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CHAPTER IV.

RESPECTING THE EFFUSION OF THE THREE FIRST VIALS.

THE third woe-trumpet, which comprehends all the seven vials, began to sound in the summer of the year 1789, at the commencement of the infidel Revolution of France'. Producing much misery to

If we ask the precise day, on which the French Revolution broke out, there are three dates, any one of which may be thought reasonably appropriate.

I. The first of them is May 5, 1789: when the Estates general of France met at Versailles.

This day is pronounced by Sir Walter Scott to be INDISPUTABLY the first day of the Revolution. Life of Napol. chap. iv. vol. i. p. 119.

II. The second is June 17, 1789: when the third Estate constituted itself into a legislative body, exclusively competent to the entire province of legislation.

At this epoch, renouncing the name of the third Estate which obviously imported that it was only one out of three bodies, it adopted that of the National Assembly; and thenceforth avowed itself, not merely the third branch of the representative body, but the sole representative of the people of France, nay the people itself wielding in person the whole powers of the realm. It now claimed the character of a constituent body, no longer limited to the task of merely requiring a redress of grievances, for which it had been originally appointed, but warranted to destroy and to rebuild whatever it thought proper in the

the turbulent republicans, it continued to sound, until the effusion of the first vial, uniformly and simply. But, when the first vial began to flow, an extraordinary and marked occurrence took place, which broke the previous uniformity of simple misconstitution of the State. Life of Napol. chap. iv. vol. i. p. 131,

132.

III. The third is July 12, 1789: when the populace first broke out into open insurrection, and when (actively at least) the Revolution commenced on the part of the people.

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In the course of this day, the royal troops were assaulted by the mob in the morning of the following day, the alarm bell was rung in all the steeples, and what were called the colours of liberty were universally assumed either by choice or through compulsion in the course of the 14th of July, the Bastille was taken: and, when the messengers of these tidings urged the entire people of France through all the provinces to arm, symp❤ toms of the rapid decline of setting monarchy, as the historian. truly remarks, were now abundantly perceived.

On the night of the 16th, Mr. Gifford proceeds, an universal gloom reigned throughout the immense palace of Versailles. Not a minister remained; and all the princes with their attendants were gone, except Monsieur next brother to the King. The powers, which had hitherto been exercised in the capital by the servants of the government, were now assumed by the mayor and assembly at the town-house: the master of the post-office took an oath of fidelity to THE NATION : patroles marched constantly through the streets: and the inhabitants were obliged to illuminate their houses at a certain hour; so that Paris, for many weeks after the Revolution, exhibited every night the appearance of some extraordinary public rejoicing. Gifford's Hist. of France, vol. v. p. 254-278.

Mr. Gifford details at length the n.urderous horrors, which so strongly characterised the French Revolution even from its very

commencement.

chief: and we shall find, that this vial, with its two successors, delineates the history of Revolutionary France while democratic, as connected with the parallel history of the Western Empire, subsequent to the month of August in the year 1792.

And I saw another sign in heaven great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues: for in them is filled up the wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the victory over the beast and over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name standing on the sea of glass having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb, saying: Great und marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy. For all nations shall come and worship before thee; because thy judgments are made manifest. 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'.

The present introductory passage is important, as affording a key to the special drift and purpose of the third woe.

However afflictive the two first woes might be

1 Rev. xv. 1-4. xvi. 1.

to the inhabitants of the Roman earth, still the Papal little horn was triumphant during the whole term of their continuance: for, in fact, if the five centuries which intervene between the termination of the one and the commencement of the other be taken into the account, these two woes, with that intervening period, stretch over nearly the whole of the latter 1260 years. But the third woe is a peculiar woe to those, who persecuted the saints of God for the Lord now assumes the penal sovereignty of the Roman world; the judgment now sits to take away the dominion of the little oppressive horn, by consuming and destroying it unto the end.

In pursuance of this grand purpose, which includes other subordinate purposes, we may note, that all the vials are equally said to be poured out upon the earth or Roman platform in general: though a distinction is afterward made between its several component parts, in the operation of particular vials. Thus the first vial is poured out upon the earth or the territorial Empire at large: the second, upon the allegorical sea of that Empire: the third, upon its rivers and fountains: the fourth, upon its sun: the fifth, upon the imperial throne of its then existing head: the sixth, upon the nation typified by its eastern stream the Euphrates: and the seventh, upon its political atmosphere. Yet, generically, all the vials, we are told, are poured out upon the earth: for the Roman platform is the geographical stage of their collective operation.

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I. 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, even them which worshipped his image1."

In a theological sense, ill-digested and virulent humours in the body politic denote various modes and measures of irreligion and apostasy, working and fermenting throughout the frame which they afflict. The breaking out of such humours in the natural body produces an offensive and disgusting ulcer, no longer concealed beneath the skin, but open and revealed to the eye of observation. Hence, analogically, a noisome and grievous sore in the body politic, being similarly produced by the erup, tion of long-fermenting virulent humours, must denote the open display of those concocted principles of irreligion which have hitherto fluctuated in an undefined and impalpable form. In short, virulent humours are irreligion in a state of preparative theory: while the noisome sore, produced by the eruption of those humours, is irreligion in a state of open and undisguised and avowed practice.

These allegorical humours were fermenting within the Church, even during the apostolic age: for St. John complains, that, at that early period, there were many individual antichrists; and remarks, that the spirit of Antichrist, which he defines to be a denial of the Father and the Son, was then

1 Rev. xvi. 2.

2 See above book i. chap. 1. § I. 3.

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