Several questions of difficult solution, arise in the minds of devout and humble students of the Apocalypse, respecting the series of the vials.  Are the vials cotemporary with the trumpets?  Seeing that the seventh seal included all the trumpets, does analogy require that all the vials be comprehended under the seventh or last trumpet?  Or, do the seven vials come under the last three trumpets, distinguished as they are by the character of woe-trumpets? (ch. viii. 13.) Other questions may here be propounded; but these seem to be the most obvious and important, in fixing the time of the events predicted.

The breaking of the seventh seal unquestionably laid open the whole of the book, including all the trumpets and vials,—­all future events till the end of the world; but it does not follow, for instance, that the awful scene of the final judgment is to be cotemporary with any of the trumpets, (ch. xx. 11, 12.) The seventh seal, therefore, discloses important events, which are to come to pass subsequently to both trumpets and vials.  The fact that both trumpets and vials are disclosed by the opening of the last seal, admits of their being cotemporaneous.

From the striking resemblance between the effects of the trumpets and those of the vials, (ch. viii. 7-12; xvi. 2-12,) they might seem to be cotemporary.  This, however, is not the case, for the objects of the judgments are different, that of the trumpets being more formally the civil empire, while that of the vials is the ecclesiastical empire; each, however, greatly affecting the other, because of their unholy union against the cause of Christ.  Perhaps it may be most consonant to the mind of the Spirit to view the vials as agreeing in time with the three woe-trumpets.  Keeping in view the definite period of Antichrist’s domination in church and state, 1260 years, and the probability of its drawing to a close, the remaining part would seem too short for the period of the vials.  As the series of the vials, like those which in vision preceded them, is successive, the application of them all to the French Revolution is simply preposterous.[12] That event answered not to the symbol either in extent or duration.  Nor indeed is there satisfactory evidence in the actual condition of the Christian world, notwithstanding the fond imagination of learned and good men, that the voice of the seventh angel has yet been heard by Christendom.

1.  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.

V. 1.—­“Earth” has here the usual meaning,—­the whole territory and population of the Roman empire, those only and always exempted, who are true to the cause of Immanuel.  The angels of destruction cannot hurt those who are under the protection of his blood. (Exod. xii. 23.) They may not “come near any man upon whom is the mark.” (Ezek. ix. 6; Rev. xiv. 1.)

2.  And 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, and upon them which worshipped his image.