(15) And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever. (16) And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, (17) Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. (18) And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. (19) And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
We are now arrived under this seventh trumpet, at that great period all along intended, when all the antichristian powers shall be totally subdued, and the reign of Christ shall take place in the earth. The expectation of this great day of God, is in itself enough, properly considered, to bear up the minds of the faithful through all the events yet to be experienced by the Church, under the sixth trumpet, which most evidently is not yet finished. The outward court is not yet given to the Gentiles. The two witnesses have not yet finished their testimony. And, from the low estate of the Gospel in the present hour, in relation to vital godliness; very clear it is, that they are still prophesying in sackcloth. Hence, their death hath not taken place. And hence also, their public exposure in the street of the great city, remains to be fulfilled. And from the joy and mirth, all the enemies of vital godliness shall take, in the death of these witnesses, and their gifts they shall send one to another, it is most sure, some great change will take place, before that the sixth trumpet shall have consumed all the purport of his sounding; and the seventh Angel shall usher in his trumpet with joy, to the people of God.
Indeed, the overthrow of those antichristian powers, both East and West, which are at present in a flourishing state; and especially the late revival of the western heresy, which for several years past seemed to have been palsied to a great degree; these are no small symptoms, that the slaughter of the witnesses, which evidently must precede the overthrow both of the Mahometan and Papal powers, may be near at hand. The Lord will prepare his people for all events! But it must be a dream indeed, and of the weakest kind, and formed on a baseless fabric, for any man to suppose, that the seventh trumpet is coming on, before that the second woe is past.
I shall only detain the Reader in this Chapter just to remark, that the whole contents of it, from beginning to end, is to give a brief statement of what may be looked for, under the sixth (which is the second woe), trumpet; and that the seventh merely introduceth the time, but doth not enlarge on the blessed events, which will take place under that happy era. These are brought forward in the after parts of this blessed book of God. So vastly important to the Mind and pleasure of our adorable Lord Jesus was the object, that his Church should be taught, from age to age, what would arise in the subsequent days, from his return to glory until his coming again to judgment; that he was graciously pleased to shadow forth the outlines of the subject, under a double series of prophecy. Hence the ministry of seals and trumpets, which we have gone through to the close of this Chapter, have taught the Church the wonderful subject, from the first commencement of the history from Christ's Ascension; until his Descension. And in the next Chapter, the Lord begins the subject again, in another series of prophecy, under the Ministry of Vials; until the Lord sums up all, in his everlasting kingdom of glory. May the Lord bless to his people, the several Chapter s we have gone over, and open to us the several yet remaining to be read; that both may minister to his glory, and our furtherance in grace, by Jesus Christ!