plagues of Egypt, (Exod. ix. 18;) so more especially may the facts of history supply the figurative language with which the judgments of the vials terminate.  If any escaped the destroying sword in the battle of Armageddon, they are overtaken by these ponderous hail-stones out of heaven; even as “the Lord cast down great stones from heaven” upon the five kings of the Amorites; so that “more died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.” (Jos. x. 11.)—­The result is as before; the survivors remain impenitent.  As history supplies no instance of literal hail-stones of a talent weight, (sixty pounds, or as others, a hundred,) so the symbol represents this as the most tremendous of all the judgments of God, (ch. xiv. 20.)

Thus, we have seen that the last trumpet and the last vial combine, in the final perdition of Babylon the great.

CHAPTER XVII.

This chapter may be considered introductory to the eighteenth, or as a digression in the narrative, to explain more fully the integral parts of that complex, mystical moral person so often called “great Babylon,” whose destruction was so awfully presented in the foregoing chapter.

1.  And there came one of the seven angels, which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore, that sitteth upon many waters;

2.  With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

Vs. 1, 2.—­The angel that “talked with the apostle” was probably the seventh.  “The great whore” is the symbol of the idolatrous church of Rome, which broke her marriage covenant with Christ.  Idolatry is spiritual whoredom. (Hosea vi. 10.) Her “sitting upon many waters” is explained, verse 15.  “The kings of the earth” are her paramours, and their subjects are partakers in the crime,—­“made drunk.”

3.  So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads, and ten horns.

4.  And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet-colour, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations, and filthiness of her fornication.

5.  And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS, AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

Vs. 3-5.—­The “scarlet-coloured beast” is the Roman empire professing the Christian religion, modelled by the Romish church; for the “woman sits upon the beast,” guiding and controlling all its motions. (James iii. 3.) The raiment of both is at once imperial and bloody,—­“purple and scarlet.”—­The raiment of this “woman” is decked with precious metal, stones and pearls, after the usual “attire of