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and judgments, as seen and felt upon earth,—with many intervening visions for explanations-how this grand issue is brought about, and how "the Prince of this world is judged," "after all his power, and signs, and lying wonders, with all the deceiveableness of iniquity in them that perish," in the now Christian world, "because they received not the love of the truth."

In the beginning of the eighth chapter, the seventh seal is opened; there is a short silence in heaven, denoting, perhaps, the small interval of peace, that the liberated church would enjoy before the foredoomed judgments would begin to go forth.* These are to be disclosed, at the call of the trumpets of the seven angels that are seen standing ready to sound.

But before they are permitted to begin the series of their awful clarions, another compartment of the vision is shewn, included in the 3d, 4th, and 5th verses.

I regard this as an introduction, and sort of proem to the whole period of the seventh seal, as including all its trumpets and vials; you may parallel it with the last chapter. The servants of God, who are being sealed, are the same as "the all saints," whose prayers are mentioned in the third verse. The emblems in the vision shew how their prayers are accepted, through the atonement and mediation made by their Great High Priest above, "who ever liveth to make intercession for us." Many and various will be their petitions, and many the gracious answers, in the times of their troubles and adversities; but, as illustrated from other scriptures, one great desire expressed in their common prayer, will be understood to be the same as that of the martyred souls of a former vision, for they belong to their number." And shall not God avenge his own elect that cry unto him day and night, though he bear long with them?” Yes, and this day of vengeance will come, as the angel at the altar shews, when he casts its burning fire upon the earth from his censer; then the need of intercession, for the acceptance of the mournful litany of the praying saints, is at an end; then the great day of the wrath of the Lamb is come indeed; the winds of the heavens, till then suspended, are let loose to destroy the earth.

This is what I conceive to be signified in the passage before us, by "the voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and the earthquake.” They symbolize no immediately present temporal judgments to be traced in the history of mankind, at that period. It is the last awful judgment of the great day, which is anticipated, to a nearer view of which we shall

* See Second Advent, Vol. II. p. 331.

be brought, in course, by the order of the trumpets and vials, when the last of the latter is poured out into the air.

The trumpets immediately sound in their order, that is to say, six of them; for, like the seventh seal, the seventh trumpet is divided into seven distinct divisions, designated as seven vials of wrath.

For the interpretation of the six first trumpets I have been convinced for many years, that the infidel historian, Gibbon, is the best of all expositors. His scenical style of composition is favorable for the purpose; and, "though he meant not so," all his epochas and eras correspond, with wonderful exactness, to the opening visions of the Revelation. The era of the six trumpets, agrees with his era of the fall of the Roman empire," both in the west and in the east, in contradistinction to that period, which he names, “the decline of the empire.”

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The fall of the empire, so to call it, in the west, the four first trumpets will be found to symbolize; the fifth and sixth the fall of the Roman power in the east.

From the reign of the Emperor Valans,* the historian dates this era of the fall of the empire in the west, occupying a period of nearly a century. This was accomplished, as all readers of history know, by the inroads of the Barbarian nations of the north, most of them, probably, more or less immediately of Scythian origin, of the stock of Magog, the eldest son of Japheth: so that the fair patrimony of the Roman empire proper, becomes "the land of Magog," of which a very ancient prophecy had given information. † The last invader of Israel, is "Gog," or 'Agag," from the land of Magog ;" and yet from other prophecies, it is "ships of the coast of Chittim"-the power of the fourth empire,—of the fourth or Roman beast.

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The three principal of these invasions of the Barbarians, which brought christianized Rome to the dust, the historian classes under the principal chiefs, ALARIC, GENSERIC, and ATTILA ; ' names,' he says, "which have deserved an equal rank in the destruction of the Roman empire." Now the personal character of these three chiefs, the times of their bursting on the devoted monarchy, the nature and the scenes of their actions, answer exactly to the three first trumpets.

The FIRST: Alaric and his Goths, if dated from after the check they had received during the reign of Theodotius, about A.D. 395.

The SECOND: Henseric and his Vandals, THE "MONARCH OF THE SEA," as Gibbon calls him, about A.D. 429.

The THIRD Attila-something of a spiritual chief, and therefore a falling star-with his Huns: they "became the terror of the world" "in his reign" A.D. 433.

* A. D. 379. † Second Advent, Vol. I. p. 535.

For particulars I refer to the Second Advent,* and for a larger account to the pages of Mr. Gibbon.

The FOURTH TRUMPET, from the well understood language of its symbols, applies to the actual suppression of what was left of the imperial power in Rome and the west, by the Barbarians.

THE FOURTH Augustulus, the last of these series of Roman Emperors, is made to sign the instrument of his resignation. A. D. 476. But the empire of Rome and of the west is not fallen to rise no more, this deadly wound of the sword,-" as it were unto death," received on one of the seven heads of the beast, as we shall see hereafter, is healed again; and the Roman empire corresponds with its motto, "was, and is not, and yet is."

But our attention is now called to another part of the world which Rome had subdued, and where her own yet partially and unequivocally acknowledged emperor still reigned in great splendour,-to the regions of the east and of the south.

This break in the prophecy is strongly marked in the vision; "And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe! woe! woe! to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels which are yet to sound." +

In the interpretation of the next two trumpets there has been a very general agreement among all expositors, That the FIFTH symbolizes the Mahomedan Saracens, the SIXTH, the Mahomedan Turks, which two powers at length destroyed every remnant of the Christian Roman power in the south and in the east.

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And, indeed, reading the Roman history from the time of the suppression, or abeyance of the imperial authority in the west, represented in the last trumpet, we meet with no character, nor any great change in the state of the civilized world, answering to the images of the fifth trumpet, till the Arabian prophet” appears, “ who,” to use the language of Mr. Gibbon, "with the sword in one hand and the koran in the other, erects his throne on the ruin of Christianity and of Rome;" his "genius, and the manners of his nation, and the spirit of his religion, involves the causes of the decline and fall of the eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously intent on one of the most memorable revolutions which have impressed a new and lasting character on the nations of the globe."

For the ravages and conquests of the Saracens, fulfilling the symbols of the FIFTH TRUMPET, I refer to Bishop Newton, and especially to the historians of the times. Newton reckons their period from a. D. 612, to

*Vol. II. p. 333, &c.

+ Revelation viii. 13.

t Second Advent, Vol. II. p. 345.

A. D. 762. With the same reference we may study the SIXTH TRUMPET as plainly fulfilled by the appearance and progress of the second class of Mahomedans, the Ottoman Turks, whose conquests extended over a full third of the then Christian world. They at length took Constantinople, a. D. 1453; and here the first important introduction of artillery and gun-powder in the art of war, which was the fact, is very plainly denoted by the prophetic symbols.

According to the best opinion I can form, these two classes of the followers of Mahomed together, fulfil the symbol of the LITTLE HORN, from the remains of the third beast in Daniel's vision of the ram and he goat, chap. viii. "His power shall be mighty," but, or rather "and not by his own power.' ."* His own power was the empire of the Saracens, which he immediately formed, but his influence and might was greater still when the Turks embraced his religion, and marched under his banners. Mahometism too, I think, forms with respect to the Christian church, the "transgression that maketh desolate,"† in distinction from the “abomination that maketh desolate,” which belongs to the fourth empire and its

LITTLE HORN.

But to return to the prophecy of the revelation. By the progress of these two Mahomedan powers, symbolized under the fifth and sixth trumpets, the desolation of Christendom in the east and in the south, had been completed; the religion of the Arabian impostor had supplanted the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the west, the Roman empire in its restricted sense, as the fourth beast had, indeed, with its great teeth of iron, devoured and broken in pieces” many kingdoms, and "trampled the residue with its feet." "6 As iron it had subdued all things," but was now reduced more within its natural limits; in which also its kingdom or sovereign authority, had become divided, and was "partly strong and partly weak."

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To this part of Christendom, our attention is recalled, in a very striking After the narration of the sixth trumpet, we read in chap. viii. ver. 20, &c. And the rest of men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship Devils"-Demons, or inferior spirits-" and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood; which neither see, nor hear, nor walk; neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their theft."

Is this, then, the religious and moral state of society, in that part of Christendom which is left, after the destructive and murderous ravages and conquests of the Mahomedans have subsided?—which part can be

* See Second Advent, Vol. II. p. 28. + Daniel viii. 9.

+ Daniel ii.

For particulars I refer to the Second Advent, and for a larger account to the pages of Mr. Gibbon.

The FOURTH TRUMPET, from the well understood language of its symbols, applies to the actual suppression of what was left of the imperial power in Rome and the west, by the Barbarians.

THE FOURTH: Augustulus, the last of these series of Roman Emperors is made to sign the instrument of his resignation. A. D. 476

But the empire of Rome and of the west is not fallen to rise no more this deadly wound of the sword,-" as it were unto death," receive on one of the seven heads of the beast, as we shall see hereafter, is heale again; and the Roman empire corresponds with its motto, is not, and yet is.”

was, ar

But our attention is now called to another part of the world whi Rome had subdued, and where her own yet partially and unequivoca acknowledged emperor still reigned in great splendour,—to the regions the east and of the south.

This break in the prophecy is strongly marked in the vision; “Ar beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, say with a loud voice, Woe! woe! woe! to the inhabiters of the earth reason of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels which yet to sound.” ↑

In the interpretation of the next two trumpets there has been a general agreement among all expositors, That the FIFTH symbolize Mahomedan Saracens, the SIXTH, the Mahomedan Turks, which powers at length destroyed every remnant of the Christian Roman p in the south and in the east.

And, indeed, reading the Roman history from the time of the suppre or abeyance of the imperial authority in the west, represented in th trumpet, we meet with no character, nor any great change in the st the civilized world, answering to the images of the fifth trumpet, t "Arabian prophet" appears, "who," to use the language of Mr. G "with the sword in one hand and the koran in the other, erects his t on the ruin of Christianity and of Rome;" his "genius, and the m of his nation, and the spirit of his religion, involves the causes decline and fall of the eastern empire; and our eyes are curiously on one of the most memorable revolutions which have impressed a ne lasting character on the nations of the globe."

For the ravages and conquests of the Saracens, fulfilling the s of the FIFTH TRUMPET, I refer to Bishop Newton, and especially historians of the times. Newton reckons their period from A. D.

Vol. II. p. 333, &c.

+ Revelation viii, 13.

Second Advent, Vol. II. 1

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