Vs. 17-20.—­As the ministry of the “third angel,” (v. 9,) was final, as to pronouncing the deserved doom of all the adherents of the antichristian system, so in the symbols of the harvest and vintage, we have the execution of that sentence exhibited.  The nations of Christendom, having drunk the wine of the mother of harlots, and of her daughters too, and having exhausted the patience of the Lord Jesus, refusing to repent, while he warned them by his servants the three angels of reform,—­“rising early and sending them,” were at length “ripe” for his sharp sickle.  Long had he expostulated with them, saying to them, while addressing his church,—­“The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee (O Zion,) shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.” (Isa. lx. 12.)—­The desolating judgments of the reigning Mediator, having brought those nations to “hate the whore,” they become the willing and zealous agents of her destruction, as appears, (ch. xvii. 16.)

The “gathering of the clusters of the vine of the earth,”—­is a concise emblematical representation of that tremendous work of punishing the apostate church, to be exhibited in greater detail in the following chapters.

The “angel coming out of the temple,”—­represents the gospel ministry as usual.  His “having a sharp sickle” may import his more immediate agency in this than in the preceding work of the harvest.”  Christ himself judged the nations,—­had the “sharp sickle;” but in reckoning with impenitent ecclesiastical communities, he will honor his faithful servants.  As in “measuring the temple,”—­the Mediator held the instrument in his own hand under the Old Testament, (Zech. ii. 1,) but under the New Testament gave it into the hand of John, the representative of a gospel ministry, (ch. xi. 1,) so that transaction may illustrate the symbols here.

The other angel “coming from the altar, who had power over fire,” is also symbolical of the ministry.  The sickle in the hand of the former angel, is for gathering the grapes; while the connexion of the latter angel with the “altar,” imports that a sacrifice is about to be offered, as customary, to appease divine justice.—­The “vine of the earth” is plainly contrasted with the true vine. (Ps. lxxx. 1; Jer. ii. 21.) This is a vine of Sodom with clusters of Gomorrah, (ch. xi. 8; Deut. xxxii. 32, 33.) It is the symbol of an apostate church, the chief heresy of which is a practical rejection of the atonement of Christ; for it is certain that vindictive justice is an attribute of God, and that he will demand satisfaction from those impenitent sinners who despise his mercy in the gospel offer, and “tread under foot the blood of the covenant wherewith Christ was sanctified.” (Heb. x. 29.) A heavier doom awaits all such than to “die without mercy,” which was the penalty for those who “despised Moses’ law.”  No sacrifice is appointed for the man or the church that sins presumptuously. (Num. xv. 30, 31.) To all such,