there, i.e. a spiritual, heavenly-minded man, but dwelling there. In chapter xii., it is contrasted with “Rejoice ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea;” (compare Eph. i. at the close, and chap. ii.) Here accordingly, we have the three last trumpets announced as woes to these inhabiters of the earth. The rest might be providential judgments on the condition of things. These took up these earthly-minded people—people fixed upon earth. Note, when the saints, though in supplication live, as to dispensation, not in suffering, but mixed up with the world, they[1] partake externally, and therefore in spirit sensibly, of the trouble and sorrow of the judgments that come; and come, it may be, just as wholesome chastenings, or at least warnings, in answer[2] to their prayers; and this in principle may, I believe, quite go on now. But there are judgments afterwards specially on these earthly-minded, the form in which they become now characterized, when, after the patient (and separating) chastenings of God, they are fixed in this character. Then come positive judgments on them specifically.
