it deep and large;the pile thereof is fire and much wood, the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it." (Isai. xxx. 33.)

engulphed, so long as the world itself shall endure.-This will be another circumstance of resemblance to Sodom, in this divine judgment. And again, as they have punished the saints of Jesus by fire, so will their judgment also be by fire ;-and they "will fall into their own net.”.

nec lex est justior ulla

quam necis artifices, arte perire sua.

OVID.

"No law more just, than that fell tyrants be
The victims of their own ingenious cruelty!”

Tornet, as Calmet informs us, was thought to have been the Butchery, or place of slaughter at Jerusalem. It is said that a continual fire was kept there, to consume the carcasses and filth brought hither from the city. Into the same place they cast the ashes and remains of the images of false Gods, when they were exterminated. It was a polluted and unclean place, where they used to throw the carcasses, to which they refused burial. (Jer. viii. 32;-xix. 11-13.) Others think the name of TOPHET, which signifies a drum, was given to the valley of Hinnom, because there they sacrificed their Children to the idol god MOLOCH; and by beat of drum drowned the cries of the tortured victims.

Calmet, however, has provided another KING for TOPHET, than that great and dread personage which seems to have been in the prophet's eye, and for whose prison this place (he says)

The head of the great apostacy, the tripple crowned and imperious despot, enthroned high above kings and emperors, and swaying the sceptre and crozier united, by a mixed temporal and spiritual empire; at whose frown the greatest monarchs trembled on their thrones; is here, and in many other

"was ordained of old." Calmet has fitted it up for Sennacherib the assyrian, to whose defeat (he thinks) this passage alludes; and Bishop Lowth, who bestows several of these fine prophe cies of Isaiah upon the temporary despot Sennacherib, seems to incline to the same notion: for he says "here, the place where the Assyrian army was destroyed, is called ToPHet by a metonymy, (or figure of speech); for the assyrian army was destroyed probably at a greater distance from Jerusalem, and quite on the opposite side of the city."-But the destruction of Sennacherib was not by a volcanic fire, (of which the prophet's words are a plain description,) but by a suffocating blast, not unusual in those countries, and which is well described in Bruce's Travels. This, as being sent by divine Providence at that critical conjuncture, is figuratively called in scripture "the angel, or messenger of the Lord,"—but does not answer to the prophet's description of TOPHET, deep, and large, and stored with combustible materials, and ordained of old for some personage of suitable importance to such a preparation. I therefore con. clude that it is a prophetic description (which coincides with other passages to the same effect) of the punishment reserved * In Bruce's Travels,-and Thevenot's Voyage, part 1. lib. ii. cap. 20. &c.

prophecies,* called a king, and under the emblem of a crowned beast, or government, is

so considered in the Revelations, and has been classed as such amongst the sovereigns of Europe.

The overthrow of the popish thrones, (which is to take place in the course of the seven last plagues, the precursors of this final ruin,) wherever the mention of it is introduc

for the great enemy of the church, and adversary of Christ; a personage of infinitely more consequence than any individual ty. rant; as his wickedness and cruelties have exceeded those of all other tyrants, and his reign has continued for 1260 years; by a continued succession of men sustaining one and the same character of the man of sin. His end will therefore be made to bear a resemblance to his crimes, both in the nature of it by fire, and in the long duration of the punishment. Lowth says, that the valley of Hinnom was called also Gehenna, which was the word in common use amongst the jews for hell, or the place of eternal punishment, and is used by our Saviour in the gospel, in the same sense. (Matt. v. 30;-xxiii. 33.) The Chaldee paraphrase on Isaiah xxxiii. 14,—Who amongst us shall dwell with the devouring fire, who amongst us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" renders it "in the Gehenna of everlasting fire."

Dan. ii. 40-44; vii. 24; viii. 23; xi, 36.

ed, is always described in the same terms as it is here, where this account of TOPHET, the concluding act of the tragedy, occurs. Thus, in Isaiah xxx. 26, the prophet begins his description of his fall, with the great increase of light and universal knowledge, by which antichrist had been gradually consuming." Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound."

*

But this happy change will not be effected without great previous political convulsions in the world."Behold the name of the Lord,"

*I have before observed that the moon is emblematical of the jewish economy, or here perhaps of the scriptures of the Old Testament, as opposed to the clearer and stronger light of the gospel revelation. Both will be now better and more generally understood; and the Old Testament will cast its light. upon the awakened jews, to their conviction; while the gospel will receive an equal increase of luminous illustration, to the conversion of the out-standing heathens, and the confusion of all its adversaries. The purity of religion, both in knowledge and practice, is commonly represented by light.

(the power of Christ, riding on conquering and to conquer,*)~" cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy;"―(the history of that time will be a tale of woe ;)" his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire, and his breath as an overflowing stream, shall reach to the midst of the neck, to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity;† and there shall he a bridle in the jaws of the people, causing the to err." "And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard,"(by Israel, which

Rev. vi. 2; xix. 11:

+ Bishop Lowth translates it-" to toss the nations with the van of perdition." Are not the effects of this wINNOWING MACHINE Now discernible! It was formerly employed upon the unbelieving jews, (Amos ix. 9,) as now it is upon the NATIONS in the apostacy.

$ "A bridle," says Lowth, is used to direct a beast ig the right way; but the bridle which God, on this occasion, will put in the jaws of the people, shall not direct them aright, but make them err, and lead them into destruction." It is evidently meant to signify some dreadful judgment, similar to that intimated in Isaiah xix. 11, and in St Paul's prophecy" of the strong delusions,” and Daniel's, that "the wicked shall not understand," (Dan. xii. 10,) in which St John perfectly coincides with him, Rev. xiv. 3.