heard by every man, woman, and child. It is certain, therefore, that any movement in Israel, whether for journeys, for festive, or for warlike purposes, that was not brought about by the sound of the trumpets, would become an act of disobedience, and treated accordingly.

The blowing of trumpets at one of the ceremonial feasts of Jehovah (Lev. xxiii. 24), was a prophetic memorial of the final gathering of the nation into the land of their inheritance, when they shall have been for ever delivered from their oppressors, for "the Lord God shall blow the trumpet" of alarm then, for their defence and safety. (Zech. ix. 14, 15.) Isaiah refers to the same event when he foretells the blowing of "the great trumpet" for the gathering of the nation, that they may "worship Jehovah in Jerusalem." (Isa. xxvii. 13.)

IV. Lastly,-There is mention made in 1 Thess. iv. 16, of " The trump of God," with "the voice of the Archangel"-a potentate invariably associated with the resurrection-which, from its being the avowed signal for the assembly of changed and raised saints to meet their Lord in the firmament, is undoubtedly the same trumpet mentioned by the same apostle in 1 Cor. xv. 52. Of it, he says that, like the first mentioned, it is a sound for the eternal transformation of all believers into their resurrection state. Moreover, he calls it "THE LAST TRUMPET." I shall have abundant evidence to show, and hope to prove, that this "last trumpet" is the same as "the seventh trumpet" of Rev. xi. 15, evidence which it would be out of place to adduce without a review of that and its allied chapters. I can do no more here than ask a question, the reply to which the Scripture shall supply: What does "the seventh trumpet announce when "it shall begin to sound?" NOT the conclusion of a series of active judgments-according to the opinion generally formed independently altogether of the symbol !—but that "The mystery of God should be finished." And what is this mystery? The same apostle who has given us the information about "the last trump of God," shall declare what is "the mystery of God." He writes that it is the formation, by the Spirit of God, of Jews and Gentiles " reconciled to God in one body by the cross,' into "one new man," or "a perfect man;" i.e., a body perfected in all its members, with Christ the Head. (1 Cor. xii. 12.) "a mystery hid in God," but in this age of grace "revealed to his holy apostles and prophets" for the obedience of faith." See Ephes. ii. 14-16; iii. 3-9; iv. 11-13; Rom. xvi. 26. is this mystery that will be finished when the seventh trumpet shall begin to sound."* How certain then that, if the seventh or "last trump" announces the perfected number of the members of the one body," the gathering together and gradual forma

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* The seventh trumpet begins to sound at chap. xi. 15, but the vision of events under chap. xii. are included therein.

tion of this body will have been proceeding during the sounding of the other six; the first of which blew its warning note on the Day of Pentecost, when "the Gospel of the cross, "above referred to, Ephes. ii. 16; iii. 6, was first preached, and an alarm sounded by the mouth of the Apostle Peter that awakened the consciences of "three thousand souls." (Acts. ii. 17-20, 36-41.) Moreover, this same testimony that, through the Spirit, has been gathering the members of the "one body" from out of the world, will at its close prove to have been to the world itself a perfected series, seven trumpets of warnings and alarms of impending wrath on disobedience and rejection that will be poured out by the action of the vials.

V. From the previous paper on the meaning of the numeral seven," we know that seven vials must signify the exhaustive outpouring of the wrath of God during a short period of great tribulation yet to come. (Rev. xvi., with chap. xiii. 5; Matt. xxiv. 21, 22.) There will surely then be some characteristics of this present period by which we may strengthen our position with respect to the signification of the trumpets, the direct antecedents of the vials. If they do occupy that place previous to the actual infliction of punishment on a God-rejecting, Christ-persecuting world (Rev. xiii.. 3; John xvi. 8), is it not obvious, consistently with Divine long-suffering grace, that they are warning voices of the Great Judge of quick and dead, in present authoritative prediction of future inevitable woes, on repudiation of his testimony, and persecution of his saints?

The peculiar features of this present parenthetic age must not be overlooked, being in direct contrast with both the periods of the past and of the future. Under the law every transgression was visited with immediate punishment "without mercy." In the short era of the antichristian apostasy that is to come, which will witness the resumption of legal administration, sinners will suffer instant and "sorer punishment" relatively to the aggravation of offences in "trampling under foot the Son of God," and of having "despised the Spirit of grace." These will fall into the avenging "hands of the living God." (Heb. x. 28-31.) But of the present period of the glad tidings of accomplished redemption, freely offered to all by the grace of God, it is said, "NOW is the accepted time, NOW is the day of salvation ;" and again, "TO-DAY, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts," words primarily spoken to Israel, but applied by the Holy Spirit for the admonition of all "upon whom the ends of the age are come." (Heb. iii. 12-15; 1 Cor. x. 11.) Is not this the trumpet of warning and alarm, as well as of invitation to "be reconciled unto God," that has been sounding for more than eighteen hundred years, calling upon men to "bring forth fruits meet for repentance," and to "flee from the wrath to come?" (Luke iii. 7-9.)

VI. Let me apply these trumpet voices collectively. Whatever

may have been the position of Satan in relation to the earth previous to its divinely prepared array for the habitation of man, according to the Mosaic record, it is unquestionable that since that era he has ceaselessly striven so to enslave and alienate the creature from the Creator, as to appropriate to himself both the secret direction and the less concealed worship of the world,*-of course within the limits and the exercise of such power as Divine wisdom permits. He has called into action all the subtilty and craft for deception that he is master of, and so adapted his seductive stratagems as to ensnare the minds of all classes and races of men. From the homage of the untutored savage to a stone or stock of a tree, through every grade and form of false adoration and cruel sacrifice, up to the more refined, but not less deadly meretricious obeisance to the power and mammon of a voluptuous world, Satan has substantiated worship to himself. (John xvi. 11; 2 Cor. iv. 4.) There are three systems that he has employed in his craft; one, persecution of Christians as discouragement to the embrace of Christianity; a second, the retention of men in ignorance of the Divine creative power and Godhead (Rom. i.); the third, a skilful and insidious wresting and perversion of the Word of God, in order to "blind the minds of those who believe not" to the sublime and saving truths of the Gospel, as well as to the character and nature of God.

"That old serpent's" beguilement of Eve was at once the germ and type of all subsequent evil, and of the manner of corrupting the holy oracles. It is the leaven that has soured the meal, the seed of "the mystery of iniquity," that has held men in bondage, for it is the subtle power that has taught them to "love darkness rather than light." A liar and murderer from the beginning, the devil had not in Eden any human "minister of unrighteousness," so he transformed himself into an angel of light," that he might present to Eve, in her simplicity, falsehood under the artful similitude of truth. (2 Cor. xi.) Now he has a legion of ministers self-transformed into apostles and teachers, but whose doctrines are after the commandments and tradition of men," and not of God, so that his original lie has ramified into a thousand forms, covering the earth with "gross darkness," with blood and anguish.

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But for all this, man, as a rational being, is under responsibility. (Rom. i. 18, 19.) It is, therefore, because men being wilfully deceived, "receiving not the truth in the love of it, that they might be saved, that after much long-suffering, judicial blindness, in the form of "strong delusion," compelling them to believe the idolatrous lie of Satan through a seven-times heated furnace of persecution, shall fall upon them, "that they may be damned." (2 Thess. ii. 10-12.; Rev. xiii. 15.) Now, such evils are mentioned in

The world" has a terrible significance, with Satan for its god and prince, to pander to "the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life." (1 John ii. 16.) "The world lieth in," is identified with "the wicked one." If in principle, then in judgment. (1 John v. 19.)

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Scripture, accompanied by the most solemn warnings to flee from them. "BEWARE of false prophets,' "BEWARE of the leaven of hypocrisy," were among the words of alarm that issued from the lips of the Son of God during his ministry on earth, accompanied by a denunciation of "WOE" on impious proselytisers and "blind guides," for their defiant obstruction to his doctrines and malignant rejection of his person. He warned his disciples that the introduction of Christianity would create division and persecution; not peace to those who should be faithful to him and his truth, but the sword of tribulation. rewarded with life everlasting. (Matt. x. 34-39.) Moreover, that That martyrdom for his sake would be in the latter days there should arise "false Christs and false prophets, who should show signs and wonders," and bring about such dire tribulations that, unless their duration were limited, human nature must perish under the effects. These were some of the early notes more loudly followed by the trumpets of the Apostles Paul and Peter, who heralded the persecutions and troubles of Christians as manifest tokens of righteous retribution at the day of the Lord, assuring the sufferers of deliverance, whilst their unjust oppressors should be reserved unto judgment. Such sounds wax louder as they proceed to utter alarming denunciations against "perilous times," that will usher in social disorders, religious feuds, political revolutions, wars, and grievous physical calamities: of these evils the trumpets are the threatening expression, clothed in the language of the judicially retributive visitation of the vials on all injurious persons, godless hypocritical apostates, and blaspheming persecutors. The Spirit of truth, as a Divine comforter of the saints under all the sorrows of their pilgrimage, has come from the ascended Jesus, to unstop deaf ears to the sounds of the approaching visitations, now looming terribly near; to lift the veil from the operations of the powers of darkness, and to publish the coming of the Lord "as a thief in the night," when sudden destruction shall overtake the woe-working, wanton world. (1 Thess. v. 2, 3.) If the initiative diabolic deception of Eve called forth the original curse on man, on beast, and on the earth, what may not be expected when, by Divine judicial dispensation, "the working of Satan in the latter days shall be with all power and signs and lying wonders," creating defiant and blasphemous apostasy, with unheard-of tribulations? The trumpet is yet sounding, but when the echo of the last note shall die away, nought will remain but the vial action of the righteous indignation of God!

VII. If, then, I have adduced evidence that the use and character of a trumpet in the Bible are shown in the warnings and alarming testimonies of woes to come, and that those testimonies are proclaimed during the present era of the Gospel of grace; this symbol may surely be pronounced as in no way affixing to the phenomena, associated with the seven trumpets in the Book of the Revelation, the signification of Divine judgments in action! I purpose, therefore,

to employ the trumpets thus rendered, as expositors, wherewith to unfold the stirring and mystical phraseology of chapters viii.-xii. Moreover, if on examination of the events narrated under the Vials, we find a similitude of nature to those threatened by the trumpets, there will be yet stronger proof of the correctness of the principle proposed to be carried out in the interpretation of the Book. The Vials in our next.

A

MY EXPERIENCES.

CAREFUL perusal of the papers read at the Cannon Street gathering, and a somewhat enlarged acquaintance with what has been written on the views there advocated, have led me seriously to consider whether or no I can in any way personally promote the great object for which the meeting in question was convened. To effect this wisely is not always easy.

It has occurred to me that I cannot, at present, perhaps do better than submit to those who are taking active measures, my own experiences in relation to the topic under consideration. They may, in brief, be thus stated :

I have, during the later years of my life, found very few persons willing to maintain by argument, either from reason or Scripture, the natural immortality of man. Christians, in general, do not indeed question it, for it is to them one of those many opinions which, inculcated in childhood, are then received passively on authority, and subsequently lie dormant in the soul, alike undoubted and unrealised. But acceptance and belief are not identical.

If such persons are asked why they feel bound to hold that every infant born to an African or Australian savage must, of necessity, live as long as God himself, they are commonly silent, declining, either from inability or distaste, to handle a subject which they regard as at once difficult and unpractical. They are content to know from the Bible that man is by nature vastly higher than the brute; that death is not the conclusion of his existence; that he is a responsible being, and that, in some form or other, he will receive in the future, "according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or bad." This assurance they regard as enough for all the practical purposes of life. The rest they are willing to leave. Having no doubt of their own immortality in Christ, they assume that what is true of them is true also of the race. The condition of the lost they do not dwell upon. The subject, they think, is too awful for meditation, and too obscure for inquiry. One thing alone to them is clear, viz., the obligation to publish the glad tidings of salvation to every child of Adam, and doing this, to leave the result in the hands of God.

What effect, I asked myself, on reading the report of the Cannon Street meeting, is likely to be produced on the minds of such persons by these proceedings ?

In order to answer the question I have tried to ascertain facts by experiment. I have read to some of the more thoughtful of my people the papers given in the RAINBOW, and then put the question,-What do