appear in the sequel, as affording something typical of the events of his day.

The prophet hears proclaimed, as he lies intranced in vision, what he would understand to be "the alarm of war:" the accustomed signals, to his fancy, are ordered to be spread from hill to hill, as though the people were to be collected to face the danger:

2. On the lofty hill erect the signal, exalt the voice,

Beckon them with the hand to come to the gates of the chiefs.

A voice, purporting to be that of the Eternal King himself, announces the cause of this alarm. He has issued his orders: he hath sent his summons, that the holy ministers of his vengeance should prepare to execute his wrath on a guilty world:

3. I have appointed my holy' ones,' I have also called 'them," Strong in my wrath, exulting in my majesty.

I believe we might have rendered "holy myriads,"" in allusion to a former prophecy. These are the armies mentioned chapter v. 26, &c.-no mortal hosts consecrated to the work of destruction, but angels and glorified saints, that are to come with "the Lord from heaven," according to the uniform language of prophecy.

4. The sound of a noise in the mountains, like that of a great people;

The sound of a stir of kingdoms, nations assembling!

The prophet seems to hear the noise and bustling

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clamor of mighty nations rushing on for the conflict: a solemn voice informs him of the occasion of this noise :

Jehovah Sabaoth is mustering the host for the battle.

5. They come from a land afar off, from the extremity of the heavens,

Jehovah, and the instruments of his anger, to destroy the whole earth.

This will be found exactly parallel to the hundred-andforty-ninth psalm, where "the saints," or "beloved of God," are represented as coming "to execute vengeance on the nations," &c.: and, I conceive, the passage before us illustrates the meaning of the expression "Jehovah Sabaoth," "the LORD of Hosts" as we more commonly translate it. We are to understand it, not of the Deity absolutely, or of the FATHER personally distinguished; but of the Son, as announced to come with his "holy myriads ;" angels and glorified men, which are called "the armies," or " shining hosts" of heaven. In this character he revealed himself to Joshua, as "the captain of the Lord's hosts."

6. Wail ye, for the day of Jehovah is near,

As a destruction from the Almighty it cometh!

7. Therefore all hands are slackened,

And every mortal heart doth melt.

8. They tremble, with pangs and travail

They are seized, and agonize like a woman in labour.

They look at each other with amazement,

Their faces are as faces of flame.

9. Behold, the day of Jehovah is come inexorable, Even indignation and burning wrath!

To make the earth a desolation,

And to cast her sinners out of her.'

10. Surely the stars of the heavens, and their constellations,

Send not forth their light!

The sun is obscured in its shining,

And the moon emits not its light!

11. And I will punish the world for its wickedness, And the unrighteous for their iniquity:

And I will put an end to the arrogancy of the proud, And I will lay low the haughtiness of the powerful: 12. And I will make a man more precious than gold, Even men than the ingot of Ophir.

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13. Wherefore will I shake the heavens,

And the earth shall be moved from her place;

In the indignation of Jehovah Sabaoth,
Even in the day of his burning anger.

But for the misunderstanding of the title of this prophecy, none would have considered it as predictive of any temporal judgment in the ordinary course of Providence; such as fell on the Jews, or on Babylon. It can be nothing but the great emphatic day of the Lord. The whole earth is bid to wail, all hands are seen to fall through fear, and every mortal heart to faint: and the Spirit of prophecy makes use of a metaphor, which, I may say, he has in every age, and by every prophet, employed to describe this same scene of confusion and amazement,

that shall take place on the sudden appearance of the Lord in the last day" pangs as of a woman with child are to seize upon a careless unbelieving world."

What follows concerning the desolation of the earth, and "casting her sinners out of her," is no hyperbole of Cyrus' destruction of Babylon; but a true description of what shall be hereafter; "not one jot or tittle is to fail." The emblematical language, also, of the tenth and eleventh verses, I may assert to be exclusively applied in prophecy to symbolize the last change and revolution in the affairs of men, when all human institutions, and all divine institutions, administered by mortal, sinful man, are swept away, to make room for the establishment of Christ's kingdom. The same imagery is never employed, I believe, in prophecy, except where there is either a direct and immediate reference to that great day, or where the Spirit blazons designedly some less important revolution. of the kingdoms of men, with the attributes of this greater change, that it may stand as a type and picture of this expected epocha. In the passage before us, however, we have no occasion to have recourse to the doctrine of type and antitype-a doctrine which, though of eminent use, has been rather too much employed in the interpretation of the prophets.

What is to befall Babylon, and why she is marked out for judgment, and how the fall of her king becomes a type of the fall of the mightier foe of the last days, we shall hear hereafter. It is "the whole world" that is now considered as visited" the arrogancy of the proud is to be put an end to." A consequence of these judgments, as, has been intimated before, is the diminution of the human race, of the male population especially, by most destructive wars. This is that last great conflict of the

nations, in which all the ruling powers of that world which the prophecy contemplates, and, the people arranged under them, are at length destroyed by fire from heaven.

Such is the grand introduction to this prophecy titled of Babylon," making known to us the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ;" the constant theme, as we shall find, of" the sure word of prophecy" in every part of the sacred volume. To this event all other events that are to happen in the history of the church, and of the world around it, are in the view of prophecy merely subservient; and in this character alone, as leading to this grand consummation, are they glanced at in the heavenly vision. Thus in the vision before us, the prophet, after having been shown what shall happen to his people in the last days, "which was to be written for their information upon whom the ends of the world should come," is next instructed respecting the more immediate events that should befall the present waiting family upon

earth.

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The prophecy had already foretold the dispersion of the ten tribes by the Assyrian monarch, and the injuries that Judah should receive from the same desolating scourge, until an interposition of divine power should check its progress, and rescue Jerusalem from destruction; leaving "a remnant" that "should yet take root downwards, and bear fruit upward." The next event of importance that happened to this preserved remnant, was the Babylonian conquest. This, now, came in the view of the prophetic vision; and the fate that awaits this enemy of the people of God is made to mark, in a very particular manner, the approach of the great day of the Lord.