i.e. as to the principle of the dispensation in the period. The trumpets then, would be the judgments of God upon the mingled state of things, in which the saints had ceased to suffer,[1] and be (dispensatorily) identified with the character of the Lamb, in answer to the secret prayers of the remnant offered up as a sweet savour by the secret action of the Angel of the Covenant; but the known dealings externally, upon principles which the Church could explain on the character of its existence.
There was alarm—the powerful acting of God in men’s spirits in terror—and a convulsion in the condition of the earth; then the progressive course of judgments;—
On the grandees, and universal prosperity and glory of man, by heaven-sent judgments.
Then, destruction by judgment, through power on the mass of extern nations.
Then some apostate power polluting and embittering the very sources of the moral popular condition.[2]
- ↑ Their corporate suffering was not characteristic of the contents of the trumpets, which dealt in judgments on those not saints; and there was no recognition of their present union and identification with the Lamb, though individually they might be so.
- ↑ There is no symbol more difficult than the various uses of water. Living water is the Spirit; but as this acts by the word,
