The seven phials of the last wrath of God, since they are so many gradations of the ruin and fall of the beast, must necessarily begin from the commencement of this ruin and fall. But the kingdom of the beast, while the sixth trumpet was yet sounding, had so far begun to be undermined, and had proceeded to such an extent of ruin, that at the end of the same trumpet the power which was given it to exercise dominion, and to overcome the saints for forty-two months, was finished. But the beast could not have fallen to such a state of ruin and fatal calamity before the fifth phial at least was poured out, for then it appears at length that his seat was shaken, and his kingdom darkened. Therefore five, at least, of the phials are poured out before the sound of the sixth trumpet has ceased: I believe even the sixth, but the seventh phial, which is the phial of consummation, will therefore concur with the beginning of the seventh trumpet, which is also the trumpet of consummation.