seventh trumpet; though I certainly prefer Bp. Newton's arrangement, which assigns to the seventh trumpet, not merely the seventh vial and the vintage, but all the seven vials and the harvest as well as the vintage. As for Mr. Whitaker's notion, that the last apocalyptic trumpet is the last trump mentioned by St. Paul as introducing the universal resurrection and judgment*, I believe it entered just as little into Mr. Mede's head as it did into minet: at least, if that able expositor considered it in any sort as the same, it was its very last blast, after it had introduced the rout of the beast and bis confederates at Armageddon, after it had sounded more than a thousand years, and after it had called down vengeance upon the armies of Gog and Magog. And this, from some parts of his works, appears to have been the idea that he bad formed of it.

But Mr. Whitaker is greatly afraid that I shall expose myself to the scoffs of the profane, because "misled by system, I have made the French "revolution synchronize with that most awful

event (the sounding of the seventh trumpet), at "which, we are told, the four and twenty elders "will return thanks to God, because he hath taken "to himself his great power, and reigneth". I had

* 1 Corinth. xv. 52.

It is worthy remark, that neither Bp. Newton, nor Brightman, nor Lowman, nor Fleming, nor Doddridge, ever fancied with Mr. Whitaker, that the seventh apocalyptic trumpet was the same as the last trump at the day of judgment: yet he expresses great fear of the profane ridicule to which I shall infallibly expose myself by not adopting his opinion.

thought,

thought, that what I said on that point would have sufficiently obviated all apprehensions of this nature. I stated, that, although the ultimate design of the seventh trumpet was to introduce the blessedness of the Millennium, yet it had first to introduce a variety of awful judgments preparatory to and terminating in the overthrow of all God's enemies: and I observed, that, for the consolation of the Church, the order of events was inverted, the joyful part of the seventh trumpet being mentioned before its woe-part*. Respecting the whole of this exposition, to which I beg to refer him, he is profoundly silent. Had he attended to it, he would perhaps have thought his apprehensions somewhat misplaced: had he attended to what Mede and Newton have written on the subject, he would (unless determined to adhere at all events to his own notion) have been convinced that they were misplaced. Mede, as we have seen, places the woe-part of this trumpet before its joyful part, although St. John for reasons already assigned inverts their order in his detail. Bp. Newton, from whom in this part of my work I am a mere copyist, does the same. I will lay before Mr. Whitaker and the reader his Lordship's exposition of Rev. xi. 15; and, if they find it more luminous than my own, which is little more than a bare abstract of it, I have my end "At the sounding of the seventh trumpet the third woe commenceth, which is "rather implied than expressed, as it will be "described more fully hereafter. The third woe brought on the inhabiters of the earth is the ruin

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* Dissert. Vol. II. p. 95, 96.

L 2

" and

"and downfall of the Antichristian kingdom: and "then, and not till then, according to the heavenly "chorus, the kingdoms of this world will become "the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and "be shall reign for ever and ever. St. John is

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rapt and hurried away as it were to a view of the "happy Millennium, without considering the steps preceding and conducting to it"*. The manner indeed in which the last woe-trumpet is first mentioned, plainly shews that it has nothing to do with the last trump mentioned by St. Paul; excepting it be quite at its termination, and at the very end of the Millennium, long after it began to

Bp. Newton's Dissert. in loc. His Lordship's illus trious namesake expresses himself to the same purpose. "The "seventh trumpet sounds to the battle of the great day of God "Almighty, whereby the kingdoms of this world become "the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ, and those are "destroyed that destroyed the earth". (Sir Isaac Newton's Observ. p 254, 255.) Sir Isaac indeed, like Mr. Mede, supposes it to synchronize with the seventh vial; but he never seems to have fancied with Mr. Whitaker, that it was the same as the last trump at the day of judgment.

Mr. Brightman, exactly like Bp. Newton and myself, supposes, that the joyful part of the seventh trumpet, although mentioned before its woe-part, in point of time nevertheless succeeds it: "Hic versus (Rev. xi. 18.) brevem synopsim "præbet totius ultima periodi, quæ posita est in tribus, In ira

gentium, in inchoata divina ultione, et in consummata tandem "remuneratione tum bonorum tum malorum". He afterwards goes on to state, that the woe-part of the seventh trumpet comprehends the whole of the vials, which are therefore jointly called the last plagues; and that when this is over, then commences the full remuneration of the good and the bad, a remu. neration however which he will not allow to have any connection with the last day of judgment. Apoc. Apoc. Fol. 182.

sound*.

sound*. "Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the "earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet "of the three angels which are yet to sound't. From these words we learn, that all the three woes are to befall the apocalyptic earth, or the Roman empire. Accordingly, under the first woe, the empire was assailed by the Saracens: under the second, it was subverted in its eastern branch, and under its sixth bead, by the Turks: and the third, which is to be immediately preceded by the fall of a tenth part of the great city, ushers in the tremendous reign of Antichrist, and will eventually produce the complete destruction of the bestial empire under its septimo-octave or Carlovingian bead. The three trumpets, considered as woes, all alike affect the Roman earth Where the scene of one is laid, the scene of them all is laid: and, arguing from analogy, what the nature of one is, the nature of all must be. Mr. Whitaker himself allows that the first and second woes relate to the rise of the Saracenic and Ottoman empires: and where shall we find a third kindred event, ushered in by so definite a circumstance as the fall of a tenth part of the great Latin city. except in the second atheistical revolution of France? But Mr. Whitaker thinks that I am wire-drawing scripture in a inost "lamentable manner, to support a new hypothesis according with my estimate of the singular

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* This, as I have already stated, seems to be Mr. Mede's opinion: it certainly is not my own, because I think it more natural to suppose that the seventh trumpet ceases to sound when the Millennium begins.

+ Rev. viii. 13.

"importance

"importance of what happens in my own days"*. Does he allow then the rise of the Saracenic and Ottoman empires to be of sufficient importance to be noticed in prophecy: and does he deny the same diabolical eminence to the second French revolution? In what has the latter yielded to the two former in its wonderfully extensive effects, both religious and political, on the Roman empire? If this be not the commencement of the third woe, which in regular order is to succeed its two predecessors, what idea are we to figure to ourselves of a third woe, which, like the two former ones, is peculiarly to affect the inhabiters of the Roman earth? Whether "my "estimate of the singular importance of what "happens in my own days" be purely the visionary reverie of a hot-brained system-builder, let all Europe with one voice declare from the remote frontiers of Russia to the utmost extremity of Spain.

Mr. Whitaker, having noticed (as he believest) all the passages in my book wherein I censure him, becomes in bis turn the assailant, and makes an

* Letter, p. 7. and 40, 41.

+ He has not noticed all the passages wherein I censure him. he is totally silent on what I say respecting his mode of proving the Pope to be a bead of the beast; namely, by shewing, not that he has possessed supreme temporal power (which he could not shew), but that he has claimed it. (Dissert. Vol. II. p. 143.) Neither has he noticed my opposition to his opinion, that the earth means the east. (Dissert. Vol. 11. p. 231, 232.) Nor yet has he attempted to set aside my objection to his interpretation of the beast's image. (Dissert. Vol. II. p. 274.) The more I have since thought on this last point, the more I am convinced that Dr. Zouch's interpretation of the image is the true one.

attack