err, I may claim the same forgiveness by which they are excused and justified.

But I am not willing to believe that these saints, scholars, bishops, martyrs, and champions of the faith against the errors of their times, have all missed the sense and meaning of God's revelations on these points. Not on their authority, but on that of the same records which guided them, I follow in their track.

So, then, I must believe and teach, till better knowledge proves me in the wrong; and,

With faltering footsteps, I will journey on,

Watching the stars that roll the hours away,
Till the faint light that guides me now is gone,
And, like another life, the glorious day
Shall open o'er me from the empyrean height
With warmth, and certainty, and boundless light.

LECTURE TWENTY-FIFTH.

THE SEVENTH TRUMPET-THE GRAND CLIMACTERIC-" DAYS INCLUDED-TEXT A SYNOPSIS-VOICES IN HEAVEN-EMOTION OF THE ENTHRONED ELDERS-TEMPLE IN HEAVEN OPENEDARK APPEARS-NATURE AGITATED-GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD CHANGED-EARTH'S DESTROYERS DESTROYED-THE DEAD JUDGED-THE PROPHETS AND SAINTS REWARDED-ALL CONCERNED IN THESE THINGS.

REV. 11: 15-19. (Revised Text.) And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in the heaven, saying, The kingdom of the world is become our Lord's and his Christ's; and he shall reign to the ages of the ages.

And the twenty-four elders which sit before God on their thrones, fell down upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, We give to thee thanks, O Lord God the Almighty, who art and who wast [and art to come, is an addition without adequate authority here], because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and shown Thyself King. The nations indeed were angry, and Thy indignation is come, and the time [or season] of the dead to be judged, and [the time or season] to give the reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy the destroyers of the earth.

And there was opened the temple of God in the heaven, and there was seen the ark of his covenant in his temple; and there were [or, ensued] lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and earthquake, and great hail.

WE here approach the grand climacteric of

this world, and of the judgment-work of the Almighty One. The seventh angel, restrained so long from ushering in the final scenes which

separate us from the glorious world to come, at length pours out his wondrous blast. It is the Last Trumpet, so often referred to by the sacred writers, and by the Saviour himself, as bringing with it the mightiest scenes and changes in the whole history of earth and time, that here sounds. And if there is anything in all the round of human thought to absorb, fix, and intensify interest and attention, we have it in this subject.

The particular passage we have now to consider, is only a synopsis of the matter-a rehearsal in brief of what is subsequently given in detail. It is an important point to remark, that the seventh trumpet does not sound merely for one instant or for one day. In that solemn oath of the cloudrobed Angel, which we were called to consider in chapter 10, and in which it was said that the fulfilling of the mystery of God should be finished at the sounding of the seventh angel, it is distinctly implied, that the sounding is continuous, and extends through a period of time. It is there said, that "in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall sound, the mystery of God is [to be] fulfilled." "Days" are included. What measure of days," or how many of them, we are not told; but a period of time is specifically indicated. In the case of the other woe trumpets, there is unmistakable continuity,-" five months" the one, and evidently no less a time in the other. And the presence of this distinct note of continuity here, taken along with the tremendousness of what turns out under this trumpet, is evidence

enough that it is a mistake to confine this last and great woe trumpet to the few summary notations of the text, or to crowd it into an instant of time. From the plainly expressed character of the events, and from the oath of the Angel, we are sufficiently assured, that this seventh trumpet embraces everything involved in the completing of the whole mystery of God, up to the termination of all this judgment history. That fulfilment is certainly not accomplished without the seven vials of wrath, the harvest and vintage of the world, the manifestation of the great white throne, and the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth. In the nature of the case, that fulfilment overspans everything this side of the completed redemption; and yet that fulfilment is most specifically located "in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall sound."

There is, therefore, no alternative, but to take the text as only synoptical of this trumpet-a sort of summary of its chief contents, the full details of which are subsequently described, and spread over a considerable period;-an anticipative programme, so to speak, of the main elements and issue of the great drama, given out in advance of the more special narration of circumstantial particulars and related events.* In other words,

Bengel takes it as evident, "that chapter 12, from its very beginning, refers to the trumpet of the seventh angel; for the voice which was heard immediately under the sound of that trumpet, chap. 11 : 15, respecting the kingdom, is repeated by

we now have to do with a syllabus of the fulfilment or consummation of the mystery of Godwith a prelusive sketch of the contents of the Last Trump, in which we may note:

I. THE SYMPTOMS WHICH ATTEND IT.
II. THE ITEMS WHICH IT EMBRACES.

And may He who sent His angel to disclose these wonders, open our eyes and hearts by His Holy Spirit, that we may rightly apprehend and ponder the same!

I. The symptoms which attend the sounding of the Last Trump are the most remarkable, the most numerous, and the most intense, both in heaven and on earth, that are anywhere detailed in the Scriptures. There were many mighty

Epitasis in chap. 12: 10, with a remarkable increase of meaning; nor can that by any means be placed before this trumpet." Bengel in loc. Even Hengstenberg, who, by his method of interpretation, makes a new beginning altogether with chap. 12, is forced to admit against himself, that "what we now, according to chap. 11 : 15-18, expect the appearance of the Lord, the final victory of God's kingdom, the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, the glorification of the Church, all this is represented in verse 19 as having entered, but only by way of gentle indication; for the seer would reserve the more particular delineation of the last things for a later part of the book, and by the enigmatical brevity with which he here treats them, would set expectation on the stretch regarding that more particular delineation in reserve." See his Com. in loc. Bengel was unquestionably right when he said that chapters 12-22 are but an exergasia, a further explanation or setting forth of the passage now before us.