forced with denunciations the most terrible. Let them be reëxamined, and well remembered. Events at the time of the flight of this third angel, will be found to be such as both to justify and demand the special warnings here given. This will appear, if we consult the warnings given in prophetic descriptions of the chambers of imagery in Ezek. viii., and of the same characters of the last days, in 2 Pet. chap. ii. and iii. 1-5; and in the epistle of Jude. Relative to such characters of the last days, the words of Moses to Israel concerning Korah and his impious company, will come most fitly in point; "Depart I pray you from the tents of those wicked men. Jude says of these infidels of the last days, "Wo unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah.” And he says of the vengeance then just ready to light on them, "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them giving themselves over, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." This is given relative to the same impious characters of the last days. Most happy is every new appearance of Christ on his earthly Mount Zion!-as, that on the day of Pentecost; that in the revolution in the Roman empire from paganism to Christianity; that in the subsequent season of peace in the empire, when 144,000 were said to be sealed in their foreheads for salvation; that in the first verse of this chapter. The sealing times of the present age, especially in our States, have been rich and wonderful. We behold in them a degree of a glorious fulfilment of the following ancient promise, relative to this very day, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up his standard against them.” This is an event most cheering to the children of God,-confounding to the enemy; and which baffles the confident calculations of Antichrist. Even the papal power towering for many centuries among the stars, and exulting, "I sit a queen, and know no sorrow; " when the Lamb of God appears on his mount Zion in the Reformation,-must leave its zenith, and commence its fatal plunge. When violent persecutors, like Saul of Tarsus, are smitten to the ground, and turned to support the gospel which they had labored to destroy; the enemy are deeply troubled at such appearances of Christ on his mount Zion! Such, O Zion, is the Captain of your salvation.

Let the faith of the present Christian church be invigor

ated by the testimony borne from heaven to the correctness of the doctrines and order of the Reformation; "These are they that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth!" "They are virgins. They are without fault before the throne of God!" In these days of error, when many will not endure sound doctrine; but, after their own lusts, will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and turn away their ears from the truth, and are turned unto fables; let us abide closely by the doctrines of the Reformation thus divinely sanctioned. Let us inquire for the old way, the good path, and walk therein. The command is now of deep interest; "that ye contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. For there are men crept in unawares,-turning the grace of God (the doctrines of grace) into lasciviousness."

This generation have seen the fall of papal Babylon from her predominant height, in which she had reigned over the kings of the earth. The throne of that kingdom has been overturned, and filled with darkness. And though it is struggling, and the dying throes of the monster may wound some of the people of God; yet its certain fall-its descent to the burning lake-is infallible. These things mark a most interesting period to Zion. Papal Babylon is already fallen, and is falling; and the events connected with the incipient stages of its fall, are now visible before the eyes of the nations.

Blessed be God that we live to see the flight of the angel of missions. May our prayers and alms pursue the heavenly object. Wo will be to all to whom the following warning from heaven applies: "Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of the Lord; Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty."

Behold the following wonderful providence of Him who came to destroy the works of the devil! Just as the blasphemous plan of Voltaire seemed triumphant as being about to banish the gospel from the earth; the angel of missions starts from heaven to go round the world, to proclaim this blessed cause to every nation and tongue. Most easily can our Lord confound Satan and his prime instruments. At the very period marked out for its ruin, the cause of salvation arises from its depression, like the healed cripple at the gate of the temple, made perfectly whole;-walking, leaping, praising God and spreading its triumphant wings to the ends of the earth. The same press

which the arch atheist Voltaire had employed at Fernay, to fill his regions with blasphemy, became happily employed in disseminating the word of life in those same regions. And the hint was taken from the subtle plan of Voltaire and the devil relative to filling the world with cheap blasphemous tracts, to spread over the world tracts of gospel truth and salvation, after Voltaire had gone to his own place! Your ark, O Zion, will outride the storm; while the antichristian world will sink in the deluge of eternal wrath. Such is the evidence which attends the divinity of the ancient prophecies,—and hence of the whole word of God, in view of the signs of the times of the present day.

LECTURE XX.

REVELATION XIV.

Ver. 12. Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

13. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.

In the preceding verses, solemn warnings were given against all affinity with the antichristian systems of the day. This, as might have been expected from the depravity of the human heart, wakes up the ire and reaction implied in the text, which try the patience and faith of the people of God; insomuch, that a great voice from heaven testifies that blessed are the dead who have died in the Lord; they being now out of the reach of persecution. This general assertion is true in all ages. But it is designed to have a chronological and peculiar application here; "from henceforth;" or from the commencement of these trying days. The truth of these perils of the times is further enforced by what follows,-the appearance of Christ on a white cloud, with his sharp weapon of indignation, reaping his

harvest, and gathering his vine of the earth. These sacred passages imply the terrors of the times, as do other prophecies relative to the same period; such as the bitterness of the little book, chap. x., the slaying of the witnesses, chap. xi., the three unclean spirits, collecting the world to the final battle, chap. xvi., and various other predictions of the same. There is something natural in this trial of the people of God implied at that time. The wicked hate and contend with their reprovers; which has been a great cause of the persecutions of the church in past ages. "The world hateth me, because I testify of it that the deeds thereof are evil." "I hate him (said Ahab of the pious Micaiah), for he never prophesieth good of me; but evil." "They hate him that rebuketh in the gates." And when the wicked predominant powers of Antichrist shall find themselves reproved, as is predicted of the second and third angels in the last lecture, and especially the third,so emphatically thundering the eternal fire of God's wrath against all who have the mark of the beast, or of his image; they would of course become outrageous. And when sup

ported by numbers and influence and by hosts of false teachers; their rage may be expected to become formidable and bloody. And God only knows what they may be led to undertake and to effect. The fulfilment will, in due time, give the true comment upon the passages.

Ver. 14. And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

15. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

16. And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

17. And another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

18. And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire: and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.

19. And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God.

20. And the wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even unto the horsebridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

All this confirms the solemn indications noted in the preceding verses. Such rage of the enemy against the church soon brings down the Captain of her salvation, armed for judgment, to examine the contest, and to give to it such a turn and decision as his word, his cause and his faithfulness may require. When Zion is in trouble, her King is near. "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come unto you." "I will be a wall of fire round about." "In that day sing unto her, a vineyard of red wine; I the Lord do keep it. I will water it every moment. Lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Jesus Christ now comes on his white cloud of victory and triumph, having on his head his golden crown, as about to vindicate his kingdom. He holds in his hand his implement for the collection of his harvest and vintage; and this implement is noted as "sharp." He comes fully prepared for his work, as King of kings, and Lord of lords. His enemies, through antichristian lands, having been long treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, their measure will now be found to be full. By new efforts of deadly malignity, it will be found that they will have given the finishing touch to their meetness for perdition! The volcano, it will appear, has long been ready to burst: and now its breaking forth will come suddenly as in a moment, and the double figure of the harvest and the vintage uniting, will give to the event its long predicted " decision," fatal to all the camps of the contending foe. Our text is one of the predictions of the battle of that great day of God Almighty. It alludes to several of the ancient predictions of that day; particularly to the fatal treading of the wine-press, in Isa. lxiii. 1-6, and to the decisive harvest and vintage of the same event, in Joel iii. 1, 2, 9-17. In the process of this final decisive scene, we find something in the agencies employed very interesting. After the description of the Son of man on his white cloud, it is said, "And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe." Who can this angel be, directing Christ to his work of judgment? Did we ever find an angel in heaven thus employed? They fly in swift obedience to Christ: but do they ever undertake to