In the facts here presented it may be seen how far we are justified in applying to them this first vial of wrath. The vial was poured out "upon the earth"—on the inhabitants of the ten kingdoms when in a state of tranquility. This was their condition, unsuspicious of danger, when the dread infection was spread through society. According to the testimony of Pres. Dwight, within ten years from the first establishment of the Illuminati, in 1776, "they were established in great numbers through Germany, Sweden, Prussia, Poland, Austria, Holland, France, Switzerland, Italy, England, Scotland, and America. They spread with a rapidity which nothing but fact could have induced any sober mind to believe."
This system of infidelity is well symbolized by a noisome, grevious ulcer, which is loathsome to the sight, offensive to the smell, corrupting to the body, and productive of awful pain. That it appeared so to others besides the author of the Revelation is shown by the following epithets which Burke, the celebrated English orator, applied to the spirit of the French Revolution, which was only the discharged virus of these ulcers. He styled it "the fever of Jacobinism;" "the epidemic of atheistical fanaticism;" "an evil lying deep in the corruptions of human nature;" "such a plague, that the precaution of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it." The result, he says, was "the corruption of all morals," "the decomposition of all society." What greater plague could fall upon Romanism and Protestantism than this fearful scourge of infidelity?
I have dwelt for a considerable length of time upon this subject, because of its deep interest, and also because I desired to verify the application of the symbol as much as possible, on account of its close connection with the pouring out of the vials which follow.
3. And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.
This vial was poured out upon the "sea." The sea is a large body of water within the earth, subject to violent storms and agitations. As a symbol it would denote some central power or kingdom within the symbolic earth in a state of revolution. The effects produced by this vial were two-fold—the waters were changed into blood as of a dead man, and all the living creatures in the sea died. The waters of the sea represent the inhabitants of this kingdom (see a similar explanation of water in chap. [17:15]) as the earth does the inhabitants of the empire, or the ten kingdoms. The living creatures in the sea, therefore, could signify the rulers and princes of the kingdom, as they bear an analagous relation to the people that fishes do to the waters. The statement that the waters of the sea became "as the blood of a dead man" is doubtless intended to signify a much more dreadful state of things than if they had simply been changed to blood. They were converted into black and poisonous, or corrupt, blood. This denotes the vast slaughter and massacre of the inhabitants of this kingdom; while the death of the living creatures denotes the extinction of those in power.
It may appear at first that making the conversion of water into blood a symbol of bloodshed is adopting the literal method of interpretation; but not so, and for the following reason: The symbol is taken from nature, the waters of the sea representing the inhabitants of the kingdom. The waters are changed into an unnatural state or element, that of blood, and this change denotes an analagous one passing upon the inhabitants. Their continuing in life would be their remaining as waters: their massacre and destruction would be the waters changed to blood—a horrible and unnatural element. Likewise, the death of the living things in the sea is a similar destruction overtaking the kings, rulers, and princes.
With our understanding of the nature of the first vial, which prepared the way for the pouring out of this one, we shall have no difficulty whatever in identifying this symbol with the terrible convulsions of the French Revolution. It followed as a necessary consequence of the first. Voltaire and his coadjutors had insulted and trampled in the dust everything held sacred in human eyes, and this fully prepared the way for the scenes of terror that followed.
In studying these vials the reader should bear in mind constantly the reason why they were sent as judgments upon the nations of Europe—because of their former oppression of God's people. From the days when the Popes received their first temporal authority at the hands of the Carlovingian king, Pepin and Charlemagne, France[11] constituted the real backbone of the Papacy, the very center of her power and authority, as all history will show. In the fourteenth century the Papal seat was removed from Rome to Avignon, in France, where it remained for about seventy years. During this period all the Popes were French, and "all their policies were shaped and controlled by the French kings." To write a history of the Papacy during the Dark Ages is to outline the history of France, so closely are their affairs interwoven. Hence it is only natural that she should be symbolized as the "sea" in this part of the Apocalypse, with the other nations as tributaries. Ver. 4-6. That the French Revolution was in its effects a terrible blow to the thrones of despotism throughout Europe is shown by the following quotation from the Encyclopædia Britannica: "We are coming to the verge of the French Revolution, which surpasses all other revolutions the world has seen in its completeness, the largeness of its theatre, the long preparation for it ... its influence on the modern history of Europe." Art. France.