The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

ondage, a recovery of rights, and a restoration of families to their original inheritances.
(Lev. 25.) This significant event in Israel's history, occurring every forty-ninth or fiftieth
year, foreshadowed or typified the "times of restitution" for all mankind, the great
antitypical thousand-year day of Jubilee. The blowing of the trumpets by the priests of
Israel announcing their Jubilee typified the sounding of the seventh trumpet of Revelation.
"In the type, the trumpet of Jubilee was to be sounded when the Jubilee year began, to
proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof. (Lev. 25:10.) The
antitype [times of restitution] is ushered in with the sounding of the (symbolic) 'seventh
trumpet,' the 'trump of God,' the 'last trump.' It is indeed the great trumpet; it announces
liberty to every captive; and while at first it means the surrender of many expired claims
and privileges, and a general time of disturbance and unsettling of usages, habits, etc., its
full import, when rightly appreciated, is 'good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all
people.'"
With these impressions in mind as to the symbolical significance of angels and trumpets,
we begin our inquiry as to the import of this symbolic picture. Keeping in mind the
Scriptural interpretation of the sounding of trumpets, and the fact that the first six refer to
man's doings, in connection with his efforts to liberate the world from error and
superstition, we believe it is reasonable to apply the events connected with the sounding
of these six trumpets to movements associated with both the rise and decline of certain
false religious systems. We believe it is also reasonable to expect that these movements
would be associated with a proclamation of some features of gospel truth, exposing
erroneous and superstitious ideas concerning God and His dealings with mankind, and
gradually weakening the hold and influence of these false systems upon humanity. This
method of interpreting the occurrences depicted under the six trumpets is in perfect
harmony with that of the seventh; the difference is that the seventh, being the "trump of
God," would bring full light and liberty--a complete deliverance for both the Lord's saints
and all mankind. The vision does not, however, have so much to do with the symbolical
significance of the sounding of the trumpet as it does with that which St. John saw as
following its sounding.
The first trumpet
"The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they
were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was
burnt up."--Rev. 8:7.
This symbol is drawn from the material world, and is that of a terrific storm of hail and
fire (lightning), in connection with which the lightning flashes were incessant, setting fire
to the trees and grass; and as such storms are accompanied by winds, there would be the
spreading of destruction over the earth. Historical expositors have very generally applied
the events that occur in connection with the sounding of the first four trumpets in the
fourth century to the destructive incursions of the Gothic, barbaric hordes of the North
into the Western Roman Empire, which resulted finally in its overthrow. It seems to us,