Second Paper (Concluded). Remarks on this subject last week concluded with an examination of the fourth plague, the vial poured out upon the sun, giving it power to scorch men with great heat. We saw that the first four of the plagues had reference to one another, being from the first progressive and cumulative inflictions, till, in their fever and thirst, with no alleviation at hand, and no protection from the burning rays of the sun, the situation of men became so aggravating that, whether they knew or not that the day of their probation was past, and their doom was sealed, they threw off all restraint, and instead of repenting, as men in their normal state of mind would do under such circumstances, they gave vent to their feelings by laying up for themselves a fresh degree of wrath, and uttered blasphemies against the high and holy name of God. The Fifth Plague.— “And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the Beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.” Rev. 16: 10, 11. A startling fact is brought out by this testimony. It is that the plagues do not at once destroy their victims. Doubtless multitudes whose bodies are weakened by gluttony and intemperance and the indulgences and wrong habits of living for which this age is noted, will wilt down and die at the first touch of the plagues; but there will be some who were smitten with the noisome and grievous sore under the first plague who will still be alive under the fifth, gnawing their tongues for pain, and blaspheming God on account of the sores which came upon them at the first, and which still continue to prey upon them, naturally in a more severe and aggravated form. This vial is poured out upon the seat of the Beast. The Beast is acknowledged by Protestant commentators to be a symbol of the papacy. The seat of the papacy is where its centralized power resides, and from which its authority is exercised and its influence spread abroad. The Scriptures recognize the disadvantage and difficulty of having to contend with such influences. To the Church of Pergamos He who wields the sharp sword with two edges, writes: “I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is.” Rev. 2: 12, 13. The papal system has so long occupied its position in the city of Rome, as its seat, that the idea of now fixing upon any other locality as the “seat” of the Beast would be improbable, if not impossible. And why is this place made the object of this plague? And what is the significance of the darkness of which his kingdom becomes full? His “kingdom” would probably include all those who profess themselves adherents of the papacy wherever they may be. And when we remember that these very persons have the mark of the Beast, and are suffering under the sores of the first plague, we must understand this to be a double infliction upon those who are involved in papal delusions. And what would be more appropriate than that the literal darkness now visited upon them should be designed to rebuke and avenge the spiritual darkness they had so eagerly welcomed from that power which had thought to change the law of God, and exalt the day of the sun in place of the Sabbath of the Lord? Men may not be aware of it, but following the papacy in the change of the Sabbath is in reality sun worship, so roundly denounced by the prophets. It was so in Egypt. The sun was the chief Egyptian divinity; and the veiling of its light by a darkness so dense that it might be felt, and so profound that no man presumed to move out of his place for three days, showed the complete helplessness of their divinity, and was a sweeping rebuke to their idolatry. May not the fifth plague be a rebuke to the idolatry of Christendom, which idolatry has come through the papacy as its chief promoter? The Sixth Plague.— This is described in Rev. 16: 12–14, and results in the drying up of the great river Euphrates, and the issuing forth, from the great false systems of religion in the world, of the spirits of devils, which go forth to the kings of the whole world to gather them to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. Then an exclamation is thrown in: “Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame;” or, “Blessed is the one watching and keeping his garments.” When?—Now, when the evidences are so clear, and the indications so strong, that the vials of God’s fury are to be poured upon the earth; for the participles are in the present tense, but are retrospective in meaning. The language would have the same import if the past tense were used: Blessed is he that hath watched and kept his garments. But this work is to be done before probation ends, and the plagues begin to fall. The great river Euphrates symbolizes the nations living on its banks. The “water thereof was dried up.” These nations are so weakened that the kings of the East, located in that quarter, will meet no obstacle in coming up to the battle of the great day. And there are millions of Mohammedans in that section of the globe, who, when the crisis comes in Turkey, will rush to the support of their religion and the head of the Turkish power. The Seventh Plague.— The seventh angel pours out his vial into the air, a medium which envelops the whole globe. Then comes the “Amen” of the angelic host (Rev. 7: 11, 12), with the accompaniment of voices, lightnings, thunderings, and a universal earthquake surpassing anything that has ever shaken the earth, except when Christ shook the earth as He spoke the law of God. Heb. 12: 26. Every island (islands are the tops of submarine mountains) flees away, and the land mountains are leveled. Great Babylon comes in remembrance before God, and receives the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. And upon men great hailstones are cast, every stone about the weight of a talent (or nearly sixty pounds). Rev. 16: 17–21. Thus God dispenses His final judgments by weight and measure. He does nothing blindly or carelessly. All is meted out according to His true memory of what each deserves. There is no partiality nor injustice; and the great and final song of jubilee will end with the refrain: “Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.” Rev. 15: 3.