The Revelation Explained / An Exposition, Text by Text, of the Apocalypse of St. John

by F. G. Smith

1. The place where these vials of wrath were poured out was "upon the earth"; that is, the Apocalyptic earth, or that portion of the earth made the special subject of Apocalyptic vision; namely, the territory of the ten kingdoms. The last two vials, however, will be found to embrace a larger territory.

2. They were poured out upon those "which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshiped his image." It has already been shown that the image made by the second beast of chapter 13 was the Protestant ecclesiastical organizations; hence the "beast" here referred to, to which the image was made, must signify the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Rome, the original. So the plagues fell upon the adherents of both organized Romanism and Protestantism in Europe.

3. The reason why the judgments of the first three vials especially descended upon them was because "they had shed the blood of saints and prophets." Verse 6. That Romanism was a fierce oppressor of God's people has already been noticed: Protestantism as their persecutor, also, must now be considered further. Protestant sects after they first became established and got power in their own hands, acted much in the same manner as the church of Rome did before them, persecuting, banishing, imprisoning, and even putting to death those who refused to receive their tenets or to conform to the system of religion they had adopted. The Lutherans, at first a pious, persecuted people, on becoming numerous and exalted by the favor of the great, established a certain system of religion and then, when it was in their power, persecuted, imprisoned, banished, or put to death all that dissented. As early after the Reformation as 1574, in a convention at Torgaw, they established the real presence in the eucharist and instigated the Elector of Saxony to seize, imprison, and banish all the secret Calvinists that differed from them in sentiment, and to reduce their followers by every act of violence, to renounce their sentiments and to confess the ubiquity. Peucer, for his opinions, suffered ten years of imprisonment in the severest manner. In 1577 a form of concord was produced in which the real manducation of Christ's body and blood in the eucharist was established and heresy and excommunication laid on all that refused this as an article of faith, with pains and penalties to be enforced by the secular arm. Crellius, in 1601, was put to death.

In Switzerland, before the city of Zurich was entirely safe itself from the encroachments of Romanism, its Protestant council condemned a young man named Felix Mantz to be drowned because he insisted that the baby-sprinkling of Romanism was not baptism and that all who had received the rite ought to be immersed. This sentence was carried into effect. The severest laws were passed in different countries of Europe against the Anabaptists, and large numbers were banished or burnt at the stake. See Encyclopædia Britannica, Art. Anabaptists. Protestants may claim this was because of their fanaticism on other lines; but it remains a fact, nevertheless, that the chief sentiment at the base of these laws was religious persecution and that Protestants sanctioned and carried them into execution.

King Henry VIII., the founder of the Established Church in England, adopted the most stringent laws to enforce its doctrines. Certain articles of religion were drawn up, known in history as the "Bloody Six Articles." Concerning these the People's Cyclopædia says: "The doctrines were substantially those of the Roman Catholic Church. Whoever denied the first articles (that embodying the doctrine of transubstantiation) was to be declared a heretic, and burnt without opportunity of abjuration; whoso spoke against the other five articles should, for the first offense, forfeit his property; and whosoever refused to abjure his first offense, or committed a second, was to die like a felon." Art. Henry VIII. "The royal reformer persecuted alike Catholics and Protestants. Thus, on one occasion, three Catholics who denied that the king was the rightful head of the church, and three Protestants who disputed the doctrine of the real presence in the sacrament,... were dragged on the same sled to the place of execution." In speaking of that period of history and of the religious persecutions of the times, Myers says: "Punishment of heresy was then regarded, by both Catholics and Protestants alike, as a duty which could be neglected by those in authority only at the peril of Heaven's displeasure. Believing this, those of that age could consistently do nothing less than labor to exterminate heresy with axe, sword and fagot." General History, p. 553.

That religious intolerance even at a later date was practised in England, witness the twelve years' imprisonment of John Bunyan and the hundreds confined in jails throughout that country for not conforming to the established religion. It was such severe persecution by that early Protestant sect that drove the Puritans from England's fair country to the then inhospitable shores of America, that they might have an opportunity to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. In Scotland the Covenanters "insisted on their right to worship God in their own way. They were therefore subjected to most cruel and unrelenting persecution. They were hunted by English troopers over their native moors and among the wild recesses of their mountains, whither they secretly retired for prayer and worship. The tales of the suffering of the Scotch Covenanters at the hands of the English Protestants form a most harrowing chapter of the records of the ages of religious persecution." This list might be considerably augmented, but it is unnecessary. However, that Protestant persecution and tyranny should never reach the enormous extent of the Romanists before them is proved by the fact that her horns were "like a lamb." Chap. [13:11].

4. It is very important for us to ascertain the time for the beginning of these plagues; for they can not be identified unless we understand the chronology of the events described. It is a fact no one can question that the seventh plague is the judgment of the last day, for in the seven "is filled up" the wrath of God; hence they are denominated the last plagues. It is also a fact, well-known to all who are spiritual and who understand the truth in the present reformation, that certain events said to occur under the period of the sixth plague are now taking place; namely, the confederation of all false religions to oppose the people of God, led on by the "unclean spirits" that come "out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet." Verses 13, 14.

Therefore five of the plagues precede the time in which we are now living. It is evident that the plagues could not begin before the reformation; for the vials were poured out upon the "image of the beast"—Protestantism—also. Hence we are directed to some period between the sixteenth century and the present day for their commencement. The reason why the first judgments especially were poured out will assist us in determining the starting-point—"They have shed the blood of saints and prophets." This expression seems to indicate that the time for the plagues to begin was after Romanism and Protestantism ceased putting people to death because of their religious sentiments. That this is the correct idea is clearly proved by what was said to the martyrs when they cried unto God for the avenging of their blood on them that dwell on the earth. "And it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." Chap. 6:10, 11. For additional information concerning the terrible persecutions that followed the Sixteenth Century Reformation, see remarks on chapter [6:10, 11].

We must now determine about what time the great persecutions referred to ceased, or nearly ceased, and that will give us the right starting-point from which to reckon the pouring out of the first vial. In A.D. 1685 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV. of France, took place, and in the terrible persecutions that occurred during his reign three hundred thousand are said to have lost their lives. The time that we are endeavoring to establish, then, must be later than the seventeenth century. Louis died in 1714. Persecutions continued from time to time in France, with considerable severity, until about the middle of the century. "Soon after this ... the flowing of heretic blood ceased, though an effort was made in 1765 by the Popish clergy to resist the tendency to toleration by a remonstrance to the king." History of Romanism, p. 608. A few individual cases of persecution may have occurred later in other countries; but in the main we are safe in pointing to about the middle of the eighteenth century for the general cessation of these religious murders. We will now consider the nature of the first plague.