persecution;” but it is not dispensatorily true, i.e. as to the condition of the Church. We have then, looking at it as progressive history, three great divisions—the Church under the Lamb—the Church under the ministration of angelic providences—and the Church under and during the last great apostasy, traced from Satan’s power at the outset. The world meanwhile, not the Church, is the subject of the statements contained in these portions.[1]
Upon this earthquake, great terror manifests itself; but it is not the expression of God’s revealed judgment, but of their terror. I do not say this may not have an application afterwards, and that the kings of the earth may have terror then; but this is not the kings joined to the beast making war with the Lamb, and slain with the sword of him that sat on the horse; it is terror on an earthquake, which they ascribe to the wrath of the Lamb, as if His day was come. It is after this all the trumpets sound. On the ground on which I
- ↑ As regards the crisis at the close, this would develop itself in the period of trials and persecution of the Saints; compare Matt. xxiv. Secondly, the preparatory or providential judgments on the despisers of the Lord; the wrath being simply announced, and not described, in the seventh trumpet: and lastly, a full account of the character, doings, and rise of the beast, with the final judgment of all that belongs to him.
