A s ^ t •I 1 J 1 DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS AND TRUMPETS OF THE AND THE PROPHETICAL PERIOD OF TWELVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS. BY WILLIAM CUNINGHAME, ESQ. AVTHOR OF KliMARKS ON DAVID I.EVl's DISSERTATIONS ON THE PRO" FlIECIES RELATIVE TO THE MESSIAH. SECOND EDI-^ON, CORRECTED AJjl^E^LARGEn. "and what I SAY ONTO YOU, I SAY UNTO ALL: WATCH." MARK xiii. 37. Slontion : PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIBS, STRAND ; J. HATCHARD, PICCApiLLY; BLACKWOOD, AND OLIPHANT & CO. EDINBURGH: AND OGLE, GLASGOW. 1817. A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS AND TRUMPETS AND THE PROPHETICAL PERIOD OF TWELVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS. BY WILLIAM CUNINGHAME, ESQ. AUTHOR OF REMARKS ON DAVID I.EVl's DISSERTATIONS ON THE PRO- PHECIES RELATIVE TO THE MESSIAH. SECOND EDITION, CORRECTED AND^NLARGED. AND WHAT 1 SAY UNTO YOU, I SAY UNTO ALL". WATCH. MARK xiii. 37. Hontion : PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIB6, STRAND ; J. HATCHARD, PICCApiLLY; BLACKWOOD, AMD OLIPHANT & CO. EDINBURGH: AND OGLE, GLASGOW. 1817. y^^l% 27f^^ M'INTOSH, Printer, Lomlon Society's Office, Spitalfields, Loniloii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION The following are the circumstances which gave rise to the volume now submitted to the public. I was for some years engaged in a controversy with Mr. Fa- ber, carried on through the medium of a respectable periodical work, upon the subject of the commence- ment and end of the twelve hundred and sixty years, and some other points connected with the study of prophecy. Since the close of the above controversy, I have frequently been advised to re-publish my papers in a separate volume. But to this it seemed to me that there were strong objections, as it would be impossible for any reader to understand what I had written, without seeing Ukewise the papers of my respectable opponent. Being sensible, however, of the great practical importance of the inquiry into the true era of the above prophetical period, I was desirous of laying before the public the substance of what I had written on the subject. But I felt the strength of the following remarks, which I met with some years ago, in a review of Archdeacon Wood- house's Translation of the Apocalypse : " It is " comparatively easy to give, to interpretations of " detached parts of the Apocalypse, an appearance of a2 IV " truth, which would totally vanish, were they con- " sidered in connection with the general frame of the " book. We will not say that the only fair method, " but we must say that by much the fairest method, " of interpreting the prophecies of the Revelation, '* is to compose a continued comment upon the book, " The reader then feels that he is in some deg'ree " put in a condition to judge for himself; the conse- " quence, at any rate, is either a readier detection " of error, or a more perfect conviction, if the " interpretation be satisfactory."* Influenced by a sense of the justice of the above observations, and having for twelve years turned my attention to the study of prophecy, I there- fore determined to aim at giving a connected view of the whole prophecies of the seals and trumpets of the Apocalypse, so far as they appear to have been accomplished ; and to embody in it the substance of my argument respecting the twelve hundred and sixty years ; but in such a way as to divest that argument of the shape and appearance of controversy. In what manner the above design has been executed, the public will decide. I could have wished that more time had been devoted to the exe- cution of my purpose ; but being much engaged in secular affairs of various kinds, I had not a choice in this respect. What is now submitted to the public, with the exception of the Preface, some of the Notes, * Christian Observer, vol. v. p. 557, for ISOO. and the last chapter, was written in the intervals of business, between the middle of June and of January last; and I cannot but feel that some parts of the work have been finished in rather a hasty manner. But I thought it better to let it go forth as it is, than to delay the publication of it for another year. Should this volume reach a second edition, I shall be glad to avail myself of any critical remarks which may be made upon it to render it less imperfect. In this work, I take for granted, that the four beasts seen by Daniel in the seventh chapter of his prophecies, signify the Babylonian, Medo- Persian, Grecian, and Roman monarchies ; and that the little horn of his fourth beast is a symbol of the papal power ; and likewise that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is the church of Rome. These may be considered as first principles in the study of pro- phecy, of which no well-instructed protestant ought to be ignorant ; and it is not reasonable to expect that every one who takes up his pen on the subject of prophecy, should return back to prove anew those first principles which few persons call in question, and which have already been established in the writings of the ablest commentators.* * I have deemed it proper, in this edition of my work, to leave out all that part of the preface of the first edition, containing stric- tures on the opinion of the author of A Christian's Survey of all the primary Events and Periods of the World. The position of that writer, with respect to the little horn of Daniel's fourth beast, has VI In tliese pages the reader will find frequent mention of the second personal advent of our Lord. 1 am aware that it is the common doctrine of the present day^ both among" private Christians and the teachers of religion, to interpret, in a figurative sense, many of those passages which I suppose to refer to that great event. But I have the support of the greatest writers on prophecy in understanding them literally ; and the opinion which I now hold on this point, is not only the result of a long and most attentive con- sideration of the prophetical scriptures, but was slowly and reluctantly formed, in opposition to early prejudices. In the continued prevalence of the opposite sentiment, which places the second advent of our Saviour, at the close of the millennium, and thus supposes it to be yet many ages distant from our times, we may discern the symptoms of that spirit of unbelief which our Lord assures us^ shall mark the period when he appears again. '' Nevertheless, '' when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith '' in the earth ?"* by which is meant, not faith in the doctrines of his Gospel in general, but in the particular promises which relate to the second advent. been overthrown by the events of the last four years : and with regard to his opinion concerning the 12C0 prophetical days, the reader will find some remarks in the prfeface to this edition. Under these cir- cumstances, it appears to me qilite unnecessary to re-publish my forinoer strictures, a great part of which are no longer applicable to the existing state of thirt^s. 2d Edition. * Luke Xviii. 8. vu On this point I shall introduce the following' quo- tation from King's Remarks on the Signs of the Times.* '' On the one hand, the Jews would not appre- " hend, nor believe, the words of holy prophecy " written concerning our Lord's first coming, in his " state of deep humiliation and suffering, being " dazzled with bright apprehensions of what was " written concerning his second coming, his coming ''in glory; and on the other hand, the Christian *' world are now in the contrary extreme, too back- *' ward to believe and apprehend what is really " written in the same words of holy prophecy con- " cerning his second coming upon earth in glory ^ '' being blinded by their constant habit of contending *' against the Jews chiefly for the former, and by " the presumptuous mystical application which has " taken place, by means of applying those holy " words that relate to the latter, merely to the " fancied prosperity of the Christian church on " earth ; though such fancied prosperity is a mis- " application of the words, in direct contradiction *' to all the warnings of our Lord himself and of " his holy Apostles." I shall now state some of the principles upon which I proceed in interpreting the Apocalypse. \st. I assign to the same symbols the same mean- ing ; or where there is any variation of signification, * Pages 86 and 27. VIU I endeavour to fix the meaning on the principles / of analogy. 2d. I apply no prophecy of the Apocalypse to more than one series of events : i. e. I deny that the principles of a first and secondary sense, however it may be admitted in interpreting the unchrono- logical prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, &c. can be allowed in explaining the Apocalypse.* 3d. I apply symbols of the same nature, or homo- geneous, to similar objects. 4z/i. I do not attempt to explain every minute part of a symbol, but content myself with endeavouring to seize its great outlines. This rule is well known, and carefully observed by all judicious expositors of the scriptural parables. Now I consider the symbols of the Apocalypse in the light of prophetical pa- rables. bth. In ascertaining the places of the different visions, and their chronological coincidence, I pay strict attention to the internal marks mentioned by Mr. Frazer, in his excellent rule for that purpose, which is as follows : "The internal marks inserted in the prophecies '' of the Revelation, may be fitly compared to the " corresponding loops in the curtains of the taber- '^ nacle : by observing them, the Levites discovered "^ the place of each separate curtain, and joined them * The first and second of these principles are nearly the same with two of Mr. Faber's rules. IX " together, so as to form one tent. So by these " marks, the attentive reader is able to discover the '' place of each separate vision — whether it carries '' on the collateral prophecy, or gives a collateral " representation of times already mentioned ; and " to connect them so as to form one connected pro- *' phecy. *' Now I find, that after the seventh trumpet " sounds (Rev. xi. 15), and a brief summary is " given of the events contained in it in the three '' following verses, it is said (ver. 19), I saw the " tabernacle of the temple of God in heaven opened. " This expression I consider as a mark inserted like " the loop in the edge of the curtain, where the *' series of the narration is broken oft\ " Accordingly the same words are repeated (Rev. " XV. 5), like the corresponding loop in the edge '' of the other curtain ; then it is said, ^nd the " seven angels came out of the temple having the " seven plagues : which shews that the first of these '^ vials follows after the sounding of the seventh " trumpet." To conclude, whether any advances are made, in the following pages, towards a more perfect expla- nation of this mysterious book, it is not for me to judge. But as I cannot hope to have avoided mis- takes, 1 would desire to imbibe the spirit of the following passage, from Archdeacon Woodhouse's Introduction to his work on the Apocalypse ; — " Truth, in this important research, is, I hope, as *' it ought to be, my principal concern ; and 1 shall " rejoice to see these sacred prophecies truly inter- " pretcdj though the correction of my mistakes '' should lay the foundation of so desirable a super- " structure." March, 1813. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THE work now offered to the Public in a second edition, was composed in the year 1812, while the French power was yet unbroken, and during- the campaign of Bonaparte in Russia. The author, having long entertained a persuasion, that the events of our own times are rapidly unfolding the intricacies of the prophetic roll of the Scriptures, has for many years been in the habit of associating an attentive view of all the passing scenes, which in this age, have astonished and confounded the anticipations and calculations of human wisdom, with the study of the divine word of inspiration. If, however, it be difficult, as in many cases it confessedly is, to interpret predictions, which are already completely fulfilled, it certainly is a more arduous task, to apply prophecy to events, which are only in part developed. Some indeed, are so convinced of the impossibility of success in such an undertaking, as to reject as rash and illegitimate, all attempts, to read in the sacred volume the occur- rences of our own times. But it may be shown, from the scriptures, that this opinion is wrong. — Our Lord reproved the Jews, for not discerning the xu signs of their own times. Now what were these si^ns, but the strict correspondence of the events which they beheld, with the prophetic annunciations of a former ag-e ? Again, our Saviour, after pre- dicting in highly figurative language the poHlical convulsions, which in the last ages were to be the foreiunners of the second advent, says to his churchy '' When ye see these things begin to come to pass, *' then lift up your heads, for your redemption '* draweth nigh."* But how, in this case also, are believers to discern the accomplishment of the pre- dicted signs, unless by comparing the words of Christ with current events ? Indeed^ the sentiment I am now refuting, though it comes to us under the specious guise of humility and self-diffidence, is in realitv founded on indolence and sloth, and partakes largely of that spirit of unbelief, which has usually pervaded the minds of the great body of mankind, under the most unequi- vocal indications of the wrath of the Almighty, and when his judgments have been most conspicuously poured forth, on a profane and thoughtless world. What has been said, may be sufficient to vindicate the legitimacy of the inquiries pursued in this volume. But when the observations already made, with respect to the great difficulty of this department of sacred researches are considered, it will not be matter of surprise, that 1 should in my first edition, have * Lnke xxi. IS. fallen into very important mistakes. These errors are acknowledojed in their proper places, and it is therefore unnecessary for me to mention them more particularly here. I shall however, observe, that ' though the late mighty political changes in Europe^ have entirely contradicted some of my former anti- cipations, they seem to be in no degree inconsistent with my general theory. On the contrary, the present pacification of the nations which occupy the territories of the western empire, the great theatre of the Apocalyptic prophecies, appears to fill up an important chasm in the exposition I had previously offered, of the vision at the beginning of the seventh chapter, which 1 consider, to be the great key to the present state of the world. In other respects also, my views of the characters of the present period; of its place in the chronology of prophecy, and of the nature of the events that are approaching, not only remain unchanged, but are more and more confirmed by the events of the last four years. The interval which has elapsed since the first publication of the work, has afforded me an oppor- tunity of carefully reviewing its principles. But whatever errors I have been led into with respect to the meaning of particular passages, I have not as yet seen reason to abandon any one of my canons of interpretation ; and after having considered all the objections that I have met with to my general XIV arrangement of the seals and trumpets, I remain sa- tisfied of its truth. Yet I know too well how painful and difficult was my own perception of the system I have attempted to develop in these pages^, which has been slowly and gradually matured during a period of sixteen years, to expect that even if true, it will make a very rapid progress in public opinion. I am content to leave its fate to time. So far as my theories are just they will ultimately prevail. If they be false, they will deservedly sink into oblivion among the ephemeral novelties of the day. Feeling as I do very little anxiety on this point, I have not thought myself called upon to answer the strictures made upon my interpretations by more recent writers, where I am unconvinced of their solidity. To un- dertake such a task would swell the present volume to an undue size, and for the same reason (as well as from a sense of the dangers and unprofitableness of controversy,) I have abstained from any discussion of the merits of those theories of prophecy which have lately appeared. The opinion of the more judicious and enlightened of the students of this branch of sacred literature, will decide between these systems and the one contained in this volume. I am bound here, however, to observe, that the judgment already pronounced on my work by two very able reviewers, has very far exceeded the expectations I had formed when I first gave it to the public: and as neither of them are known to me ; I take this XV opportunity of expressing my thanks to them for the indulgent manner in which they treated it. In the preface to my first edition were contained strictures upon certain opinions advanced in an ano- nymous work on prophecy, which has since been avowed by Mr. Granville Penn. That gentleman, in the Preface to his Dissertation on Ezekiel's Prophecy of Gog, has done me the honour to notice my obser- vations. I deem it therefore to be incumbent upon me, to make a very few short remarks on what he has said, for as I was myself the assailant in this instance, were I to make no reply, it might be construed into want of respect for Mr, Penn. Of the two primary points at issue, between the great body of Protestant Commentators and the author of the Christian's Survey, which formed the principal subject of my strictures, the first relates to the meaning of the symbolical little horn of Daniel's fourth beast, which by the almost unvarying consent of these Commentators has been applied to the papal power, but is by Mr. Penn supposed to describe the late empire of France. As events have occurred which prove Mr. Penn's exposition of that symbol to have been fallacious, it seems quite unnecessary to prolong the controversy respecting it. The French power has perished, but the body of the Roman empire survives. Nay the papal monarchy, thejinal and absolute extinction of which was pronounced by Mr. Penn to have taken XVI place in 1810,* exists still in 1817. That these events have also disappointed my conjectures, I have already freely acknowledged. But while they are fatal to Mr. Penn's system, they leave the body of mine entire, and overthrow only some conclusions which were not essential to it. I shall here, however, as Mr. Penn thinks it in- cumbent upon me to do it, give a concise view of the reasons on which is founded the application of the above symbol to the papal power. \st. The little horn was seen to arise after the other horns. f Now the rise of the ten Gothic horns took place before the end of the fifth century. But that of the papal power cannot be dated earlier than the beginning of the sixth century, consequently it rose after the horns, and in this respect the type answers the supposed antitype. 2d. The horn was little, and always remained so. Mr. Penn avers that this is to be interpreted in respect of the shortness of its duration. But in the very next vision, viz. that of the ram and he goat (Dan. viii.), the first horn of the he goat, symbolizing the individual power of Alexander the Great, is represented as being notable mTH or great, though he reigned only twelve years. We may hence infer, that the size of a horn denotes not, as Mr. Penn supposes, the period of its duration, but its intrin- sical physical power. The smallness of the auoma- * Christian's Survey, p. 90. + Dan. vii. 24. XV 11 lous horn of the fourth beast indicates therefore, not its more recent origin, but that its physical power when compared with that of the others is small. This corresponds with what history testifies of the papal dominion. The influence of that power has never arisen from its physical force, but from its policy and cunning, pointed out by the eyes of the horn :* and from its spiritual pretensions, symbolized by its mouth speaking great things, whereby it ob- tained a paramount control over the minds of men, which even in the present period they have been unable entirely to shake off.f * Dan. vii. 8. + The lale papal bull against Bible Societies, which I here insert, is in some measure illustrative of the meaning of the expression, that this horn had a mouth speaking great things. The following is a copy of this bull. Translation of the Bull against Bible Societies, issued from Rome, June 29, 1816, by Pope Pius VII. to the Archbishop of Gnczn, Primate of Poland. " POPE PIUS VII. " Venerakle Brother, " Health and apostolic benediction. " In our last letter 1o you we promised, very soon, to return an " answer to yours, in which you have appealed to this holy see, in " the name also of the other bishops of Poland, respecting what are " called Bible Societies, and have earnestly inquired of us what you " ought to do in this affair. We long since, indeed, wished to comply " with your request ; but an incredible variety of accumulating cou- " cerns have so pressed upon us on every side, that till this day we " could not yield to your solicitation. " We have been truly shocked at this most crafty device, by which b XVllI 3d. The power of the horn is commensurate in time^ with that of the beast, in Rev. xiii. which is " the very foundations of religion are undermined ; and having, " because of the great importance of the subject, convened for con- " sultation our venerable brolhren, the cardinals of the holy Roman " church, we have, with the utmost care and attention, deliberated " upon the measures proper to be adopted by our pontifical authority, " in order to remedy and abolish this pestilence as far as possible. " In the mean time, we heartily congratulate you, venerable brother; " and we commend you again and again in the Lord, as it is fit we " should, upon the singular zeal you have displayed under circum- " stances so hazardous to Christianity, in having denounced to the " apostolic see, this defilement of the faith, most imminently dan- " gerous to souls. And although we perceive that it is not at all " necessary to excite him to activity who is making haste, since of " your own accord you have already shewn an ardent desire to detect " and oppose the impious machinations of these innovators; yet, in " conformity with our office, we again and again exhort you, that " whatever you can achieve by power, provide for by counsel, or " eflfect by authority, you will daily execute with the utmost earnest- *' ness, placing yourself as a wall for the house of Israel. " For this end we issue the present letter, viz. that we may convey " to you a signal testimony of our approbation of your laudable " exertions, and also may endeavour therein still more and more to '• excite your pastoral solicitude and vigilance. — For the general good "imperiously requires us to combine all our means and energies to " frustrate the plans which are prepared by its enemies for the de- •' struction of our most holy religion ; whence it becomes an episcopal " duty, that you first of all expose the wickedness of this nefarious <' scheme, as you already are doing so admirably, to the view of the " faithful, and openly publish the same, according to the rules pre- " scribed by the Church, with all that erudition and wisdom in which " you excel ; namely, " that Bibles printed bi/ heretics are numbered " among prohibited books, by the rules of the Index (No. II, & III.) ; " for it is evident from experience, that the Holy Scriptures, when XIX admitted by Mr. Penn himself to denote the Roman empire, in its divided state. The duration of the '• circulated in the vulgar tongue, have, through the temerity of men, "produced more harm than benefit:" (Rule IV.) And this is the " more to be dreaded in times so depraved, when our holy religion is " assailed from every quarter with great cunning and effort, and the " most grievous wounds are inflicted on the Church. It is therefore " necessary to adhere to the salutary decree of the Congregation of " the Index (June 13th, 1757), that no versions of the Bible in the " vulgar tongue be permitted, except such as are approved by the " apostolic see, or published with annotations extracted from the " writings of the holy fathers of the Church." " We confident!) hope that, even in these turbulent circumstances, " the conduct of the Poles will afford the clearest evidences in support " of the religion of their ancestors ; and this especially by your care " as well as that of the other prelates of this kingdom, whom^ on " account of the stand they are so wonderfully making for the faith *• committed to them, we congratulate in the Lord, trusting that they " all will very abundantly justify the opinion which we have enter- " tained of them. " It is moreover necessary that you should transmit to us, as soon •' as possible, the Bible which Jacob Wuiek published in the Polish " language with a commentary, as well as a copy of the edition of " it lately put forth without those annotations, taken from the *' writings of the holy fathers of our church, or other learned Ca- " tholics, with your opinion upon it; that thus, from collating them " together, it may be ascertained, after mature investigation, what " errors may lie insidiously concealed therein, and that we may *' pronounce our judgment on this affair, for the preservation of the " true faith. " Proceed, therefore, venerable brother, to pursue the truly pious " course upon which you have entered; viz. diligently to fight the "i^jaltles of the Lord in sound doctrine, and warn the people en- " trusted to your care, that they fall not into the snares which are " prepared for them, to their everlasting ruin. The Church waits b2 XX power of the horn is limited, in Dan. vii. 25, to three times and a half; that of the beast in Rev. xiii. 7, to forty-two months, which is precisely three times (years,) and a half. From this circum- stance, added to other characteristical resemblances, it is manifest, and has appeared so to the most eminent protestant commentators, that this little horn is a symbol of the same power, as is represented in Rev. xiii. by the beast with two horns, which Mr. Penn acknowledges to be the papacy. 4:t/i. The episcopal character of the power, desig- nated by the horn, is marked by the singular circum- stance, of this horn having eyes, like the eyes of a man. There is in this, a manifest allusion to the Greek word, for a bishop, ttn^Dio'no^, which literally si2:nifies an overseer. The argument of Mr. Penn, against this appli- cation of the symbol, founded on what is termed the prescriptive belief of the primitive church, seems entitled to no weight. For we are assured in the " for this from you, as well as the other bishops, whom our epistle " equally concerns; and we most anxiously expect it, that the deep " sorrow we feel on account of this new species of tares which an " enemy is sowing so abundantly, may, by this cheering hope, be " somewhat alleviated ; and, together with the apostolic benediction " which we bestow on you and your fellow bishops, we heartily invoke " on yourself and them a continual increase of spiritual gifts, for " the good of the Lord's flock. " Given at Rome, at St. Mary the Greater, June 29, 1816, the " 17th year of our Pontificate. " POPE PIUS VII." XXI Scriptures, that even the prophets understood not their own predictions. This prescriptive belief, therefore, when strictly analyzed, appears to consist of nothing more, than the unauthorized conjectures of the uninspired writers called the Fathers, con- cerning the manner of the accomplishment of Daniel's prophecy, before events had thrown light upon its fulfilment. The second leading point, wherein Mr. Penn has seen it proper to deviate from the general system of protestant exposition, consists in his having denied that the existence of the prophetical period of 1260 years, can with certainty be inferred, from the writings of Daniel and St. John. In his reply to my strictures, he lays much stress upon the period not being expressly mentioned in the Scriptures. Now I would ask Mr. Penn, whether the Roman empire which he discovers in the beast of the Apoca- lypse, or the papal power which he discerns in the two-horned beast, be any where mentioned in the Scriptures by their proper names ? If it be possible, then, as Mr. Penn himself allows, to form undoubted deductions from the Scriptures, with respeet to the prophetical designation of a secular and spiritual empire, though that empire be not mentioned by name ; may not the characters likewise of a chrono- logical period be so clearly marked, and the inter- pretation of those characters so determinately pre- scribed, by the analogy of some other similar number. XXll with respect to which there is a common agreement among- Jewish^ and CathoHc, and Protestant expo- sitors, as to render it not a matter of rational doubt, what specific period is designed by the number which is the subject of investigation, even though that period be no where expressed without the same enigmatical disguise which is common to the whole system of prophetical truth, and one of the ends of which is expressly declared to be, that though the wise shall understand, yet none of the wicked shall comprehend the important, but mysterious reve- lation of the divine purposes ? Now, it was shown in my former preface, that by such principles the existence of the prophetical period of 1260 years, is certainly discoverable from the Scriptures. In his reply to my strictures, however, the author of the Christian's Survey wholly passes over that part of my argument which is derived from the analogy of the seventy weeks of Daniel with the period in question, in which much of the strength of my reasoning consists. But Mr. Penn reasons, that because a controversy of some years existed between Mr. Faber and myself, on the subject of the commencement and close of that prophetical period, therefore the period itself is unintelligible in point of fact, and uncertain, hypothetical and equivocal. This argument would indeed confine the range of intelligible scriptural truth, within very narrow limits, for what parts of XXIH the evangelical system have not in a similar manner been the subjects of controversy ? And to quote an example nearer in point, does it follow (I repeat the questian) because Daniel's prophecy of seventy weeks is still the subject of controversy, as to its commencement and end, that therefore the period itself is uncertain, equivocal and unintelligible? I might proceed to offer some remarks on Mr. Penn's notion respecting the thousand years men- tioned in Rev. xx. and his mode of explaining the prophecies regarding the conversion and restoration of the Jews ; but 1 should thereby be led into too wide a field of discussion. I shall however very briefly place before the reader, some of the conse- quences which flow from Mr. Penn's scheme of the Millennium. According to his theory, when Innocent III, preached a crusade for the extirpation of the Albigenses and Waldenses, when the Inquisition kindled throughout Catholic Europe the flames of persecution, when the fires were lighted in Smith- field, when the festival of St. Bartholomew in France was dyed with streams of protestant blood, at all these periods Satan was chained in the bottom- less pit, and all these events are included in the MiUennium which he would substitute for the opinion, which, with whatsoever variation of subordinate circumstances, is generally received in the protestant church, an opinion which the author of the Chris- XXIV lian's Survey classes with " the decoys of system and " the fascinations of fancy /" Mr. Penn further treats the sentiment, that the Romanempire is to be broken in Palestine, as a fond vision, and the generally received exposition of the prophecies respecting the restoration of Israel, as a Judaizing fiction. But let him not forget, that both these opinions were entertained by one of the pro- foundest scriptural critics, and most sagacious inter- preters of prophecy, that the last or any other age ever produced ; I mean the late Bishop Horsley. If Mr. Penn instead of calling these opinions hard names, had offered scriptural arguments against them, he would probably have found some at least among their numerous advocates, prepared to meet him, and to discuss with a calm and Christian spirit, the foundation of their own speculations on these high subjects. But we must protest against either Jerome or Augustine, or any of the fathers, being cited as authorities in interpreting prophecies, which were unfulfilled in their time. With these remarks I shall take my leave of Mr. Penn, assuring him how much pleasure it affords me in any instance to agree with him, which I cordially do, in his practical remarks upon an event which I no less than he believe to be near at hand, the second advent of our Lord. Would that Christians could always agree in all things ! But since this cannot be in the present XXV imperfect state of our knowledge, and diseased condition of our moral powers, let us at least endea- vour to infuse into our warfare, as large a share as may be of a courteous spirit of Christian chivalry, by imbibing more and more of the meekness and gen- tleness of Christ. It only remains for me to add, that in this edition of my work will be found an engraving, which may, I hope, assist the reader to understand my scheme of interpretation. April 23, 1817. EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. To prevent misconception I shall first state, that this Plate is not designed to represent the form or shape of the book with seven seals, seen by the Apostle, Rev. v. 1, but only its chronological arrangement and proportions, and the relative places of the different visions. I wish to hazard no positive conjecture with respect to the form of the book; but I think it probable that it consisted of seven distinct rolls enveloped one under the other, the seventh being the inmost one. The representation of the Apocalyptic prophecies here given, is founded upon the simple principle, that the whole of the book, from the beginning of chap. vi. to the end, is included within the seven seals. The idea of a separate codicil, or little book, is rejected, as having no existence but in the imaginations of commentators. The first six seals are represented by the same number of semicircles, following each other in chronological suc- cession. The seventh seal is supposed to be commensurate in time with the whole of the preceding six, and is repre- sented by a semicircle whose diameter is equal to the whole diameters of the other six. If the idea of a codicil be rejected, I believe it will be found impossible to give a representation of the Apocalypse consistent with truth, without carrying the seventh seal back to the beginning of the prophecy ; for the vision of the woman, seen in chap. xii. confessedly belongs to the xxvm earliest age of the Church ; and that vision, if (he codicil be discarded, must be placed in the seventh seal. The remaining parts of the plate explain themselves. I shall only add, that I disclaim any merit of originality in attempting to represent the Apocalyptical periods by a series of semicircles. I borrowed the idea from a plate in Medes' Commentary ; but, of course, my arrangement widely differs from his. TABLE OF THE CHAPTERS. Page Preface to the First Edition ----_--_ ij; Ditto to tiie Second Edition -.-.--._ xi Explanation of the Plate .----..... xxvii Chap. I.— The First five Seals 1 Tlie First Seal 3 The Second Seal ------.-. 5 The Third Seal 7 The Fourth Seal 12 The Fifth Seal 15 Chap. II.— The Sixth Seal 19 Chap. III. — The Sixth Seal, concluded ----- 31 Chap. IV.— The Seventh Seal --.--... 49 Chap. V. — The First Four Trumpets -..--. 55 Chap. Vf.— The Fifth Trumpet, or the first Woe - . 75 Chap. VII. — The Sixth Trumpet, or the second Woe - 89 Chap. VIII. — The Vision of the Angel with an open Book _._.-..... 97 Chap. IX. — The Two Witnesses ----_.. IO5 Chap. X. — The Sounding of the Seventh Trumpet . - 1^9 Chap. XI. — The Woman and the Dragon . - . . 139 Chap. XII.— The Ten-horned Beast of the Sea - . - I5f5 Chap. XIII.— The Two-homed Beast of the Earth, and the Image ------_-. 177 Chap, XIV.— On the Prophetical Period of Twelve Hundred and Sixty Years. — General Statement of the Subject. — Six Scrip- tural Propositions laid down - - - 192 XXX Page Proposition First, considered _ - - - 199 Proposition Second ------- 210 Propositions Third and Fourth - - - 215 Proposition Fifth 222 Proposition Sixth ------- ib. Chap. XV. — On the Prophetical Period of Twelve Hundred and Sixty Years, concluded 245 Chap. XVI. — On the Fourteenth Chapter of the Apo- calypse 273 Chap. XVII. — The Vision of Seven Angels with the Seven Vials of Wrath . . - . . 291 Chap. XVIII.— The Effusion of the Vials - - - . 297 Chap. XIX. — Practical Observations on the present State of the World, in connection with Prophecy ---..--_- 355 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE FIRST FIVE SEALS. The first four seals exhibit four hieroglyphics, which are distinct but homogeneous 1 Most interpreters have lost sight of tbe homogeneity of these seals ib. Bishop Newton has avoided this error, but there is nothing in the symbols of these seals to justify his interpretation 2 Archdeacon Woodhouse is the first writer who has rightly inter- preted these seals ; his scheme adopted in this work ib. THE FIRST SEAL. A white horse with a rider crowned, who goes forth conquering and to conquer 3 This hieroglyphic, describes the triumphant progress of the Gospel in the three first centuries ib. The rider on the white horse is by some supposed to be our Lord himself, this opinion seems inaccurate ib. Reasons to show that the rider is an hieroglyphical character. . . . 4 THE SECOND SEAL. A red or fire coloured horse, with a rider, who takes peace from the earth — A great sword is given to him . 5 Fire and sword are emblems of discord ib. The hieroglyphics of this seal, indicate that after the first age of Christianity, a spirit of discord, dissension, and controversy, a fierce and fiery zeal, should prevail in the church 6 Proofs of the fulfilment of the prophecy from history ib. Depravity of human nature illustrated by the events of the second seal T THE THIRD SEAL. Archdeacon Woodhouse has pointed out the erroneousness of the translation of ^vyos in our Bibles, which properly signifies a yoke ib. The black colour of the horse in this seal is an emblem of dark- ness and ignorance ih. The yoke denotes the imposition of a burthen of rites, cere- nionies and ordinances 8 XXXll The chffinix of wheat, and denarius, or penny, explained 8 The prices of wheat and barley in this seal, indicate a spiritual famine, a scarcity of the word of God 9 Wine and oil mean the influences of the Spirit given only to be- lievers, who even during the famine of this seal, have an abun- dant share of these influences ib. Recapitulation of the contents of this seal 10 It was accomplished in the' rise and prevalence of the Papal power ib. Characters of the period called the dark ages, referred to in this seal 11 THE FOURTH SEAL. A pale livid green horse — his rider is Death, followed by hell. . . . 12 Remarks on the colour of the horse, and on its emblematical sig- nification, with which corresponds the character of his rider . . ib. Terrific import of the whole assemblage of figures ib. This seal represents the state of the church during the ages of papal persecution 13 Address of Innocent III. to Philip Augustus of France to extirpate heretics. — The Albigenses subdued or extirpated ib. Tribunal of the Inquisition erected — Its consequences ib. The persecutions of Rome were continued until the revocation of the edict of Nantz ib. Detail of slaughters perpetrated in these persecutions 14 Thus did the rulers of the visible church assume the character of Death, accompanied by Hades 15 THE FIFTH SEAIi. The language of this seal also is hieroglyphical 16 The souls of the slain martyrs are seen under the altar crying for vengeance » ib. This emblem is explanatory of the slaughter of the former seals, particularly the fourth, and confirms the application of that seal and all the prior ones to the history of the church ib. It also describes the aspect of the church immediately before the dawn of the Reformation — Brief view of that state ib. White robes are given to the slain martyrs, and they are told to rest till their brethren to be killed as they were should be fulfilled 17 Thit denotes the improved condition of the church, after the reformation ib. The second part of this seal fills the interval between the refor- matioOi and the sixth seal and seventh trumpet 18 XXXlll CHAPTER II. THE SIXTH SEAL. In the hieroglyphical language the natural universe is used as a symbol of the political world 19 An earthquake denotes a revolution ib. The meaning of the symbolical sun and moon — the stars, the heaven, mountains, and islands ib. The remaining language of the passage describes the conster- nation of the princes of the world, at the approach of the day of wrath 20 Three passages cited from Joel, St. Matthew, and St. Luke, de- scriptive of the signs which precede the great day of the Lord 21 Correspondence of the language of the sixth seal with these passages, and inference thence deduced that it relates to the great revolution of the last ages 23 This seal is very incongruously referred by Mede, and others, to the events of the reign of Constantine 23 Its hieroglyphics are of too august a nature, to be applied to these events ib. In other respects these events do not correspond with the de- scription of the earthquake . ib. Quotation from Vitringa in support of above reasoning 25 A circumstance mentioned in confirmation of the arguments of Vitringa 26 Further arguments to show that the sixth seal relates to the final revolution, which is to convulse the nations of Christendom before the second advent ... 27 This revolution is predicted by Daniel, and the scene of it is to be sought for in those kingdoms which formed the western Roman empire 28 It is the same revolution with that mentioned in the seventh trumpet, and seventh vial ' . ib. The principle of this exposition is of very remote antiquity — opinion of Victorinus, of Andrew, and Arethas ib. The further consideration of the first part of the sixth seal de- ferred, till we arrive at the seventh trumpet, and seven vials. . 29 Reasons for thinking that the sixth seal commenced at the revo- lution of France 30 CHAPTER III. THE SIXTH SEAL CONCLUHED. The whole of the seventh chapter of Revelation relates to the period of the sixth seal 31 The effects of the revolution of the sixth seal briefly recapitulated ib. C XXXIV What is to become of the church of Christ during these de- solatious 31 The visions seen in Rev. vii. contain an answer to this question ib. The vision of four angels holding the four winds, and an angel with the seal of God il>. Symbolical import of the wind 32 The place of this vision in the Apocalyptic chronology ib. It indicates a term of peace before the end, for the purpose of sealing the servants of God 3S This vision compared with one iaEzekiel, and the mystical num- ber of 1 44,000 explained ib. The four angels are emblems of the powers which shall restrain the calamities of the earthquake — Import of their hurting the earth ib. Remarks on the sealing of the servants of God 34 It is probable that we now witness the fulfilment of this vision in the recent pacification of Europe, by a mighty confederacy which now occupies France with its armies to preserve the peace ib. This interval of tranquillity has been marked by exertions for the circulation of the scriptures, on such a scale as to mark that they belong to a period of the extraordinary operations of the Almighty 37 When the allotted period of peace is past, the commission to hold the winds shall cease, and the calamities of the earthquake shall bo renewed ib. The sealed shall be delivered from these judgments by the imme- diate hand of God 3i* The foregoing interpretation of the vision, supported by a quo- tation from Vitringa 39 Vision of a countless multitude, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands, who stand before the throne ih. This denotes the translation of the church, from the tribulation of the sixth seal into her millennial rest 40 The chronology of this vision is marked by the circumstance, that the palm bearers worship in the temple, or holy of holies .... ib. This proved to be subsequent in time to the destruction of Anti- christ 41 The passage therefore relates to the establishment of the king- dom of our Lord, described in the seventh chapter of Daniel. . il). This manifestation of the kingdom of God, succeeds the de- struction of the fourth monarchy — Its other Apocalyptical marks 42 XXXV it does not take place till the second advent of our Lord 42 The application of this vision to the times of Constantine, is strained and unnatural ih. Recapitulation of the contents of the first six seals 44 They give an epitome of the history of the church, from our Lord's ascension till the establishment of his kingdom ib. The prophecies of Daniel in like manner, open with a general epitome of what is afterwards revealed more in detail ib. Further arguments for the preceding interpretation of these seals 45 That interpretation contrasted with the theory of Mede, and Bishop Newton '!<> Scriptural view of the great and solemn importance of the Apo- calyptic prophecies ib. Remarks on the interpretation of the first four seals by the above writers, .and Bishop Newton's view of the third seal stated .... ib. It is unworthy of the solemn and important nature of the prophecy 47 Archdeacon Woodhouse's view of that seal, commends itself with « the native force of beauty and of truth 4S CHAPTER IV. THE SEVENTH SEAL. Archdeacon Woodhouse's explanation of the silence in heaven at the opening of the seventh seal, as indicative of a new series of prophecies, adopted 49 Seven angels are seen, to whom are given seven trumpets ...... ib. The seventh seal comprehends the whole of the trumpets ib. The trumpets are cotemporaneous with the first six seals, and relate to the great revolutions in the Roman empire, till it is destroyed to make way for the kingdom of the vSon of Man 50 An angel offers incense, he casts fire on the earth, and there fol- lows an earthquake .51 Incense signifies the prayers of saints ib. Fire is a symbol of the influences of the Spirit, and also of the wrath of God ib. In this passage it is used in the last of these senses, and denotes wrath descending on the Roman empire S'i The effects which follow, denote a political convulsion in that empire, and a revolution 53 These events occur before the sounding of any of the trumpets. . ib. Argument hence deduced that the above revolution was that which took place in the time of Constantine ib. The above interpretation is new — Argument in confirmation of it .'j4 c 2 XXXVl CHAPTER V. THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. That which takes place under these trumpets, is the partial de- struction of a symbolical universe ^^ Archdeacon Woodhouse refers these trumpets wholly to spiritual objects— Reasons why this cannot be the true interpretation.. 57 Some interpreters refer them partly to the fortunes of the Roman empire, and partly to the church ib. They apply the third trumpet in particular to the corruption of the waters of life ib. Reasons against this application 5l» Arguments to show that these trumpets cannot be referred partly to the church and partly to secular objects ib. But must apply exclusively to secular objects 59 Accordingly the first four trumpets are applied by the great body of interpreters to the overthrow of the Western empire by the Goths and Vandals — this interpretation adopted . ., ib. Brief history of the fulfilment of these trumpets — In the year 37 6 the Visigoths are transported across the Danube, and admitted into the Roman empire ib. They rebel and ravage the provinces, defeat and slay the emperor Valens ib. After this battle the Goths never quitted the empire 60 The first trumpet appears to have sounded at the above Gothic irruption — Remarks on the symbols of that trumpet ib. The second period of the Gothic invasions commenced oa the death of the great Theodosius ih. Alaric invades Greece (i 1 Italy invaded by Alaric and Radagaisus ib. Rome taken and sacked 62 Gaul invaded by the Suevi, &c ib. Spain entered and desolated by the same barbarians 63 The Roman provinces of Africa subdued by Genseric ib. The second period of the Gothic invasions was the fulfilment of the second trumpet il,. The third period of the irruptions of the northern nations com- menced when Attila invaded the eastern empire 64 Gaul invaded by Attila — and Italy 65 These invasions were the fulfilment of the third trumpet r.5 The sounding of the fourth trumpet 66 Rome taken by Genseric ib. The imperial government subverted in the person of Augustulus by Odoacer, who is elected king of Italy ib. XX.VVll Remarks in confirmation of the foregoing interpretation of the first four trumpets 66 One circumstance in these trumpets has perplexed interpreters, viz. that under each trumpet only a third part of the ohject is destroyed 69 Bishop Newton's explanation of this circumstance is unsatis- factory ib, Mr. Bicheno's solution stated and rejected ib. Observations with a view to remove this difficulty 70 Conclusion of the subject of the first four trumpets 73 Remarks to illustrate the justness of the proportions observed by the Holy Spirit in the different symbols 74 CHAPTER VI. THE FIFTH TRUMPET, OR THE FIRST WOE. In chap. viii. 1 3. is a denunciation of a triple woe to the inhabitants of the earth, from the voices of the three remaining trumpets 75 The purposes of this denunciation ib. It is followed by the sounding of the fifth angel ib. The symbols of this vision belong to things spiritual 76 The star is an apostate Christian bishop, and he is the agent in opening the pit of the abyss ib. The smoke of the pit is a symbol of false doctrines and ignorance which overspread the Christian church, during the fifth and sixth centuries ib. Description of these false doctrines ib. How the sun and air were darkened by the symbolical smoke . . 79 The fallen star, or apostate bishop who opened the pit, was the Pope, or bishop of Rome 81 The symbolical locusts denote an invading army 82 These locusts come out of the pit of the abyss, or hell itself, the smoke is only the medium of their .iscent ib. The whole hieroglyphical description, applies to the rise of the Mahometan religion and power, and the language of Gibbon quoted to illustrate this Jb. Gross darkness of Christendom favoured the imposture of Ma- hummud ^'^ The locusts were not to hurt the grass, but only those men which had not the seal of God S4 They had not power to kill, but only to torment men ib. Other particulars respecting them 85 Remarks on the period of five months, during which they tor- ment men « 86 XXXVlil Their king 86 Reasons for rejecting the interpretation of the smoke from the abyss, which refers it to the false religion of Miihuniniud .... ib. Inference from the right interpretation of that svmhol. that the fallen star can be no other th.-m the pope 87 CHAPTER VII. THT, SIXTH TRUMPET, OR SECOND WOE- A voice from the four horns of the golden altar, commands the sixth angel to loose the four angels bound in the Euphrates . . S9 Remarks on the golden altar, and the voice from the altar ib. This trumpet relates to the overthrow of the Eastern empire by the Turks ib. Mede and others lliink the four angels denote four sultanies united under the Ottoman empire, but this opinion appears erroneous 90 Another explanation of the four angels suggested 91 But it is not satisfactory — A better one proposed ib. The Euphrates is a symbol of the Turkish nation which was long restrained from overrunning the Eastern empire, but at length was to be the instrument of its overthrow ib. The power of the Turks is symbolized by the four angels Q2 Observations upon the symbolical import of the number " four" ib. Remarks on the expression, " an hour, a day, and a month, and " a year" • 9j' The slaughter of the third part of the men, denotes the sub- version of the Eastern empire 94 Remarks on the prophetical description of the armies of the Eu- phralean angels i b. Concluding remark on the interpretation which has been given of the six first trumpets 95 CHAPTER VIII. THE VISION OF THE ANGEL WITH AM OPEN BOOK. After the sounding of the sixth trumpet, a prophetic intimation is given, with a peculiar reference to the Latin church 97 A mighty angel descends from heaven with a little book having been opened ib. This angel is our Lord ib. Reference to a passage in Daniel, and inference from it, that our Lord's descent belongs to the time of the end 99 Meaning of the time of the end ascertained ib. XXXIX Reason of the various circumstances which accompany and follow our Lord's descent 100 His crying with a loud voice explained, and the seven thunders . ib. Meaning of the expression, that there should be time no longer 101 The apostle commanded to take the little book and eat it ib. Inquiry into what is intended by the litlle book 10*2 It is not a codicil or supplementary prophecy, but a part of the sealed book, and we may conclude that it is the seventh seal. . 103 What is intended by the apostle eating the book lO-l Why the book was sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his belly . . . ib- CHAPTER IX. THE TWO WITNESSES. The apostle commanded to measure the temple 1 05 An analysis of the spiritual meaning of the different compart- ments of the temple ib. The holy of holies is a type of heaven, and of the millennial church, when the tabernacle of God shall be with men ii). The holy place is a type of the spiritual invisible church of Christ on earth 106 The altar of burnt offerings, and the sacrifices offered on it, are symbols of the sacrifice of Christ 107 The outer court denotes the visible professing church of God. . . . 108 Inquiry as to which of the compartments of the temple is mea- sured by the apostle ib. It could not be the holy of holies, but it is the holy place, with the interior court, and altar of burnt offerings , .. ib. Meaning of this measurement 10') What is intended by leaving out the court without the temple . . ib. The two witnesses ib. The true spiritual church is here signified by three different em- l)lems, two witnesses, two candlesticks, aud two olive trees ... ib. The meaning of this symbolical description 110 What is intended by fire proceeding out of the mouth of the w i tnesses Ill And by their shutting heaven and turning waters into blood .... ib. The beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit, makes war with them and kills them — After three days and a half they rise and ascend into heaven 112 Argument to show that the death and resurrection of the wit- nesses must be already past H 3 This part of the prophecy was accomplished in the events which followed the dissolution of the Smalcaldic league 11* xl hi the year 1546 that leaf^iie falls to pieces ^ 114 In the following year the interim is presented lo the Diet at Augsburg by the emperor — He procures its reception ib. Violent measures of Charles to enforce the interim throughout the empire, and to suppress the reformed worship 115 The death of the witnesses took place when they were silenced. . 110 Towards the end of the year 1551, Maurice of Saxony takes arms to vindicate the protestaut cause, and advances towards In- spruck ih- The emperor Charles V. flies from Inspruck in consternation 117 The peace of Passau secures to the protestants the free exercise of their religion, which is confirmed by a recess of the Diet of Augsburg 1'8 Importance of the treaty of Passau ib. The revival of the witnesses and their ascension into the sym- bolical heaven were accomplished in these events 119 Other particulars of correspondence between the above occur- rences, and the prophetic account of the death and resurrection of the witnesses 120 Recapitulation of the whole prophecy 121 What is intended by the ascension of the witnesses in a cloud 122 At the same hour there is a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city falls ib. The reformation and the events which followed it were this revolution ib. Meaning of the fall of the tenth part of the city 123 England was that tenth part which fell from the Romish juris- diction at the reformation ib. The slaughter of seven thousand names of men explained 1^24 What is meant by the remnant being affrighted and giving glory to God 1 V5 The last shock of the earthquake did not take place till the year 1 688, when James II. abdicated the throne 126 Remarks on the great importance of the preceding events in the kingdom of England ib. The earthquake being over, it is declared that the second woe is past, and the third woe cometh quickly — This is a chronolo- gical mark to distinguish the period of the death of the witnesses 127 The second woe shown to have passed away in the year 1698 128 The expression " the third woe cometh quickly " explained .... ib. xll CHAPTER X. THE SOUNDING OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET. Passage quoted from Mede, to show that the four kingdoms of Daniel constitute the great Kalendar of prophecy, and area prophetical chronology of times, reaching down to the finish- ing of the mystery of God 1 2y It is very in)portant to ascertain the place which the seventh trumpet occupies in the prophetical Kalendar of Daniel 130 Daniel informs us that the great enemy of the church in the latter ages is the little horn of the fourth beast. This horn continues until the Ancient of Days comes, and the judgment is given to the saints ib. Description of these events from the prophecy of Daniel 131 Inference from the above passage, that the sounding of the ■ seventh trumpet takes place at the coming of the Ancient of Days iu Daniel ib. Three points of coincidence between the above two events stated, which prove that they correspond in time 1 32 Though the kingdom of God is established in the days of the seventh trumpet, yet this is not to be at its commencement- Dreadful judgments arc first to be executed against the nations ib. The eleventh chapter of the Apocalypse, is only an epitome of events afterwards more largely described 1 33 It contains therefore no detailed account of the seventh trumpet il). It is briefly noted on the sounding of this trumpet, that the tem- ple of God was opened ib. The opening of the temple is of great use in determining the place of the seven Apocalyptic vials, which are thereby proved all to belong to the seventh trumpet ib. There were lightnings, and voices, and thuuderings, and an earth- quake, and great hail 134 What is signified by these symbols ib. These events are a part of the third woe ib. And therefore of the seven vials . . 135 An inference hence deduced, that they are the same with the similar phenomena, mentioned in the seventh vial ib. The parallelism of three important passages established ib. The seventh trumpet appears to have sounded at the French revolution, and probably on the 10th of August, 1792 ib. Remarks on that revolution, in its origin, progress, and con- sequences 130 xlii And on the taiiguage In which it has been described by those who have spoken of it without any reference to prophecy 136 Recapitulation of five different particulars, which have been de- termined in this chapter in reference to the sounding of the seventh trumpet 137 Conchiding observation respecting llie termination of the great prophetical period of 1260 years 138 CHAPTER XL THE WOMA\ AND THE DRAGON. Apocalyptical description of the woman and the dragon, and her man child • • 1 39 Introductory observation ■> = ib. The woman in the twelfth chapter is the true spiritual church of Christ 140 Her symbolical description explained ib. The man child signifies the mystic Christ, or Christ formed in his members 141 Passage quoted from Isaiah, to illustrate the meaning of this man child >b. The prophecy received its accomplishment in the conversion of the Gentiles, within the Roman empire ib. What is signified by the man-child being caught up to the throne ofGod 142 Objection to the above interpretation, that it makes the woman and her child to signify the same thing — Answer to this objection 143 The dragon is the devil, enthroned in the Roman empire 141 What is intended by his standing before the woman to devour her child •. ib. The flight of the woman into the wilderness explained . , 145 Remarks on its accomplishment ib. War in heaven between Michael and the dragon — The dragon cast out 146 Two interpretations have been given of this passage : one by Mede and Bishop Newton, the other by Mr. Faber and Mr. An- drew Fuller 147 The last of these was adopted in the first edition of this work, but is now abandoned as erroneous ib. Reasons, founded on the fifth general rule of interpretation, for applying the war between Michael and the dragon, to the same events as the gestation of the woman, viz. the contest between Christianity and Heathenism, the triumph of the Gospel, and xliii the expulsion of Paganism from its authority in the Roman empire 147 Further reasons for thus applying the passage 150 The heavens called to rejoice at the downfall of the dragon .... ib. Woe denounced against the inhabitants of the earth and sea .... 151 Meaning of the expression, that Satan knows his time to be short ib. The dragon persecutes the woman, and Arianism is his first engine for this purpose ib. The schism of the Donatists, another means 152 But the most powerful of his weapons is derived from the rapid growth of superstition, idolatry, and the spirit of ecclesiastical domination ib. The woman gradually recedes from the eyes of men, and her final retreat into the wilderness may be dated from the time when the emperor Justinian declared tiie pope head of the church in the sixth century ib. The dragon casts out of his mouth a flood of waters to carry away the woman 1 53 The meaning of this symbol ascertained ib. The passage received its acconipiisliment in the torrent of bar- barous nations, which broke in upon the Roman empire while the woman was retiring into the wilderness, and during the following centuries ib. How the earth swallowed up the symbolical waters 15 1 Tlie dragon makes war with the remnant of the woman's seed . . 155 CHAPTER XII. THE TBN-nORNED BEAST OF THE SEA. Apocalyptical description of the beast 156 The Holy Spirit, in this chapter, shows us the instrujnents through which, Satan is to act against the church, and the beast is the first of them ib. That the fourth kingdom of Daniel, is the Roman empire, is one of the principles taken for granted in this work 157 The ten-horned beast seen by John, is the same with the fourth beast of Daniel, but with one important point of difference — and he represents the Roman empire ib. The sentiments of various commentators, quoted in support of this opinion ; ib. Arguments in confirmation of it I5'.> The Roman empire, since its division into ten kingdoms, has formed a species of federal republic 1 60 xliv Enuineratiou of the ten Gothic kingdoms, into which the Roman empire of the west was divided 16*^ The kingdoms of Europe, have been ten in number at various periods 161 The seven heads of the beast considered 1 62 Passage from Rev. xvii. containing a more particular account of the seven heads ib* The seven kings which are designated by the heads of the beast, are seven successive forms of government — The first six of these forms enumerated ib. A "-reat diversity of sentiment exists about the seventh form, and likewise the eighth 1 63 The opinion adopted in the former edition of tliis work stated, and abandoned as erroneous, and a new solution offered... ib. The sixth head is the heathen imperial government of the Caesars — Ou the dethronement of Licinius by Conslantiue, that form fell to rise no more ib. The seventh head is the Christian imperial power, from Constan- tine to Augustulus 164 At the fall of the Western empire, the seventh head received a deadly wound by the Gothic sword . . 165 Out of the seventh head, grow the ten regal horns ib. The wound of the seventh head was healed, when the Western empire was restored by Charlemagne ib. The restored empire, together with the ten regal horns, con- junctly constitute the eighth form i G6 The meaning of that part of the description of the beast, that he was, and is not, and yel is ib. It signifies the spiritual resurrection of the Heathen Roman em- pire in an externally Christian form, by its lapse into antichris- lian idolatry 1 67 A brief view of the fulfihnent of this part of the prophecy ib. This character belongs to the beast only under his eighth political form 169 Under this form the beast goeth into perdition 170 This clause illustrated by a concise view of the spiritual and secular history of the beast, down to the present period ib. The rise of the beast out of the bottomless pit or abyss, chap, xvii. 8. shown not to be different from his rise out of the sea, chap. xiii. 1 171 How the dragon gave the beast his seat and great authority 172 What is intended by the worship paid to the beast 173 xlv His mouth speaking great things, and his power to continue forty-two months j -^ He blasphemed God and his tabernacle 1 7.^ It was given to him to make war with the saints ib_ All shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book «f life 175 The solemn warning given, with respect to the end of the beast, has reference to his destruction at the great day of the Lord. . ib. The faith and patience of the saints shall then be peculiarly exercised 2 76 CHAPTER XIII. THE TWO nORNGD BEAST OF THE EARTH, AND THE IMAGE. The Apocalyptic description of these objects 1 7 7 The second beast is an ecclesiastical character and the same as is afterwards called the false prophet j 78 This beast is the papacy ih. He grows up out of the earth silently and unheeded ib. He exerciseth the spiritual power of the first beast before him — How this was fulfilled ib. He causeth the earth to worship the first beast 179 He maketh fire to come down from heaven— This denotes the fire of persecution, which comes down from the symbolical heaven ib. He causeth the inhabitants of the earth, to form an image to the first beast 1 80 Under this hieroglyphic is described the degeneracy of the visible professing church of Christ, once the chaste spouse of Christ, but now so corrupted, as to become an image of the beast .... ib. How this image was formed ib. How life was given to it 181 The image is both an image of the beast, and an image to the beast ib. The image is a symbol of the same corrupt church, afterwards exhibited to us as a woman, the harlot Babylon the Great .... 182 Why two different symbols are employed to denote the same object ib. Passage quoted from a writer in the British Review, illustrative of the foregoing interpretation 1S3 What is meant by the beast causing men to receive a mark, that no man might buy or sell, unless he had the mark or name of the beast, or the number of his name 1 85 The number of the beast explained — It is contained in the Greek xlvi letters of the name Lalinus — Passage quoted from Mr. Faber on this point 186 This part of the prophetic description, was fulfilled by the decrees of different councils, forbidding men from holding communion with the Albigenses and Waldenses in buying and selling 1 87 CHAPTER XIV. ON THE PROPHETICAL PERIOD OF TWELVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT SIX SCRIPTURAL PROPOSITIONS LAID DOWN. In chapters xi. xii. and xiii. of the Apocalypse, there is frequent mention of a certain mysterious period, during which the enemies of the church were to triumph over her 192 Seven passages of D This period shown to be the whole length of the vision ib. The cleansing of the sanctuary will receive its accomplishment, when the church is freed from those Gentiles who tread it under foot, during the 1260 years ib. This cleansing must therefore begin at the sounding of the seventh trumpet ib. Another argument slated to prove this point, and a consequence deduced from it, that the vSOO days must be used for years, and that they end precisely at the same time with the 1260 years. . 259 It follows, therefore, that the 2300 years must have ended in the year 1792 ...■ ib. This conclusion is further confirmed by computing the 2300 years Hi back from the year 1792, for thus calculated they bring us lo the identical year A. C. 50s, which we have already seen is the probable date of the commencement of Daniel's vision of the ram 259 Among the objections to the conclusion that the ISfiO years ended in 1792, only one seems entitled to much weight, which is founded on a passage in the last chapter of Daniel — The pas- sage cited 261 Three different numbers are mentioned in the above passage, viz. a time, times, and a half; i. c. 1260 days — 1290 days, and 1335 days; i. e. years — All these periods begin together. — The second contains thirty years beyond the first, and the third forty-five years beyond the second 262 The 1335 years probably introduce the full glories of the Millen- nium — An opinion slated that the intermediate period will probably be signalized by the commencement of the restoration of Judah ib. The argument of Mr. Faber, founded on the above passage, is, that the restoration of Judah will begin precisely at the close of the 1 260 years 263 Answer to this argument 2C4 The answer confirmed, by passages cited from Winlleand Lowth 265 It may be objected, that we yet see no signs of the Restoration of Judah, and that it is incredible that so mighty an event should be accomplished within five years ib. Answer to this objection, by a reference to the past history of that people, and to the declarations of prophecy respecting the sud- denness of their future conversion, and the marvels which shall accompany their future Exodus ib. Reasons for concluding that their national conversion is already beginning 268 CHAPTER XVI. THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF THE APOCALYPSE. A lamb standing on Mount Sion, and with him an hundred and forty-four thousand — A song heard in heaven — None can learn the song but the 1 44,000 — Their character described 873 The interpretation of this vision given by most expositors rejected ib. It is applied by Bishop Newton and Mr. Faber, to the state of the true spiritual church in the wilderness, during the reign of the beast ib. This exposition is a natural consequence of the erroneous expla- nation given by these writers, of the sixth seal 274 111! Archdeacon Woodhouse has, very iuconsistently with himself, adopted the same explanation of the vision of the 1 •44,000.... 274 Reasons for rejecting this opinion, and for referring this vision to the period of the sixth seal, and seventh trumpet, and seven vials 275 The appearance of the 1-44,000 on Sion, is emblematical of the trinmphant attitude assumed by the true spiritual church, in the period of the vials 277 The song which they learn is the Song of Moses and the Lamb, mentioned in the following chapter — Whatare its distinguishing features ib. During this period, the members of the true church shall not, however, be exempted from suffering — But the church, as a body shall be saved 278 The church is here presented to us as returned from the wilder- ness ; but not yet entered into her rest ib. The church is already assuming, or rather has assumed, the pos- ture here mentioned ib. Three angels seen, the first having the everlasting Gospel ; the second proclaiming that Babylon is fallen; the third denouncing eternal punishment against the worshippers of the beast 279 Some writers interpret the above vision, of the preaching of Luther and the reformers of his age — others refer it to an earlier period 2S0 Reasons for rejecting both these interpretations ib. The whole of the fourteenth chapter of the Apocalypse belongs to the period of the seventh trumpet 281 The flight of the first angel denotes a preaching of the Gospel much more extensive than any that preceded it ib. It also denotes the diffusion of the written woxd, with a rapidity before unexampled— and that this circulation of the Scriptures shall be accompanied with awful and signal judgments of God 282 This prophecy seems now to be receiving its accomplishment ib. The flight of the second and third angels is yet future 28;j Some remarks on the mission of these two angels ib After declaring the purport of the message of the third angel, the Holy Spirit gives a significant warning, that the events of that time shall call into exercise the utmost degree of the faith and patience of the saints — Remarks on this warning 2H4 A voice heard from heaven, saying, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth 2S5 Remarks on this passage ib. liv The S^on of Man sits on a white cloud, with a sharp sickle, and reaps the harvest of the earth 23(i This advent of Christ is the same with that mentioned in the seventh of Daniel and other passages — The reaping of the har- vest of the earth is the gathering of his elect from the four winds of heaven aST This explanation of the wheat harvest is diflferent from that offered by Mede, Bishop Newton, and Mr. Faber, but it is sup- ported by the authority of Bishop llorsley 288 Another angel appears, with a sharp sickle — He gathers the vine of the earth, and casts it into the winepress of wrath — The wine- press is trodden without the city ib. This vision coincides with the treading of the wine-press at Arma- geddon, and with certain passages in Isaiah and Joel ib. Recapitulation of the foregoing review of the fourteenth chapter of the Apocalypse 2v^9 CHAPTER XVII. THE VISION OF SEVEN ANGELS WITH THE SEVEN VIALS OF WRATH. Apocalyptic description of this scene 291 The fifteenth chapter of the Apocalypse is an introduction to the prophecy of the seven vials, and contains £ome marks, whereby we may fix the proper place of the vials 292 Remarks on the scenery of this vision ib. A practical inference from these remarks 293 Who the harpers in this vision are, and the beautiful fitness of their being introduced as leading the chorus of praise ib. The temple in heaven is opened. This denotes the opening of the holy of holies — Argument hence deduced for the absolute cer- tainty of the conclusion, that the seven vials all belong to the seventh trumpet 294 Observations on the ceremonial and awful import of this vision. . il). The opening of the holy of holies denotes the near approach of the glorious rest of the church 29i But not its actual commencement, which is not till the close of the vials r ib. The return of the church from the wilderness is denoted by the • opening of the holy of holies il). And the entering of men into the holy of holies, coincides with the marriage-supper of the Lamb 29U i Iv CHAPTER XVIII. IHE EFFUSION OF THE VIAI-S. The apocalyptic narrative of their effusion -297 Introductory observations ?99 The Roman empire, secular and spiritual, is the principal sub- ject of these vials ib. The sixth vial, which is poured on the Euphrates, is applied by our most respectable expositors to the destruction of the Otto- man empire — this application acquiesced in ib. The seventh trumpet having sounded in 1792, the effusion of the vials also then began ib. The consequent difficulty of interpreting the vials, from their being only in part accomplished 300 The whole vials are poured out on Ihe earth — which is a symbol, denoting the Roman empire, and including Turkey. — This earth is an hieroglyphical universe, and it represents the Ro- man empire as it existed in 1 792 ib. Reason for the opinion that all the seven vials began to be poured out at the same time, and that they are synchronical in all their extent ib. The first vial is poured out on the dry land, and is followed by a noisome sore upon the men who have the mark of the beast, and who worship his image ib. A sore, in the language of symbols, denotes a grievous moral disorder 30 1 The sore of this vial signifies the principles of atheism, of anar- chy and insubordination, into which the nations of Europe so fearfully drank at the French Revolution 302 Further observations on the consequences of these principles... . ib. An objection stated to the foregoing exposition, and answered. . . S0.'3 These principles have been the germ of all the calamities of Europe under the third woe, hence the propriety of the vial which developes them being placed first ib. The second vial is poured out on the sea 30 J The collective bodies of symbolical waters, signifies the whole po- pulation of the Roman earth. The symbolical sea therefore, when the empire is in a divided state, must signify the most numerous people of the Roman world, which is the French nation ib. This vial was fulfilled by the revolutionary massacres in that country, and by the slaughter of the French people in the Ivi series of wars, down to the period of the dethronement of Bonaparte 304 rhe third vial is poured out upon the rivers, and fountains of water 305 This symbol denotes the other nations of Europe, which have all drank deeply of the cup of blood put into their hands by the third angel ib. The fourth vial was poured out on the sun ib. The sun in a divided empire, symbolizes the government of the principal state. This vial denotes therefore, the oppressive tyranny of the French revolutionary government, which in every stage of its existence has tormented the men of the Roman earth - il). The indirect influence of this tyranny, has been felt in every corner of Europe 30G The prophecy is evidently fulfilling, that the men, who in conse- quence of this vial were scorched with great heat, blasphemed God, and repented not to give him glory 307 This is evinced in the actual moral condition of Continental and especially Catholic Europe ib. Remarks on the state of our own country, as connected with this vial ib. The fifth vial is poured out on the seat or throne of the beast . . .SOU This symbol denotes the power and councils of the head of the beast 310 In the year 1792, the Austrian sovereign was the head of the beast ib. The effects of this vial on the Austrian throne until her sovereign resigned the title of emperor of the Romans, in the year 1806 ib. The influence of this vial was next felt by Bonaparte, who occu- pied the throne of the beast after the renunciation of Austria ib. A review of the effects of the vial upon the councils and power of Napoleon Bonaparte, until he was a second time driven from his kingdom, and exiled to St. Helena 311 Reasons for the opinion, that the effects of this vial, are in a measure felt by all the governments of the bestial empire, and their subjects 312 Remarks on the symbolical darkness, which now fills the bestial empire 313 The sixth vial was poured out on the great river Euphrates, and the water thereof was dried up 315 The Euphrates signifies the nation of the Turks, and the drying up of its waters denotes the gradual decay of the Ottoman empire ; ib. Ivii Remarks on the fulfilment of this vial in the rapid decay of the Ottoman power — Its destruction seems to be hastening on by the immediate hand of God 315 Who the kings of the east are that are mentioned in this vial is yet uncertain — It seems probable that the Jews are designed. . 3lC> The seventh angel poured out his vial into the air 317 The seventh vial is the most important of the whole ib. The symbolical air into which it is poured, signifies the political and ecclesiastical constitution of the Roman empire ib. Effects of the vial briefly described in the dreadful political tem- pest and earthquake of the French revolution, and its conse- quences, till the late pacification of Europe 318 Coincidence between the above interpretation of the hiero- glyphics of this vial, and that given by Vilringa 319 Reference to certain conclusions I arrived at, in considering the sixth seal, and consequence deduced from them, that the ope- rations of the seventh vial are for the present suspended 320 Observations on the tripartite division of the great city, which is probably still future 322 On the fall of the cities of the nations 323 Great Babylon came up in remembrance before God, to give her the cup of wrath 324 Every island fled away and the mountains were not found 325 The hail storm considered 326 The remaining effects of the seventh vial, are contained in chap- ters xvii. xviii. and xix. the greater part of which is yet future 327 Under the seventh vial, the bestial <>mpire will hp niniilded into that political shape, which shall prepare it for its last blas- phemous opposition to the Lamb at Armageddon ib. An objection to the last conclusion, stated and answered 328 Arguments to show that the vials are synchronical 330 Some remarks on the marriage of the Lamb predicted in chap- ter xix 334 A short view of the events, which the prophecies of the Old and New Testament lead us to expect, before the consummation of the vials ib. The first of these events, is the conversion and restoration of the Jews ib. Two passages cited to prove the restoration of the Jews to Pales- tine, the first in Deuter. xxx. I — 7 ; the second in Jerem. xxxii. 37—42 335 The restoration predicted in these passages cannot be the partial e Iviii one, which succeeded the captivity at Babylon, but is evidently future 336 Three arguments to prove that the restoration of the Jews is to take place during the vials ib. Argument to show that though the conversion of the Jews will begin before their restoration, it will not be completed till after that event — nor until the second advent of our Lord, at the close of the vials 337 Passage cited from Joel in confirmation of the above conclusions 338 General inferences from what has been said 330 During the remaining period of the vials, the conversion of the Jews will proceed with accelerated velocity, and their restora- tion will be effected — The Roman empire will assume that shape which is to prepare it for the last confederacy ; the elect 1 44,000 will be completed: Babylon will fall, and also the Ottoman empire, and the confederacy of nations will be assembled at Armageddon ib. In this awful period the Word of Jehovah will be revealed from heaven in flaming fire — the elect of God will be gathered to the marriage-supper of the Lamb, and the final judgments will be let loose 340 Several passages cited from the Scriptures, which are descriptive of the closing period of the vials ib- 1st, Rev. xiv. 19,20, — Remarks on this passage 341 2nd, Jeremiah XXV. 15, 16. and 97—38 ib. Srd, Isaiah xxxiv. 1—8 343 Rem.irks on the awful «l«»errip*inn rnnl-Ainpd in this prophecy S44 4th, Dan. ii. 34, 35 — Observations on this passage 345 Creneral inferences, deduced from the whole of the foregoing passages, respecting the nature of the events which are ap- proaching ,.. ib - The righteous shall be saved in this awful period 347 Observations on the prospects of our own highly favoured nation ib. Remarks on the harmony between the foregoing conclusions, and the past analogies of the Divine administration 350 The second causes by which the approaching desolations are pro- bably to be effected, have long been in active operation 351 Remarks on the progress of un sanctified knowledge 352 Bishop Horsley's remarks on the 46th Psalm, quoted in confir- mation of the foregoing reasoning «b. Observations on the near approach of the day of the Lord 353 lix CHAPTER XIX. FRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORL» IN CONNECTION WITH PROPHECY. Remarks on the extraordinary aspect of the present times 355 The events of the period in which we live, call on us to sit loose to temporal things ib. There is now no safety, either for individuals or communities, but in repentance and faith in the Son of God 356 To this highly favoured country, the voice of these divine judg- ments is still the voice of mercy 357 The nature of the repentance required by Christianity 358 Concluding observations 359 DISSERTATION, CHAPTER I. THE FIRST FIVE SEALS. THE sixth chapter of the Apocalypse contains an account of the opening of six of the seals of the book, which had been exhibited to the eyes of the apostle John in the preceding chapter. The first four seals shew to us the same number of hiero- glyphics, each of which is sufficiently distinguished from the rest, by its appropriate characters, to mark that they all relate to dififerent events : but yet, as all the four hieroglyphics are evidently homogeneous, or of the same kind, they must, according to the just principles of interpretation, be applied to ob- jects of the same nature. Most interpreters have lost sight of this prin- ciple in expounding the prophecy of the seals : for while there is a pretty general agreement among them, in referring the first seal to the victorious progress of pure Christianity, in the primitive age of the church, they usually apply /he three fol- lowing seals to the history of the Roman empire. But if the first seal relate to the church, the next three being homogeneous with it^ must also be applied to the history of the church. Bishop Newton has indeed avoided the common error of violating the principle of homogeneity,, in expounding the vision of the first four seals ; and this he does by applying the first seal to the history of the Roman empire during the reigns of Vespa- sian, Titus, Domitian^ and Nerva ; and the other three to the state of the empire in the subsequent period, down to the accession of Diocletian. But it may be here observed, as will be afterwards more fully shown, that there is nothing in the symbols which can justify this interpretation, since they are of a nature to be applied only to the church and things spiritual. Archdeacon Woodhouse, in his learned work on the Apocalypse, seems to be the first writer who has adopted an uniform and consistent interpretation of that part of the prophecies of this book, which we are now about to consider. And as 1 have fol- lowed his scheme in its great outlines, in inter- preting the first six seals, I think it right to set out by acknowledging my great obligations to him. 1 may add, that till I saw his work 1 rested in the commonly received interpretation of the above seals, the inconsistency of which has been so clearly pointed out by the learned Archdeacon. Having made these general remarks, I now pro- ceed to consider more particularly the prophecy of these seals. 3 . THE FIRST SEAL. The symbol or hierooiyphic exhibited under this seal is a white horse with a rider, having* a bow : *' A crown was given him, and he went forth *' conquering, and to conquer." * The horse, in the prophetical writings, seems to be the emblem of victory and dominion. The white colour of this horse denotes that the conquests of his rider shall be of a pure and holy nature, white being every where used as symbolical of true holiness. Thus in Daniel xi. 15. '' to purge and to make them "^ white;" and in Revel, iii. 4. ''they shall walk *' with me in white, for they are worthy." A bow is the well known instrument for discharafinff arrows ; and from Psalm xlv. 5. we learn that the wounds inflicted by arrows, are emblematical of the spiritual conquests of the Messiah. The crown with which the rider on the white horse is invented, denotes royal authority and conquest. The whole hieroglyphic represents to us the triumphant pro; gress of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the first and purest age of the church, comprehending the greater part of the first three centuries Those interpreters who iiave adopted this ex- planation of the first seal, have generally supposed that the rider on the white horse is our Lord him- self, but this opinion seems to me to be inaccurate ; for, if we suppose the rider in the first seal to be a real personage, we must, according to the prin- ciples of homogeneity and analogy, understand the riders in the three following seals, to denote likewise * Rev. y'u 2. ii2 real personages. But we shall not find it easy to fix upon any real characters in history ^ answering to the description of the riders in the second, third, or fourth seals. We seem, therefore, to be irre- sistibly driven to the conclusion, that these riders are hieroglyphical representations of things future ; and in order to preserve that consistency of inter- pretation which is necessary to lead us to the suc- cessful elucidation of this mysterious book, we must also, 1 think, conclude, that the character, exhibited to us in the first seal, is, like those of the subsequent visions, wholly hieroglyphical ; and we are thus obliged to reject the idea that the rider on the white horse is the Messiah in person.* There is, indeed, a rider upon a white horse in a subsequent part of this book, who is not a sym- bolical, but a real personage, f But it is observ- able, that it is there expressly declared who the horseman is, in order that we may fall into no mistakes respecting it ; and 1 see no sufficient reason for the conclusion which has been drawn by many writers, from some circumstances of simi- larity, between the two riders, Ihat they are one and the same. * Archdeacon Woodhouse seems to l)e sensible that the rider on the white horse cannot, with certainty, be pronounced to be the Son of God. — " We are not yet warranted,'' says the learned writer, •» to " say that this horseman is the Son of God." Again, " The progress " of the white horse seems to he rather that of the Christian religion " in its primitive purity, from the time that its divine founder left it " on earth under the conduct of the apostles." On the Apocalypse, page 131. + Rev. XIX. 11. THE SECOND SEAL. On the opening of the second seal, an hiero- glyphical representation of a most significant nature presented itself to the eyes of the apostle : '^ There went out another horse, red, (or fire- " coloured) and it was given to him that sat '' thereon to take peace from the earth, and that *' they should kill one another ; and there was given *' unto him a great sword." * Fire and a sword are both emblems of discord or dissension, as we may learn from our Lord's expressions in Luke xii. 49. and Matthew x. 34. 36. In the former of these passages our Saviour says, " I am come to send fire on the earth, and " what will I if it be already kindled." In the pas- sage last mentioned his words are, " Think not " that I am come to send peace on earth ; I '' came not to send peace, but a sword. For I " am come to set a man at variance against his '■ father, and the daughter against her mother, " and the daughter in law, against her mother in 'Maw; and a man's foes shall be they of his own " household." From the whole of this passage of Matthew, and also by comparing the quotation from Luke with the context, it will be sufficiently evident to the attentive reader, that the j^re and sword, which our Lord came to send on the earth, signify those fierce animosities and disputes, which his gospel, peaceable and heavenly as it is in itself, would, through (he wickedness of mankind, and their opposition to the * Rev. vi. 4. 6 truth, be instrumental in kindling. The fiery colour of the second horse, when joined to the description of the office of his rider^, and of the dreadful weapon with which he was armed, indicate to us, that after the first and purest age of Christianity, the spirit of love and peace should recede from the visible church, and be succeeded by a spirit of discord, of dissension and controversy, a fierce and fiery zeal, instigating Christians to destroy one another. The ecclesiastical history of the fourth and fifth centuries^ sufficiently evinces, that such a change did take place, in the general features of character, which distinoMiished the Christian church. The schism of the Donatists and the Arian controversy, filled the Roman empire, with the most dreadful and destructive animosities. So much had the Christians of that age imbibed this spirit, that even the disputes occasioned by the election of a bishop in the see of Rome became, in the latter part of the fourth cen- tury, the source of a dangerous schism, and a civil war in the city of Rome, which was carried on with the utmost barbarity and fury, and produced the most cruel massacres and desolations.* The historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in summing up the history of the ecclesiastical divisions between the years 312 and 361, uses the following words : *' The simple nar- '' rative of the intestine divisions which distracted " the peace and dishonoured the triumph of the " church, will confirm the remark of a pagan histo- " rian, and justify the complaint of a venerable '* bishop. The experience of Ammianus had con- * Mosheim, Cent. IV. part ii. chap. 2. " vinced him, that the enmity of the Christians " towards each other surpassed the fury of savage " beasts against man ; and Gregory Nazianzen "■ most pathetically laments that the kingdom of " heaven was converted by discord into the image of " chaos, of a nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself."* In how striking a manner does the foregoing de- scription mark the fulfilment of the vision of the second seal ! and what a strong proof is here af- forded of the depravity and wickedness of human nature, that the pure and heavenly doctrine of the gospel, should be so perverted, within the short space of three centuries, as to become the occasion of such enormities ! THE THIRD SEAL, On the opening of the third seal the beloved apostle beheld " a black horse, and he that sat on *' him having a yoke (^^yoy) in his hand : And I '' heard a voice in the midst of the four living " creatures say, a chaenix of wheat for a penny, and *' three chaenices of barley for a penny, and see *' thou injure not the wine and the oil."f To Archdeacon Woodhouse belongs the merit of having pointed out, the erroneousness of the translation of the word ^vyos, in our authorised version. The proper and primary meaning of this word is, as the Archdeacon justly remarks, " a yoke," and it is only in a borrowed or secondary sense that it can be taken to signify " a balance." J The black colour of the horse under this seal is * Gibbon, chap. xxi. t Rev. vi. 5, 6. + Woodhouse on the Apocalypse, p. 143-4. See also Parkhurst'9 Greek Lexicon, on the word Zvyos. emblematical of darkness and ignorance. The yoke in the hand of his rider, is a symbol denoting the imposition of an oppressive bnrthen of rites, ceremonies, and human ordinances on the disciples of Christ, and the teaching for doctrines the com- mandments of men. The word ^yyor is frequently used in this sense in the New Testament. In reference to the attempt made to impose the observ- ance of the law of Moses on the Gentile converts, we find the Apostle Peter, in Acts xv. 10. thus expressing himself: " Why tempt ye God to put a " yoke on the necks of the disciples, which neither " our fathers nor we were able to bear ?" St. Paul also exhorts the Galatians, v. 1 : "^ Stand fast there- " fore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us " free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of " bondage :" meaning by this yoke, as is plain from the context, the imposition of the rite of circumcision and observance of the Mosaical law. The chaenix of wheat was a measure containing as much as to supply a slender allowance for the daily food of a man ; and the denarius, or penny, was the daily pay of a labouring man.* But as the labouring man has to provide himself with many other things besides bread, it must be accounted a period of great scarcity when his whole daily wages are required to purchase a slender portion of food. Sixteen or twenty chaenices of wheat were sold for the denarius, or penny, in plentiful times ; and when only one cha3nix could be had for that price, there must have been a great scarcity, or rather a famine. The voice from the midst of the * See Archdeacon Woodhouse in loco, from whom the whole of this exposition is adopted. living creatures in this seal, that a chsenix of wheal should be had for a penny, and three chaenices of barley for a penny, is therefore indicative of severe scarcity or famine; and as the prophecies of the seals relate not to temporal, but to spiritual things, the famine which is here predicted is doubt- less a famine or scarcity of the word of God, such as is mentioned in the book of Samuel : " And the '^ word of the Lord was precious (or rare) in those " days ; there was no open vision :"* and by the prophet Amos, " Behold the days come, saith the " Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land ; *' not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but *' of hearing the words of the Lord : And they shall '■' wander from sea to sea, and from the north even '' to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the " word of the Lord, and shall not find it."f But the voice adds these remarkable words : '^ See " thou hurt not the wine and the oil." By wine and o\\, we are probably to understand, those com- forting and sanctifying influences of the Spirit of God, which are imparted only to true believers., while the word and ordinances, are dispensed to ail, within the pale of the visible church, whether they be nominal professors or real disciples. The pro- hibition to injure the wine and oil signifies, therefore^ that even in the midst of the spiritual famine of the word and ordinances of God, which should pecu- liarly distinguish the period of this seal, those who truly feared God, should still have an abundant share of the comforting, and sanctifying, and illu- minating influences of the Holy Ghost, to support * 1 Sam. iii. 1. ''' Amos viii. 11, IS. 10 them under eveiy discouraging' and trying circum- stance. The above prohibition is analogous to the triumphant declaration of the apostle Paul, that " neither death nor life, nor angels, nor princi- " palities, nor powers, nor things present, nor " things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any " other creature, shall be able to separate us from *' the love of God \yhich is in Christ Jesus our '' Lord."* To recapitulate the contents of this seal: The black colour of the horse, the yoke with which his rider was armed, the proclamation from the midst of the living creatures, that a chaenix of wheat should be sold for a penny, and three chaenices of barley for a penny, and the prohibition to hurt the oil and wine, unite in pointing out to us a period, when the grossest darkness and ignorance, should overspread the visible church ; when a bur- thensome yoke of rites and ceremonies, and like- wise of unscriptural articles of faith, should be imposed upon the necks and consciences of men ; when there should be a great want and a famine of the preaching and ordinances of the true gos- pel in the church : but when notwithstanding this complicated train of evils, the consolations of the Spirit, his enlightening influences compared to oil,f and his gladdening and comforting influences likened to wine,J^ should not be withheld from those, who in the midst of surrounding darkness and superstition, truly set their hearts to seek God. This prophecy was accomplished in the rise and * Rom. viii. 38, 39. > 1 John ii. 20. 27. % Zechariah x. 7. Ephes. v. 18. 11 f prevalence of the papal power. Even as early as the fifth century, ignorance and superstition had made much progress in obscuring the pure light of the gospel ; * and these evils gradually increased till they ended in almost banishing that light from the Christian world. The period during which they prevailed has been emphatically called the dark ages, and the spiritual bondage under which mankind then groaned, is known by the significant appellation of the papal yoke. During these ages of ignorance and superstition, the Scriptures were hidden from the eyes of the people; the worship of the Virgin Mary, of saints and their images, and of the bones of dead men, were substituted for the service of God and of Christ. A burthensome yoke of rites and ceremonies, of mortifications, penances, and celibacy, was imposed on men. Yet in the midst of this darkness an obscure ray of light sometimes illumined the spiritual horizon : a few faithful and enlightened men in every age were raised up by Divine Providence to bear testimony against the universal corruption, f to whom were vouchsafed the influences of the Spirit, the wine and oil, in rich abundance. This light burst forth with increased and inextinguishable splendour at the era of the Reformation, and seems, in the present eventful period, to be extending its benign in- fluence to those parts of the world hitherto unblest with tlje knowledge of Revelation. Thus has the command not to hurt the wine and oil, received its accomplishment in every period of the church. * Mosheim, Cent. V. part ii. chap. 4. + See Milner's History of the Church of Christ, passim. 12 THE FOURTH SEAL. " I BEHELD, and lo ! a pale livid green horse, and '* his name that sat upon him was Death, and Hell '* followed with him : and power was given unto " them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill " with the sword, and with hunger, and with " death, and with the beasts of the earth."* The word used to express the colour of the horse under this seal, which is rendered " pale" in our authorised translation, signifies, as Archdeficon Woodhouse remarks, a grassy-green hue, which, though beautiful in the clothing of the trees and fields, is very unseemly, disgusting, and even hor- rible when it appears upon flesh; it is there the livid colour of corruption. This pale livid green colour of this horse is em- blematical of a state of things even more dreadful than that of the preceding seal. The character of his rider corresponds with this idea; his name is called death, the king of terrors. He is followed by Hell, not the place of punishment for the wicked, but the general receptacle of departed souls, which is the usual meaning of the word aj^r, and in which sense it is used in that article of the apostles' creed regarding the descent of our Lord into hell. — Hell and Death are here personified. The whole assemblage of' figures constitutes an hieroglyphical representation, of the most horrible and terrific nature, and points out to us a period when the rulers of the visible church should seem to lose the character of men, and to assume that of ♦ Rev. Vi. 7, 8. 1^ malignant demons and savage beasts, and should extirpate, by fire and sword, all who dared to prefer death to the sacrifice of a good conscience. This seal evidently represents the state of the church during those ages, when the flames of persecution were kindled by the papal power, to destroy all who refused obedience to its tyrannical authority, and who pretended to judge for themselves in matters of religion. Early in the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III. addressed himself to Philip Augustus, King of France, and to the leading men of that nation, soliciting them, by the alluring promises of the most ample indulgences, to extirpate ail heretics by fire and sword. Shortly afterwards a crusade was proclaimed in the name of the pope, against the heretics throughout the kingdom of France. An army of cross-bearers took the field against the Albigenses, and commenced a war, which was carried on with the utmost cruelty, and ended in the subjection or extirpation of that religious body in the southern provinces of France. About this time also the dreadful tribunal of the inquisition was instituted, which, in the thirteenth and following centuries, subdued a prodigious number of those who were called heretics, part of whom were con- verted to the church by terror, and the rest com- mitted to the flames.* The persecutions of the church of Rome against the servants of Christ continued, with unabated fury, down to the period of the revocation of the edict of Nantz, in every part of Europe where the secular powers consented to be made subservient to * Mosheim, Cent. XIII. part ii. chap. 5. 14 this dreadful tyranny. It is computed, that in the war against the Albigenscs and Waldenses, in the fourteenth century, a million of men were destroyed. From the beginning of the order of the Jesuits to the year 1580, it is said that nine hundred thou- sand men perished. One hundred and fifty thou- sand were destroyed by the inquisition in thirty years.* The ferocious Duke of Alva is reported to have boasied, that during his government of the Netherlands, in the short space of five years and a half, upwards of eighteen thousand heretics had suffered by the hand of the public executioner, besides a much greater number whom he had put to the sword in the towns he had taken, and in the field of battle. f At the memorable massacre of St. Bartholomew, several thousands of protestants were destroyed at Paris, in the space of three or four days, by all the varieties of cruel deaths that the most unbounded malice could invent. The same scenes were acted in other cities of France, so that in the space of two months, thirty thousand pro- testants were butchered in cold blood. J During the dreadful persecution in France, in the reign of Lewis XIV. five hundred thousand protestants were driven into banishment, in the space of a few years, and the prisons and galleys were filled with those, who were stopped in their flight. About four hundred thousand still remained in the kingdom. They were compelled to go to mass and commu- nicate. Some, who rejected the host after having * Mede, Comment. Apocalyptic, ad cap. xiii. + Watson's Reign of Philip II. vol. i- p. 392. X Modern Universal History, vol. xxiv. p. 273. 15 received it, were condemned to be burnt alive.* Such of the protestant ministers as returned to the kingdom, after having quitted it, were condemned to the gallows or to the rack.f Thus did the rulers of the visible church assume the character of Death, accompanied by Hell, or Hades ; and in this manner was the symbolical im- port of the cadaverous and putrid colour of the horse under the fourth seal fulfilled, in the cruel and bloody persecutions which desolated the Christian world during the space of four centuries. THE FIFTH SEAL. " I saw under the altar the souls of them that " were slain for the word of God, and for the testi- '' mony which they held ; and they cried with a loud " voice, saying. How long, O Lord, holy and true, " dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them *' that dwell on the earth ? And white robes were " given unto every one of them, and it was said " unto them, that they should rest yet for a little " season, until their fellow-servants also, and their * Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. + Voltaire, in giving an account of these dreadful scenes of cruelty, makes the following striking remark : " Cetait un etrange contraste. " que du sein d'une cour voluplueuse, oii regnaient la douceur de " moeurs, les graces, les charmes de la societe, il partil des ordres si " durs et iinpitoyables." He afterwards quotes the following passage from the letters of the Marquis de Louvois, the minister of Lewis: " Sa majeste veut quon fasse eprouver les dernieres rigueurs a ccux " qui ne voudront pas se faire de sa religion; et ceux qui auront la " sotle gloire de vouloir deraeurer les derniers, doivent etre pousses •' jusqu'a la derniere extremite." Vide Siecle de Louis XIV. 16 '* brethren that should be killed, as they were, '' should be fulfilled."* The language of this seal, as well as of the pre- ceding ones, must be considered as hieroglyphical. The souls of those slain for their adherence to the faith of Christ, are seen lying under the altar of burnt offerings, and crying for vengeance against their persecutors. This emblem is explanatory of the nature of the slaughter perpetrated under the preceding seals, and particularly the fourth, and it shews that the true Church of God was the peculiar object, against which Death and Hades in that seal had directed their dreadful instruments of destruc- tion. It therefore confirms the application of that seal and all the prior ones to the history of the Church, and strengthens the arguments by which I have endeavoured to prove that they have no relation to the secular affairs of the Roman empire. The foregoing emblem displays to us, in the next place, the consequences of the persecutions under the former seals. It seems descriptive of the aspect of the Church immediately before the dawn of the Reformation. About the commencement of the fifteenth century, history represents the Roman Pontiffs as having slumbered in a state of perfect tranquillity, entirely unconscious of the storm that was approaching. The Albigenses and Waldenses had been almost extirpated. The feeble remnants of these intrepid witnesses for the Gospel of Jesus Christ were reduced to total silence; and the Roman See appeared to reign in undisturbed and uncontroulable sovereignty over the Christian * Rev. vi. 9-- 11. 17 world.* To such a state of things the hierogly- phical represent'rition with which the seal opens seems appropriately to belong. — It represented to the view of the Apostle John, the souls of the slain martyrs as being at that time the most prominent object ; all as it were that remained visible (o his eyes of the Church of Christ. The whole scene bore the stillness of death, interrupted only by the loud cries of the slaughtered saints. To these slain witnesses white robes were given, which are emblematical of innocence, purity^ and justification, through Christ. They were told also to rest yet a little season, till their fellow servants also and their brethren, which should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. This 1 conceive to be a continuation of the symbolical representation. It seems to place before us ihat improved condition of the Church which was the consequence of the Reformation, when the Protestants in a considerable part of Europe obtained not only a complete tole- ration, but were acknowledged as a religious body ; and in England, Scotland, and other countries, gained even a more signal victory over the Romish Church. But yet it is intimated that this state, how- ever improved, was one of hope and expectation, rather than of joy. The cause of the Church was yet unavenged. The promises of her future glory remained unaccomplished, and it was therefore ne- cessary that the servants of God should arm them- selves with the faith and patience of the saints, during the remaining period of trial allotted to them * Mosheim, Cent. XVI. Hist, of Reformation, chap. i. Milner's Hist, of the Church, Cent. XVI. chap. i. C 18 before the triumphant reign of their Lord. The second part of this seal thus explained seems to fill up the interval between the Reformation and the Sixth Seal and Seventh Trumpet, when the cries of the martyred saints are completely answered, and the overwhelming judgments of God are poured forth on their enemies.* * The learned Vitiinga gives an explanation of this seal very similar to the above. 19 CHAPTER 11. THE SIXTH SEAL '* And I beheld, when he had opened the sixth " seal ; and lo there was a great earthquake, and '' the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and " the moon became as blood ; and the stars of " heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree " casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a " mighty wind : and the heavens departed as a scroll '' when it is rolled together ; and every mountain *' and island were moved out of their places : and " the kings of the earth, and the great men, and " the rich men, and the chief captains, and the ^' mighty men, and every bondman, and every free- '' man hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks *' of the mountains , and said to the mountains, " Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that " sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the " Lamb : for the great day of his wrath is come, '' and who shall be able to stand ?"* In the hieroglyphical language of prophecy, the natural universe is used as a symbol of the political world ; hence it follows, that a great earthquake denotes a mighty revolution in the world politic. The sun and moon, being the symbols of the so- vereign or imperial power, their obscuration, the sun becoming black as a sackcloth of hair, and the moon becoming as blood, signify the extinction of the imperial power, or its ceasing to exert a benefi- * Rev. Ti. 12— n. c2 20 cial influence on the affairs of men,* The stars denote sovereign princes^ subordinate to the impe- rial power, or else nobles and great men.f Their falling' to the ground^ like the unripe fruit of a fig- tree when shaken by a mighty wind, signifies the dethroning of the sovereigns of states, and the de- gradation of their princes and nobles, by means of sudden and violent political convulsions. The hea- ven or firmament, in the natural world, is the me- dium through which the sun, moon, and stars, com- municate to us their heat, and light, and influences. Consequently the symbolical heaven must be that in the world politic, through which the symbolical sun and other luminaries act upon us ; i. e, the political constitutions and governments of the empires and kingdoms of the world. The passing away of the heaven, therefore, denotes the utter subversion and destruction of the political and ecclesiastical consti- tution of the empire, which is the subject of the prophecy. Mountains and islands denote kingdoms and states. When it is said that the mountains and islands are moved out of their places, it denotes the subversion and removal of the kingdoms and states of the world, politic. The rest of the language of this remarkable passage is so literal as to require little illustration. It is descriptive of the dreadful consternation which shall overwhelm the princes and rulers of the world, during the progress of the ter- rific convulsions of this seal ; and it shews that they shall at length be forced to yield to the conviction of * Faher on the 1260 years, vol. i. chap. 2. + See, in illustration of the symbolical language, Jacob's inter- pretation of Joseph's dream, Gen. xxxvii. 9, 10. 21. the approach of that awful day of visitation of the wrath of God, of which we so often read in the pro- phetical scriptures. In the prophecy of Joel we are informed, that ^' the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the '' moon into blood, before the ^reat and terrible ,j " day of the Lord come."* Our Lord, in his re- f* . z markable discourse upon the destruction of the temple, and the signs of his second advent in the clouds of heaven, predicts these signs in the fol- lowing language, " Immediately after the tribu- '' lation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and " the moon shall not give her light, and the stars " shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the " heaven shall be shaken : and then shall ap- " pear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven : '' and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, *' and they shall sec the Son of Man coming in the " clouds of heaven with power and great glory." f The language of Mark is nearly similar. Luke somewhat varies the description, and connects, in a chronological manner, the signs in the heavens, which go before our Lord's second advent, with the preceding parts of the prophecy. " 'Tf'hey (the " Jews) shall fall by the edge of the sword, and " shall be led away captive into all nations : and *' Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, " until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And '* there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, '' and in the stars ; and upon the earth distress of " nations, with perplexity ; the sea and the waves " rearing; men's hearts failing them for fear, and *Joelii. 31. t Matt. xxiv. 29, so. 22 *' for looking after those things which are coming '' on the earth : for the powers of heaven shall be " shaken. And then shall they see the Son of " Man coming in a cloud, with power and great '* glory. And when these things begin to come to *' pass, then look up, and lift up your heads, for "your redemption draweth nigh."* Luke here tells us^ not only that these signs in the symbolical heavens shall occur previously to the second advent of Christ, but also that they are to happen pre- cisely at the period when " the times of the Gentiles *' are fulfilled." The meaning of this expression will be investigated in a subsequent part of this work. The passages quoted from Joel and the Evan- gelistSj are so exactly similar in their import and form of expression, that there is little reason to doubt that they refer to the same events ; and it is apparent that they describe a dreadful series of political revolutions, which shall convulse the nations of the world before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, the day of the second advent. And if we carefully compare the language in which the earthquake, and celestial signs of the sixth seal are described, with what is written, as above, in the prophecy of Joel and the Evangelists, we shall see so near an agreement, as cannot but lead us to think that all these inspired writers, in the passages which have been cited, describe the same catastrophe ; and, consequently, that the earthquake of the sixth seal relates also to the great revolution which is to take place in the last ages. But, as it has v#ry * Luke xxi. 24—38. 23 incongruously been supposed by Mede, Bishop Newton^ and the great body of modern commen- tators, that this seal was fulfilled by the change which took place in the established religion and govern- ment of the Roman empire, in the time of Constan- tine, it may be necessary to make some remarks, by way of refutation of this commonly received in- terpretation. The hieroglyphics of the sixth seal, are of too august a nature to be applied to the events which happened on the accession of Constantine. It is said, ** And lo there was a great earthquake, and the " sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the " moon became as blood." These symbols indicate a mighty revolution, including in it the complete extinction or obscuration of the imperial dignity. It is true that, in the person of Constantine, the imperial dignity of Rome, passed from the Heathen emperors, to a new line professing the Christian faith. But that dignity itself was neither ex- tinguished nor obscured by this event : on the con- trary, it shone forth with increased splendour, after the defeat and death of the rivals of Constantine. Momentous in its consequences, therefore, as the above change confessedly was, it yet seems incon- sistent with the just rules of interpretation, to apply to it a symbolical description, which denotes the complete subversion of the supreme power in the empire which is the subject of the prophecy.* ♦ I shall afterwards endeavour to shew, that the revolutioa in the reign of Constantine, was signified by the earthquake in Rev. viii. 5, and by the fall of the sixth head of the beast and rise of the seventh, xvii. 10. 24 It is next said, " And the stars of heaven fell unto " the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely " figs when shaken of a mighty wind." This symbol is equally inapplicable to the events of the above period. The rivals of Constant! ne, who were defeated and dethroned by him, were sharers in the imperial power. Now this power, though administered by more than one person, was, by the constitution of the empire, always considered as one and undivided ; it must therefore be represented by the sun, and not by the subordinate symbol of stars. The fall of the stars from heaven to the earth, could not therefore denote the fall of the Heathen emperors, and seems to be more filly appli- cable to some revolution in the Roman empire, at a period when there is in it, not only one supreme imperial dignity, but an indefinite number of regal powers, sharing among them the territories of the empire ; recognizing indeed the superior lustre of the emperor, but exercising within their own territories all the rights of independent sovereignty. Such was the political form of the western empire before the French revolution : but that form no longer exists. The stars which then shone in the heavens politic have disappeared : they have been cast down from their orbits by sudden and awful violence ; even as the fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.* • since this was written another mighty alteration has been effected in the state of Europe. The fabric of the revolutionary governments on the Continent has been overthrown, and a new arrangement effected, partly on the ancient and partly on a new basis, which has been produced by the changes of the revolution. I see, however, no good reason to retract what I advanced in my first edition on th^ 25 The same reasoning' may be applied to shoW;, that the remaining symbols of the sixth seal cannot, any more than those which have been considered, be referred to the revolution in the time of Constan- tine. The heaven, or political constitution and government of the Roman empire, did not then pass away, nor did the mountains and islands, the kingdoms and states, remove from their places. In fact, there were at that time no independent king- doms and states within the limits of the empire; it formed one undivided kingdom or mountain. I am happy to have it in my power to support the above reasoning by the authority of Vitringa, whose arguments on the subject are accurately abridged as follows by the author of the Illustrations of Prophecy : "In the time of Constantine, the civil " government was not overturned. It is true," says Vitringa, " some emperors were divested of their " power. But in this there was nothing new or '' singular. The same rank and the same title ^' which Constantine had wrested from his rivals, he " himself continued to retain. ' The imagery of '' the sixth seal exhibits to us the change and sub- '* version of the state of some empire, which should *' be accomplished with a sudden shaking and the '' most violent commotion.' But the alterations in- " troduced by Constantine, were executed in a '' period of profound peace ; and there was nothing " in them that corresponded to the figures of the subject. The present stale of Europe seems to lue to resemble an edifice, hastily built with loose stones, \?ithout mortar or cement I still believe that we are iu the midst of the last ^reat earthquake. February, 1817. 26 " prophet. In the subversion of paganism the " Christian emperor did/' says Vitringa, '' proceed '' with moderation and with caution. Many of its " temples and its shrines continued untouched ; the *^ art of divination was still publicly practised ; their " estates, their salaries, their privileges, still remained " in the hands of the vestals, and the priests, and the *' hierophants, in the greater cities, and especially '' at Rome, where an altar stood to the honour of " the goddess Victory. Public sacrifices were per- " mitted ; and a large proportion of the Roman *' senate, many years after the time of Constantine, " continued in the belief, and persevered in the pa- " tronage, of the heathen superstitions. Do these, '' and other things which 1 omit, answer to the " imagery of the sixth seal ? Whilst men addicted " to the idolatry of paganism were every where *' promoted to the highest dignities of the state, at '' a time when Christian emperors held the reins of ^^ government ; had they any necessity to say to the " mountains and to the rocks. Fall on us, and hide '' us from the wrath of the Lamb ? Was paganism " subverted with violence and a mighty commotion, " when, long after the time of Constantine, it sub- " sisted and flourished in the principal cities of the " empire ? " In further confirmation of the arguments of Vi- tringa, it may be mentioned, that the seven first Christian emperors continued to accept, without hesitation, the title, the ensigns, and prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff of the pagan rites, which had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus.* * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, cap. xxi. 27 The foregoing reasoning seems sufficiently to refute the common interpretation of the sixth seal ; and the whole imagery of it shows, when com- pared with various other passages of the prophetical writers, particularly those above quoted from Joel and the Evangelists,* that it relates to that great and final revolution which is to agitate and convulse the nations of Christendom before the second ad- vent of our Lord with the clouds of heaven. Indeed no other application of this seal, will either cor- respond with its sublime and terrific imagery, or its place in the chronology of the Apocalypse ; for we have seen, that the fourth seal leads us down to the period of the great persecutions by the papal power, and that the fifth seal contains the promise of a day of retribution for the blood of the saints, when the number of those who were to die as mar- tyrs for the faith should be completed. Having read this promise, when we afterwards peruse the account of the sixth seal, it is quite natural to apply it to the promised day of recompence, but altogether forced and unnatural to turn back to the times of Constan- tine for its accomplishment. Indeed, in what pos- sible sense can it be said, that the number of the martyrs was completed in the times of Constantine, when the greatest and most bloody persecutions of the faithful disciples of Christ did not take place till about eight centuries afterwards ? The sixth seal must therefore be applied to that main revolution, as it is termed by Sir Isaac Newton, * See also Isaiah xxxiv. 4 — 8 ; which evidently refers to the de- struction of the anti-christian powers, and Iq Trhlch the same language is used as in the sixth seal, 28 which is immediately to precede the establishment of the glorious kingdom of Christ upon earth. This revolution is predicted by the prophet Daniel, under the symbol of the coming of the Ancient of Days, and the sitting of the judgment ; the slaying of the fourth beast, and the giving of his body to the burning flame.* These events happen immediately before the coming of the Son of Man, with the clouds of heaven, to receive that glorious kingdom, of which we read so much in the writings of the prophets. The scene of this revolution is therefore to be sought for within the body of the fourth beast, or in those kingdoms which formed the Western Roman Empire. It is the same revolution which is again mentioned in the Apocalypse, on the sounding of the seventh trumpet,f and more particularly de- scribed under the seventh vial,j: between which and the sixth seal there is a most remarkable similarity. The principle of this exposition of the earthquake of the sixth seal is of a very remote antiquity. "'That " it predicted the great events which were to happen " at the destruction of Antichrist, was the opinion of " Victorinus, of Andrew, and of Arethas, whose " commentaries on the Revelation are still extant. '' The first of these filled the episcopal see of Pettaw, '' in Austria, and suffered martyrdom under Diocle- " tian ; the second, about the close of the fifth '' century, was bishop of Csesarea, in Cappadocia ; " and the last is supposed to have been bishop of the '' same see in the succeeding century." § Vitringa thus quotes the sentiments of Arethas : " On con- * Dan. vii. 9— 14. + Rev. xi. 19. + lb. xvi. 17— 'il. ^ IlIustratioDS of Prophecy, chap, xxiii. 29 ►" sidering' this matter, Arethas, after saying' that ^^ some interpreters refer these emblems to the '' overthrow of the Jewish state, excellently observes, " Though it be most true that these things icere so, ''yet they shall he more completely fulfilled at the " coming of Antichrist ; not in the quarter of " Judea only, but in the whole world. This (says Vitringa) he " afterwards confirms by the sym- *' bols of tl>e four winds, which shall in that time " concur to produce this great catastrophe of " things." In like manner, the same learned writer quotes the sentiments of Victorinus, expressed in the following laconic but decisive sentence ; " This "is the last persecution ;" by which he means the persecution of " Antichrist." Now it is well known, that the ancient fathers connected the com- ing of Antichrist with the last times, and imagined, that the second advent of our Lord was to take place ii.miediately after the revelation of Antichrist. Ac- cording to this view, therefore, any event which was placed by them at the coming of Antichrist, was immediately and indissolubly associated, in their minds, with the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Having thus seen, that the commonly received interpretation of the sixth seal is erroneous, and that it refers not to any thing that took place in the time of Constantine, but to the final revolution which is to precede the second advent of our Lord, 1 shall defer the further consideration of the first part of that seal till we arrive at the seventh trumpet, and the seven vials of wrath, in which the revolution of the sixth seal is more particularly described. In the mean while I remark, that it appears to me. 30 that Rev. vi. 12 — 17, and xi. 15 — 19, are com- pletely synchronical. I shall also so far anticipate the discussions which will occupy another part of this volume as^to observe, that I agree with all the later interpreters of prophecy, in thinking that the seventh trumpet sounded at the era of the French revolution. And as I have already endeavoured to show that the earthquake of the sixth seal is the same with that of the seventh trumpet ; it follows as a necessary consequence, that, if these opinions be correct, the sixth seal also commenced at the revo- lution in France, and the earthquake therein men- tioned is to be applied to that revolution. 31 CHAPTER III. THE SIXTH SEAL CONCLUDED. It is manifest that the whole of the seventh chapter of the Apocalypse relates to the period of the sixth seal ; for the opening of the seventh seal does not take place till the beginning of the eighth chapter. The first object to which the attention of the apostle John is directed, on the opening of the sixth seal, is, as we have already seen, a mighty re- volution, which obscures the imperial power in the Roman empire, and fills its territories with blood ; which hurls from their thrones the subordinate regal powers, and annihilates the political and ecclesias- tical constitution, together with the whole fabric of the government, and removes the kingdoms and states of which it is composed, and finally fills the minds of the inhabitants of the empire with dismay and terror, on account of the manifest approach of the great day of the wrath of God. It is a very natural subject of inquiry, what is to become of the church of Christ, the collective body of those who truly fear, and love, and serve God, in the midst of the awful desolations of this seal ? Are they to be overwhelmed in the common destruction, or is it to be with them as with the Christian Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem ; are they to be pre- served from those judgments which overtake the wicked ^ The visions seen in the seventh chapter of the Revelation contain an answer to these questions. '' And after these things I saw four angels standing 32 " on the four corners of the earthy and holding the '' four winds of the earth, that the wind should not " blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. " And I saw another angel ascending from the east '' (the rising of the sun), having the seal of the " living God : and he cried with a loud voice to the *' four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the "earth and the sea, saying. Hurt not the earth, *' neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed " the servants of our God in their foreheads."* The wind, when it rages with unrestrained fury, is an element little less destructive than fire itself. The wind, therefore, is a fit and proper emblem of destruction, or of divine judgments. It is thus used in various passages of scripture. " Upon the wicked " he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an ^' horrible tempest. "f '' Behold, the whirlwind of " the Lord goeth forth with fury ; a consuming " whirlwind : It shall fall with pain upon the head of " the wicked. "+ In the order of the narrative this vision follows the earthquake of the sixth seal, and we may hence infer, that the earthquake begins before the holding of the winds by the four angels. But, on the other hand, we learn from Rev. vi. 17. that the earth- quake reaches to the great day of the Lord ; and as it seems evident that the sealing of the servants of God must precede that day ; we may hence conclude, that the consumjnation of the earthquake, is later in point of time than the holding of the four winds of heaven. And it therefore follows that this vision of the holding the winds, must occupy a period of un- * Rev. vii. 1—3. + Ps. xi. 6. + Jer. xxx. 23. S3 defined duration in the midst of the earthquake. It is an hieroglyphical representation, indicating a short interval of universal peace before the end, which is granted for the specific purpose of sealing the ser- vants of God on their foreheads. All things in the Roman earth, are shaken and displaced by the first concussions of the earthquake, which bring the most awful judgments and desolations upon its inhabitants. But, according to the almost invariable analogy of the divine procedure, a term of calm, not perhaps of rest, is at length afforded, previous to the last dreadful shock which is to bring utter destruction upon the wicked. The emblems of this vision, seem to bear a close resemblance to those of the ninth chapter of Ezckiel ; and by comparing it with that passage we discover, that the sealing of the righteous denotes their being marked for preservation from the ruin impending over the world. The mystical number of the sealed is next given. It consists of 12,000 of each of the tribes of Israel ; in all 144,000. This number ex- presses fulness or perfection. It is produced by multiplying 12 into 12, in allusion to the twelve tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles, and by again multiplying the square of 12, or 144, into 1000, in order to describe the faithful as constituting an exceeding great multitude.* These four angels seem to be the emblems or re- presentations of those powers whom God will employ as his instruments, to restrain the calamities of the earthquake, and thus procure the allotted period of * Archdeacon Woodhouse /« loco. Faber on the 1850 years. Sth Ed. chap. X. sect. 5. D 3t universal peace.* When that time is elapsed, they will cease to hold the winds ; and the torrent of cala- mity which had already desolated and is about to over- whelm the Roman earth, shall in consequence be again let loose. It is probably in this sense, that the angels are to " hurt the earth/' as the prophets are said to do those things which they merely denounce. f The sealing which here takes place, is doubtless similar in its substantial characters, to that mentioned in Ephes. i. 13, for in every age of the church, the true members of Christ have been so sealed. But yet, in this concluding act of sealing, there appears to be something more directly and solemnly of a judicial character. The 144,000 are here sealed with an express reference to the calamities that are approaching, in order that they may be set apart as God's property, and saved from the general destruc> tion of the ungodly. It seems scarcely necessary to add, what will naturally occur to the serious reader^ that it is the word of God, whether preached or diffused in a written form, which is the great instrument used by the Spirit in sealing the servants of God. The angel from the east, or rising of the sun, I conceive to be our Lord himself; and the seal in his hand, is an emblem of the Spirit which he gives to his servants by the preaching of the word. In the last chapter, 1 endeavoured to show that the sixth seal commenced at the period of the Freach • By universal peace, I mean universal as it respects the scene of the prophecy. There may at the time be v?ars in Asia, or America, which countries are not within the limits of the Apocalyptic world. t See Isai. vi. 9, 10. Jer. i. 10. 35 revolution : and it seems to me that we now witness the fulfilment of the vision of the holding of the four winds. After more than twenty years of u - ceasing- convulsions ; and bloodshed unequalled in the past history of the world, peace has at length been obtained by the gigantic efforts of a mighty confederacy of the nations of Europe,* led on by the * This confederacy is, without question, the greatest which is recorded in history, iu the extent of its military resources, and also the remarkable and almost miraculous unity of sentiment which prevailed in its military councils, composed of materials which at first view must have appeared so discordant and heterogeneous. Nothing indeed can account for the unanimity of the allies in their operations in the field, but the supposition of a divine influence presiding over their consultations. The strength of this confederacy, and the views by which it was actuated, will appear by the following passages from the report of Lord Castlereagii's speech in the house of commons, on February 19, 1816, which 1 copy from the Morning Post newspaper of February 20. " By tlie means Ihey had employed " they had contributed to bring into the field a confederacy, so great " and powerful that disaster itself could not have frustrated its " ultimate object. Nay, had the battle of Waterloo, instead of " a glorious triumph, proved a day of defeat and ruin, the contest " might have been protracted, but not changed in its termination. " The means of the confederacy were so immense that they could not " fail." " Never had such a confederacy, in extent of military " strength and ardour of exertion, been witnessed. It appeared, by '* returns taken at the time when the British army occupied Paris, that " there was an allied force in the French territory of 1,140,000 men. " The numbers had been most scrupulously checked by the Duke " of Wellington, who was charged with the arrangements with the " French commissioners for their subsistence, and his Grace declared " that the numbers had not been exaggerated." — " Besides the force *' brought into action, had the war continued two mouths longer, " 100,000 Austrians, 250,000 Russians, 70,000 Spaniards, and other " contingents, would have entered France, which would then have " contained not less than 1,500,000 foreign troops, combating in the " cause of Europe." " The late government of France was a military government, it " was wholly and entirely impelled, directed, and led by the array, D 2 36 four great powers of Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia, which after breaking' in pieces the vast " aud obliged to answer to it for all its operations. He felt, that " although we might now look to repose under the arrangements " that had been adopted, it was only by seconding for a length of " time these operations, by the presence of a strong- military force. " Unless for the imposing attitude of this body, till the military spirit " of jacobinism was extinct, the peace could not be secure. The " principle on which his Majesty's government felt the question of *' war or peace to hinge was, the continuance of an army of the allies " in France. But respecting the dissolution of the army of Bonaparte, " which had now taken place, he should think himself undeserving of " the attention of that House, if he was not prepared to avow, that " his Majesty's government, at the time Lewis XVIII. was at Ghent, " laid it down as a fundamental and positive principle, that that army " should be totally dissolved ; aUd he should have been liable to the " charge of being accessary to the resurrection of that army, if he " had not insisted on its entire extinction. But this grand point was " effected, and it only remained for us to watch over it for a time, ia " its state of dissolution; for if any man supposed that it had ceased " to exist, because it no longer existed on parade, he knew nothing of " the deep-rooted principles of jacobinism with which it had been " actuated from the commencement of its disorganizing career." " The noble Lord, continuing to descant on the attachment of the " military conspirators to Bonaparte, observed, that he never had been " one of those individuals who had depreciated his abilities ; but he " would say, that, if that army had been suffered to exist, it would " have been perfectly unimportant whether Bonaparte were confined " or not, for it would not have been difficult to find a chief who would " soon have led it into its former career." Did my limits permit me to enlarge these extracts, I might add other passages to shew that the great purpose of this alliance was the conquering and securing peace, and also illustrative of the very remarkable union which existed among the members of the con- federacy . Now we know that the expedition of Xerxes into Greece was the subject of prophecy, see Dan. xi. 2. It cannot therefore be asserted, with any colour of reason, that the mighty confederacy, which has broken the gigantic power of Bonaparte and given peace to the world, is not an event of sufficient magnitude to find a place in the Apocalyptic history, for surely its importance is greater than wa» 37 power of the French empire^ and twice driving its late sovereign from his throne^ now t)ccupies France with its armies^ and thus restrains the fire of that revolutionary volcano, which has heretofore been the source of such incalculable calamities to the inha- bitants of Europe. This interval of tranquillity, has also been marked by another circumstance, which precisely corres- ponds with the description given in the vision. The four winds are held or restrained in order that the servants of God may be sealed, and we have already remarked, that the word of God is the instrument used for this sealing. Now the re-esta- blishment of peace has given occasion to a new activity, and far more widely extended exertions, in circulating the sacred scriptures throughout the European and Asiatic continents, as 1 shall show more particularly in another part of this volume. The measures taken for these purposes are also evidently upon a scale of such magnitude as to mark that they belong to a period of the extraordinary operations of the Almighty.* We are no where informed, how long this inter- val of peace shall continue. But if the interpreta- that of the expedition of Xerxes. 1 mention this argument, merely to anticipate an objection which, I foresee, may be made to my interpretation of this vision. * The vision of the holding of the four winds is, by Bishop Newton, referred to the peace of the church in the reign of Constantine. This is a natural consequence of the common, but as I have shewn erro- neous, interpretation of the earthquake, in chap. vi. When it is considered that the triumph of the church at that time was imme- diately followed by the Arian controversy and the schism of the Donatists, it will be seen how little the language of this passage can justly apply to such a state of things. 38 tion of the vision which is here given be correct, we may expect, that as soon as the allotted period is past, the commission to hold the winds shall cease, and the calamities of the earthquake shall be renewed with an overwhelming impetus. From these final judgments, which are to bring utter destruction on the Bestial empire, the sealed servants of God are, however, to be delivered, and there are many passages which seem to indicate that their pre- servation shall be effected by the immediate hand and power of God, exerted in a miraculous manner.* Our Lord assures us, that after the signs in the sun, moon, and stars (which are, as we have seen, pa- rallel with the earthquake of the sixth seal), and at his second advent, he shall send his angels to gather together his elect from the four winds ;f and he commands his disciples to watch and pray, that they may be accounted worthy to escape those things which shall come to pass at that period, and to ! stand before the Son of Man. J And since it may be laid down as a principle, that whatever we are commanded or exhorted to pray for, will be granted in answer to prayer, we may infer, that the preser- vation which the disciples of Christ are directed to make the subject of their supplications, will be vouchsafed to them in the awful period mentioned by our Lord. The above interpretation of this vision was adopted, before I was acquainted with Vitringa's commentary. I am happy to have it in my power, to confirm my view of the passage, by the authority of that learned * Joel ii. 31,32. Isai.Ixvi. 14— 16. Ps. Ixxvi. 8, 9. Mai. i v. 1—3. + Matt. xxiv. 31. ± Luke xx\. 36. 39 writer^ who thus expounds it. " A remarkable ad- '' junct of the judgment shown forth in the emblem ''of the great earthquake is here described, viz. *' the preservation of the electa professing' the pure " faith of Jesus Christy from the stupendous calami- '* ties which fall on the enemies of the churchy in " the last time. For although there shall be great '' and terrible commotions in the world : and through- '' out Europe^ which shall strike the elect themselves " with fear, yet the Lord assures them in this vision, *' that he will keep them by his providence, so that " they shall receive no injury, and that he will " mercifully preserve his church, which shall shortly " triumph over all its enemies." Vitringa after- wards explains the four winds, to signify the awful commotions of the sixth seal. He supposes that the four angels may denote the princes, who shall be the authors of these calamities, and adds, " By this emblem it is signified, that when these *' winds are loosed, and break forth from the clouds, " the whole European world shall be most violently •' agitated and disturbed. That great empire of '* Europe,* which has opposed itself to true reli- '' gion ; the free cities and republics of the empire, " and the kingdoms of Europe, and the kings, " princes, and nobles which govern them, shall be " terribly shaken and suffer damage." After the vision of the sealing of the elect, the apostle " beheld, and lo a great multitude, *' which no man could number, of all nations, and '* kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before " the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with * The Germanic empire. 40 '' white robesj and palms in their hands ; and " cried with a loud voice^ saying, Salvation to our " God, which sitteth upon the throne, and to the " Lamb." " And one of the elders answered, " saying' unto me, What are these which are arrayed " in white robes ? and whence came they ? And I *' said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said " unto me. These are they which came out of the '* great tribulation, and have washed their robes, " and made them white, in the blood of the Lamb. " Therefore are they before the throne of God, and " serve him day and night in his temple : and he '* that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. " They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any " more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any " heat : For the Lamb which is in the midst of the " throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto '^ living fountains of waters : and God shall wipe ''away all tears from their eyes."* We have seen in the sealing of the 144,000, in the preceding passage, an emblem of the certain preservation of the church of Christ from the ge- neral destruction during the period of the sixth seal. In the passage now quoted we behold described, in highly figurative, but sublime language, the actual translation of the church, from the great tribulation of that period, into that state of millennial rest pro- mised to her from the earliest ages. The chronology of this vision is marked by the circumstance, that the palm-bearing multitude are described as " standing before the throne, and '" serving God day and night in his temple ;" that is, * Rev. ix. 17. 41 111 the inmost recess of the temple^ or the holy of hoUes, ill which compartment of the temple the throne of God is placed. Now in the sequel of this prophecy it will be seen, that till the sounding of the seventh trumpet, the temple of God, or holy of holies, remains shut, and is only opened after it sounds.* It will further be discovered, that though the temple of God is opened at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, yet it continues to be so filled with smoke from the glory of God, as to be inacces- sible to men till after the fulfilling, or finishing, of the seven plagues of the seven last vials of the wrath of God.f The worship performed in the temple by the palm-bearing multitude, must therefore be subsequent to the pouring out of the seven vials. But as these vials end with the destruction of Anti- christ, at the battle of Armageddon, the scene of that multitude "clothed in white raiment, with ** palms in their hands," must also be subsequent to the destruction of the Anti-christian powers. By the above chain of reasoning we are led to the conclusion, that the passage now under consideration relates to that illustrious appearance and establish- ment of the kingdom of our Lord, which is thus de- scribed in the prophecies of Daniel: *' I saw in the *" night visions, and behold one like the Son of man " came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the '^ Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before " him. And there was given him dominion, and '^ glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and " languages should serve him : his dominion is an ''everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, * Rev. xi. 19. + Rev. xv. 8. 43 " and his kingdom that which shall not be destroy- " ed/'* — " And the kingdom, and dominion, and *' the greatness of the kingdom under the whole " heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints " of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting " kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey *' him/'t This manifestation of the kingdom of God takes place, as the best interpreters are agreed, on the destruction of the fourth monarchy, or the Roman empire, in its last shape, as divided into ten king- doms. The commencement of this manifestation seems to be predicted in a subsequent part of the Apocalypse, under the figure of the "^ marriage of *' the Lamb/'J It is further described where an account is given of the first resurrection, § and of the new heaven and new earth, and the descent out of heaven of the New Jerusalem. || It is apparent, from the prophecies of Daniel, that this new state of things does not take place till the second coming of Christ with the clouds of heaven. 1 And the same thing may be gathered from the Apocalyptic descrip- tion of the marriage of the Lamb, already referred to. Nothing can be more strained or unnatural than the application usually made of this sublime vision to the times of the Roman Emperor Constantine : nor can any thing have a greater tendency to excite the scorn of unbelievers, than such an explication of so important a passage of this mystical book. How- ever much it may have the sanction of great names, * Dan. vii. 13, 14. + Ibid. ver. 27. J Rev. xix. 7 — 9. S Rev. XX. 4—6. I Rev. xxi. f Dan. vii. 13, 14. 43 the chronological mark above referred to, would show the commonly received explanation to be erro- neous,, even were there no other reason for rejecting it. In reference to the usual interpretation of this prophecy. Archdeacon Woodhouse, whom I have followed in rejecting it, makes the following remarks : " Having thus formed, upon the scriptural grounds " above stated, this notion of the application of this " prophecy, I found myself, when I came to read " the exposition of some eminent commentators, '* little disposed to subscribe to their opinions, which " represent this seventh chapter of the Apocalypse, '' as containing ^ a description of the state of the '" church in Constantine's time ; of the peace and " protection it should enjoy under the civil powers, *' and the great accession which should be made '* unto it, both of Jews and Gentiles.' Now the *' history of this period faithfully related informs us, " that although the Christian Church was delivered " from persecution, and advanced in worldly con- '' sideration and power, yet did it acquire no real " accession of worth, dignity, or exaltation, by its " connection with the imperial throne. Nay, from " that very time its degeneracy and corruption are " most indubitably to be dated. From that period, " worldly power and riches became the objects of its " leaders, not purity and virtue. Many entered the " Christian church, and obtained its honours and *' dignities, by base dissimulation of their principles, " to please the emperor, and recommend themselves '' to his favour ; and the consequent extension of the " Christian religion among the heathen nations was, 44 ^' as Mosheim observes^ in name, not in reality. '^ The worldly professors of Christianity in this cen- '' tury were so far from fulfilling the prophecy, by '' washing their robes in white, and by being fed " and conducted by the Lamb, that they appear ^' rather to have assumed the hue of another leader ^ " the fire-coloured dragon, and to have greedily ^' sought from him those worldly riches, jind that '' power, which their Lord had refused at his " hands." Having, in the preceding pages, endeavoured to ascertain the import of the first six seals, I shall close what I have to otfer upon them by a brief recapitu- lation, and some general remarks. If the exposition of these seals, which has been offered, be the true one, it appears that they contain a kind of epitome of the history of the church,* from the ascension of our Lord till the time when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ ;f and that the sixth seal offers also a brief description of the great revolution in the latter days, which is to precede the establishment of the kingdom of God. It is remarked by Archdeacon Woodhouse, in his valuable work on the Apocalypse, that " this method " of divine prediction, presenting at first a general " sketch or outline, and afterwards a more complete " and finished colouring of events, is not peculiar ^' to this prophetical book. "J We find the same method followed in the book of Daniel, wherein the prophetical history of the world is first given in its * Archdeacon Woodhouse, p. 196. + Rev. x\. X Archdeacon Woodhouse, p. 197 45 great outlines, under the vision of the image seen by Nebuchadnezzar, and is detailed with increasing; degrees of minuteness in the subsequent parts of the book. Now it has been justly remarked by Mede, that the Apocalypse is only an enlarged explication of that part of the book of Daniel which relates to the fourth kingdom. It is, therefore, consonant with analogy to suppose, that as the prophecies of Daniel open with a general epitome of what is after- wards more clearly revealed, the same thing should take place in the Apocalypse. The history of the Christian church confirms also, in a remarkable manner, the explanation I have given of the first four seals ; for if without a reference to any particular hypothesis concerning the meaning of prophecy, we turn to the page of history, we shall find that the church of Christ was first pure and triumphant; secondly, that it was filled with quarrels and discord ; thirdly, that it was under the yoke of superstition and ignorance ; fourthly, that it was converted into a vast slaughter-house by the dreadful persecutions of the papal power, and those secular powers connected with Rome. History therefore, comes in aid of our interpretation, and exhibits to us the same series and order of vicis- situdes, as I have endeavoured to trace in the cha- racters of the hieroglyphics of the first four seals. The exposition of the fifth and sixth seals offered in these pages seems to flow from that of the preceding ones ; and that of the sixth seal is confirmed, as we have seen, by many analogous passages in other parts of the prophetical scriptures. When, also^ we advert to the entire want of homogeneity which 46 is discoverable in the commonly received interpreta- tion of these seals^ all the arguments for the scheme that 1 have adopted derive new strength, and seem to shcNv, almost to demonstration, that it is the true one. If, however, any reasons for confirming the fore- going interpretation, be still wanting, they will be suppHed by placing in contrast with it, the theory of Mede and Bishop Newton. Let the reader ad- vert to the deep and solemn importance, which is attached to the sealed book of the Apocalypse. It is first seen in the hand of God the Father. The voice of a mighty angel is next heard proclaiming. Who is worthy to open the book ? And no one was found in heaven or in earth, worthy even to look thereon. At this disappointment, the beloved apostle weeps much, and when, at length, the Lamb approached and took the book out of the hand of him that liveth for ever and ever, all heaven is filled with a rapturous burst, of adoration and praise.* Having contemplated these mighty preparations, if we next turn to the pages of the eminent (though in this instance inconsistent) writers above mentioned, we shall find, that four out of the seven seals, the opening of each of which is also marked by a cere- monial of the most significant nature, are supposed to relate to certain vicissitudes, of no great moment, in the secular affairs of the Roman empire during the three first centuries. I shall select a passage, from the Bishop's remarks on the third seal, as a fit specimen of the manner in which this divine pro- phecy is, by that exposition, debased and secularized, ^^ * See Rev. v. 1—9. 47 and constrained to imbibe the sordid and grovelling spirit of earthly objects. After some observations respecting the capacity and price of the chasnix of wheat, the Bishop proceeds. " But whatever be *' the capacity of the chaenix, which is difficult to " be determined, as it was different, in different '' times and countries, yet such care and such re- " gulations, about the necessaries of life, imply '' some want and scarcity of them. Scarcity obli- *' geth men to exactness in the price and measure of •* things. In short, the intent of the prophecy is, " that corn should be provided for the people, but it " should be distributed in exact measure and pro- *' portion. This third period commenceth with " Septimius Severus, who was an emperor from " the south, being a native of Africa. He was *' an enactor of just and equal laws, and was very *' severe and implacable to offences. He would not " suffer even petty larcenies to go unpunished ; as " neither would Alexander Severus, in the same " period, who was a most severe judge against " thieves, and was so fond of the Christian maxim, " Whatsoever you would not have done to you, do *' not you to another, that he commanded it to be " engraved on the palace, and on the public buildings. " These two emperors, were also no less celebrated " for procuring of corn and oil and other provisions, '' and for supplying the Romans with them, after " they had experienced the want of them." Was it then, we may well say, (after reading the foregoing passage) for the purpose of discovering to the church, the state of the Roman markets for corn and oil, or the efficiency of its police in ap- 48 prehending thieves, that all these mig^hty preparations were made in heaven ? Truly the exposition which includes in it such consequences would be ludicrous, were the subject itself of a less solemn and im- portant nature. But the high nature of the theme, forbids our speaking, even of the errors of those who have treated it^ excepting in the measured language of Christian gravity. I shall, therefore, close this chapter and the subject of these seals, by requesting the reader again to peruse and compare with what is here given from Bishop Newton, the simple but elevated exposition of the third seal, which I have adopted from Archdeacon Woodhouse, and I doubt not it will commend itself to his mind, with all the native force of beauty and of truth.* * Some persons may perhaps here ohject, that I myself expound the seven trumpets as having a reference to the secular fortunes of the Roman empire, and that I am therefore inconsistent in opposing a similar application of the seals. The answer to this is, that I con- sider the greal mutatiojis only of the empire to be predicted in the trumpets, and not those minor changes which Mede and Bp.NevFton suppose to be referred to in the seals. The Roman empire I consider to be the subject of prophecy only on account of its connection with the church, and because while it exists (as it still does) it is the great enemy of the church, and when it is destroyed it is to make way for the glorious reign of the Messiah. 49 ' CHAPTER IV. THE SEVENTH SEAL. *' And when he had opened the seventh seal, '' there was silence in heaven about the space of ** half an hour ; and I saw the seven angels which " stood before God;, and to them were given seven ^' trumpets."* In the general view which I have taken of the contents of the first six seals, I have followed Arch- deacon Woodhouse ; but I am now about to take leave of my respectable guide, being obliged to differ from him with reo;ard to most of the remaining' parts of the Apocalypse. I however coincide with the learned writer, in the interpretation which he offers of the silence in heaven, at the opening of the seventh seal. He explains it as being indicative of the introduction of a new subject, and a new series of prophecies ; it seems, as he remarks, to be exhi- *' bited for the purpose of denoting a change in the " mode or in the subject of the prophecy ; to dis- " unite the succeeding scene from that which had *' gone before ; to unfold a new chain of pre- " diction. "f During this awful and portentous silence, a new scene presents itself to the eyes of the apostle. He sees seven angels, to whom were given seven trum- pets. As this is the first object exhibited under the seventh seal, we may infer from it that this seal re- lates principally to the sounding of these trumpets, * Rev. viii. 1, ?, + Archdeacon Woodhouse, p. 200. E 50 and comprehends within itself the whole of the events signified by the trumpets ; and in this inference 1 have the support of some of the most distinguished writers on the Apocalypse.* Now, seeing that the first six seals contain an epitome of the state of the church, down to that final consummation of all thinc's on this earth, when " the saints of the Most " High shall take the kingdom and possess the king- " dom for ever;"t and that the trumpets cannot extend beyond this final consummation, it follows that the seventh seal, and seven trumpets, must re- late to events which are contemporaneous with the first six seals, or at least with the last part of them. And in considering these trumpets we shall discover reasons for the conclusion, that as the seals give us an epitome of the history of the churchy so the trumpets contain an account of the great political and ecclesiastical revolutions which shall successively affect the Roman empire, or fourth kingdom of Daniel, until it is destroyed to make way for the kingdom of the Son of Man.'j; * vide Bishop Newton in loco, also Mede on the Apocalypse. + Dan. vii. 18. ■•■ lb. vii. 11 — 13. The learned Vitringa makes some introductory observations on the trumpets, which are well worthy of our attention. I shall in this note give the substance of them in an abridged form, as my limits will not permit me to insert the whole passage. He supposes that, in the trumpets, there is an allusion to the manner in which the city of Jericho was delivered into the hands of the children of Israel. They had the promise of the land of Canaan for their inheritance. But that proud and strong city opposed itself to their entrance into the promised land. The priests were therefore commanded by the Lord, to compass the city with seven ram's horns, and the ark of the Lord, once every day for six successive days: but on the seventh day they were to march round it seven times, and at the end of the seventh time the people were commanded to shout 51 " And another angel came and stood at the altar, " having- a golden censer ; and there was given unto " him much incense, that he should offer it, with " the prayers of all paints, upon the g'olden altar ** which was before the throne. And the smoke of " the incense ascended, with the prayers of the " saints, from the hand of the angel before God. *' And the angel took the censer and filled it with " the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth ; " and there were voices, and thunderings, and ^' lig-htnings, and an earthquake."* Incense is a symbol of the prayers of true Chris- tians. Thus in Malachi it is predicted, in reference to the times of the gospel : " From the rising of " the sun unto the going down of the same, my " Name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in " every place incense shall be offered unto my " Name, and a pure offering : for my Name shall be " great among the heathen, saith the Lord of " Hosts."f And in the Apocalypse we are ex- pressly told, that the vials full of incense, held by the twenty-four elders, are the prayers of saints. J aloud, at which instant the walls fell flat down, the city was taken, and all within it put to the sword, Josh. vi. — In a similar manner, says Vitriiiga, the inheritance of the world is promised to the church, (Dan. vii. 18. 22. 27.) but the city and empire of Rome oppose them- selves to the reign and kingdom of Christ, and between them there is to be an obstinate contest carried on through many ages. But that city and empire, founded in blood, idolatry, and superstition, are destined to be destroyed by various steps, and with peculiar demon- strations of divine justice and severity, after the example of Jericho. This (says Vitringa) is declared in the trumpets. — And the seven vials are to be referred to the seventh trumpet, and answer to the seventh day of the encompassing of Jericho, when the priests went round it with the trumpets seven times. * Rev. viii. 3—5. + Mai. i. 11. + Rev. v. 8. e2 52 In the passage we are now considering, the in- cense which is offered by the angel, with the prayers of all saints, seems to signify, that their prayers are such as to find acceptance with God, and that they are to receive an answer. The answer to them ap- pears to be contained in the action performed by the angel in the following verse. Filling the censer with fire from the altar^ he casts it upon the earth, and there follow "^ voices, and thunderings, and " lightnings, and an earthquake." Fire is a symbol of various significations. When it descends upon the servants of God it denotes the purifying and life-giving influence of the Holy Ghost. Thus John the Baptist assured the Jews, that there came one after him who should baptize them with the Holy Ghost and with fire.* On the other hand, when fire comes down on the enemies of God, it is a symbol of his destroying wrath. " Whose fan is in his " hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and *' will gather the wheat into his garner; but the " chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable."f It seems to be in the last of these senses that the symbol of fire is used in the passage now under consideration, as we may infer from the context, and also the effects which follow. The fire is cast upon the earth, which is, throughout this mystical book, used to denote the world, as opposed to the cause and kingdom of Christ ; and since the fourth king- dom of Daniel;, or the Roman empire, is in an especial manner the scene of the prophecies of the Apocalypse, we may conclude, that the fire which is cast upon the earth by the angel in this place, * Lukeiii. 17. Corop. Is. vi. 6, 7. + Luke 17- 53 signifies the wrath of God coming down upon the Roman empire, in answer to the prayers which had been offered in the preceding verse. The effects of the descent of this fire are voices,, and thunderings, and hghtnings, and an earthquake. We have ah'eady seen^ in considering the sixth seal, that an earthquake, in the language of symbols, denotes a revolution. Voices, thunderings, and lightnings, in the natural world, happen, as we know, in the atmosphere, or region of the air. When these words are used symbolically, they must therefore signify such convulsions as affect the political atmos- phere, or region of the government, and the civil and religious constitution of the empire, which is the subject of the prophecy. We thus arrive at the conclusion, that the voices, thunderings, and light- nings, and the earthquake, mentioned in this passage, denote a political convulsion in the govern- ment of the Roman empire, attended with a revo- lution. These events occur before the sounding of any of the seven trumpets. But it is generally admitted by our ablest interpreters, that the first four of these trumpets refer to the overthrow of the western empire by the Goths and Vandals ; and I shall afterwards give my reasons for concurring in this commonly received interpretation. The political convulsion and revolution now under consideration must, therefore, have occurred previously to the fall of the western empire. Now history informs us of only one such event, which happened in the Roman empire between the period when the Apocalypse was published, and the fall of the western empire; 54 and that was the revolution in the time of Con* stantine, when paganism ceased to be the estabhshed religion of the empire, and Christianity was em- braced by the imperial family. This revolution was so important in its consequences, that the great body of interpreters have, as we have seen, applied to it the dreadful convulsions of the sixth seal. In this application they appear to have erred, but yet the revolution under Constantine was of suf- ficient magnitude to render it probable that some mention should be made of it in the Apocalypse, and it seems to find its place in the passage we are now considering. In this passage we behold the prayers of all saints ascending up with acceptance before God ; by which prayers may be signified the cries of the servants of God under the cruel and long-continued persecutions of the heathen Roman empire. An answer to these prayers is sent. Fire, an emblem of the wrath of God, is cast upon that empire; and there follow political convulsions, voices, thunder- ings, and lightnings, and a revolution or earth- quake, whereby paganism is cast down to the ground, and Christianity occupies its place as the religion of the government. The heathen perse- cutions are thus brought to a period. The above interpretation is entirely new, as I have not met with it in any writer whom I have con- sulted on the Apocalypse : I shall therefore offer another argument, which seems to me to strengthen it. The principle of homogeneity requires us to understand the symbol of an earthquake in the same sense, wherever it occurs in the prophecies of this 65 book ; and in considering the sixth seal^ we have seen that it signifies a revolution : indeed, it is generally admitted to bear that meaning. It must therefore be interpreted in the same manner here. But since the publication of the Apocalypse, only three revolutions have happened in the Roman empire.* The first was in the time of Constantine ; the second at the period of the reformation ; and the third is that awful revolution, which began by the overthrow of the French monarchy, and has since then never ceased to convulse the world. The earthquake mentioned in the eighth chapter of the Apocalypse cannot, for chronological reasons, be referred to the second or third of these revolutions. It must therefore relate to the first. * A revolution may be defined as a change in the state of an empire, arising from internal convulsions. The overthrow of the western empire by the barbarous nations, and of the eastern by the Turks, were not revolulions ; they were conque»ts. 56 CHAPTER V. THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. " And the seven angels which had the seven " trumpets, prepared themselves to sound. 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. And the '' second angel sounded, and as it were, a great '^ mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea ; •'and the third part of the sea became blood ; and " the third part of the creatures which were in the '' sea, and had life, died ; and the third part of the " ships were destroyed. And the third angel " sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, " burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the " third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of *' waters : and the name of the star is called Worm- *' wood : and the third part of the waters became " wormwood ; and many men died of the waters '' because they were made bitter. And the fourth *' angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was " smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the " third part of the stars ; so as the third part of ^' them was darkened, and the day shone not for ''a third part of it, and the night likewise."* That which takes place under the first four trum- pets is the partial destruction of an universe, con- sisting of dry land, a sea, rivers and fountains, and * Rev. viii. 6—13. 57 celestial luminaries. All interpreters of note agree that this universe is to be considered as a symbolical one ; but there is much difference of opinion with regard to the signification of the symbols. The learned Archdeacon Woodhouse applies these trum- pets wholly to spiritual objects, and supposes that they relate to the general warfare which the Chris- tian religion underwent on its first establishment.* To this interpretation it may, however, be objected (and the objection seems conclusive), that if the first four trumpets relate to the fortunes of the church, then the sun, a third part of which is smitten under the fourth trumpet, must be a symbol denoting our Lord, the Sun of Righteousness ; for there is no other sun in the firmament of the church. But the incongruity and absurdity of supposing that any of these trumpets can affect Him, who, though He was once dead, is now alive for evermore, and hath the keys of Death and Hades, is so manifest, that it at once appears, that an interpretation which in- volves such a consequence cannot be the true one. Some other interpreters apply these trumpets partly to the fortunes of the Roman empire, and partly to those of the church. In particular, they understand the third trumpet as denoting the corruption of the waters of life, or the pure doctrines of the gospel, by the early heretics and the bishop of Rome. But wherever water, in the prophetical writings, is ap- plied to signify the doctrines of the gospel, or the consolations of the Holy Spirit, it is either deno- minated the water of life, to distinguish it from material water, or there is something in the context * Archdeacon Woodhouse on the Apocalypse, p. 318. 58 clearly marking that it is to be so understood. Our Lord said to the Jews, " If any man thirst, let him ♦' come unto me and drink. He that believeth on '• me (as the scripture hath said), out of his belly " shall flow rivers of living water."* And when he conversed with the woman of Samaria respecting the water of life, though he did not use the expres- sion living water J he distinctly showed that this was the nature of the water which he should give^ by saying that it would be in the recipient '' a well " of water springing up into everlasting life."f The waters seen by the prophet Ezekiel, in his vision, J are also sufficiently marked, by their healing quality, to be the waters of life ; and the river, clear as crystal, which the apostle John saw proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb, § is ex- pressly called a pure river of water of life, to dis- tinguish it from all other water. In the account of the third trumpet, there -is no expression which can lead us to suppose, that the waters which are made bitter by the falling of the blazing star, are the waters of life. Moreover, we are obliged, by the principle of homogeneity, to interpret these four trumpets as relating to objects of a like nature : we must therefore reject every interpretation which refers a part of them to the church, and a part to secular objects : and that some of them refer to the secular Roman empire, has been admitted by all the writers whom I have met with, excepting Archdeacon Woodhouse ; and for rejecting the interpretation of this learned writer I have already offered a sufficient reason. * John Tit. 38. t John iii. 11. % £zek. xlvii. ^ Rev. xxii. 59 These arguments are, I think, conclusive in show- ing, that none of the symbols of the trumpets which we are now considering-, can relate to the church. They must consequently be applied exclusively to secular objects, and having in our view the principle already more than once noticed, that the Roman empire is the principal scene of the Apocalyptic prophecies, we shall find no difficulty in referring this part of the Apocalypse to events which took place within the limits of that empire^ and have re- lation to its fortunes. The first four trumpets have accordingly, by the great body of interpreters, been supposed to relate to the overthrow of the western empire by the Golhs, Vandals, and other barbarous nations. As I entirely concur with the able writers who have adopted this explanation, I shall first give a brief history of the events which seem to me to have fulfilled the prophecy of these trumpets ; and after- wards it is my intention to offer some general remarks in support of my interpretation. In the year 376, the Visigoths, driven from their possessions in the countries situated to the north of the Danube by an invasion of the Huns, were, at their own earnest solicitations, transported across the Danube, and admitted into the Roman empire by the emperor Valens. Scarcely, however, had they been received, when they rose in rebellion against the Roman government, defeated the general of the emperor, and ravaged the country to the south of the Danube. Uniting their forces with those of the Ostrogoths and other tribes of barbarians, whom 60 they invited to cross the Danube^ they, in two years after their first entrance into the empire^ defeated and slew the emperor Valens at the battle of Adri- anople, in which above two-thirds of the Roman army were destroyed, and they afterwards desolated the provinces as far as the confines of Italy * After this fatal battle, the Goths never quitted the Roman empire. They were^ indeed, for a time^ reduced into a state of apparent subjection by Theo- dosius the Great. But the period of tranquillity was of short duration^ and ended with his life. I conceive, therefore, that the first trumpet sounded at the time of the Gothic eruption in the reign of V^alens, A. D. 376. Its sounding was followed by hail and fire mingled with blood. Hail, in the prophetical style, is a symbol denoting war, and the ravages of hostile armies. The fire and blood accompanying the hail of this trumpet, denote the dreadful and destruc- tive nature of the wars which should ensue. The effects of the descent of this hail upon the trees and the grass are agreeable to the analogy of the symbol, and denote the ruin which was brought by the Gothic irruption on the inhabitants of the empire. The second period of the Gothic invasions com- menced in the year 395, on the death of the great Theodosius. " He died in the month of January ; " and before the end of the winter of the same year ''the Gothic nation was in arms."-}- — "The bar- '' riers of the Danube were thrown open ; the savage " warriors of Scythia issued from their forests ; and ** the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the • Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xxvi. t Ibid. chap. xxx. 61 ^' poet to remark, that they rolled their ponderous ^' waggons over the broad and icy bank of the in- " dig'nant river." * In the year 396^ Alaric, the leader, and subse- quently the king of the Visigoths, marched into and ravaged Greece. The fertile fields of Phocis and Baeotia were covered by a deluge of ^' barba- " rianSj who massacred the males of an age to " bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, " with the spoil and cattle of the flaming villages." — ''The whole territory of Attica, from the pro- '' montory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was " blasted with the baneful presence of the bar- '' barians ; and, if we may use the comparison of a " contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled " the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered " victim." — '' Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded with- " out resistance to the arms of the Goths ; and the *^' most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved by " death from beholding the slavery of their families, " and the conflagration of their cities." -}• Italy was invaded by Alaric in the year 400, and in the year 406 by a mixed army of Vandals, Suevi, and Burgundians, under the command of Rada- gaisus; and though both these armies of invaders were defeated by Stihcho, the master-general of the west, Italy and the capital of the empire had but a short respite. In 408, Alaric entered Italy a second time, and besieged Rome, which was re- duced to the last extremity by the ravages of famine and plague. The imperial city was at this time spared by the barbarian conqueror for the payment * Gibbon, chap. xxx. t Ibid, 63 of a large ransom.' It was besieged a second time in the following year, and in the year 410, the Goths, a third time, appeared before the gates of Rome, which they took and sacked. After enriching his army with the plunder of the capital of the empire, Alaric marched into the southern provinces of Italy, which remained in possession of the Goths till the year 414, when a treaty was concluded with Adolphus, the successor of Alaric, in consequence of which he evacuated Italy, and marched into Gaul.* In the year 406, the province of Gaul was in- vaded by the remains of the great army of Rada- gaisus.f After defeating the Pranks, who opposed their progress, *' the victorious confederates pur- " sued their march ; and on the last day of the year, " in a season of the year when the waters of the " Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered '' without opposition the defenceless provinces of '^ Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the ** Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never *' afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall *' of the Roman empire in the countries beyond ''the Alps; and the barriers which had so long se- " parated the savage and the civilized nations of the *' earth, were from that fatal moment levelled *' with the ground." — " The banks of the Rhine " were crowned, like those of the Tiber, with " elegant houses and well-cultivated farms. This ** scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed " into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking *' ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature " from the desolation of man. "J * Gibbon, chap. xxxi. + Ibid. chap. xxx. % Ibid. 63 Having spread the dreadful ravages of war throughout the greatest part of the provinces of Gaul^ the same horde of barbarians entered Spain in the year 409. '' The irruption of these nations *' was followed by the most dreadful calamities." — '" The progress of famine reduced the miserable '' inhabitants to feed on the flesh of their fellow- " creatures ; and even the wild beasts, which mul- '' tiplied without controul in the desert, were exas- " perated, by the taste of blood, and the impatience " of hunger, boldly to attack and devour their human '' prey. Pestilence soon appeared, the inseparable "companion of famine: a large proportion of the '' people was swept away ; and the groans of the *' dying excited only the envy of their surviving " friends. At length the barbarians, satiated with " carnage and rapine, and afflicted by the contagious " evils which they themselves had introduced, fixed " their permanent seats in the depopulated country."* In the year 429, the Vandals under the command of Genseric, passed from Spain into Africa, and established themselves in that province: and the Roman empire in that quarter was entirely sub- verted by them about eleven years afterwards, when they obtained possession of the city of Carthage. The second period of the Gothic irruptions, which began in A. D. 395, seems to me to have been the fulfilment of the second trumpet, on the sounding of which '' a great mountain, burning with fire, was *' cast into the sea." A mountain, in the prophetical style, signifies a kingdom. It is well known that the irruption of * Gibbon, chap. xxxi. 64 the northern nations into the Roman empire was of this peculiar nature, that not bodies of armed men only, but whole nations of invaders, transported themselves, with their women and children, their goods and effects, into the territories of the empire. Such an invasion, by various tribes of fierce and impetuous barbarians, who carried fire and sword wherever they marched, seems to be fitly sym- bolized by a vast mountain, burning with fire, being cast into the sea. The third period of the irruptions of the northern nations into the Roman empire, appears to have commenced in the year 441, when the Huns under Attila, invaded the eastern empire. ^' The whole " breadth of Europe, as it extends above five hun- " dred miles from the Euxine to the Adriatic, was " at once invaded, and occupied, and desolated, by '' the myriads of barbarians whom Attila led into the " field." — " The armies of the eastern empire were " vanquished in three successive engagements ; and '' the progress of Attila may be traced by the fields " of battle. The two former, on the banks of the " Utus, and under the walls of Marcianopolis, were " fought in the extensive plains between the Danube *' and Mount Haemus. As the Romans were pressed " by a victorious enemy, they gradually and unskil- " fully retired toward the Chersonesus of Thrace ; " and that narrow peninsula, the last extremity of " the land, was marked by their third and irreparable ^' defeat. By the destruction of this army, Attila ^' acquired the indisputable possession of the field. '' From the Hellespont to Thermopylae, and the '' suburbs of Constantinople, he ravaged without 65 *' resistance and without mercy the provinces of " Thrace and Macedonia. Heracleaand Hadrianople •* might perhaps escape this dreadful irruption of the '' Huns ; but the words the most expressive of total " extirpation and erasure, are appHed to the ca- " lamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of " the eastern empire."* In the year 450, Attila invaded Gaul, and ra- vaged it with fire and sword; but in the following year he was defeated with prodigious slaughter at the battle of Chalons. In the year 452, he entered Italy, and besieged Aquileia, which he took, and destroyed so completely, that the succeeding gene- ration could scarcely discover its ruins. The cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua, were also re- duced into heaps of stones and ashes. Alarmed for the safety of Rome, the emperor and senate sent a solemn embassy to deprecate the wrath of the conqueror: a peace was in consequence concluded, and Attila evacuated Italy, and died in the following year. The successive invasions of the empire by Attila were probably the accomplishment of the third trumpet, on the sounding of which ""a great star " fell from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and '' fell upon the third part of the rivers and the foun- "• tains of waters." The star seen by the apostle in this trumpet appears to have been a comet, which is a fit emblem of a mighty conqueror. Indeed, in the symbolical language, a star, when applied to temporal things, always means a king or a prince : this star, burning like a lamp, therefore denotes * Gibbon, chap, xxxiv. F a prince armed with the fire of war. The worm- wood into which the waters were converted by this star, seems emblematical of the bitter and dreadful suffering's inflicted on the empire by Attila and his Huns. On the sounding of the fourth trumpet, the third part of the celestial luminaries were smitten and obscured. This, in the language of symbols, evidently refers to the extinction of the imperial government of Rome within the limits of the western empire, which was effected between the years 455 and 476. In the first of these years, Rome was taken and sacked by Genseric, king of the Vandals, who carried away with him immense spoil, and an innumerable multitude of captives ; among whom were the Empress Eudoxia and her two daughters. Rome never recovered this stroke. In the year 476, the imperial government was subverted, and Au- gustulus, the last emperor of the west, was deposed and banished from Rome by Odoacer, the general of the Heruli, who was elected, and reigned, the first barbarian king of Italy. Having thus given a hasty sketch of the series of events to which the symbols of the first four trumpets seem to be applicable, I shall now offer some remarks in confirmation of the foregoing interpreta- tion. It is important, in considering these trumpets, not to lose sight of the oneness of the complex sym- bols which are therein presented to our attention. To say that these trumpets are all homogeneous, is not enough : they are more than homogeneous, they in fact all belong to one undivided subject ; and that is, as I observed before, a symholical universe, and 67 we may hence deduce a new argument to show the impropriety of those interpretations which refer some of the symbols to spiritual and others to secular objects. This symbolical universe is viewed as con- sisting of two great divisions, the terrestrial and celestial. The first of these must be considered as representing the territories and population of the empire, and the second its government or ruling powers. It also appears that the terrestrial symbolical world is considered as consisting of three distinct parts, the dry land, the sea, and the rivers and fountains ; but it does not follow, that each of these portions of the symbolical earth is applicable to dis- tinct and specific parts of the Roman empire.* The above division of the symbolical earth seems rather to be made for the purpose of exhibiting to us the universality of the desolation of the empire, which is represented by the symbols. To enlarge a little upon this idea, it may be observed that the natural globe which we inhabit is actually divisible into the above three parts of dry land, sea, and rivers, and * This remark, and the one made at the beginning of the following paragraph, receives a very remarkable confirmation from the following passage of Vitringa's commentary : — " Ego vero lubens concedo, " imagines symbolicas variis casibus non esse nimis quaesite et anxie " ab interprete tractandas, sed saspe in complexu, non singulatim esse " exponendas ; nee abnuo in ipsa hac imagine symbolica id forte alibi " usu venire: aliis taraen locis et in hac prophetia ubi partes era- " bleraatis fusius et explicalius recensentur et subjectura ad quod " emblema referendum est partium emblematis prascipuarum inter- " pretationem particularem admittit, eadem negligenda non videtur " cum aliunde constet partes emblematis ut sunt sol, luna, stells, " iusulae, montes, arbores, singulas per se myslice et alligorice res " alias significare posse, et ad eas figurandas adhiberi." — Vitringa Anak. Apocalyp. p. 283. F 2 68 lakes. When therefore the natural world is used as a symbol to denote any particular empire, the de- struction of that empire, in all its parts, must be shown by the destruction of the symbol which repre- sents it in all its parts. Thus if only the dry land of the symbolical world were destroyed, it would imply that only a part of the empire was to be af- fected. But as in these trumpets, the dry land, sea and fountains, are all affected, it denotes universa- hty in the desolation of the empire. In making the above remarks, it is not my in- tention to maintain that there are no cases in which the symbolical dry land, and sea, and rivers and fountains, have specific and definite significations. In considering the prophecy of the seven last vials of wrath, which refer to the final destruction of the Roman empire, I shall endeavour to show that these symbols are, in the accomplishment of the vials, each referrible to particular objects. But it is observable, that the Roman empire, at the period of the pouring out of the vials, is divided into a number of inde- pendent kingdoms and states, which considerably facilitates such a reference. In the mean while 1 shall only remark, that the earth or dry land is in general a symbol denoting the territorial dominions of the empire which is the subject of the prophecy ;* and that the sea, and rivers and fountains, which together form the collective body of waters, signify, in the language of symbols, the united population of the empire, or the " peoples, and multitudes, and " nations, and tongues," who inhabit it.f * Faber's Dissertation on the 1260 years, vol. i. chap. 2. t Rev. xvii. 15. 69 There is a circumstance with respect to the trum- pets we are now considering', which seems to have perplexed all our interpreters. It is, that on the sounding of each trumpet, only a third part of the object against which it denounces vengeance is de- stroyed. I have not, in any author whose writings I have met with, seen any sufficient reason for this singular fact. Bishop Newton supposes that there is in it a reference to the Roman empire, as being at that time a third part of the known world, and the Bishop is followed by Mr, Faber in this idea.* But it may be remarked, that the symbolical universe seen by the Apostle John, represented not the whole habitable world, but the Roitian empire in particular, which is the special subject and theatre of the Apo- calyptic prophecies ; and in the interpretation of the vials, Mr. Faber himself admits this to be the case. " The earth," says Mr. Faber, in his remarks on the first vial, ''■ is the Roman empire. "f If, then, the entire symbolical earth denote the * In his fifth edition, Mr. Faher has adopted a new exposition of the third part. He divides the Roman empire and symbolical universe into three parts, the western, the eastern, and the provinces of Africa, and he supposes the destruction of one of these thirds to denote the overthrow of the western empire. But this is inconsistent with his own explanation of the vials ; for in their effusion, the whole earth, sea, and rivers and fountains, and not a third part of them, are the objects of vengeance; and yet Mr. Faber limits the eflFects of those vials to the Latin, or western empire. Neither is it true, as Mr. Faber affirms, that the western empire alone was subverted under the four first trumpets: the provinces of Africa were included in the same calamity, and wrested from the Roman empire by the Vandalic arras. Mr. Faber's new explanation does not, therefore, afford a satisfactory solution of the difficulty. See his Dissertation on the 12(50 years, vol. ii. p. 8, 9. t Dissertation on the 1260 years, vol. ii. p. 8. 4th Ed. 70 Roman empire, to suppose that the frequent men- tion of a third part of this Roman earth, has any relation to the proportion which the Roman empire itself bears to the whole habitable world, would be to introduce the greatest confusion of ideas into the exposition of the prophecy. Mr. Bicheno thinks that the third part, so often mentioned in this prophecy, has an allusion to the division of the empire into three distinct governments or prefec- tures, and he quotes Dr. Cressener in support of this explanation of the difficulty. But were this idea well founded, it would be incumbent on Mr. Bicheno to show that each of the trumpets affected only one particular prefecture ; and as this cannot be done, I must reject the mode of solving the difficulty which he proposes. The following observations upon the point now under consideration have occurred to me, and I leave it to the reader to judge how far they serve to re- move the difficulty. I shall introduce them by a quotation from Mede's works : '' 1 conceive," says that learned writer, " Daniel to be Apocalypsis con- " tracta (the Apocalypse compressed), and the Apo- " calypse, Daniel explicated, in that where both ''treat about the same subject; namely, what was " revealed to Daniel concerning the fourth kingdom, " but summatim and in gross, is showed to St. John " particulatim, with the distinction and order of the *' several facts and circumstances which were to '* betide and accompany the same."* By consulting the book of Daniel, we learn that the fourth beast, or Roman kingdom, was to exist in two different * Works, Book iv. ep. 3?. 71 states : first, as an undivided empire ; and, secondly, as divided into ten king-doms, symbolized by ten horns.* This change in the condition of that em- pire took place, as is well known, at the time of the overthrow of the western empire by the Goths and Vandals. After this overthrow the empire was divided among' the conquerors, and was formed into ten kingdoms; but the empire itself, though its form was varied, did not cease to exist. The imperial title and power still continued in the eastern empire, and the title at least was revived in the western em- pire by Charlemagne ; and has continued from his time till the present age in an uninterrupted line of princes. From Daniel we further learn that the final destruction of the empire is not to take place till the sitting of the judgment which immediately precedes, or is synchronical with, the second advent of the Son of Man with the clouds of heaven ;f and, in strict harmony with Daniel, the Apocalyptic prophecies discover to us that the destruction of the same empire is to be effected by the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath, after the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and immediately before the estab- lishment of the kingdom of Christ, Now the first four trumpets relate, not to the final destruction of the empire, but to the overthrow of the western empire, preparatory to its partition among the ten kings. After the sounding of these trumpets, therefore, the empire was still to exist, though in a different shape ; and hence we discover a reason of their effects being limited to a part of each object against which they were directed. * Dan, vii. 23,24. t Ibid. v. 10—14. 7^' There is not that looseness or uncertainty in the language of symbols which many persons suppose. It is capable of an interpretation almost as strict as the language of sounds, or of letters, the represen- tatives of sounds ; though it must be confessed, that from our more partial knowledge of the symbo- lical language, the discovery of the true interpre- tation is often very difficult to us, as is that of the sense of a foreign dialect with which we have an imperfect acquaintance. If the first four trumpets had brought ruin upon the whole of the symbolical universe seen by the apostle, it would have denoted the entire and final destruction of the empire represented by the sym- bolical world : but as these trumpets were designed to represent only the subversion of the Roman em- pire of the west, and not its entire destruction, it was necessary that their operation should have certain limits assigned to it. In confirmation of the above observation, we may remark, that when the seven vials of wrath are poured out, which are to bring final destruction on the empire, there is no limitation of the effects of the vials. Under the first trumpet, hail mingled with fire is cast on the earth, and only a third part of the earth is burnt up. But under the first vial, which is also poured out on the earth, the effects reach to the men ; i. e. the men generally, which had the mark of the beast, &c. Under the second trumpet only a third part of the sea becomes blood, and only a third part of the creatures in the sea die ; but the second vial converts the whole sea into blood, like that of a dead man, and every living soul dies. 73 The third trumpet affects only a third part of the rivers and fountains ; but the third vial turns the whole rivers and fountains into blood. The first four trumpets are thus universal in their extent, but limited in their operation ; and therefore they imply the subversion, and not the destruction or eradi- cation of the object. The vials are both universal in their extent, and unlimited in their operation ; and thus they signify the utter and final destruction of the objects against which they are directed. , The above remarks furnish, I think, a satisfactory reason for the limitation assigned to the effects of the first four trumpets. But if it be asked, why the ))roportion of one-third, and neither more nor less, of the symbolical universe, is the limit which has been fixed to these effects ? I confess I can only answer the question, by saying that it has seemed good to the Spirit of God to select that proportion, and if any other integral part had been used for the same purpose, it is quite evident that a similar question might have been put. I shall conclude the subject of the first four trum- pets, with some remarks upon the symbols which are presented to our view under them. All the imagery of the Apocalypse is Jewish. Our Lord himself appeared to John, clothed in the pontifical robe of the high priest, and in the midst of seven golden candlesticks, having an evident reference to the seven-branched candlestick in the tabernacle, which it was the daily office of the priests in the tabernacle to trim, and put in order. We afterwards read of a sea of glass before the throne, in allusion to the brazen sea in the temple, and of the golden altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offerings, and 74 the ark of the covenant. We also read of the Lamb on Mount Sion. The general imagery of the book being thus proved to be Jewish^ it is probable that the sym- bolical universe seen by John had likewise a Jewish aspect. This serves to illustrate the justness of the proportions observed by the Holy Spirit in the different symbols. Thus, if the sea seen by the apostle in the second trumpet was borrowed from Jewish ideas, it must have been either an inland sea, like the Sea or Lake of Genesareth, or at least like the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean. A Jew could have no idea of such a sea as the Atlantic or Pacific. Hence we perceive, that there is nothing extravagant in the imagery of the second trumpet : for it is at least within the limits of poetical proba- bility, that a vast mountain, burning with fire, being cast into the Sea of Genesareth, or the extremity of the Mediterranean, should turn the third part of it into blood. The propriety of the adaptation of the different symbols to each other in these trumpets, is also worthy of our most attentive observation. The general idea presented by them, is that of the deso- lation of the symbolical earth, sea, and rivers, by foreign bodies precipitated upon them, which are used as symbols of hosts of barbarian conquerors. Now what could have been selected as a fitter agent of desolation to the symbolical earth than hail mingled with fire? What a more proper emblem of the destruction of an inland sea, than a burning volcano torn from its basis and cast into the sea ? There is also a beautiful proportion between the smaller apparent magnitude of the blazing comet, and the rivers and fountains upon which it fell. 75 CHAPTER VI. THE FIFTH TRUMPET, OR THE FIRST WOE. '' And I beheld and heard an angel, flying through " the midst of the heaven, saying with a loud voice, " Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, " by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of '' the three angels which are yet to sound." * This solemn denunciation seems to be introduced for the purpose of drawing our attention to the great importance of the events which were to happen under the last three trumpets. It serves also as a chronological mark to show that these three trumpets are all posterior to the first four, not only in order, but in time ; and that they belong to a new series of events. This denunciation is, as it were, the intro- duction or preface to the three woe trumpets. It is immediately followed by the sounding of the fifth angel. The apostle then sees '"a star which ^' had fallen from heaven to the earth, and to him " was given the key of the pit of the abyss ; and he " opened the pit of the abyss, and there arose a " smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great " furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by '' reason of the smoke of the pit." f I shall premise what I have to offer on the subject of this trumpet, by saying that I entirely concur with the great body of commentators, in thinking that the locusts who appear in it are the Saracens under the false prophet Mahummud: and I shall * Rev. viii. 13, + lb. ix. 1, 2. 76 afterwards give my reasons for holding this opinion. But in interpreting the symbols which are intro- ductory to the appearance of the locusts, I feel myself obliged to dissent from many respectable writers. The symbols of this vision evidently belong to things spiritual. The star is therefore a Christian pastor or bishop.* His faUing from the heaven to the earth signifies his fall from primitive purity and simplicity into apostacy. This star or apostate bishop is the great agent in opening the pit of the abyss, or pit of hell, out of which a black smoke arises, which I conceive to be a symbol of the false doctrines and gross ignorance which overspread the Christian church during the fifth and sixth centuries. These false doctrines consisted chiefly in the ado- ration of saints, relics, and images, and in rigorous monastic austerities, the merit and efficacy of which were highly extolled by the ignorant and super- stitious clergy, the blind leaders of the blind. The following account of the slate of the church during the sixth century, taken from Mosheim, seems suf- ficiently illustrative of the nature of that symbolical smoke which issued from the pit of the abyss. " The public teachers and instructors of the people " degenerated sadly from the apostolic character. " They seemed to aim at nothing else than to sink ** the multitude into the most opprobrious ignorance " and superstition ; to efface in their minds all sense " of the beauty and excellence of genuine piety ; '' and to substitute, in the place of religious princi- * Rev. i. 20. The seven stars are the angels (bishops) of the seven churches. 77 **' pleS;, a blind veneration for the clergy, and a stupid '' zeal for a senseless round of ridiculous rites and " ceremonies. This perhaps will appear less sur- " prising when we consider, that the blind led the ** blind ; for the public ministers and teachers of " religion were for the most part grossly ignorant : " nay, almost as much so as the multitude whom they " were appointed to instruct. " To be convinced of the truth of the dismal re- " presentation we have here given of the slate of " religion at this time, nothing more is necessary " than to cast an eye upon the doctrines now taught " concerning the worship of images and saints, the " Jire of purgatory, the efficacy of good works (i. e. " the observance of human rites and institutions) " towards the attainment of salvation, the power " of relics to heal the diseases of the body and mind, *' and such like sordid and miserable fancies which " are inculcated in many of the superstitious pro- " ductions of this century, and particularly in the " Epistles and other writings of Gregory the Great, *' Nothing more ridiculous, on the one hand, than " the solemnity and liberality with which this good *' but silly pontiff distributed the wonder-working *' relics ; and nothing more lamentable, on the " other, than the stupid eagerness and devotion with " which the deluded multitude received them, and " suffered themselves to be persuaded that a portion " of stinking oil, taken from the lamps which burned " at the tombs of the martyrs, had a supernatural " efficacy to sanctify its possessors, and to defend '' them from all dangers both of a temporal and '' spiritual nature." * * Mosbeira, Cent. VI. part ii. 78 The testimony of the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman empire^, may by many readers be deemed no less important and unexceptionable than that of Mosheim. Mr. Gibbon concludes the account of the introduction and progress of the worship of saints and relics in the Christian church, in the following- words : " The sublime and simple '' theology of the primitive Christians was gradually " corrupted ; and the monarchy of heaven, already " clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded " by the introduction of a popular mythology which '^ tended to restore the reign of polytheism/' " If/* continues the same writer, '' in the begin- '•' ning of the fifth century, Tertullian or Lactantius " had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist ''*^ at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, " they would have gazed with astonishment and in- " dignation on the profane spectacle, which had "' succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a " Christian congregation." — " The Christians fre- ^' quented the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of '' obtaining from their powerful intercession every " sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal •'blessings. They implored the preservation of " their health, or the cure ol: their infirmities ; the " fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety •' and happiness of their children. Whenever they " undertook any distant or dangerous journey, they '' requested that the holy martyrs would be their '' guides and protectors on the road ; and if they '■' returned without having experienced any mis- *' fortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the '-' martyrs to celebrate with grateful thanksgivings 79 " their obligations to the memory and relics of those " heavenly patrons." * It will scarcely be disputed by those who have, given a close attention to the analogies of the lan- guage of symbols, that the universal prevalence of the false doctrines, which are described in the fore- going extracts, might be fitly symbolized by a black- smoke rising out of the pit of the abyss, or the in- fernal regions. By this smoke the sun and air were darkened. As the context relates to spiritual objects, the sun and air must in this passage be understood in a spiritual sense, i.e. as belonging to the church. In the preceding trumpet, a third part of the sun is smitten. But the sun of that trumpet is the sun of the political, and not the eccle- siastical heaven, and therefore denotes the Roman imperial power. The smiting of the sun in that trumpet is also quite different from the obscuration of the sun in this. The smiting of the third part of the sun, denoted that his body or disk was propor- tionably affected, and actually shone with diminished lustre. But the darkening of the sun, in the fifth trumpet, by means of the smoke from the infernal pit, does not imply any diminution of lustre in him ; but only that by means of the smoke, his rays are intercepted so as to render him invisible. In the heaven ecclesiastical the sun denotes our Lord. It is easy to see how the prevalence of false doctrines in the church, with respect to the medi- ation of dead saints, and the lawfulness and efficacy of worship addressed to them, and to their images and dry bpnes, had the effect of hiding Christ, the * Decline aad Fall, chap, zxviii. 80 only Mediator between God and man^ and the Sun of Righteousness, from the eyes of men. The saints and their images and rehcs having, by the influence of the false doctrines which have been de- scribed, been made to occupy the place of Christ, he was necessarily kept out of view.* Having so many other mediators, men had no need of the only true Mediator, and did not seek him. But the smoke from the pit darkened the air as well as the sun. The natural air is the medium of respiration and life to our bodies, and also the medium through which the light of the natural sun is communicated to us. The symbolical air or atmosphere, when the synibols of the context are used to denote spiritual objects, may therefore signify the pure and heavenly * The tendency of saiut-worship, to hide Christ from the eyes of men, will appear from the following account of the offerings, made in two successive years, at the altars of Christ, of Thomas a Becket, and the Virgin Mary, at Christ Church, Canterbury, which I copy from a note in Dr. Middleton's Letter from Rome. In one year the offerings stood as follows : — At Christ's altar 3 . 25 . 6 At Becket's 832 . 12 . 3 At the Virgin's 63 . 58 . 6 The next year's offerings were, At Christ's altar 0. 0.0 At Becket's 954 . 6 . 3 At the Virgin's 4 . 1.8 The following prayer to Christ is given, by the same author, from one of the popish liturgies: — Tu per ThomsB sanguinem, Quam pro te impeudit, Fac me Christe scandere, Quo Thomas ascendit. These circumstances, it is true, belong to a later age than that of the first woe, but the idolatry of the sixth century was the same in substance as that of the twelfth. 81 truths of the Gospel, which are, as it were^ the ele- ment of spiritual respiration to the soul of man^ and also the medium through which the saving light of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, is communicated to us. These pure and heavenly truths were ob- scured and darkened by the mixture of false doc- trines, which (like smoke) issued from the pit of the abyss ; and the liglit of the Sun of Righteousness could no longer shine through the medium of the truths of his own Gospel thus corrupted. Having thus endeavoured to fix the signification of the symbols, we shall find Httle difficulty in ascer- taining who was the fallen s(ar, or apostate Christian bishop, that was the great agent in opening the pit of the abyss. The acknowledged head of the Christian Church during the sixth and seventh cen- turies was the Pope, or bishop of Rome ; and history informs us, not only that the popes gave no opposition to the doctrines respecting the mediation and worship of saints, and the veneration to be paid to their images and bones, but that they were the active and most zealous promoters of these doctrines, and of all the idolatrous practices which pervaded the Christian church. I conceive the Pope of Rome, therefore, to be the fallen star, or apostate bishop, to whom was given the key of the pit of the abyss. Nor will it appear to us wonderful, that such an office should be assigned to him who pretended to be the vicar of Christ upon earth, and the visible head of the church, when we recollect, that the lawful head of the Jewish church, the high priest of the Levitical dispensation, was the chief and principal agent in the crucifixion of Christ, G 82 The sun and the air havuig been darkened by the smoke of the pit of the abyss, " there came out ot " the smoke locusts upon the earth ; and unto them " was i^'ivcn power as the scorpions of the earth " have power."* An army of locusts, in the language of symbols, signifies an army of hostile invaders. The locusts mentioned in the prophecy of Joel were so under- stood by the ancient Jewish interpreters, who were well qualified to judge of the meaning of their own symbols.f In the present instance no doubt is left on the subject, as we are informed afterwards, that '' the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses " prepared unto battle," &c. The next remark which I shall make with respect to these symbolical locusts is, that though they ap- peared to the Apostle John to come out of the black smoke which arose out of the pit of the abyss, yet they in reality came out of the infernal pit itself, and the smoke was only the medium through which they ascended. This appears from the circumstance that their king, who is afterwards mentioned, is the angel or messenger of the pit of the abyss. The fact seems to have been, that the leader of the locust army, taking advantage of the opening of the pit, and the smoky darkness which had overspread the atmosphere, and obscured the sun, came up out of the pit unperceived, and was only seen when with his army he issued forth to execute his commission. The whole of this highly hieroglyphical descrip- tion is exactly applicable to the rise of the Mahomedan religion and power ; and it is very remarkable that * Rev. ix. 3. t vide Dr. Gill on Joel i. 4. 83 Mr. Gibbon J in describing' these events, makes use of language, with respect to the state of the Christian churchy at the time when Mahummud appeared, which mig-ht ahnost be supposed to have been bor- rowed from the Apocalypse. '' The Christians of " the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into '" a semblance of paganism ; their public and private " vows were addressed to the relics and images that '' disgraced the temples of the east : The throne of '■' the Almighiydcas darkened hy a crowd ofrnarLijrSf " and saints, and angels, the objects of popular "veneration;^ and the Colly ridian heretics, who '' flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested " the Virgin with the name and honours of a " goddess, "f It may be affirmed, almost without the danger of dispute, that Mahummud could not have succeeded in his imposture in an age of light; and that if superstition and gross darkness had not previously overspread Christendom, either his impious fraud had not been attempted, or had been destroyed in embryo. J It is, therefore, quite agreeable to the nature of the symbolical language and style, that the army of locusts should be represented as issuing out of the black smoke which had previously per- vaded the symbolical atmosphere. * The reader will not fail to remark tlie similarity of this language to that of the Apocalypse : " Tlie sun and the air were darkened by " reason of the smoke.''' + Gibbon, chap. I. * The passage of 2 Thess. ii. 10, may, without any violence, be accommodated to the state of the Christian world when Mahummud appeared; they received not the love of the truth: therefore God, in just judgment, permitted a lie to prosper in the hand of the im- postor, todeceive these degenerate Christians. 84 The next particular respecting these locusts, which is worthy of observation, is, that " it was commanded " (hem, that they should not hurt the grass of the " earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree." History informs us, that the following formed a part of the instructions given to the army of Saracens which invaded Syria in the reign of Abubeker, the successor of Mahummud : " Destroy no palm-trees, " nor burn any fields of corn ; cut down no fruit- " trees, nor do any mischief to cattle, only such as '' you kill to eat."* But the language of this clause may further be designed to show us, that these locusts are not real, but symbolical locusts. The locust army were to hurt those men which had not the seal of God in their foreheads. Ac- cordingly, the ravages of the Saracens were chiefly confined to those Christian countries where religion had been most deeply corrupted by saint and image worship. " The parts which remained the freest " from the general infection were Savoy, Piedmont, " and the southern parts of Prance, which were " afterwards the nurseries and habitations of the " Waldenses and Albigenses ; and it is very memo- " rable, that when the Saracens approached these " parts, they were defeated with great slaughter, by " the famous Charles Martel, in several engage- '^ ments,"f It is said that " they had not power to kill, but " only to torment men." This seems to refer to their having no commission to destroy or overturn, but only to ravage and scourge the eastern empire. Accordingly, it is observed by Bishop Newton on * Gibbon, chap. ii. t Bishop Newton, in loco. 85 this part of the prophecy, that though they besieged Constantinople, and even plundered Rome, they yet could not make themselves masters of either of these cities. They dismembered the eastern empire of some of its best provinces, but they were never able to subdue and conquer the whole ; the putting an end to this empire being reserved for another power. It is said that the locusts had as it were crowns of gold, in allusion probably to the turbans worn by the Arabians : '' their faces were as the faces of men, '* and they had hair as the hair of women :" and the Arabians wore their beards, or at least mustachoes, as men, while the hair of their heads was flowing or plaited like that of women.* " The sound of their " wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses *' running to battle." This clause shows that the locusts were symbols of real armies, and not of hosts of heretics or false teachers, as some have supposed. The tails of the locusts, like unto scorpions, and the stings in their tails, certainly denote the poi- sonous and mortal eifects of the false religion of Mahiimmud, which always followed the conquests of the Saracens, as they carried their doctrines every where with their arms. It may be remarked here, that it appears from a passage in Isaiah, f that the tail, in the language of symbols, was understood as denoting a false or lying prophet; and by a * Ibid. It is remarkable, that many of the Mahomedan fakeers, or religious mendicants, in the east, who affect the highest degree of sanctity, still wear their hair long, and plaited in braids round fite head, more like women than men. t Isaiah ix. 15. 86 common fig'ure of speech^ it may denote the false doctrines uhicli such a prophet teaches.* The five months during' which the locusts were to torment men, may be mentioned in conformity to the nature of the type, for locusts are observed to live about five months, f But it has been remarked by all writers, that from the year (j 12, when Mahummud first began to preach his false doctrines at Mecca, till the year 662, when the Caliph Almansor built Bagdad, and called it tiie City of Peace, there were exactly one hundred and fifty years, or five prophetic months of thirty days each ; and that from this time the Saracens became a settled nation ; they ceased to make those extensive and rapid conquests which had distinguished the commencement of their career, and the wars in which they were engaged were from henceforth like the common and ordinary contests of other nations. By the king- over the locusts, whose name is Apollyon, 1 think, with Bishop Newton, that we may understand the false prophet, and the caliphs his successors. But I deem it not improbable that Satan himself may be intended. Having, in the foregoing- remarks upon the fifth trumpet, adhered in the main to the commonly received interpretation of it, I shall give my reasons for differing from some of the most celebrated inter- * Perhaps because the tails of many venomous creatures are the seat of their poison. + Bishop Newton, in loco. I confess that I am more inclined here to understand the five months as being mentioned in conformity to the nature of the symbol, than to consider it as indicating a definite period of one hundred and fifty years. 87 preter?-, with reg;ard to some particulars of the pro- phecy of the locusts. Most writers have supposed the smoke which issued from the pit of the abyss, and obscured the sun and air, to denote the false religion of Ma- hummud. But to this it may be answered, that before the appearance of the false prophet, the sun and air had been obscured by false doctrines, spread by Christian teachers, and by the gross ignorance both of the clergy and laity. Mahummud, there- fore, did not make the darkness ; he found it, and applied it to his own purposes. Moreover, it is plain, that the smoke which darkened the sun, &c. preceded the appearance of the locusts: but the false religion of Mahummud did not precede his armies, it accompanied and followed them : and hence, in the hieroglyphics of this trumpet, its dreadful eifects are, with tiie greatest propriety, exhibited to us by the tails of the locusts, like the tails of scorpions, and having stings. Those who suppose the smoke to denote the false doctrines of the prophet, do in effect maintain, that this smoke, which preceded the appearance of the locusts, and the tails of the locusts having stings, are different symbols denoting one and the same thing. But this would be a violation of all the proprieties of the symbolical style. If, as 1 think has been proved, the smoke be not an emblem of the false religion of Mahummud, then it is plain, that the fallen star, who opens the pit, cannot, as has been supposed by Bishop Newton, be Mahummud. This work of darkness better suits that fallen and apostate bishop, who calls himself the 88 Vicar and Apostle of Clirist, and the head of his church; and the truth of history forces me lo attri- bute it to him, and no other.* * Mr. Faber, in the earlier editions of his work on the 1200 years, explained the fallen star to mean Sergius, the apostate monk, who is said to have assisted Mahummiid in his work of imposture; but in the fifth edition he has abandoned this interpretation, and, with a candour that does him honour, adopted the one given in these pages. Mr. Faber now, therefore, agrees with nie in supposing the star to denote the Pope: bnt he still maintains, very inconsistently I think, as well as against historical verity, that the smoke which darkened the spiritual atmosphere, was the false religion of Mahummud, 89 CHAPTER Vll. THE SIXTH TRUMPET, OR SECOND WOE, " 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. And " the four angels were loosed, which were prepared " for the hour, and day, and month, and year, for to " slay the third part of the men." * The golden altar before God, is the altar of incense in the holy place, upon which, at the time of the morning and evening sacrifice, incense was burnt, typical of the prayers of the saints, when perfumed by the intercession of Christ, The voice from the four horns of the altar, saying to the angel, to loose the four angels, who were to be the exe- cutioners of divine anger under this trumpet, implies, that the judgments now to be inflicted, were called for by the prayers of the saints of God, wearied out with the corruptions of the professing church, and crying aloud to him to vindicate his own cause. Or it may signify, that our Lord, the great Intercessor for his people, now called to God to avenge the insults offered to his divine majesty, by the idolatry of the eastern or Greek Christians. This trumpet manifestly relates to the overthrow of the eastern empire by the Turks or Ottomans, and there is almost an unanimous consent among the * Rev. ix. 13—15. 90 best interpreters in referring it to that event. Con- siderable difference of opinion^ however, obtains among them, with regard to the subordinate parts of the vision. Mede supposes that the four angels who are loosed, denote four Turkish Sultanies, established at Bagdad, Damascus, Aleppo and Iconium, which were all at length united under the common empire of the Ottomans, who finally subverted the Greek empire by the capture of Constantinople, in the year 1453. tn this interpretation Mede is followed by Bishop Newton, Mr, Faber, and the great body of modern writers. I cannot but think, however, for the following reasons, that it is erroneous. At the time that the Ottomans overthrew the em- pire of the East, neither Aleppo, Damascus, nor Bagdad^ were under their dominion. Syria formed then a part of the Mameluke kingdom of Egypt. Nor was it till the year 1517, more than half a century after the capture of Constantinople, that Selim I. emperor of the Ottomans, conquered Syria and Egypt, after defeating the Mamelukes in two battles, and thus obtained possession of Aleppo and Damascus.* Bagdad did not become a part of the Turkish empire, until the reign of Solyman 1, who took it in the year i534,f From what has been said, it plainly appears, that Mede's explanation of the four angels is untenable. It is in fact contrary to the truth of history, and if the four angels were symbols representing any par- ticular kingdoms or nations, we must seek for some other solution of the difficulty. * Modern Univer. Hist, vol. xii. p. 240 — 252. + Ibid. p. 293. 91 We are informed from history, that four different races of Mahomedan conquerors were instrumental in overthrovving" the eastern empire ; First, the Sa- racens, whose conquests we have seen form the subject of the fifth trumpet : Secondly, the Turks of the family of Seljuk, who in the eleventh century^ ob- tained possession of the greatest part of Asia Minor, by conquest from the Greek emperors : Thirdly, the Moghul Tartars under Jenghiz Khan, and his successors, who after subjugating- the whole of Asia, adopted the Mahomedan faith : Fourthly, the Otto- mans, whose rise took place about the end of the thirteenth century. Now the Ottoman power con- centrated not only its own resources, but all that remained of the three first races of conquerors in the northern Asiatic provinces formerly attached to the Greek empire, and united them under its own dominion. For this reason perhaps its power might be represented by the four angels.* I confess however that the above solution, does not satisfy my mind ; and 1 shall proceed to offer, what appears to me a better one. With the great body of interpreters I conceive, that the Euphrates means the Turkish nation, which first invaded and con- quered the provinces of the eastern empire, situated near that river. They are on that account, and ac- cording to the style of prophecy, symbolized by the Euphrates, in the same manner as the Thames might be used to denote the English nation, or the Forth * This is very analogous to the interpretation of Vitringa and Archdeacon Woodhouse. But both these writers exclude the Saracens from the fifth trumpet, of which they oflFer other, but discordant explanations. Vitringa interprets it of the Goths invading Italy ; Archdeacon Woodhouse of the Gnostic heretics. 92 the people of Scotland.* Though the Turks^ ob- tained possession of some of the Asiatic provinces of the Eastern emjjire, as early as the eleventh century, yet they were by the providence of God and by means of the Crusades, prevented from then over- running' the empire. But at length the cup of its iniquity being filled up, they became the ordained instruments of vengeance, for its complete sub- version. To signify both the former limits which had been assigned to their conquests, and the office of wrath now committed to them, the power of the Turks or Ottomans, is represented under the symbol of four angels, which had been tied up, or restrained, in the great river Euphrates, but are now to be let loose, in order that they may slay the third part of men. It will here however be asked, why is the precise number of four selected for this end ? 1 answer, that four is one of the mystical numbers of the Apo- calypse, denoting what is complete, or entire. f In * I have already shewn, (see page 68,) that the symbolical waters signify " peoples, nations, and multitudes," Rev. xvii. 15; therefore a particular river denotes a particular people: and it is easy to see, that no river could have been selected so fitly as the Euphrates to designate the Turks. + " Quaternarius enim numerus in Apocalypsi ssepe est mvsticus, " estque inter numeros plenitudinis sive perfectos qui dicuntur respi- " ciens quatuor climata cceli." Vitringa in loco. " This number is used frequently in Scripture to denote universality, ♦' or completion. It has this force naturally from the figure br for- " mation of the human body, which is so fashioned as to occasion *' a fourfold division of the objects which surround it; so that under *' the number four they are comprehended. For instance: a man " face; one quarter of the horizon, the south, he has the north behind " him ; his hands extended point to the east and west. Hence is " derived in Scripture the determination of these four cardinal points, *' and their corresponding winds, " the four wiads of heaven." And 93 diap. viii. 1. a period of universal peace in the midst of the earthquake of the sixth seal, is represented by four angels, holding the four winds of the earth. The overthrow of the Western empire is also sig- nified in chap. viii. by the /owr angels with the four first trumpets. In a similar manner, as the eastern empire was to be completely subverted by the Turks, their power is represented^ under the symbol oifour destroying angels. The four angels were " prepared for the hour, '^ and day, and month, and year, for to slay the third " part of men." I have seen no explanation of this note of time, which satisfies my mind. Mede, Bishop Newton, and others, suppose, that it marks a prophetical period of 391 years, during which the conquests of the Ottomans were to be carried on.* But in every other passage of the scriptures where a mysterious number is given signifying a particular prophetical period, it will be found that the number has in the original Greek no article prefixed to it. In the passage now under consideration, on the con- trary, the definite article is prefixed to the first number of the series, ^TQitA.xcxi/.tvoi us rvv ■Jjpa.v, &c. and the expression ought accordingly to have been rendered in our English version, " prcpaied for the hour, &c." I think that this circumstance overthrows the inter- *' thus '" the four corners of the land," are used to signify all ihe "land; whence Philo says, Tlocvrx iv r-n rtr^oi^i. So Pythagoras: *' Tetras omnium perfectissimus, radix omnium." Archdeacon Woodhouse on Rev. iv. 4. * A Jewish year is 360 days, and a month 30 days; these two numbers being added to the one day, make 391 prophetical days; and each day being reckoned for a year, in this way a period of S9\ years is made out. 94 pretation of Mede, and I am inclined to believe, that nothing- more is denoted by the expression^ than that the precise period, when the angels were to beg-in their devastations, and also the term of their continuance, were minutely fixed in the divine counsels.* I think with Bishop Newton, Mr. Faber, and others, that the slaughter of the third part of the men, by the four angels, signifies, the subversion of the eastern empire. The western empire had al- ready been exhibited, in the four first trumpets, under the figure of a symbolical universe, and its subversion by the Gothic arms was denoted, by the destruction of a third part of that universe. The eastern empire is now placed before us as a political community, under the generic appellation of " the ^' men ;" and its overthrow is in a similar manner signified, by the slaughter of a third part of '' the '' men." The forces of the angels are afterwards described as consisting of two hundred thousand thousands horsemen, by which an indefinitely great multitude is intended ; and it is well known that the Turkish armies chiefly consisted of horse, particularly in * Mr. Faber, in tlie first editions of his work, followed the expla- uation of the hour, day, month, and year, offered by Mede; but in his fifth edition he has given it up as untenable, and supposes that it alludes to the circumstance of the precise day of the assault of the city of Constantinople having l)eeu fixed by Mahomed II. according to the rules of astrology. " Several days," says Gibbon, " were " employed by the sultan in preparations for the assault; and a *' respite was granted by his favourite science of astrology, which *' had fixed on the twenty-ninth of May as the fortunate and fatal " hour." 95 the earlier part of their history. It is said that they had breastplates of fire, and hyacinth, and brim- stone ; or in other words, red, blue, and yellow. This, says Bishop Newton, (from Daubuz) " had a " literal accomplishment, for the Ottomans from " their first appearance have affected to wear such ^' warlike apparel of scarlet, blue, and yellow/' " The heads of their horses were as the heads of " lions," — This may denote the fierceness and impe- tuosity of their onset. " Out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone." — Here there seems to be an allusion to the enormous artillery used by Mahummud II. in the siege of Constantinople, " by the instrumentality of which he chiefly suc- '^ ceeded in taking- that city, and in thus slaying the " apocalyptic third part of men."* It is added that " their power is in their mouth "■ and their tails : for their tails were like unto ser- "■ pents, and had heads, and with them they do " hurt," The power in the mouths of the horses, seems to indicate the power of inflicting temporal ill. The powei" in their tails, is however certainly indi- cative of the spiritual venom of the false religion of Mahummud, which every where followed their con- quests. These heads in their tails, are the seat of their poison, in the same manner as were the stings in the tails of the locusts of the preceding vision, and must therefore be interpreted on a like principle. I have thus endeavoured to trace the accomplish- ment of the six first trumpets, in the subversion of the Roman empire of the west, and its ruin in the * Mr. Faber in loco. 96 east, by a series of events, whereof the mighty con- sequences continue even now to operate, upon the political, the intellectual and religious destinies of the human race, and which seem therefore, every way worthy of tinding a place in this mysterious prophecy. The narrative being thus brought down to a very important era in history, new and no less important subjects are introduced in the following chapters, which will call for our most earnest atten- tion. 97 CHAPTER VIII. THE VISION OF THE ANGEL WITH AN OPEN BOOK. After the sounding of the sixth trumpet, relating to the fall of the eastern empire by the sword of the Turks, a prophetic intimation is given, that the plagues of the preceding trumpets did not produce the effects of repentance on those men who were not destroyed by them. In this notice there is pro- bably a peculiar allusion to the corruptions of the Latin church, and to those more awful judgments which they should bring down upon the inhabitants of the Western empire. A new and august object afterwards exhibited itself to the eyes of the apostle. " And I saw *' another mighty angel coming down from heaven, "^ clothed with a cloud,"* to veil the effulgent brightness of his glory ; " a rainbow on his head," the same emblem which surrounds the throne of God,f and denotes the covenant of peace ; " his " face was as the sun, and his feet as pillars of " fire ;" which particulars agree with the descrip- tion given of our Lord in the first chapter, '' He " had in his hand a little book open," or " having " been opened." It is easy to see from the above most sublime de- scription, that this angel is our Lord himself; for the glorious attributes ascribed to the angel cannot agree with any other than our Lord. Let the cir- cumstance also of the angel holding in his hand " a * Rev.x. 1. + lb. iv, 3, H 98 " little book which had been opened," be compared with what is said in a former part of the Apo- calypse : '' The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the '' Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, " and to loose the seven seals thereof;" — " and he " came and took the book out of the right hand of " him that sat upon the throne/'* And by con- necting these passages with the one we are now considering, it will appear with irresistible evidence, that the holder of this little book can only be the Lion of the tribe of Judah ; for it was not given to any other, even to look on the book, much less to hold it. ^' And he set his right foot upon the sea and his " left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud voice, '' as when a lion roareth : and when he had cried, " seven thunders uttered their voices. 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. "^ And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea, ^* lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him " who liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven " and the things that therein are, and the earth and " the things that therein are, and the sea and the " things which are therein, That there should be " time no longer ; 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, "f Having shown above, that the angel seen in this ♦ Rev, V. 5. 7. + ib. X. 2— T. 99 vision is our Lord himself, I shall now endeavour to ascertain to what precise period of time this descent of Christ belong;s. The whole vision has an evident reference to a similar one in the conclusion of the prophecies of Daniel ;* and when the two passages are carefully compared, and it is further recollected that the Apocalypse is only a more enlarged prophecy of the same things as are contained in the book of Daniel, we shall see reason to conclude, that the descent of our Lord from heaven to earth, having a little book in his hand, which had been opened, and which is afterwards given to the apostle to eat, i. e. digest and understand, is intended to signify, that the time is at length arrived when these obscure prophecies of the book of Daniel, which were twice declared to be shut up and sealed unto the time of the end, should be fully understood by the servants of the Lord. Our Lord's descent, therefore, belongs to the time of the end. The time of the end evidently reaches to the close of the seventh Apocalyptic trumpet, when the king- doms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ ;f when also the Son of Man shall come with the clouds of heaven to receive the kingdom promised to him in the prophecies of Daniel : J And the time of the seventh trumpet is likewise, as has been proved by some of the ablest interpreters, the signal for the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath afterwards mentioned. § The time of the end is also the period which immediately * Dan. xii. 4. 9. + Rev. xi. 13. t Dan. vii. 13,14. ^ Rev. xv. 7. h2 100 precedes *' the times of refreshing," and of " the *' restitution of all thin^^s ;" until which the heaven must receive the Son of God, as declared by St. Peter in the Acts of the Apostles.* Since, then, the descent of our Lord, which is now under consideration, belong-s to the time of the end, and of the seventh trumpet and seven vials, we may hence discover a reason for the various circum- stances which accompany and follow this descent. Our Lord appears clothed with a cloud, to signify that the hour is at hand, when he shall come with the clouds of heaven. The rainbow is upon his head, which is the emblem of the covenant of peace ; because the blessed time is at length arrived, when the influence of his peace-giving Gospel shall be extended from the rising to the setting of the sun. He has in his hand a little book opened, for the reason already assigned, viz. that the period is come when its prophecies shall be completely understood by the church of God. He sets his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth, to denote to his servant John, that he is now about to take possession of the universal kingdom promised to him by the Father, when all the kingdoms of this world shall become his kingdom. His crying with a loud voice, as a lion roareth, is emblematical of the awful sounding of the seventh trumpet ; and it seems to signify to us, that the voice of that trumpet is in effect the voice of the Lion of the tribe of Judah himself, denouncing vengeance against his enemies. The seven thunders which utter their voices, are emblematical of the seven vials of the * Acts iii. 19—21. 101 wrath of God, which are poured out on the sounding of the seventh trumpet. The apostle is forbidden to write what the thunders had uttered, probably because their contents were to be fully declared and shown forth under a ditferent symbol, viz. that of the pouring' out of the vials ; and it did not seem necessary to the Holy Ghost to describe them twice. The above conjecture, as to the meaning of the emblematical roaring of our Lord, is confirmed by what follows ; for, in evident allusion to the voice which he had previously uttered, he immediately swears_, in the awful name of him that liveth for ever and ever, " That there should be time no " longer ; 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." This seems to be de- clared in. reference to the finishing of the mysterious times mentioned in the prophecy of Daniel.* On this point Mede says expressly, " That those *' finishing times of the fourth beast, called a time, " times, and half a time, during which the wicked "■ horn should domineer and ruflfle it among his ten "■ kings, are the self-same time which the angel, in " St. John, forewarneth should be no longer, as " soon as the seventh angel began to sound," f These mysterious times being ended, and the period come when the prophecies of Daniel, and consequently of the Apocalypse, are to be com- pletely opened and unsealed, a voice from heaven commands the apostle to go, and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel. The book * Dan. xii. 7. + Mede's Works, Book iv. ep. 8. 102 is according-ly given him to cat, or tlioroughly to understand and digest. It ougiit to be remarked, that in this symbohcal action of eating the opened book, the apostle, is tlie representative of the church ; and that the action signifies, that now the sealed prophecies should be unsealed and understood by the church of God. The only thing that remains to be considered in this vision, is what is siguified by the little book in the hand of our Lord ; and the determination of this point has greatly perplexed the interpreters of the Apocalypse. Whatever were the contents of this little book (^iCX(af($«ov), it seems, without ques- tion, that it must be a part of the book (C/fX(oy) before mentioned, having seven seals. It is pro- bable that this book consisted of seven distinct rolls enveloped one under the other, the seventh roll being the inmost one; and each roll had its distinct seal. Each of these rolls was most probably consi- dered as a " little book," or i:,Sxi