and the state are, by divine institution,
distinct, not united; they are nevertheless co-ordinate, and always
exert a reciprocal influence for good or for evil. It has been the
policy of Satan to confound this distinction; and alas! with too much
success in the apprehension of many. There are not wanting divines who
boldly assert, that even among the Jews, under the Old Testament,--"the
church was the state, and the state was the church!" We may have
occasion to notice hereafter, that this gross error and antichristian
dogma, is yet entertained in relation to divinely organized society
under the present New Testament economy!

The "voices, thunderings and earthquakes" resulting from the scattering
of the coals,--are the harbingers and precursors of coming calamities
upon Christendom at the sounding of the trumpets. And these may be
emblematical of the contentions, strife and divisions which accompanied
the rise and prevalence of the heresy of Arius and the apostacy of the
emperor Julian, during the time of comparative public tranquillity from
Constantine to Theodosius. The church and the state, as one complex
system, we have considered as the object of the judgments to be
inflicted under the trumpets. These had, in fact, become incorporated,
if not identified, under the reign of Constantine and his imperial
successors. But assuming the correctness of the phraseology of secular
historians and Christian expositors, when in a _popular sense_ they
speak of the Roman empire as the object of penal inflictions; we by no
means agree with the latter class of writers, when they _limit_ the
empire to the geographical boundaries as it existed at the time of this
prediction. This mistake, if not detected here, will materially affect
and control our views of the whole subsequent part of the Apocalypse.
Who would not discover the impropriety and absurdity of treating of
events now transpiring within the empire of the United States, as if
falling out within the limits of the original thirteen as they existed
in 1776? But the Roman empire yet exists, and we have sufficient
evidence that it will continue till the time of the sounding of the
seventh trumpet, (ch. xi. 15.) _Political bias_ has prevailed with one
class of expositors to exempt the British empire from the stroke of
God's wrath, symbolized by both the trumpets and vials. Others, from
similar predilections, would exempt the United States and British
Provinces from these plagues