and reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean, comprising Persia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, and Spain."- Gibbon, ch. 51. Fifty years later, or at the end of the five prophetic months in the year 762, he thus describes the altered character of the Arabs at the time when Almansor built the city of Bagdad, and called it the City of Peace. "The luxury of the caliphs, so useless to their private happiness, relaxed the nerves, and terminated the progress of the Arabian empire. Temporal and spiritual conquest had been the sole occupation of the first successors of Mahomet; and after supplying themselves with the necessaries of life, the whole revenue was scrupulously devoted to that salutary work. The Abbassides were impoverished by the multitude of their wants, and their contempt of economy. Instead of pursuing the great object of ambition, their leisure, their affections, the powers of their mind, were diverted by pomp and pleasure; the rewards of valour were embezzled by women and eunuchs; and the royal camp was encumbered by the luxury of the palace. A similar temper was diffused among the subjects of the caliph. Their stern enthusiasm was softened by time and prosperity; they sought riches in the occupations of industry, fame in the pursuits of literature, and happiness in the tranquillity of domestic life. War was no longer the passion of the Saracens ; the increase of pay, and the repetitions of donatives, were insufficient to allure the posterity of those voluntary champions who had crowded to the standard of Abubeker and Omar for the hopes of spoil and of paradise" Gibbon, ch. 52. THE SIXTH TRUMPET. CHAPTER IX. Ver. 1314 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, saying to the sixth angel, which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels, which are bound in the great river Euphrates. 15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. 16 And the number of the army of the horsemen was two hundred thousand thousand; and I heard the number of them. 17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone. 18 By these three were the third part of men killed, by the fire, and the smoke, and the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. 19 For their power is in their mouths, and in their tails; for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt. 20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood, which neither can hear, nor see, nor walk. 21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. 1844. A.D. 762 The Saracens paved the way for other Mahomedan invaders. These, after four distinct periods of attack, from their first settlement on the Euphrates, finally subjugated the Greek empire, in 1453. This term, 391 years, if the appointed period of Mahomedan dominion over the Greek empire, will extend from its extinction in 1453 to 1844. A number so great bespeaks either a succession of attacks, or a figurative allusion to their spiritual warfare. The horses differ from the locusts; having the entire heads, not merely the teeth, of lions. They want the faces of men, and hair of women, that is, they prevail by force more than by persuasion or allurement. The fire, smoke, and brimstone, denote the same deadly and infernal doctrines common to both. The indulgence of the passions renders these doctrines inviting, and most fatal to the life which is in Christ. The horses kill; the locusts tormented only. The seeds of Christianity, once sown in the mind, could not be at once eradicated. Under the Turks those seeds ceased to be sown. The Gospel was banished; the Koran alone remained. Those who retained the Christian faith continued in the practice of idolatry as before. The fanaticism of the Mahomedans had rather abated, and the parts of their now divided empire began to resume the character of settled nations, and ceased to swarm like locusts; yet the spirit of conquest remained, and their past success opened the way to farther attempts on the Greek empire. The first of these, which were just four in number, occurred at the period which we have now reached, and is thus noticed by Mosheim. "But the troubles of the empire, and the calamities of the church, did not end here: for, about the middle of this century (the eighth), they were assailed by new enemies, more fierce and inhuman than those whose usurpations they had hitherto suffered. These were the Turks, a tribe of the Tartars, or at least their descendants, who, breaking forth from the inaccessible wilds about Mount Caucasus, overspread Colchis, Iberia, and Albania; rushed into Armenia; and, after having subdued the Saracens, turned their victorious arms against the Greeks, whom, in process of time, they reduced under their dominion."Mosh. (Eighth Cent.) vol. ii. p. 214. After this attack, under the Abbassidan dynasty, in the eighth century, had stripped the empire of some of its fairest provinces, the progress of the Mahomedan arms was checked by their own internal dissensions, till the eleventh century, when Armenia, Georgia, and Anatolia, were wrested from it by the Seljukian dynasty. In the thirteenth century, the Mogul Tartars, under the dynasty of Zingis Khan, eradicated the remains of Christianity left by the Saracens in those parts of the East over which their devastation and dominion extended. And, finally, the Greek empire was overthrown and abolished in the fifteenth century, under the Ottoman dynasty, by Mahomed II., A.D. 1453. The final extinction of Christianity in the East is thus noticed by Mosheim: "In the vast regions of the Eastern world, Christianity daily lost ground; and the Moslems, whether Turks or Tartars, united their barbarous efforts to extinguish its bright and salutary lustre. Asiatic Tartary, Mogolestan, Tangut, and the adjacent provinces, where the religion of Jesus had long flourished, were now become the dismal seats of superstition, under its vilest forms."Vol. iii. p. 389. THE HISTORY AND CORRUPTIONS OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE WEST FORETOLD. CHAPTER X. Verse 1 And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. 2 And he had in his hand a little book, open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the land. 3 And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth; and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. 4 And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write; and I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. 5 And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea, and upon the land, lifted up his hand to heaven, 6 and sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are, and the land, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer. 7 But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. 8 And the voice which I heard from heaven, spake unto me again, and said, Go, and take the little book which is open in the hand The history of Christianity in the East has now been brought to a close with the final extinction of the Eastern empire by the Turks. Its history in the West comes next into view. The angel placing one foot on the land and the other on the sea, first denotes this division. The contents of the little book do not however appear until after the seven thunders have uttered their voices. What they announced is not told. Some conjecture the seven crusades, which accord with the chronology. But, not to pry into what is sealed, we learn from this that some events are wanting to complete the series. The angel declares, that at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the mystery of God shall be finished. Which may signify, that at this time the true import of the prophecy will be disclosed, or at least, will begin to be seen in the true light. It is, moreover, said when he begins to sound, for the seventh trumpet comprises the vials, and would, without this, be rather an indefinite period. The prophet is commanded to eat the little book, that, by digesting, as it were, its contents, he may become the more of the angel which standeth upon fully and intimately possessed of the sea, and upon the land. 9 And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. 10 And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey; and as soon as I had eaten it my belly was bitter. 11 And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings. them. To be made acquainted with future events, is generally esteemed gratifying; but this knowledge, when obtained, may occasion sorrow and pain, by announcing calamitous events. Accordingly, such appears to have been its effect in the present instance. Ezekiel was, in like manner, commanded to eat a book or roll, that he might prophesy to the house of Israel. Ezekiel, ch. iii. v. 3. The change of scene stated above, is further announced by the order to prophesy again, and the audience appears to be the many nations of the Western Gentiles. (See Note I in the Appendix.) This division of the prophecy into the Eastern and Western history of Christianity, is essential to the right understanding of the chronology of the little book, for the subject in this reverts to the apostolic age. This book appears open, which may figuratively denote, what was really the case, that from their very beginning, the corruptions related in it were recognised by many as bearing the features of Antichrist. The following remarks are made by Archdeacon Woodhouse : "The prophecy had now begun to appear as drawing to its close; the Seventh and last Trumpet was expected. But a new and enlarging scene opens under the Sixth Trumpet, and before the end of the second wo. The famous period of forty-two months, or 1260 days, is now presented to view. The usurped dominion of the Mahomedans, disclosed in the Sixth Trumpet, is continued throughout. But there is another Antichristian usurpation, which belongs to the same period, and which is produced as cotemporary with it."-Woodhouse on the Apoc. p. 277. |