by their idolatry, or literal by their public brothels and uncleanness, nor of their thefts, their unjust exactions, and impositions on their followers, but realized their apostate character, by combining with their departure from Christian purity of worship all those detestable vices which had formerly disgraced the Pagan world, and proving that the pretended Vicar of Christ was no other than the predicted "man of sin."

We are now come to a most important part of this interesting prophecy, in which, between the sounding of the sixth and seventh trumpets, the last of which is the trumpet of consummation, is interposed the vision of the little open book, which contains, as we have every reason to believe, the fates of the Church, from its first establishment to its millennian state, and even to the end of the world.

The contemplation of the system of the apocalyptical visions, constructed on the characters of synchronisms, led Mede, as he himself observes, to the proper interpretation of this mysterious interposition of the Holy Spirit, and enabled him to unravel a difficulty which seems to have puzzled or escaped every other commentator. Even Bishop Newton, from not attending sufficiently to the synchronic data, which mark the correspondent periods of the two pro

phecies, seems to doubt whether the vision of the Biblaridion be separate, and co-existent with the time of the sealed book unclosed, or whether it may not be considered as a continuation and a portion of the first Revelation. That it is to a certain degree separate and distinct, and that it relates to a different object, though interwoven with the former, I think Mede has sufficiently shown. The vision of the sealed book opened by the Lamb, reveals the state of the Roman empire and its vicissitudes from the death of Christ to his second advent. The six first seals relate to the destruction of Jerusalem, the persecutions of the Christians, the terrible slaughters which devastated the Roman world, the invocations of the martyrs, and the vengeance of God on their adversaries, by the destruction of idolatry and the establishment of the Christian religion in the eastern empire, under the dominion of Constantine. After a short pause, in which the followers of God and of the Lamb are sealed for preservation and deliverance, the seventh seal introduces the seven trumpets, which denote the successive wars and assaults by which the destruction of the Roman empire in the west is gradually accomplished. The fifth and sixth trumpets, with the denunciation of woes, proclaims the rise and progress of the Saracenic and Turkish powers in the overthrow of the eastern

empire; and the world is now waiting for the third woe, and the sounding of the seventh trumpet, when the mystery of God will be finished. But before this woe is denounced, and before that trumpet sounds, the spirit of God has interposed a second prophecy, synchronic with the former, in which the state of the Church is first more generally, and then more particularly described, from the apostolic age, through the great apostasy, to the conversion of the Jews, and the second advent of Christ.

"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 upon 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 thunders 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. 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 seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets."

The august appearance, and splendid accompaniments of this mighty angel, descending from heaven, lead us to the contemplation of a new prophecy. He is, indeed, described in characters similar to those which distinguish the Divine Son of Man in the first chapter of the Apocalypse, and correspondent with those in which the man clothed in linen is described in the vision of Daniel (x. 5.) by the side of the river Hiddekel. These circumstances have led Mede and other interpreters to consider this heavenly messenger as no other than Christ our Lord, appearing in a resplendent form to Daniel, the beloved prophet, before his incarnation, as to John, the beloved disciple, in a similar manner, after he had been re-admitted to the glory of the Father.

The oath which is taken on both occasions is made nearly in the same form, before the Prophet and the Evangelist, and it relates to the same period of time as the conclusion of prophecy.

But the first doubt which arises in my mind as to its being Christ himself, in the present as

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well as the former instance, is owing to the nature of the oath which is thus taken. We know that when our Lord appeared among men, one of the marks of his divinity was his asseverations in the form of the oath ascribed to God himself. «Η μὴν, εὐλογῶν εὐλογήσω σε ',” says the Apostle to the Hebrews, when he refers to the oath of God," Verily, blessing, I will bless thee." And our Saviour repeatedly says, “'Aμǹv, àμǹv, Xéyw vuiv," "Verily, verily, I say unto you;" and λέγω particularly in the eighth chapter of St. John, ν. 58. “Αμὴν, ἀμὴν, λέγω ὑμῖν, πρὶν ̓Αβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγώ εἰμι,” Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I am." In which he declares his own self-existence, and as the Apostle says, "because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself." But the oath by the man clothed in linen in Daniel, and by the mighty angel here, is made by lifting up the right hand, or both hands, to heaven, and swearing by the Creator of heaven, and earth, and sea. He swears, therefore, as a being inferior to God.

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It appears likewise, by a reference to the tenth chapter of Daniel, that "one like the similitude of the sons of men," v. 16. and "one like the appearance of a man," v. 18. evidently a different person from the splendid angel, and exhibiting

1 Hebrews vi. 14.