ticularly Jer. xxv. 15–33.) A judgment only summarily mentioned here, to close the series of the Trumpets, which, we thus see, are synchronous with the Seals in their end both issuing in the same event-"The great day of the wrath of the Lamb" (ch. vi. 17), and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ, consequent on the destruction of the Anti-Christian Confederacy.

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LECTURE SIXTEENTH.

THE WOMAN AND DRAGON.

REVELATION, Chapters xi. 19, and xii. and xiii.—“And the temple of God was opened in Heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail."

Chap. xii." And there appeared a great wonder in Heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars; 2. And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. 3. And there appeared another wonder in Heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven, and did cast them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 5. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. 6. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. 7. And there was war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels. 8. And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven. 9. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 10. And I heard a loud voice saying in

Heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. 11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. 12. Therefore rejoice, ye Heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. 13. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. 14. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. 15. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. 16. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 17. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ."

ALTHOUGH I stated at the close of last lecture that we should here turn over a new page in this prophetic history, and pass from the Jews to the Gentiles, yet it is not now in variance with that opinion that I say, that under the emblem with which this new vision opens is still represented the Jewish people: for, it will be recollected that it was in reference to judgment this was said: that the judgment of the Jewish nation was at an end, and that the judgment on the Gentiles, the Anti-Christian confederate nations, was at hand. But we are not therefore to lose sight henceforth of Israel, On the contrary, we are now to contemplate that people as having arrived at the point to which all the preceding judgments were tending: we are to view them in the

character in which, as yet, we have least seen them,— as the Church; as again recognized and taken into favour by their God, and their history identified with His truth and cause. But while Israel's history is thus kept up, there is here begun the history and development of that consummation of the Gentile apostacy-of which tyranny over Israel is a principal feature-and which is preparatory to the detail of the judgments upon it next to follow. Besides, as already intimated, this chapter and the next are not a continuation of the prophecy (strictly speaking), but a recapitulation in part of the matter, and retracing of the time occupied in the preceding chapter (xi.), in order to give a full account and description of the power there mentioned as slaying the Witnesses, which in that chapter, being the history of the Witnesses themselves, could not be so well introduced. This appears at once from the fact, that the period of time assigned to chapter xi. is also the period in which the events of chapters xii. and xiii. occur. Thus on referring to xi. 2, 3, we find that the time for which the Witnesses prophesy and Jerusalem is trodden down is "1260 days," or "42 months," the same period afterwards assigned in chapter xii. to the events of which it treats,-the flight of the woman and her stay in the wilderness (compare verses 6, 14):-and again in chapter xiii. to the power and reign of the Beast (see verse 5); which Beast, moreover, is evidently, the same mentioned in chapter xi. 7; while a further synchronism will be observed of the reign of terror of the Beast and the unprecedented persecution in his times

(ch. xiii.), with the persecution under the Fifth Seal and "the great tribulation" of ch. vii. (I.)

Proceeding then to the consideration of the vision, it is to be premised that it commences with the last verse of chapter xi., which should be read in connexion with chapter xii., inasmuch as it introduces a scene totally different from that presented to us in chapter xi. There the scene was Earth, and in particular Judea and Jerusalem: but at verse 19 the scene changes, for we read," And the Temple of God was opened in HEAVEN, &c." while the same is the scene of the vision of chapter xii. which, evidently in continuation, thus commences " AND there appeared a great wonder in HEAVEN, &c." Where-in this last verse of chap. xi.-I would say we have also a distinct intimation that the Jewish people are concerned in the vision which follows -in the mention of "the Ark of the Testament" (or "Covenant") seen in "the Temple opened in heaven," or rather, as before, "the Sanctuary," including also "The most holy place" (vaòv; See Matt. xxvii. 51, Gr. and comp. Heb. ix. 3, 4). For though expositors assume as a matter of course that the passage is altogether figurative, intending nothing more than to set forth, by an illustration taken from the Jewish temple, the nearer access to God which the church of this dispensation enjoys, I am of opinion it may yet prove more literal than they think. Respecting "the Ark" there is certainly much mystery, there being no authentic record of what became of it when the first temple was destroyed, and the nation was carried captive to Babylon; but a tradition of the Jews records that the Lord had it