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.
2. 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.
A great voice out of the temple, now
filled with the glory of the divine presence, commanded
the seven angels to enter upon their mission.
It came, therefore, from God, who alone fixed the
time for these judgments to begin.
Before an intelligent explanation
of these plagues can be given, however, the following
points must be made clear: 1. Where the
vials were poured ou. Upon whom they were
emptie. Why they were thus poured ou. When they were fulfilled, or, rather, at
what time they began to be fulfilled. These points
we will first briefly consider in the order named,
after which we will discuss the nature of the
plagues and their individual application.
1. The place where these vials
of wrath were poured out was “upon the earth”;
that is, the Apocalyptic earth, or that portion of
the earth made the special subject of Apocalyptic
vision; namely, the territory of the ten kingdoms.
The last two vials, however, will be found to embrace
a larger territory.
2. They were poured out upon
those “which had the mark of the beast, and
upon them which worshiped his image.” It
has already been shown that the image made by the
second beast of chapter 13 was the Protestant ecclesiastical
organizations; hence the “beast” here referred
to, to which the image was made, must signify the
ecclesiastical hierarchy of Rome, the original.
So the plagues fell upon the adherents of both organized
Romanism and Protestantism in Europe.
3. The reason why the judgments
of the first three vials especially descended upon
them was because “they had shed the blood of
saints and prophets.” Verse 6. That
Romanism was a fierce oppressor of God’s people
has already been noticed: Protestantism as their
persecutor, also, must now be considered further.
Protestant sects after they first became established
and got power in their own hands, acted much in the
same manner as the church of Rome did before them,
persecuting, banishing, imprisoning, and even putting
to death those who refused to receive their tenets
or to conform to the system of religion they had adopted.
The Lutherans, at first a pious, persecuted people,
on becoming numerous and exalted by the favor of the
great, established a certain system of religion and
then, when it was in their power, persecuted, imprisoned,
banished, or put to death all that dissented.
As early after the Reformation as 1574, in a convention
at Torgaw, they established the real presence in the
eucharist and instigated the Elector of Saxony to
seize, imprison, and banish all the secret Calvinists
that differed from them in sentiment, and to reduce
their followers by every act of violence, to renounce
their sentiments and to confess the ubiquity.
Peucer, for his opinions, suffered ten years of imprisonment
in the severest manner. In 1577 a form of concord
was produced in which the real manducation of
Christ’s body and blood in the eucharist was
established and heresy and excommunication laid on
all that refused this as an article of faith, with
pains and penalties to be enforced by the secular
arm. Crellius, in 1601, was put to death.
In Switzerland, before the city of
Zurich was entirely safe itself from the encroachments
of Romanism, its Protestant council condemned a young
man named Felix Mantz to be drowned because he insisted
that the baby-sprinkling of Romanism was not baptism
and that all who had received the rite ought to be
immersed. This sentence was carried into effect.
The severest laws were passed in different countries
of Europe against the Anabaptists, and large numbers
were banished or burnt at the stake. See Encyclopædia
Britannica, Art. Anabaptists. Protestants
may claim this was because of their fanaticism on
other lines; but it remains a fact, nevertheless,
that the chief sentiment at the base of these laws
was religious persecution and that Protestants sanctioned
and carried them into execution.
King Henry VIII., the founder of the
Established Church in England, adopted the most stringent
laws to enforce its doctrines. Certain articles
of religion were drawn up, known in history as the
“Bloody Six Articles.” Concerning
these the People’s Cyclopaedia says: “The
doctrines were substantially those of the Roman Catholic
Church. Whoever denied the first articles (that
embodying the doctrine of transubstantiation) was
to be declared a heretic, and burnt without opportunity
of abjuration; whoso spoke against the other five
articles should, for the first offense, forfeit his
property; and whosoever refused to abjure his first
offense, or committed a second, was to die like a felon.”
Art. Henry VIII. “The royal reformer
persecuted alike Catholics and Protestants. Thus,
on one occasion, three Catholics who denied that the
king was the rightful head of the church, and three
Protestants who disputed the doctrine of the real
presence in the sacrament,... were dragged on the
same sled to the place of execution.” In
speaking of that period of history and of the religious
persecutions of the times, Myers says: “Punishment
of heresy was then regarded, by both Catholics and
Protestants alike, as a duty which could be neglected
by those in authority only at the peril of Heaven’s
displeasure. Believing this, those of that age
could consistently do nothing less than labor to exterminate
heresy with axe, sword and fagot.
That religious intolerance even at
a later date was practised in England, witness the
twelve years’ imprisonment of John Bunyan and
the hundreds confined in jails throughout that country
for not conforming to the established religion.
It was such severe persecution by that early Protestant
sect that drove the Puritans from England’s fair
country to the then inhospitable shores of America,
that they might have an opportunity to worship God
according to the dictates of their own conscience.
In Scotland the Covenanters “insisted on their
right to worship God in their own way. They were
therefore subjected to most cruel and unrelenting
persecution. They were hunted by English troopers
over their native moors and among the wild recesses
of their mountains, whither they secretly retired
for prayer and worship. The tales of the suffering
of the Scotch Covenanters at the hands of the English
Protestants form a most harrowing chapter of the records
of the ages of religious persecution.”
This list might be considerably augmented, but it
is unnecessary. However, that Protestant persecution
and tyranny should never reach the enormous extent
of the Romanists before them is proved by the fact
that her horns were “like a lamb.”
Chap 13:11.
4. It is very important for us
to ascertain the time for the beginning of
these plagues; for they can not be identified unless
we understand the chronology of the events described.
It is a fact no one can question that the seventh
plague is the judgment of the last day, for in the
seven “is filled up” the wrath of God;
hence they are denominated the last plagues.
It is also a fact, well-known to all who are spiritual
and who understand the truth in the present reformation,
that certain events said to occur under the period
of the sixth plague are now taking place; namely,
the confederation of all false religions to oppose
the people of God, led on by the “unclean spirits”
that 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.” Verses 13, 14.
Therefore five of the plagues precede
the time in which we are now living. It is evident
that the plagues could not begin before the reformation;
for the vials were poured out upon the “image
of the beast” Protestantism also.
Hence we are directed to some period between the sixteenth
century and the present day for their commencement.
The reason why the first judgments especially
were poured out will assist us in determining the
starting-point “They have shed the
blood of saints and prophets.” This expression
seems to indicate that the time for the plagues to
begin was after Romanism and Protestantism ceased
putting people to death because of their religious
sentiments. That this is the correct idea is clearly
proved by what was said to the martyrs when they cried
unto God for the avenging of their blood on them that
dwell on the earth. “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.”
Chap 6:10, 11. For additional information concerning
the terrible persecutions that followed
the Sixteenth Century Reformation, see remarks on
chapter 6:10, 11.
We must now determine about what time
the great persecutions referred to ceased, or
nearly ceased, and that will give us the right starting-point
from which to reckon the pouring out of the first vial.
In A.D 1685 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
by Louis XIV. of France, took place, and in the terrible
persecutions that occurred during his reign three
hundred thousand are said to have lost their lives.
The time that we are endeavoring to establish, then,
must be later than the seventeenth century. Louis
died in 1714. Persecutions continued from
time to time in France, with considerable severity,
until about the middle of the century. “Soon
after this ... the flowing of heretic blood ceased,
though an effort was made in 1765 by the Popish clergy
to resist the tendency to toleration by a remonstrance
to the king.” History of Romanism, .
A few individual cases of persecution may have occurred
later in other countries; but in the main we are safe
in pointing to about the middle of the eighteenth
century for the general cessation of these religious
murders. We will now consider the nature
of the first plague.
The pouring out of this vial produced
the most painful malignant ulcers upon the human body.
Such ulcers are evidently not political calamities;
for the symbol is drawn, not from nature, but from
human life. Still, it is not drawn from a human
being as a whole (in which case religious events would
be symbolized), but only from his body. What,
then, is the analagous object of which the human body
may stand as a proper representative? Evidently,
the mind. We would naturally pass from the bodily
to the mental; and what painful ulcers are to the one,
marring its beauty and filling it with burning anguish,
such are blasphemous opinions and malignant principles
to the other.
Considering the time for this plague
pointed out above, the student of Revelation who is
acquainted with the history of the past will scarcely
fail to discern at once, in the striking points of
this symbol, those horrible principles of infidelity,
atheism, and licentiousness, which were spread so
extensively over Europe during the latter half of the
eighteenth century, and which were the most efficient
causes in bringing about the fearful convulsions which
followed in the French Revolution. That all may
understand this matter in its proper light, however,
it will be necessary to state some of the facts respecting
this “noisome and grievous sore” that
fell at that time upon the inhabitants of Europe.
In writing upon the causes that led up to the French
Revolution, Mr. Wickes gathered the following facts
of history mainly from the Encyclopædia of Religious
Knowledge, under the articles headed Philosophists
and Illuminati. I will quote his own language,
as it is very pointed.
“Philosophists was a name given
to several persons in France, who entered into a combination
to overthrow the religion of Jesus, and eradicate
from the human heart every religious sentiment.
The man more particularly to whom this idea first
occurred, was Voltaire, who being weary (as he said
himself) of hearing it repeated that twelve men were
sufficient to establish Christianity, resolved to prove
that one might be sufficient to overturn it.
Full of this project, he swore, before the year 1730,
to devote his life to its accomplishment, and for some
time he flattered himself that he should enjoy alone
the glory of destroying the Christian religion.
He found, however, that associates would be necessary;
and from the numerous tribe of his admirers and disciples,
he chose D’Alembert and Diderot, as
the most proper persons to co-operate with him in
his designs. He contrived also to enlist Frederick
II., king of Prussia, who became one of his most zealous
coadjutors, until he found that Voltaire was waging
war with the throne as well as the altar. This,
indeed, was not originally Voltaire’s intention.
He was vain; from natural disposition an aristocrat,
and an admirer of royalty. But when he found
that almost every sovereign but Frederick disapproved
of his ambitious designs, as soon as he perceived
their issue, he determined to oppose all the governments
on earth rather than forfeit the glory with which
he flattered himself, of vanquishing Christ and his
apostles in the field of controversy.
“He now set himself, with his
associates, D’Alembert and Diderot, to
excite universal discontent with the established order
of things. For this purpose, they formed secret
societies, assumed new names, and employed an enigmatical
language. In their secret meetings they professed
to celebrate the mysteries of Mythra; and their
great object, as they professed to one another, was
to confound the wretch, meaning Jesus Christ.
Hence their secret watchword was ’Crush the
wretch.’ The following are some of their
doctrines, as found in their books expressly designed
for general circulation. Sometimes standing out
in their naked horror, at other times enveloped in
sophistry and disguise. The Universal Cause,
that God of the philosophers, of the Jews, and of
the Christians, is but a chimera and a phantom The
phenomena of nature only prove the existence of God
to a few prepossessed men It is more reasonable
to admit, with Manes, of a two-fold God, than of the
God of Christianity We can not know whether
a God really exists, or whether there is any difference
between good and evil, or vice and virtue Nothing
can be more absurd than to believe the soul a spiritual
being The immortality of the soul, so far
from stimulating men to the practise of virtue, is
nothing but a barbarous, desperate, fatal tenet, and
contrary to all legislation All ideas of
justice and injustice, of virtue and vice, of glory
and infamy, are purely arbitrary, and dependent on
custom Conscience and remorse are nothing
but the foresight of those physical penalties to which
crimes expose us The man who is above the
law, can commit, without remorse, the dishonest act
that may serve his purpose The fear of God,
so far from being the beginning of wisdom, should
be the beginning of folly The command to
love one’s parents is more the work of education
than of nature Modesty is only an invention
of refined voluptuousness The law which
condemns married people to live together, becomes
barbarous and cruel on the day they cease to love one
another.
“Such were the atrocious sentiments,
though sometimes artfully veiled, which were disseminated
in their books, and which, spreading all over Europe,
imperceptibly took possession of the public mind, and
prepared the way for the subversion of religion, morals,
and government. As soon as the sale of the works
was sufficient to pay expenses, inferior editions
were printed and given away, or sold at a very low
price; circulating libraries of them were formed,
and reading societies instituted. While they
constantly denied these productions to the world,
they contrived to give them a false celebrity through
their confidential agents and correspondents, who
were not themselves always trusted with the entire
secret.
“By degrees they got possession
nearly of all the reviews and periodical publications;
established a general intercourse, by means of hawkers
and pedlars, with the distant provinces; and instituted
an office to supply all schools with teachers; and
thus did they acquire unprecedented dominion over
every species of literature, over the minds of all
ranks of people, and the education of the youth, without
giving any alarm to the world. The lovers of
wit and polite literature were caught by Voltaire;
the men of science were perverted, and children corrupted
in the first rudiments of learning, by D’Alembert
and Diderot; stronger appetites were fed by the secret
club of Baron Holbach; the imaginations of the higher
orders were set dangerously afloat by Montesquieu;
and the multitude of all ranks was surprised, confounded,
and hurried away by Rousseau. Thus was the public
mind in France completely corrupted, and the way prepared
for the dreadful scenes that followed.”
But there is also another chapter
to the dark history of this “noisome and grievous
sore.” The same author says again:
“After Voltaire had broached
his system of infidel philosophy, and brought it unto
perfection, it was taken up by the celebrated Dr. Adam
Weishaupt, professor of canon law in the University
of Ingolstadt, and by him perfected as a system of
light or illuminism. On the 1st of May, 1776,
he founded, among the students of the above-named University,
a secret society under the name of the Illuminati,
whose avowed object was to diffuse the light of science,
these secret societies being so many radiating centers
of light. But the science taught was the most
atrocious infidelity, and its object the overturning
of all government and religion. Free masonry,
being in high repute all over Europe when Weishaupt
first formed the plan of his society, he availed himself
of its secrecy to introduce his new order, which rapidly
spread, by the efforts of its founders and disciples,
through all those countries, and found its way even
to the United States. It would not be possible
here to give even an outline of the nature and constitution
of this extraordinary society of its secrets
and mysteries of the deep dissimulation,
consummate hypocrisy, and shocking impiety of its founder
and his associates of their Jesuitical arts
in concealing their real objects, and their incredible
industry and astonishing exertions in making converts of
the absolute despotism and complete system of espionage
established throughout the order of the
blind obedience exacted of the novices, and
the absolute power of life and death assumed by the
order and conceded by the novices of the
pretended morality, real blasphemies, and absolute
atheism of the founder and his tried friends.
Reference can only be made to these things as well-established
facts.
“It is important here to bear
in mind one or two facts, in order to realize what
an engine of corruption this secret organization of
the Illuminati was. One fact is, the high
popularity which these secret societies at that period
enjoyed. It was unbounded. There is something
which commends such secret organizations most powerfully
to the depraved human nature. Men love them because
they are secret, and because they can wield such tremendous
power. The other fact to be considered, is the
absence, to a such vast extent, of the controlling
elements of true religion in the European mind, and
its predisposition to skepticism. The Reformation
of the Sixteenth Century had broken the shackles of
priestly Papal superstition over the human mind; and
[true] evangelical doctrine not being introduced to
supply the vacuum, the mass swung readily over from
the regions of dark superstition to blank atheism.
Thus were the elements ready prepared to hand for
such spirits as Voltaire, D’Alembert,
Diderot, Weishaupt, and others, to work upon, and by
reason of their secret powerful agencies, to mould
to their own liking.
“It was now this damning system
of infidelity, under the specious name of philosophy,
light, and science, spread with such untiring industry
over the European mind, that unhinged the whole framework
of society, and prepared it, like a vast magazine,
for an awful explosion. All the principles that
held society together in the fear of God and future
retribution regard for human law respect
for magistrates, parents, and the marriage-tie yea,
in the very distinctions of virtue and vice, had been
unsettled or taken away. They had been reasoned
down and laughed out of the world; and when these
only restraints, which God has imposed upon human
selfishness and passion were removed, what was then
to hold back those fierce passions and that deep selfishness
from the most unbounded excesses? God was no
more feared government was no more sacred religion
was a delusion immorality was a lie virtue
was a name the marriage-tie was a farce modesty
was refined voluptuousness: and when men were
persuaded of these things, society began to roll and
heave under the long swells of that portentous storm
of wrath which was soon to break, in all its desolating
fury, over the earth.”
In the facts here presented it may
be seen how far we are justified in applying to them
this first vial of wrath. The vial was poured
out “upon the earth” on the
inhabitants of the ten kingdoms when in a state of
tranquility. This was their condition, unsuspicious
of danger, when the dread infection was spread through
society. According to the testimony of Près.
Dwight, within ten years from the first establishment
of the Illuminati, in 1776, “they were established
in great numbers through Germany, Sweden, Prussia,
Poland, Austria, Holland, France, Switzerland, Italy,
England, Scotland, and America. They spread with
a rapidity which nothing but fact could have induced
any sober mind to believe.”
This system of infidelity is well
symbolized by a noisome, grevious ulcer, which is
loathsome to the sight, offensive to the smell, corrupting
to the body, and productive of awful pain. That
it appeared so to others besides the author of the
Revelation is shown by the following epithets which
Burke, the celebrated English orator, applied to the
spirit of the French Revolution, which was only the
discharged virus of these ulcers. He styled it
“the fever of Jacobinism;” “the
epidemic of atheistical fanaticism;” “an
evil lying deep in the corruptions of human nature;”
“such a plague, that the precaution of the most
severe quarantine ought to be established against it.”
The result, he says, was “the corruption of
all morals,” “the decomposition of all
society.” What greater plague could fall
upon Romanism and Protestantism than this fearful
scourge of infidelity?
I have dwelt for a considerable length
of time upon this subject, because of its deep interest,
and also because I desired to verify the application
of the symbol as much as possible, on account of its
close connection with the pouring out of the vials
which follow.
3. And the second angel
poured out his vial upon the sea; and it
became as the blood of a dead
man: and every living soul died in
the sea.
This vial was poured out upon the
“sea.” The sea is a large body of
water within the earth, subject to violent storms and
agitations. As a symbol it would denote some
central power or kingdom within the symbolic earth
in a state of revolution. The effects produced
by this vial were two-fold the waters were
changed into blood as of a dead man, and all the living
creatures in the sea died. The waters of the sea
represent the inhabitants of this kingdom (see a similar
explanation of water in Chap 17:15) as the
earth does the inhabitants of the empire, or the ten
kingdoms. The living creatures in the sea, therefore,
could signify the rulers and princes of the kingdom,
as they bear an analagous relation to the people that
fishes do to the waters. The statement that the
waters of the sea became “as the blood of a
dead man” is doubtless intended to signify a
much more dreadful state of things than if they had
simply been changed to blood. They were converted
into black and poisonous, or corrupt, blood.
This denotes the vast slaughter and massacre of the
inhabitants of this kingdom; while the death of the
living creatures denotes the extinction of those in
power.
It may appear at first that making
the conversion of water into blood a symbol of bloodshed
is adopting the literal method of interpretation;
but not so, and for the following reason: The
symbol is taken from nature, the waters of the sea
representing the inhabitants of the kingdom.
The waters are changed into an unnatural state or element,
that of blood, and this change denotes an analagous
one passing upon the inhabitants. Their continuing
in life would be their remaining as waters: their
massacre and destruction would be the waters changed
to blood a horrible and unnatural element.
Likewise, the death of the living things in the sea
is a similar destruction overtaking the kings, rulers,
and princes.
With our understanding of the nature
of the first vial, which prepared the way for the
pouring out of this one, we shall have no difficulty
whatever in identifying this symbol with the terrible
convulsions of the French Revolution. It followed
as a necessary consequence of the first. Voltaire
and his coadjutors had insulted and trampled in the
dust everything held sacred in human eyes, and this
fully prepared the way for the scenes of terror that
followed.
In studying these vials the reader
should bear in mind constantly the reason why
they were sent as judgments upon the nations of Europe because
of their former oppression of God’s people.
From the days when the Popes received their first
temporal authority at the hands of the Carlovingian
king, Pepin and Charlemagne, France constituted
the real backbone of the Papacy, the very center of
her power and authority, as all history will show.
In the fourteenth century the Papal seat was removed
from Rome to Avignon, in France, where it remained
for about seventy years. During this period all
the Popes were French, and “all their policies
were shaped and controlled by the French kings.”
To write a history of the Papacy during the Dark Ages
is to outline the history of France, so closely are
their affairs interwoven. Hence it is only natural
that she should be symbolized as the “sea”
in this part of the Apocalypse, with the other nations
as tributaries. Ver 4-6. That the French
Revolution was in its effects a terrible blow to the
thrones of despotism throughout Europe is shown by
the following quotation from the Encyclopædia Britannica:
“We are coming to the verge of the French Revolution,
which surpasses all other revolutions the world
has seen in its completeness, the largeness of
its theatre, the long preparation for it ... its influence
on the modern history of Europe.” Art.
France.
This revolution commenced on the fifth
of May, 1789, in the Convocation of the States General,
for the redress of grievances and the extrication
of the government and nation from the difficulties
under which they were laboring. A conflict had
been going on between despotism and popular rights,
the throne and nobility contending for absolute power,
and the people, for freedom. But when in this
encounter the popular party triumphed, there was no
fear of God before the eyes of those who seized the
reins of government. The infidelity of Voltaire
and his associates had removed the last restraint
upon human passion, and the scenes of terror that
followed are without a parallel in history. The
king was condemned to death and executed. The
barbarous execution of the queen, Marie Antoinette,
followed in about six months, and this was immediately
succeeded by the decree of the National Convention,
of the most infamous character, that of the violation
of the tombs of St. Dennis and the profanation of
the sepulchres of the kings of France. I will
quote from Sir A. Alison’s noted History of
Europe:
“By a decree of the Convention,
these venerable asylums of departed greatness were
ordered to be destroyed.... A furious multitude
precipitated itself out of Paris; the tombs of Henry
IV., of Francis I., and of Louis XII., were ransacked,
and their bones scattered in the air. Even the
glorious name of Turenne could not protect his grave
from spoilation. His remains were almost undecayed,
as when he received the fatal wound on the banks of
the Lech. The bones of Charles V., the savior
of his country, were dispersed. At his feet was
found the coffin of the faithful Du Gueselin, and
the French hands profaned the skeleton before which
English invasion had rolled back. Most of these
tombs were found to be strongly secured. Much
time, and no small exertion of skill and labor, were
required to burst their barriers. They would have
resisted forever the decay of time or the violence
of enemies; they yielded to the fury of domestic dissension.
This was followed immediately by a general attack
upon the monuments and remains of antiquity throughout
all France. The sepulchres of the great of past
ages, of the barons and generals of the feudal ages,
of the paladins, and of the crusaders, were involved
in one undistinguished ruin. It seemed as if
the glories of antiquity were forgotten, or sought
to be buried in oblivion. The tomb of Du Gueselin
shared the same fate as that of Louis XIV. The
skulls of monarchs and heroes were tossed about like
foot balls by the profane multitude; like the grave-diggers
in Hamlet, they made a jest of the lips before which
the nations had trembled.”
Having begun by waging this profane
warfare upon their own glorious dead, another scene
of the fatal drama immediately succeeded. The
same author continues: “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.
Pache, Hebert, and Chaumette, the leaders of the municipality
publicly expressed their determination ’to dethrone
the God of heaven, as well as the monarchs of earth.’
To accomplish this design, they prevailed on Gobet,
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 declared ’that no other national
religion was now required but that of Liberty, equality,
and morality.’ Many of the constitutional
bishops and clergy in the Convention joined in the
proposition. 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 religion. The churches
were stripped of all their ornaments; their plate and
valuable contents brought in heaps to the municipality
and the Convention, from whence they were sent to
the mint to be melted down. Trampling under foot
the images of our Savior and the Virgin, they elevated,
amid shouts of applause, the busts of Marat and Lepelletier,
and danced around them, singing parodies on the Halleluiah,
and dancing the Carmagnole.
“Shortly after a still more
indecent exhibition took place before the assembly....
Hebert and 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.’ A veiled 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 powerless
thunders of a God whom your fears have created.
Henceforth acknowledge no divinity but Reason.
I offer you its noblest and purest image; if you must
have idols, sacrifice only to this.’ When,
letting fall the veil, he exclaimed, ’Fall before
the august Senate of Freedom, O Veil of Reason!’
At the same time, the goddess appeared personified
by a celebrated beauty, the wife of Momoro, a printer,
known in more than one character to most of the Convention.
The goddess after being embraced by the president,
was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted, amid
an immense crowd, to the cathedral of Notre Dame,
to take the place of the Deity. There she was
elevated on a high altar, and received the adoration
of all present, while the young women, her attendants,
whose alluring looks already sufficiently indicated
their profession, retired into the chapels around
the choir, where every species of licentiousness and
obscenity was indulged in without control, with hardly
any veil from the public gaze. To such a length
was this carried, that Robespierre afterward declared
that Chaumette deserved death for the abominations
he had permitted on that occasion. Thenceforward
that ancient edifice was called the Temple of Reason.”
Such horrible events are sickening
to relate; but as I started out to describe the condition
of this “sea” when it became as the blood
of a dead man, I must be faithful to the task.
God was now dethroned; the services of religion abandoned;
every tenth day set apart for the hellish orgies of
atheism and Reason; Marat was deified; the instrument
of death sanctified by the name “the holy Guillotine”;
on the public cemeteries was inscribed, “Death
is an Eternal Sleep”; marriage was a civil contract,
binding only during the pleasure of the contracting
parties. Mademoiselle Arnout, a celebrated comedian,
expressed the public feeling when she said, “Marriage
the sacrament of adultery.” What an
awful harvest would be expected of such seed!
Alison continues:
“A Revolutionary Tribunal was
formed at Nantes, under the direction of Carrier,
and it soon outstripped even the rapid march of Danton
and Robespierre. Their principle was that it
was necessary to destroy en masse, all the
prisoners. At their command was formed a corps,
called the Legion of Marat, composed of the most determined
and bloodthirsty of the revolutionists, the members
of which were entitled, on their own authority, to
incarcerate any person whom they chose. The number
of their prisoners was soon between three and four
thousand, and they divided among themselves all their
property. Whenever a further supply of captives
was wanted, the alarm was spread of a counter-revolution,
the generale beat, the cannon planted; and this
was followed immediately by innumerable arrests.
Nor were they long in disposing of their captives.
The miserable wretches were either slain with poinards
in prison, 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, striped of their clothes,
and precipitated into the waters.... 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 heads if the waves should throw them
undrowned on the shore.
“On one occasion, by orders
of Carrier, twenty-three of the revolutionists, on
another twenty-four, were guillotined 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. So great was the multitude of captives
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 concealed
trap-door in the bottom, which was conducted into the
middle of the Loire; at a signal given, the crew leaped
into another boast, the bolts were withdrawn, and
the shrieking victims precipitated into the waters,
amid the laughter of the company of Marat, who stood
on the banks to cut down any who approached the shore.
This was what Carrier called his Republican Baptisms.
The Republican Marriages were, if possible,
a still greater refinement of cruelty. Two persons
of different sexes, bereft of every species of dress,
were bound together, and after being left in torture
in that situation for half an hour, thrown into the
riVer Such was the quantity of corpses accumulated
in the Loire, that the water of that river was affected,
so as to render a public ordinance necessary, forbidding
the use of it to the inhabitants; and the mariners,
when they heaved their anchors, frequently brought
up boats charged with corpses. Birds of prey
flocked to the shores and fed on 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 horrible executions exceeded all that
romance had figured of the terrible. Many women
died of terror the moment a man entered their cells,
conceiving 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 occasion, 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. Fifteen
thousand persons perished either under the hands of
the executioner, or of disease in prison, in one month:
the total victims of the Reign of Terror at that place
exceeded thirty thousand.”
After narrating scenes of terror in
Paris, Alison says again: “Such accumulated
horrors annihilated all the charities and intercourse
of life. Before daybreak the shops of the provision
merchants were besieged by crowds of women and children,
clamoring for the food which the law of the maximum
in general prevented them from obtaining. The
farmers trembled to bring their fruits to the market,
the shop-keepers to expose them to sale. The
richest quarters of the town were deserted; no equipages
of crowds of passengers were to be seen on the streets;
the sinister words, Propriete Nationale, imprinted
in large characters on the walls, everywhere showed
how far the work of confiscation had proceeded.
Passengers hesitated to address their most intimate
friends on meeting; the extent of calamity had rendered
men suspicious even of those they loved most.
Every one assumed the coarsest dress, and the most
squalid appearance; an elegant exterior would have
been the certain forerunner of destruction. At
one hour only were any symptoms of animation seen:
it was when the victims were conveyed to execution;
the humane fled with horror from the sight, the infuriated
rushed in crowds to satiate their eyes with the sight
of human agony.
“Night came, but with it no
diminution of the anxiety of the people. Every
family early assembled its members; with trembling
looks they gazed around the room, fearful that the
very walls might harbor traitors. The sound of
a foot, the stroke of a hammer, a voice in the streets,
froze all hearts with horror. If a knock was heard
at the door, every one, in agonized suspense, expected
his fate. Unable to endure such protracted misery,
numbers committed suicide. ’Had the reign
of Robespierre,’ said Freron, ’continued
longer, multitudes would have thrown themselves under
the guillotine; the first of social affections, the
love of life, was already extinguished in almost every
heart.’”
With one more quotation from this
historian I will dismiss this horrible theme:
“The combination of wicked men who thereafter
governed France, is without parallel in the history
of the world. Their power, based on the organized
weight of the multitude, and the ardent co-operation
of the municipalities, everywhere installed by them
in the position of power, was irresistible. All
bowed the neck before this gigantic assemblage of
wickedness. The revolutionary excesses daily increased,
in consequence of the union which the constant dread
of retribution produced among their perpetrators.
There was no medium between taking part in these atrocities,
and falling a victim to them. Virtue seemed powerless;
energy appeared only in the extremity of resignation;
religion in the heroism of which death was endured.
There was not a hope left for France, had it not been
for the dissentions which, as the natural result of
their wickedness, sprung up among the authors of the
public calamities.
“It is impossible not to be
struck, in looking back on the fate of these different
parties, with the singular and providential manner
in which their crimes brought about their own punishment.
No foreign interposition was necessary, no avenging
angel was required to vindicate the justice of divine
administration. They fell the victims of their
own atrocity, of the passions which they themselves
had let loose, of the injustice of which they had
given the first example to others The Constitutionalists
overthrew the ancient monarchy, and formed a limited
government; but their imprudence in raising popular
ambition paved the way for the tenth of August, and
speedily brought themselves to the scaffold; the Girondists
established their favored dream of a republic, and
were the first victims of the fury which it excited;
the Dantonists roused the populace against the Gironde,
and soon fell under the axe which they had prepared
for their rivals; the anarchists defied the power
of ‘heaven itself,’ but scarce were their
blasphemies uttered, when they were swept off by the
partners of their bloody triumphs. One only power
remained, alone, terrible, irresistible. This
was the power of Death, wielded by a faction steeled
against every feeling of humanity, dead to every principle
of justice. In their iron hands, order resumed
its sway from the influence of terror; obedience became
universal, from the extinction of hope. Silent
and unresisted, they led their victims to the scaffold,
dreaded alike by the soldiers who crouched, the people
who trembled, and the victims who suffered. The
history of the world has no parallel to that
long night of suffering, because it has none to
the guilt which preceded it; tyranny never assumed
so hideous a form, because licentiousness never required
so severe a punishment.”
Prom this awful description, which
might be carried to almost any extent, the reader
will understand the force of the prophecy which declared
that the “sea became as the blood of a dead man,
and every living soul died in the sea.”
4. And the third angel
poured out his vial upon the rivers and
fountains of waters; and they
became blood.
5. And I heard the angel
of the waters say, Thou art righteous,
O Lord, which art, and wast,
and shalt be, because thou hast
judged thus.
6. For they have shed
the blood of saints and prophets, and thou
hast given them blood to drink;
for they are worthy.
7. And I heard another
out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God
Almighty, true and righteous
are thy judgments.
Fountains and rivers are tributaries
to the sea, and thus, they symbolize the inferior
communities and nations belonging to the Apocalyptic
earth. France was the great central power and
the sea of revolution upon which the second vial descended.
The surrounding nations were the rivers and fountains
upon which the third was poured. It is not said
of them that they became as the blood of a dead man,
nor that every living thing in them died, but only
that “they became blood.” This symbol
denotes the insurrections and desolating wars in which
the nations of Europe were involved for a number of
years, growing out of the French Revolution.
I shall not here take time nor space to enter into
the historical details relating to this statement;
the facts are well known. “The blood-thirsty
Jacobinism of France waged war not only upon its own
monarchy, but sought to overturn all the thrones and
fabrics of despotism in Europe. The same system
of infidelity and atheism had been spread through
the kingdoms there, though not to so great an extent
as in France, and prepared the elements for revolution
in them likewise.” The French republic encouraged
these agitations and by a unanimous decree of the
Assembly, in 1792, set itself in open hostility with
all the established governments of Europe. It
was in these words: “The National Convention
declares in the name of the French nation, that it
will grant fraternity and assistance to all people
who wish to recover their liberty; and it charges
the executive power to send the necessary orders to
the generals, to give succor to such people, and to
defend those citizens who have suffered, or may suffer
in the cause of liberty.” “The Revolution,
having accomplished its work in France, having there
destroyed royal despotism, ... now set itself about
fulfilling its early promise of giving liberty to all
peoples. In a word, the revolutionists became
propagandists. France now exhibits what her historians
call her social, her communicative genius.”
Napoleon was right when he said that a revolution
in France was sure to be followed by a revolution
throughout Europe. “France conceived the
idea that she had a Divine mission, as the great apostle
of liberty, to propagate republicanism through all
the kingdoms of Europe. In her madness of intoxication
she undertook the work, threw down the gauntlet, and
the fierce tocsin of war sounded from nation to nation,
until the continent was converted into one vast battle-field.”
The “angel of the waters”
signifies the angel that had charge of the vial of
wrath poured out upon the rivers and fountains of waters.
In full view of the awful plagues sent upon the inhabitants
of earth, one grand thought seemed to occupy his mind the
righteousness of these judgments. It is not such
a thought as humanity would have in mind when reading
the history of these fearful convulsions of society,
one scene of terror only preparing the way for another
more horrible, until they would feel like closing
the book and asking, “When will this awful night
of horror be over? When will these avenging judgments
cease?” These, however, were not the thoughts
of this angel clothed in spotless garments; for, draining
his vial to the dregs and forcing the nations to drink
it, he said: “Thou art righteous, O 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.” Truly,
in this the Word of God is fulfilled, which says,
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways.” Isa 55:8. That
class of people who represent God as a kind, loving
Father only, one who will not take vengeance upon
the objects of his own creation let them
visit in the pages of history these nations of Europe,
scathed and blasted with the hot thunderbolts of divine
wrath, until their minds sicken with horror at the
sight of human agony and blood. In full view
of these horrifying scenes let them hear the angel
of the waters saying, “Thou art righteous, O
Lord ... 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”;
while another voice from heaven, even from the altar,
replies, “Even so, Lord God Almighty, true
and righteous are thy judgments” and
their theology must here break down.
The thoughts just expressed confirm
with certainty our interpretation of the “sea”
and “rivers and fountains of waters” as
signifying those nations which had been the persecutors
of the saints, and show, also, the character of the
divine judgments as being the shedding of their blood.
They had shed the blood of saints and prophets, and
now the same cup of wrath was placed to their lips,
and they were forced to drink it to the dregs.
God remembered the sighs and groans of his faithful
followers; the cry of the martyrs for the avenging
of their blood on “them that dwell on the earth”
reached his ear; and now the time of retribution began.
8. And the fourth angel
poured out his vial upon the sun; and
power was given unto him to
scorch men with fire.
9. 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.
The sun is the great central luminary
of the earth, under whose genial light and warmth
everything rejoices and develops in forms of beauty.
When, however, a scorching power is given to his rays,
the earth becomes as a furnace in which every green
thing is burnt up. What the sun is to this world,
such are the ruling powers to a kingdom; and power
being given them to scorch as with fire denotes that
the government would be administered, not for the
good of the people, but for the purpose of oppression.
A scorching sun, therefore, is a proper symbol of tyrant
rulers.
Still keeping in view the object of
God in sending these first plagues the
punishment of the nations embraced within the territory
of the ten former kingdoms of Europe we
are directed with certainty to the next great scourge
that followed as a result of those already developed the
almost universal military empire of Napoleon.
The success of three of the four greatest military
leaders the world has ever seen Alexander,
Cæsar, and Charlemagne has been so clearly
predicted by inspiration that no believer in the truth
of Revelation attempts to deny it; therefore it is
not surprising that the fourth Napoleon
should also be assigned a place in Apocalyptic vision:
not so much because of his all-powerful military genius
merely, but because of his mighty influence and effects
upon the very nations that were especially made the
subject of prophecy, as they stand connected with the
history of God’s people for centuries.
At the close of the Revolution the French nation had
not virtue nor religion necessary to remedy the evils
under which they had long been suffering from the
oppression of their monarchs; for when they undertook
the work and demolished the throne, they let loose
all the wildest elements of wrath to rage without
restraint. The nation rejected God, and God rejected
the nation. He gave them up to their own madness,
to the fury of the most atrocious wickedness that
was ever developed under heaven. “From the
wild excesses and intolerable calamities of blood-red
republicanism, the people were rejoiced at length
to find a refuge in a gigantic military despotism,
which became the terror and scourge of Europe.”
But the hand of God was in this thing, also.
When the sun scorches the earth with burning heat,
it is God that gives it its power. So Napoleon
with his iron will and towering genius was only an
instrument in God’s hand for scourging the guilty
nations. In the ordinary sense of the term Napoleon
was not a tyrant to his own nation. Still, his
government was a despotism to France; while to the
Apocalyptic earth, or the ten kingdoms, he was a scorching
sun, for his empire extended over the whole. It
finally became a saying that “if Napoleon’s
cocked hat and gray coat should be raised on the cliffs
of Boulogne, all Europe would run to arms.”
This agrees with the statement of the historian Judson,
concerning the monarchs of Europe, that “the
mere name of Napoleon was a dread to them.”
None of them could stand before his terrible onset.
“Europe was shaken from end to end by such armies
as the world had not seen since the days of Xerxes.
Napoleon, whose hands were upheld by a score of distinguished
marshals, performed the miracles of genius. His
brilliant achievements still dazzle, while they amaze,
the world.” The crowns and scepters of
Europe he held as play-things in his hand, to dispose
of at pleasure. Says Wickes: “Never
in the history of Christendom were ancient dynasties
overthrown, and new ones created, kings made and unmade,
within so short a period, as during the unparallelled
career of this great conqueror. He had the crowns
and kingdoms of all Europe in his gift, to settle as
he pleased, or bestow as presents upon his relatives
and friends. To his brother Jerome he gave the
crown of Westphalia; to his brother Louis, the crown
of Holland; to his brother Joseph, the kingdom of Spain;
to his brother-in-law and general Murat, the kingdom
of Naples; and others he conferred upon his favorite
marshals.”
When he invaded Russia, a territory
outside of the Apocalyptic earth, he exceeded his
mission, and there met with the most terrible overthrow.
Although he entered that kingdom with the most magnificent
army that he had ever gathered together, yet for suffering
and disaster that famous retreat from burning Moscow
stands without a parallel in history. It was
not the Russian armies that prevailed against him;
it was God that fought against him with the blasts
of his north wind. These speedily silenced those
tremendous parks of artillery that had thundered upon
the fields of Jena, Friedland, Wagram, Marengo and
Austerlitz, and scattered those invincible battalions
that had marched triumphant over Europe. Ney,
at the head of the National Guards, ever before victorious,
was compelled to beat a hasty retreat, glad to escape
with the smallest remnant of his host. Napoleon
failed here because God had given him no mission to
perform in that territory.
Concerning his ambition, the Encyclopædia
Britannica says: “With a frame of iron,
Napoleon could endure any hardships; and in war, in
artillery especially and engineering, he stands unrivalled
in the world’s history.... He could not
rest, and knew not when he had achieved success....
He succeeded in alienating the peoples of Europe, in
whose behalf he pretended to be acting. And when
they learned by bitter experience that he had absolutely
no love for liberty, and encouraged equality only
so long as it was an equality of subjects under his
rule, they soon began to war against what was in fact
a world-destroying military despotism.”
He was inspired with the most unbounded ambition,
which was nothing short of despotism over all Europe,
if not the world. Universal empire was his grand
object, or, as it has been expressed by historians,
a desire to concentrate “the world in Europe Europe
in France France in Paris Paris
in himself.” Says Wickes: “The
empire which he actually reared in Europe was a vast,
oppressive, centralized despotism.... To build
it up, he desolated France through his terrible conscriptions,
requiring the whole strength and flower of the nation
to supply his armies. It is stated that after
the wars of Napoleon there were three times the number
of women in France that there were of men. The
fathers, the husbands, the sons, the brothers, had
fallen upon the battle-field, and thus desolated almost
every household in the kingdom. Similar desolation
also he carried by his wars into the other kingdoms.”
The dread of Napoleon settled down
upon all the nations of Europe. They could not
cope with his mighty genius, and therefore his presence
was a terror to them. When the allied powers
secured his first abdication, in 1814, and sent him
to the island of Elba, the desolating results of his
long career were shown in the work that the Congress
of Vienna was called upon to perform when it assembled
in the fall of 1814. While the representatives
of the powers were laboring to repair the damage that
had been wrought and to adjust the territorial limitations
of the various nations that had been altered or entirely
demolished, the assemblage was suddenly surprised
the following spring by the news that Napoleon had
escaped from Elba and was enroute to Paris. The
terror and consternation in Europe then experienced
is shown by the following quotation from Sir James
Mackintosh, a man of high reputation as a jurist,
as a historian, and as a far-sighted and candid statesman:
“Was it in the power of language
to describe the evil! Wars which had raged for
more than twenty years throughout Europe, which had
spread blood and desolation from Cadiz to Moscow,
and from Naples to Copenhagen; which had wasted the
means of human enjoyment, and destroyed the instruments
of social improvement; which threatened to diffuse
among the European nations the dissolute and ferocious
habits of a predatory soldiery ... had been brought
to a close.... Europe seemed to breathe after
her sufferings. In the midst of this fair prospect
and of these consolatory hopes, Napoleon Bonaparte
escaped from Elba; three small vessels reached the
coast of Provence; their hopes are instantly dispelled;
the work of our toil and fortitude is undone:
the blood of Europe is spilled in vain.”
The bitterest ingredients in the cup
of these nations was the humiliating overthrow of
their own government and their subjection to the hated
republican despotism of France. It was
a scorching sun that they could not endure. Still,
they repented not to give God glory; they continued
as before. After Napoleon had accomplished the
purpose for which he was intended, God permitted this
stupendous genius to be subdued; but it required the
combined powers of Europe to secure his downfall.
Creasy, in his Fifteen Decisive Battles
of the World, says concerning the battle of Waterloo,
“The great battle which ended the twenty-three
years’ war of the first French revolution, and
which quelled the man whose genius and ambition had
so long disturbed and desolated the world,
deserves to be regarded by us ... with peculiar gratitude
for the repose which it secured for us and for the
greater part of the human race.”
10. And the fifth angel
poured out his vial upon the seat of the
beast; and his kingdom was
full of darkness; and they gnawed
their tongues for pain,
11. And blasphemed the
God of heaven because of their pains and
their sores, and repented
not of their deeds.
Under this vial the symbols differ
somewhat. The “beast” is evidently
the one of whom the image was made, referred to in
verse 2 the Papacy. The seat that
the Papacy occupied from the time the dragon resigned
in favor of the beast (Chap 13:2) was his position
of temporal power and authority. In the following
chapter the Papacy is described as seated upon
a ten-horned beast, the ten horns of which symbolized
the kingdoms of Europe. In this position it was
able to exercise a guiding influence over the European
nations. We have already seen what great power
the Popes exercised in this direction during the Dark
Ages. But the “beast” of chapter
17 himself, as distinguished from his horns, symbolizes
the Holy Roman Empire, which was a revival of the
old empire of the Caesars. This revived “world-empire”
was closely allied to the Papacy. When Charlemagne,
the Carlovingian king, restored the empire of the West,
he was crowned “Emperor of the Romans”
by Pope Leo III., A.D 800. “The Popes
made the descendants of Charles Martel kings and emperors;
the grateful Frankish princes defended the Popes against
all their enemies, imperial and barbarian, and dowering
them with cities and provinces, laid the basis of
their temporal sovereignty, which continued for more
than a thousand years.” After the decline
of the Carlovingian power the imperial authority was
again revived by Otto the Great (962), who was crowned
Emperor of the Romans by the Pope. Henceforth
the empire of the West was termed the Holy Roman
Empire. “From this time on it was the
rule that the German king who was crowned at Aachen
had a right to be crowned ... emperor at Rome.”
So the general rule was that the Popes upheld the
emperors, and the emperors sustained the Popes in their
position as the spiritual heads of the church and as
temporal rulers over the Papal states, which were
granted them originally by the donations of Pepin
and Charlemagne.
In chapter 13 the civil powers of
Europe and the ecclesiastical power of Rome are not
shown by a double symbol a woman and a beast as
in chapter 17, but are there represented by a combination
of symbols drawn from the departments of human life
and animal life, which shows that a politico-religious
system is intended, as heretofore explained; hence
the term beast, as there used, signifies either
the Papacy or the civil power. Thus the term
is used in the present chapter under consideration,
and has reference here to the beast as an ecclesiastical
power the Papacy and his “seat”
refers to his temporal authority.
This vial, then, being poured out
upon his seat, with the result that his kingdom was
filled with darkness a symbol drawn from
nature points to the downfall of the Pope
as a temporal ruler. Thus he would be deprived
of his “seat.”
We have already seen that each plague
prepares the way for a succeeding one. Under
the reign of Napoleon the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved
(1806). This was the beginning of the end of the
Pope’s temporal authority; for the two had in
a great measure been for ages interdependent upon
each other. Pius VII. was made a prisoner and
the temporal sovereignty of the Roman See declared
to be at an end; while the Pope himself was forced
to disown all claim to rank as a temporal ruler.
Of course, this was but a temporary overthrow; for
when the period of Reaction came, the Pope recovered
also temporal authority. But the vast territories
of Avignon, Venaissin, Bologna, Ferrara, and the Romagna representing
fully a third of all the Papal dominions which
had been forcibly ceded to France under Napoleon, was
never restored to the Roman See. From that time
the sun of the Pope’s temporal kingdom rapidly
approached the horizon; while the inhabitants of his
dominions continued to blaspheme God through the atheistical
Jacobinism that infested to so great an extent the
whole mass of society symbolized by their
“sores” and the firm supporters
of Popery were filled with excessive chagrin and mortification
of mind symbolized by their “pains” because
the power of their leader, who professed temporal
sovereignty over the whole earth, was being suddenly
destroyed and his kingdom left in darkness. Concerning
this matter the People’s Cyclopaedia, after
speaking of the blow the Pope’s spiritual supremacy
received at the Reformation, says: “But
in her relations to the State the Roman church has
since passed through a long and critical struggle.
The new theories to which the French Revolution
gave currency have still further modified these
relations.” In the second revolution of
1848 the Pope’s temporal authority was about
to be entirely destroyed by the attempted establishment
of the republic of Italy; but at this juncture France,
who, notwithstanding her plagues, had not repented
of her former deeds, not willing to desert entirely
the Papal cause after upholding it faithfully for
centuries, interfered, and the Pope was sustained
in his position by a French garrison until 1870 (except
a short time in 1867), at which time the success of
King Victor Emmanuel and his capture of the Eternal
City established the free government of United Italy.
The temporal sun of the Pope set forever; his kingdom
was left in darkness.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. Behold, I come as
a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and
keepeth his garments, lest
he walk naked, and they see his
shame.
16. And he gathered them
together into a place called in the
Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
The symbols under this vial are so
different that at first they scarcely look like anything
constituting a plague. By recalling a few circumstances
of history we shall understand why the river Euphrates
was selected as a symbol, and also, its true signification
in this connection. This river was connected
with ancient Babylon, and while running in its own
channel was the protection of the city and an obstacle
to its capture. By turning the water of this river
from its course, King Cyrus (according to the account
given by Herodotus) succeeded in overthrowing the
city, with the result that God’s people who
were at that time in captivity there received permission
to return to their own land and to rebuild the house
of God in Jerusalem. Ezra 1:1-3. Under the
sixth trumpet this symbol was applied to the four
angels as a symbol of the restraint placed upon their
operations, they being bound in that riVer As
there are no agents in this vision who are represented
as bound, we must apply it to the city itself, the
name of which is given in verse 19 Babylon being
a symbol of one of its defenses. According to
verse 19 this mystical Babylon is composed of three
parts, being made up of the dragon (in his modern form),
the beast, and the false prophet mentioned in verse
13. And its location is not confined to the territory
of the ten kingdoms; for its field of operations is
not only that of the “earth” the
Apocalyptic earth but “of the
whole world.” Ver 14. In one division
of this great city, that of the false prophet, God’s
people were long held in captivity; but its spiritual
overthrow was to be accomplished by the drying up of
the Euphrates of its defenses, that the way of the
kings of the East might be prepared.
To the Hebrews the term east
had a much more extensive signification than with
us, to whom its only distinction is that it is the
point of the sun’s rising. But beyond this,
it was to the Jews the cardinal point of the compass
to which they naturally looked first. Their temple
was built toward the east, its principal entrance
being in that direction. The most powerful and
enlightened kingdoms of the world lay to the east
of Judea, and they included them all under the general
term, sons or children of the East (Orientals)
and kings of the East, comprehending not only Arabia
and the lands of Moab and Ammon, but also Armenia,
Assyria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Chaldea. Travelers
from these countries would all enter Judea from the
east, and they were considered Orientals.
These nations were also distinguished for their proficiency
in science and learning. The Magi, or wise men
of the East, came to worship the infant Jesus at Jerusalem.
They were eminent in the science of astrology, which
was considered the greatest science of that day.
The East, therefore, was looked to for wise men; and
it is a noticeable fact that the pathway of science,
of literature, and of empire has ever been from that
direction, so as to have passed into a proverb, “westward
the star of empire holds its way.” “The
kings of the East,” then, employed as a symbol
of this sixth vial, is not intended to signify any
persons literally from that quarter of the earth,
but represents the bringing in of knowledge and understanding.
Thank God that we live in the time when the defenses
of spiritual Babylon have been broken through and when
light and knowledge on the Word of God has reached
the hearts of many redeemed souls held in bondage
there! And like the Israelites of old, when Cyrus,
entered the ancient Babylon through the dry river-bed
of the Euphrates, they have come out with rejoicing
and made their way to Zion again. Halleluiah!
That the spiritual downfall of Babylon is a real plague
to sectarians there can be no doubt, and it is plainly
declared to be such in Chap 18:8, where the same
event is described.
At the very time when the defenses
of Babylon are thrown down, the three unclean spirits
like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon (Paganism),
and out of the mouth of the beast (Romanism), and out
of the mouth of the false prophet (Protestantism),
to gather together all the wicked powers throughout
“the whole world” for that last great day
of God Almighty. There is no analagous object
to which a spirit can be made a symbol; therefore
we must regard them as being literally spirits of
devils, here appearing under their own appropriate
title. Their mission is to form a confederation
of all the gigantic powers of wickedness, slimy and
loathsome as the animal to which they are likened,
and to array themselves against the cause of Christ.
Armageddon, where the spirits gathered
all the enemies of truth and righteousness together,
means the mountain of Megiddo, the memorable field
of the overthrow of Sisera’s mighty host by Barak. It was also the place
of great defeat to the Israelites in the time of Josiah and the scene of his
death. The name, therefore, stands as a symbol for a field of slaughter or
defeat and denotes that when the confederation of wickedness is complete, the
united host of Gods enemies will be utterly defeated, as by the overthrow of
Megiddo.
Simultaneous with the notable events
of this vial, the announcement is made of the near-coming
of Christ to the world “Behold I come
as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and
keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they
see his shame.” The children of God that
have been gathered out of old Babylon rejoice in the
glad announcement and say, “Even so come, Lord
Jesus.”
17. 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.
18. 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 earthquake, and so great.
19. 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.
20. And every island
fled away, and the mountains were not
found.
21. 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.
The application of this vial to the
judgments of the last great day is so plain that but
little comment is here necessary. It was poured
“into the air,” a region of vast extent,
not confined to a given locality, but embracing the
whole earth. Hence this plague is universal.
When the seventh angel emptied his vial, “There
came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from
the throne, saying, It is done.” All is
now fulfilled. The work of wrath is finished.
The description of the plague follows, but it follows
only as a description. As actually accomplished,
it preceded that great voice, which was uttered in
view of the thing already brought to pass.
The dissolution of the earth itself
upon which we live is not here described, although
according to the teaching of other scriptures it occurs
at this time; but the symbols, being drawn from the
department of the operations both of humanity and
of nature, show the complete and final overthrow of
all the great powers civil and ecclesiastical.
The dominancy of these great powers has been the chief
burden of Apocalyptic vision, and here their utter
destruction at last is set forth under various symbols.
The weight of the Jewish talent is said to have been
one hundred and fourteen pounds. Such a mass of
ice descending from heaven would beat down everything
in its resistless, desolating fury. There is
no intimation, however, of men being killed under this
or the accompanying symbols; therefore as individuals
they survive, while the storm of wrath falls upon
the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of society,
resulting in their utter annihilation. This is
the “great day of his wrath” described
under the sixth seal, to the symbols of which this
description bears a striking resemblance, as any one
can see at a glance. Well may the oppressors
of earth say to the mountains and hills, “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?” Chap 6:16, 17.