gle the Swiss-reformer excelled
Luther, Calvin and others in Europe in the application of the divine
moral law, as revealed in Scriptures, to civil society, so John Knox in
Scotland was equally clear, that royal personages are amenable to the
body politic, and both to the Mediator.

_We are now_ under the ministry of this _second_ "angel." The revival
effected by the first angel had greatly declined before the second made
his appearance; and all persons of intelligence and spiritual
discernment in our day, lament the visible decline in practical
godliness, arising from indifference to divine truth. Most professing
Christians, including the descendants of the martyrs, are "willingly
ignorant" of the attainments and sufferings of their illustrious
predecessors. The work of reformation to be accomplished by the second
angel, we suppose to have been completed about the middle of the
seventeenth century. Since that period his work appears from history to
consist in testifying against defection from the reformation which had
been reached. The "great city" is to fall "because she made all nations
drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." She is "spiritually
called Sodom and Egypt," neither of which was a church any more than
Babylon. These were all heathen communities, never _married_ to the
Lord; therefore Babylon is not here charged as an adulteress, but with
_fornication_. The nations are her paramours. Her wine is intoxicating.
It deranges the intellect and stupifies the conscience. Will any
reasoning prevail with a drunken man? An active politician is
proverbially unscrupulous, and proof against the law of God. There is,
however, "wrath" in this cup. Those who refuse to "kiss the Son" must
feel the weight of his iron rod. (Ps. ii. 9, 12; lxxv. 8.)

The "little book" introduced at the 10th chapter, is included in the
first 13 verses of the 11th chapter, which comprehends a concise history
of the 1260 years, as we have seen. At the 15th verse, the seventh and
last trumpet is sounded which introduces the millennium and gives a
brief outline of events till the end of the world. Then the three
following chapters give in detail the events prior to the millennium, a
commentary, as it were, on the "little book," but resuming a narrative
of the sealed book's contents, which had been suspended at the end of
the 9th chapter. There, as we have seen, the first and second
woe-trumpets left the population of the Roman church