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e 1 IV-] TUB DKYINO UT OF TH£ «UPHftftTHfl. 1001 mnding hollowB into which the railing: moisture ia coUcct«d, with the dreary wastes of sand which lie ovory where around. Such thcb being the judgment of consumption and decay which ik decreed upon the Turkish power, wliicli now oviTwIielmtfth the tliircl part of nwn, and the beloved city, and the land of pro- mise, we now proceed another step and enter upon the inquiry. Whether this is to be of a silent and innaible, or ofa visible and striking character ; a question which 1 should not have thought wor- thy of resolving, or even of stating, were it not that the nature of these vials has by raaay com- mentators been ji^o^sly misunderstood. For to me it ia a thing afimanifeatasthesun at noon-day, that every prophecy, of whatever kind, must have a manifest, yea. and a conspicuous fuililmcnt; other- wise it is nothing worth as a prophecy, being in- capable of being verified by the event. That the consumption will be grDduak, the verj' nature of the emblem, and the exposition of it given above, doth sufficiently demonstrate; but that it must be^n in some conspicuous way, the very 6rst rule of all prophecy doth require. The rule given in the I-aw of Mo»e« for knowing a true prophet from a false, in Deut. xviii. 23, i% the deatfa-hlow of all their invisible, and spiritual, and super-celes* tjal fulfilments of prophecy : not that prophecy is not spiritual, but that it must became real before it can be t^piritual : and how bccometh it real save by the fulfilment ! otherwise it is good for nothitig, ia a fancy, a ftble, a deception, a bta*4phtfmy. "When a prophut spvuketh in the imme of the lUml, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the tiling which the Lord hath not spoken; 1002 THE nttTiwG t;^ or mt kvrumArmM, [DU. but the propbet hath spiAen it presiimpiaaaily: thou sbalt not be afrud oT him/' Wbrocv i coo- elude, that every prophecy of the Lonl will b&Ttt a concApoDcling fulfilmcut by which toTerify itifl the lught ijf thiuc u ho observe hb doings^ viA to discrimioaiie hi« meftseoger and kia weang« from the dreacns and deceptioos of men, Now, as the coffliDg op of the wateft of the ht^ bcgaa coa5picuoufilyiDthctifDCofScaaachcrib,and,«liea they bad aufavided. returned coo^picuousljr u the time of the loosing of the four angels; so Dowdol believe, that uhco a judi^ent n poured out upoa thoee same w^tera, it will be coQspictioualy begun, however iu profprss may be gradually coftttooad. NcTcrthele&fi I do not mean therefore to infer t