5^-^ ''vm\ * I'mmm-'-m'" ■■.■ I ALUMNI XIBRARY, U I THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY; | ^ PRK-r t:ton, n. j. -_!1______1 S >»- I PRESENTED BY '•**«•«»-». JH Casef Division ee<^^5>9©<^^>e r.r^^s-^- I *''*^^/' Section t^ ^ ^ '' No '-B5Z8Z7 A DISSERTATION SEALS AND TRUMPETS APOCALYPSE, AND THE PROPHETICAL PERIOD OF 1260 YEARS. SUPPLEMENT, Sit CiMfl i9itrt^: I. ON THE SCIENTIFIC CHRONOLOGY AS A TEST OF APOCALYPTICAL INTERPRETATION; II. CONTAINING ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE OF THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF THE GREAT NUMBERS OF DANIEL; ^liSo, ait appcntfcU BiSraxir^t ON THE SCIENTIFIC MEASURES OF THE MUNDANE TIMES, AND THE REASONS FOR THE GREEK CHRONOLOGY; ^ntr a fafilc OF THE GREEK AND HEBREW CHRONOLOGIES, FROM CREATION TO THE END 01" THE JEWISH WAR. BY WILLIAM*^CUNINGHAME, ESQ., OF LAINSHAW, IN THE COUNTY OF AYR. FOURTH EDITION, CORRECTED AND ENLARGED. WHAT I SAY UNTO YOU, 1 SAY UNTO ALL:-WATCH."— Mark xiil. 37. LONDON : THOMAS CADELL; HATCHARD AND SON; AND JAMES NISBET AND CO. EDINBURGH ;_W. WHYTE & CO.; AND GRANT & SON. DUBLIN :-ROBERTSON AND CO. MDCCCXLIII. ALEXANDER MACINTOSH, PRINTER, GREAT NEW STREET, LONDON. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF A DISSERTATION, &c. 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. Faber, carried on througli the medium of a respectable periodical work, upon the subject of the commencement 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 likewise 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 Woodhouse's Translation of the Apocalypse: "It is comparatively easy to give to interpretations of detached parts of the Apocalypse, an appearance of truth, which would totally vanish, were they considered in connexion 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 tlie book. The reader then feels that he is in some degree put in a condition to judge for himself; the consequence, 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 tlie study of prophecy? • Christian Observer, vol. v. p. 557, for 1806. a '2 iv PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION I therefore 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 imbody 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 execution 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, 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 the fourth beast is a symbol of the Papal power ; and like- wise that the Babylon of the Apocalypse is the Church of Rome. These may be considered 2& first principles in the study of prophecj', 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.* In these pages the reader will find frequent mention of the second * 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 strictures 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 been overthrown by the events of the last four years ; and with regard to his opinion concerning the 1260 prophetical days, the reader will find some remarks in the Preface to this edition. Under these cii'cumstances, it appears to me quite unnecessary to re-publish my former strictiu-es, a great part of which are no longer applicable to the existing state of things. — Second Edition. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. V personal advent of our Lord. I 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. Jiyurative 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 consideration of the prophetical Scriptures, but was slowly and reluctantly formed, in opposition to early prejudices. In the continued prevalence of the opposite senti- ment, 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 on 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. On this point I shall introduce the following quotation from King's Remarks on the Signs of the Times. f " On the one hand, the Jews would not apprehend, 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 backward to believe and apprehend what is really written in the same words of holy prophecy concerning 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 prosperitj^ of the Christian Church on earth ; though such fancied prosperity is a misapplication of the words, in direct contra- diction 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. • Luke xviii. 8. f Pp. 26, 27. VI PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 1st. I assign to the same symbols the same meaning ; or where there is any variation of" signification 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 unchronological prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, &c., can be allowed in explaining the Apocalypse.* 3d. I apply symbols of the same nature, or homogeneous, to similar objects, 4th. 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 parables. 5th. In ascertaining the places of the diff'erent 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 tabernacle : by observing them, the Levites discovered the place of each separate curtain, and joined them 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 prophecy. " 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), / saw the tabernacle of the temple of God in heaven opened. This expression I consider as a mai'k inserted like the loop in the edge of the curtain, where the series of the narration is broken off". " Accordingly the same words are repeated (Rev. xv. 5), like * The first and second of these principles are nearly the same with two of Mr. Faber's rules. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. Vll the corresponding loop in the edge of the other curtain ; then it is said, Atid the seven angels came out of the temple having the seven plagues, wjjich shows 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 explanation of this mysterious book, it is not for me to judge. But as I cannot hope to have avoided mistakes, I 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 I shall rejoice to see these sacred prophecies truly interpreted, though the correction of my mistakes should lay the foundation of so desirable a superstructure." March, 1813. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF A DISSERTATION, &c. 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 calcu- lations 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, M'hich 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 occurrences 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 signs of their own times. Now what were these signs, but the strict correspondence of the events which they beheld, with the prophetic annunciations of a former age ? Again, our Saviour, after predicting in highly figurative language the political convulsions which in the last ages were to be the forerunners of the second advent, says to his Church, " 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 predicted signs, unless by comparing the words of Christ with current events ? • Luke xxi. 28. X PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION Indeed, the sentiment I am now refuting, though it comes to us under the specious guise of humility and self-diffidence, is in reality founded on indolence and sloth, and partakes largely of that spirit of unbelief, which has usually pervaded the minds of the gi'eat body of mankind, under the most unequivocal 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 I should, in my first edition, have fallen into very important mistakes. These errors are acknowledged 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 anticipations, 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 chajjter, which I 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 aff'orded me an opportunity of carefully reviewing its principles. But Avhatever 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 arrangement of the seals and trumpets, I remain satisfied 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. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. xi 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 undertake 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 oppor- tunity 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 anonymous 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 observations. I deem it therefore to be incumbent upon me, to make a 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 XU PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION prolong the controversy respecting it. The French power has perished, but the body of the Roman Empire survives. Nay, the Papal monarchy, the final and absolute extinction of which was pronounced by Mr. Penn to have taken 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 incumbent 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. 1st. The little horn was seen to arise after the other horns.-]- 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 hoin 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 mtn 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 intrinsical physical power. The smallness of the anomalous 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 ; J and from its spiritual pretensions, symbolized by its mouth speaking great things, whereby it obtained a paramount control over the minds of men, which even in the present period they have been unable entirely to shake ofF.§ • Christian's Survey, p. 90. f Dan. vii. 24. % Dan. vii. 8. § The late Papal buU against Bible Societies, which I here insert, is in some measure illustrative of the meaning of the expression, that " this horn hath a mouth speaking great things." The following is a copy of this buU. Translation of the Bull against Bible Societies, issued from Rome, June 29th, 1816, by Pope Pius VII. to the Archbishop of Gnezn, Primate of Poland. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XUl 3d. The power of the horn is commensurate in time, with that of the beast, in Rev. xiii., which is admitted by Mr. Penn himself to denote the Roman Empire in its divided state. The duration of the " POPE PIUS vn. " Vexerable Brother, " Health and Apostolic benediction. " In our last letter to 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 concerns 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 the very foimdations of religion are undermined : and having, because of the great im- portance of the subject, convened for consultation our venerable brethren, 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 imdcr circumstances so hazardous to Christianity, in having denounced to the ApostoUc See, this defilement of the faith, most imminently dangerous 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 shown an ardent desire to detect and oppose the impious machinations of these iimova- tors ; yet in conformity with our office, we again and again exhort you, that whatever you can achieve by power, provide for by council, or effect by authority, you will daUy execute with the utmost earnestness, 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 stUl more and more to excite your pastoral solicitude and ■\-igilance. — 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 destruction of oiu" 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 ^dew of the faithful, and openly publish the same, according to the rules prescribed 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 rules of the Index (Xo. II. and UI.) ; for it is e\ident from experience, that the Holy Scriptures, when circulated in the ndgar tongue, have. XIV PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 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 circumstance, 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. through the temerity of men, produced more harm than benefit:' (Rule FV,) 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 confidently 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 vdll very abundantly justify the opinion which we have entertained of them. " It is moreover necessary that you should transmit to us, as soon as possible, the Bible which Jacob Wuiek published in the Pohsh language with a commentary, as well as a copy of the edition of it lately put forth without those annotations, taken from the wi'itings of the holy Fathers of our Church, or other learned Catholics, 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 pronoimce 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 battles of the Lord in sound doctrine, and warn the people intrusted to your care, that they fall not into the snares which are prepared for them, to their everlasting ruin. The Church waits 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 sovdng so abundantly, may, by this cheering hope, be somewhat alleviated ; and, together with the ApostoHc bene- diction 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. Mai-y-the-Greater, June 29, 1816, the 1 7th year of our Pontificate. » POPE PIUS vn." OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XV by the beast with two horns, which Mr. Penn acknowledges to be the Papacy-. 4th. The episcopal character of the power, designated by the horn, is marked by the singular circumstance of this horn having ci/es like the eyes of a man. There is in this a manifest allusion to the Greek word for a bishop, (ma-KOTros, which literally signifies an overseer. The argument of Mr. Penn against this application 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 Scriptures, that even the prophets understood not their own pre- dictions. This prescriptive belief, therefore, when strictly analyzed, appears to consist of nothing more than the unauthorized conjectures of the uninspired writers called the Fathers, concerning the accom- plishment 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 Apocalypse, or the Papal power w hich 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 respect 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 chronological period be so clearly marked, and the interpretation of those characters so determinately prescribed, by the analogy of some other similar number, with respect to which there is a common agree- ment among Jewish, Popish, and Protestant expositors, 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 nowhere expressed without the same enigmatical disguise which is common to the whole system of prophetical truth, and one of the XVI PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 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 revelation 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 com- mencement 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 intel- ligible scriptural truth within very narrow limits ; for what parts of 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 (/ repeat the question), 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 mentioned 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 consequences 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 Smithfield; 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 Millennium, which he would substitute for the opinion which, with whatsoever variation of subordinate circumstances, is generally received in the Protestant OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XVU Church, an opinion which the author of the Christian's Survey classes with " the decoys of system and the fascinations of fancy /" Mr. Penn further treats the sentiment, that the Roman Empire is to be broken in Palestine, as a fo7id 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 profoundest scriptural critics, and most sagacious interpreters 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 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 inter- preting 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 I But since this cannot be in the present imperfect state of our knowledge, and diseased condition of our moral powers, let us at least endeavour 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 meek- ness and gentleness 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. \ PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION OF A DISSERTATION, &c. In sending out a Third Edition of this Work, I would begin by- giving glory to God for the many testimonies I have had of his having vouchsafed to bless the former editions, and especially the second, to the spiritual good of his Church. Since that edition went forth, I have had full time to reconsider the leading principles of the Work, and having been called upon to defend them against various opponents, I have found myself more and more established in the belief of their truth. I shall now, therefore, place before the reader, as a suitable introduction to the pi-esent edition, some general arguments in confir- mation of my system of interpretation. We learn, from the title of the book, that the purpose for which it was given was, to shew the servants of God the things which must shortly come to pass ; it is therefore to be anticipated, that we shall find in it a comprehensive summary of the great events and revolutions connected with the fortunes of the Church of God, from the ascension of our Lord, till his advent in glory, analogous to that which was given to the Jewish Church, in the concluding prophecy of Daniel. This summary may be expected to contain some account of the internal condition of the Church, and its changes of character, during the intervening ages ; and of its political historj', or its history in connexion with the kingdoms of this world, exhibiting it in its early- struggles against Paganism enthroned in the high places of the Roman earth — in its victory over this enemy — in its subsequent alliance with the kingdoms of this world ; its deep degeneracy and abject prostration under these powers, and yet its domination over them ; * its partial revival at the era of the Reformation ; and its final redemption. In this prophetic compendium of events, we shall also be prepared to find some mention of the rise of the Mahomedan imposture, and * Rev. xvii. 3. The Harlot rides on the Beast. b 2 XX PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION the power of the Saracens, and of the overthrow of the Eastern empire by the Ottomans, as well as the destruction of that power, preparatory to the restoration of the scattered tribes of Israel. For the same reason, that it is impossible to conceive that any of the above events should be left out in any human or uninspired outline of the history of the last eighteen centuries, it is difficult to imagine, or believe, that they should be omitted in an inspired and prophetic summary of that history. It seems, therefore, an insuperable objection to any scheme of interpretation, if it be found to omit all mention of any one, or more, of these great leading and distinguishing events in the history of the Church, or any of the great revolutions of the fourth monarchy of Daniel, in connexion with the Church. There have been, properly speaking, only three such revolutions in the Roman empire of the West, from the ascension of our Lord to the present period. The first was that in the age of Constantine, whereby the religion of the State was changed from Paganism to Christianity. The second was at the period of the Reformation, and it shook Europe to its foundations. The third is the Revolution which began in France in the year 1789, and having, by its first vibrations, over- thrown the monarchy of the Bourbons in the year 1792, has, from that period to the present, continued to agitate Europe. Now, I do not say that he who sits down to explain the Apocalypse, is to be beforehand determined to find these three Revolutions in that prophecy ; but I do affirm, that if a commentator have discovered the true arrangement of the book, each of these three main Revolutions will naturally, and without violence, come in, and fit itself, as it were, to its proper place. The same observation will hold good with respect to the various other events already mentioned. Keeping these remarks in view, I go on to observe, that it appears to me evident that the great test of a right system of Apocalyptic arrangement is the interpretation of the war of the beast with the witnesses, their death, resurrection, and ascension. There is a double note of the chronology of these events; 1st. It is said that at the same hour, or Apocalyptic season, there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell.* 2dly. It is immediately afterwards added, that the second woe is past, and the third woe cometh quickly. * Chap. xi. 13. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XXI It follows, therefore, that the events in the Church which fulfil the prophecy of the death and resurrection of the witnesses, must cor- respond with this double note of time ; i. e. they must be cotenipora- neous with a great Revolution, in which one conspicuous European kingdom falls from the Papal dominion ; and this, again, must be followed by the passing away of the second woe. Moreover, the earth- quake in which the tenth part of the city falls, cannot be the Jirst of the three Revolutions above-mentioned, viz., that in the reign of Constantine, since that Revolution manifestly precedes the sackcloth prophesying of the witnesses, and the commencement of the 1260 days. Neither can this earthquake be the last of the three Revolu- tions above-mentioned, for that Revolution overthrows the ichole city, and not a tenth part of it. It only remains, therefore, that the earth- quake in which a tenth part of the city falls, is that of the Reformation, the last shock of which took place at the expulsion of the Stuarts from the throne of England, in the year 1688. Now, the only events in the history of the Church which correspond with this double notation of time, and which answer also in character to the death and resurrection of the witnesses, are the religious wars which took place in Germany in the reign of Charles V., ending first in the dissolution of the Smalcaldic League, and the suppression of the Protestant faith ; and secondly, in the signal humiliation of the Emperor Charles V., and the triumphant resuscitation of the Protestant Churches at the peace of Passau. These events were cotemporaneous with the great earthquake of the Reformation, which continued to convulse Europe for about a century and a half afterwards. The last shock of this earthquake was also followed, at an interval of only eleven years, by the peace of Carlowitz, which crippled the Ottoman power, so that since then it has ceased to be a woe to Christendom. In confirmation of this reasoning, it is observable, that all those writers who place the death and resurrection of the witnesses at a later period than the above, either at the edict of the Duke of Savoy for the eradication of the Waldenses in 1 686, or at a i)eriod yet future, are compelled also to exclude all mention of the Reformation, both in its ecclesiastical and political results, from the Apocalyptic prophecies ; * • Mr. Faber, in his Sacred Calendar, does indeed admit into the series of Apoca- lyptic events, that which forms the concluding shock of the great earthquake of Rev. XXll PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION and they thus suppose that the book which was to reveal to the servants of God the things tvhich shall shortly come to pass, omits altogether, as unworthy of notice, that stupendous event which shook the Papal throne, opened the prison-house of the human mind, and convulsed the whole of Europe for more than two centuries — an event which even secular writers place amongst the most conspicuous in the history of the world. Those persons who suppose that the death and resurrection of the witnesses are to be at a period yet future, add to the above absurdity a second, since they are compelled to affirm that the Turkish power, now in the very agonies of dissolution, is even yet a woe to Christendom. Upon the above general grounds of argument, I rest with perfect confidence the truth of the system of interpretation adopted in this volume ; and I now proceed, in the next place, in confirmation of the foregoing reasoning, to place before the reader an analysis of the whole book, in harmony with this scheme. There is a beautiful harmony in the works of God, and a close analogy between his great book of nature and his book of revelation. It is the office of Reason, when rightly improved, to interpret the book of nature, by the process called induction. Newton thus discovered that the principle of gravitation explains all the phenomena of the astronomical movements of the material universe. It is the office of Wisdom, which is the special gift of God to those who diligently seek it, to interpret, by the like process of Scriptural Induction, the book of Revelation, using the woi'd in the largest sense, as signifying the whole of revealed truth, and not the Apocalypse only. In doing this, it is especially necessary to take for our guides the same universal axioms which conduct us to the right interpretation of the book of nature. One of these axioms is, 7iot without necessity to multiply first causes xi. 1 3, viz., the English Eevolution of 1 688. But it were as consistent with historical verity to exclude from the narrative of the plagues of Egypt all the former nine plagues, and to mention only the tenth, as it is to limit the great revolution or commotion, ^eiafj-os, of the Eeformation, to that part of the city which fell. There is a narrowness of vision in such Hmitations of events to suit particular hypotheses which is quite opposed to the comprehensiveness of the prophetic word, as well as the philosophy of history. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. Xxiii and principles, so that if one principle be sufficient to account for any given number of scriptural phenomena, we are not at liberty, without the direct and express authority of the Scriptures, to introduce a scco?id. Applying this argument to the elucidation of the Apocalypse, I find that one principle is sufficient to explain the whole structure of this mysterious book : this principle is, that the whole A-pocahjpse, from chap. vi. 1, to the end, is included in the book /3ij3Xtoi/, with seven seals. Still, however, we are not at liberty to assume this principle without proof. I proceed, therefore, to show that it is established by incon- trovertible evidence. We are told, in the opening clause of the book itself, that it is the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show to his servants things tchich must shortly come to pass. If, then, we can discover any one, and not more than one book, which was given to Jesus Christ by the Father, we may be assured that this book is the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. But we learn in chap. v. 1, that John saw a hook sealed with seven seals in the right hand of Him that sitteth on the throne, and no creature in heaven, or in earth, was found worthy to take and to open it. Afterwards it is announced, that the Lamb hath prevailed to open the book, and accordingly the apostle sees him come, and take the book from the right hand of him who sat on the throne, and successively open its seven seals. This book with seven seals, is therefore, manifestly, the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God gave u7ito him. No other book was seen to be given to him, and we are not at liberty to suppose or introduce another. Thus, the symbolical action of the delivery of the book, as well as the awful solemnities which accompany the delivery, and the words of the celestial sym- phonies which follow, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, do all unite in identifying the seven-sealed book with the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ. It therefore follows, that this book contains the whole Apocalypse, properly so called ; that is, the whole prophetic visions of things which shall shortly come to pass discovered to the Church. These visions begin with the first seal, chap. vi. 1, and go down to chap, xxii. 5, the verses which follow being ihe Epilogue. XXIV PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION It is impossible for us to deny this conclusion, without affirming an absolute contradiction, viz., that two terms which are identical in signification, do yet signify things unequal : or, in other words, that a thing is not equal to itself. We have proved that the seven-sealed book is the Apocalypse. It therefore must contain all the parts of the Apocalypse, otherwise, the whole is not equal to all its parts, which is absurd. We however arrive at the same conclusion by another process. The book received by our Lord was sealed with seven seals. Now, the number seven is mystical, and imports completeness, perfection, and even infinity. The seven seals with which the book was closed, show, on the one hand, that it was so completely shut as to be inaccessible to the inspection of all creation. But the precise number of the seven seals, (each of which, as we afterwards learn, contains a distinct vision, or series of visions,) imports also that if the whole seven were opened, it must include in it a complete revelation and discovery of the whole mystery of God — the complete series of the things which were about to come to pass. To affirm, as some writers do, that there are three distinct series, of seals, trumpets, and the little book, is in effect to maintain, that the seven seals, which have been proved to contain the whole, are yet only a part, i. e., do not contain the whole.* Having thus ascertained that the Apocalypse, from chap. vi. 1, to xxii. 5, is identical with the seven-sealed book, I proceed to lay down a series of propositions respecting its structure, or arrangement, and its interpretation. I remark, however, in the first place, that the first five chapters are, properly speaking, no part of the prophecy, which only begins with the opening of the first seal. The first chapter contains a general preface : the two next chapters contain seven epistles to the Asiatic Churches, as types of the successive states of the Church universal during the whole of this dispensation. These * The conclusiveness of this reasoning has been denied by a private assailant. There is no truth, however fortified by evidence, which may not and has not been questioned. If my assailant should question it publicly with his reasons, I may feel myself boimd to notice them. To my own imderstanding, it appears that I have demonstrated the seven-sealed book to be identical ^dth the prophecy of the Apocalypse. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XXV episUes are from our Lord himself, as the head of the Church, in which capacity he lias an intimate knowledge of all its concerns; and they contain things of the deepest moment to the Gentile Churches — matter of comfort, exhortation, admonition, and promise. The fourth and fifth chapters are a particular introduction to the seven-sealed book. Having premised these things, I proceed to lay down the following series of propositions respecting the apocalyptical arrangement and interpretation. I. The basis of all true Apocalyptic arrangement is, to place every part of the book within its proper seal. For, since the seven seals comprehend the tohole, it is manifest that every part must belong to one or other of the seals, otherwise the whole is not equal to all its parts, which is absurd. II. It is manifest, on opening the book, that the Jirst six seals proceed in a regular series from chap. vi. 1, to vii. 17, when the white-robed multitude having come out of the great tribulation, are seen celebrating the antitypical Feast of Tabernacles in the temple of God. These six seals do therefore close with an event which is confessedly and altogether ecclesiastical. III. The symbols of the ^rst four seals, consisting each of a single horseman, with subordinate machinery, are homogeneous, and must be applied to objects homogeneous, or of like kind. IV. But the symbols of the Jirst seal are, as I have shown in the body of this work, ecclesiastical, and 7iot secular. Therefore, the fii'st seal and the next three seals, which are homo- geneous with it, must relate to objects ecclesiastical ; to the Church, and not the empire. V. The Jifth seal also, confessedly belongs to the Church. VI. The earthquake of the sixth seal is political) with an intermix- ture of things ecclesiastical,* being the day of the wrath of the Lamb. Therefore, the whole series of the Jirst six seals relates to the Church, with the exception of the political earthquake of the sixth. • I do not here enter into the proof of this, seeing, I believe, it is universally admitted. XXVI PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION VII. The political earthquake of the sixth seal is, apparently, introduced into a series of ecclesiastical events, for the purpose of connecting, and as it were dovetailing this seal with the seventh trumpet and seven vials, with which it corresponds in prophetic chronology : the earthquake of the sixth seal being identical with that of the seventh trumpet and seventh vial. VIII. The seventh seal comprehends the whole remainder of the Apocalypse from viii. 1, to xxii. 5. It, therefore, contains the whole of the trumpets, just as the seventh trumpet includes the seven vials. IX. The seven trumpets contain the series of events which are to destroy the Roman Empire, secular and ecclesiastical, in all its parts, western and eastern, and they subdivide themselves into three parts. 1st. The first four trumpets describe the desolation of a symbolical universe, in its four parts of dry land, sea, rivers, and fountains, and celestial luminaries. The smiting of the third part of the universe in these trumpets sets before us the overthrow of the Western Empire by the Goths and Vandals. 2d. The fifth and sixth trumpets describe the desolation and over- throw of the Eastern Empire by the Saracens and Ottomans. 3d. The seventh trumpet brings in the final and entire desolation of the symbolical universe, by which event is signified the utter destruc- tion of the mystical Babylon, or Rome, secular and spiritual, and also the remains of the three former monarchies. — It also introduces the triumphant reign of Messiah and his saints. This trumpet is brought before us three times. First, it is pre- ludiously intimated by the roaring of the angel and the seven thunders, chap. x. 1 — 7. Secondly, it is given in miniature, chap. xi. 15 — 19. Thirdly, in detail, chap. xiv. — xix., and indeed the whole remainder of the book down to xxii. 5, belongs to this trumpet. X. Chapters xi. xii. and xiii. contain the history of the Church in its relation to the Roman Empire of the West, and of that empire in its reciprocal relation to the Church, during the prophetical period of 1260 years. Only the first of these chapters carries down the history somewhat lower, to the great consummation of the kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our Lord ; and the second chapter carries back the history to the day of Pentecost in the travails of the Church for the conversion of the world. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XXvii XI. There are in the Apocalypse three earthquakes^ the chronology of each of them being distinctly marked. The first, chap. viii. 5, precedes all the trumpets, as the angels do not prepare themselves to sound till that earthquake is passed. The chronology of this earth- quake marks it to be that which took place in the time of Constantine. The second earthqtiake being that of chap xi. 13, which precedes the passing away of the second woe, is, for the reasons already given, identified with the period of the Reformation. The third earthquake is that of the Day of Wrath, vi. 12—17, xi. 18, 19, xvi. 18. Its first shock M'as at the French Revolution and fall of the Monarchy in 1792. It continues till the Advent, and its most tremendous concussions are yet future, or at least only now commencing. XII. The opening of the temple in chap. xi. 19, and xv. 5, is one and the same event. As it takes place after the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and prior to the egress of the vial-bearing angels, it establishes a most important point in the apocalyptic structure, viz., that all the vials belong to the seventh trumpet. XIII. The first sounding of the seventh trumpet synchronizes with the beginning of the judgment of the Ancient of Days, Dan. vii. 9. XIV. At the first blast of the seventh trumpet the proclamation of the kingdom takes place in heaven, chap. xi. 15, and at the same time the sentence of deposition from the kingdom goes forth against the beast, and this seems to be the reason why in chap. xvii. (the period of the seventh trumpet), he appears without the imperial diadems, which now belong to the Lord Messiah. XV. At a subsequent period of the seventh trumpet our Lord descends from heaven, not yet wearing the many diadems, Aia8rjfiaTa iroXka, xix. 12, but simply the crown, ^retpavos. His first acts are to raise his sleeping saints, and receive unto himself his sealed saints, the 14'4',000 of all the tribes of the mystic Israel;* and he next reaps the harvest of the earth, ver. 14 — 16. After this, and before the treading of the wine-press, the investiture of the kingdom takes place, as is manifest from his having on his many diadems when he appears at Armageddon. The exact time of the investiture of the kingdom seems to be marked by the voices in chap. xix. 6, " Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth ;" and these voices being the proclama- • Rev. vii. 4 — 8, and xiv. 1 — 5. XXVm PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION tton of the kingdom on earth, or in the air, are the counterpart of the former proclamation in heaven at the first sound of the seventh trumpet. Immediately after this proclamation is the marriage supper, and the appearance of our Lord with the many diadems, as King of kings and Lord of lords. In exact harmony with the conclusions of Proposition XV. as to the order of events, the Son of Man is Jirst seen by Daniel, vii. 13, I'i, coming with the clouds, and is brought to the Ancient of Days, and then is invested with the kingdom. The analysis now ofFei-ed to the readers of this work, is the same as is to be found in my Strictures on Mr. Irving's Lectures on the Apocalypse, with some corrections, and is the result of thirty years' meditations on this wonderful book. To those who are conversant with the writings of the older com- mentators on the Apocalypse, it will be evident, that I have carefully consulted their works, and have always, where it was possible to do so, availed myself of their discoveries. It seems to me indeed, altogether incredible, that such men as Mede, Sir Isaac and Bishop Newton, Dr. H. More, Archdeacon Woodhouse, Dr. Cressener, and many others, should have laboured utterly in vain ; and that no advances should have been made till the present day, in the inter- pretation of this book. These remarks are the more necessary, inasmuch as we find in these times, new systems of interpretation springing up like funguses around us. We live in a period, when every anonymous tyro in a pi'ophetic magazine thinks himself qualified to set aside the labours of centuries, and exalt his own crude lucu- brations into a system of apocalyptic interpretation. For my own part, I must confess, that I have not been able to go to work so glibly. I have felt too deeply the arduousness of the undertaking, to have either the presumption, or the inclination to enter upon it, as if no one had advanced a step before me, to clear away difficulties, and establish synchronisms, and principles of interpretation. I must here also say a few words, in reference to a notion which has gone abroad in the present day, chiefly through the medium of the Morning Watch, that there is to be a double acting over of the apocalyptic prophecies. They have, it seems, according to this scheme, received only a symbolical fulfilment during the 1260 pro- OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. Xxix phetic days or years, and there still remains a literal accomplishment of them, in a supplementary period of three years and a half of solar time. The whole prophetic character of the beast with seven heads and ten horns, having been, according to this scheme, once acted in the history of the secular Roman Empire, is to receive a higher, because a more literal accomplishment in an individual, the personal Antichrist, or Assyrian.* In like manner, the little horn of Daniel's fourth beast, and the second apocalyptic beast, having run their course of 1260 prophetic days, are again to fulfil it, in the person of the same individual. Now the advocates of these systems ought to begin, by defining the meaning of terms. Let them tell us what is the symbolical or typical accomplishment of a symbol. To my mind, the expression conveys no one tangible idea, and it seems to be pure nonsense. I read, for example, in the Book of Genesis, that Pharaoh, king of Egypt, had two symbolical dreams, which were both fulfilled by real events, namely, that of the seven well-favoured kine, and the seven good ears of corn, by the seven years of plenty ; and that of the seven ill- favoured kine, and seven thin ears, by the seven years of famine. We know also from the words of Jacob to his sons, how grievous the famine was. " Why," said the aged patriarch, " do ye look one upon another ? Behold I have heard that there is corn in Egypt ; get you down thither, and buy for us from thence, that we may live, and not die."-|- Now assuredly it has never yet entered into the mind of any sober person, that this famine was a symbolical fulfilment of Pharaoh's dreams. What, then, do these writers mean, when they tell us that the rise of the Papal power, and of the Gothic-Roman, and harlot-ridden empire, were symbolical fulfilments of the apocalyptic prophecies ? Were these events less real, and less tangible, and less noxious, than the seven years' famine in Egypt ? and if not less real, and less tangible, how does it accord with scriptural verity, to speak of them as being symbolical fulfilments of the symbols ? :}: Moreover, were we for a moment to grant the fact, that the seals and trumpets, the vials, and other symbols, are to be acted over • Morning Watch, for September, 1832, p. 48. t Gen. xlii. 1, 2, * Morning Wafch, for June, 1832, pp. 308, 321. XXX PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION again,* how is their future fulfilment to be more literal than the past, unless we are indeed to suppose, that a literal beast with seven heads, and ten horns, is to appear on the stage of the world ; and unless we suppose, that a liquid called wrath, is to be poured out from seven literal bowls, &c., &c., 8fc. ! I ! To go into the refutation of these schemes would require volumes, for it is one of the contrivances of their advocates, absolutely to write down opposition, by such a mass of words as to defy any ordinary capacity, either of memory or of leisure, even to get possession of their reasoning. I shall therefore just observe, in reference to these writers, that it appears to me, that giving the reins to their imagina- tions, they bray as in a mortar the apocalyptic visions ; and mistaking resemblances for identities, they confound all chronology, all syn- chronisms, all order, and all evidence of the past fulfilment of the Apocalypse, as also all well-grounded confidence in any interpretation which can be given of it. And that this censure is not too severe, I shall now proceed to show. In Rev. viii. 13, an angel flies through the midst of heaven, denouncing a triple woe on the inhabitants of the earth. The first two woes, by the nearly unanimous consent of the Church during the last three centuries, are the Saracens and Turks. Now when the period allotted to the ^rst woe is over, it is solemnly announced by the Spirit, chap. ix. 12, " One woe is past ; and, behold, there come two more woes hereafter." I apprehend that this annunciation, as well as the similar one respecting the second woe, in xi. 14, are to be held, not only as chronological marks, but as merciful promises to the Church and the world, similar in character to that contained in the covenant of God with Noah ; namely, that both these woes having once run their allotted course, are not again to be permitted to visit the earth. And let it be observed, that the interpreters whom we are now opposing, have always held the above interpretation of the first two woe trumpets, to be sound and correct ; that is, they have with us applied the first woe to the Saracens, and the second to the Turks. At length, however, they come forward with the new discovery, that the former fulfilment of these woes, in the desolations and darkness of many centuries, was only symbolical ; and without abandoning, yea, * Morning Watch, for September, 1832, p. 48. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XXxi Still holding that interpretation,* they, in flat contradiction to the voice of the Spirit, that when the two former woes shall have once visited the earth, they are for ever past,\ tell us, that these woes having inflicted many centuries of calamity on the earth in one foriUy and being thus past, are about to renew their desolations in another more literal, and therefore more aivful shape. When the Spirit assures us, that two noes having once run their course, there remains only one woe ; these writers dare to come forward and announce a triple noe,% even after the admitted fulfilment of the two former woes. Thus they do in effect maintain, that instead of three woes, there are at least fve woes. I need not after this multiply words, to prove that this system confounds all chronology, and deprives the Church of all the consola- tion of knowing, that however sharp and bitter her remaining hour of suffering may be, yet there are at least some of her past cups of woe which she is not called to drink again. § These writers make her to * See a paper, by Sir. Irving, Morning Watch, No. xiv., June, 1832, pp. 309, and 321, also M. "W., No. xv., p. 47. f The Greek word, iatimating the passing away of both woes, is anrjXdev, than which, I presiune, a more emphatic one could not have been selected. It means literally, that they have gone away, or departed. X Mr. Irving, in Morning Watch, No. xv. p. 30. § I am well aware how utterly hostile are the writers of this school of interpretation to all close reasoning on the apocalyptic prophecies, in the way of analysis. We who employ the mode of analysis, are in their estimation mere system builders, and symbol expounders; mere anatomists of God's word. (Morning Watch, No. X. p. 315.) Our humble labours are a discussing or dissecting of the Word of God, or wrangling ivith proud familiarity over it. (No. xi. p. 52.) We are, however, neither to be intimidated, nor put out of temper, by such insinuations. We shall meet them by a few plain and calm remarks. Either the Apocalypse is a most exact prophecy, or it is not. To affirm that it is not, is in effect to say, that it is not from God. But if it be an exact prophecy, how is it to be understood and appUed, excepting by an exact analysis ? for what is the process of analysis, but the resolution of a complex subject, into all its parts, so as to overlook no analogy, and no distinction and difference however minute ? To study the Apocalj-pse A\ithout dissecting, or anatomizing, or analyzing it, for all these words are of Uke import, is therefore an affront to its Divine Author. It is in fact to affirm, either that it is not worthy of a minute study, or that the mind of man may grasp it as a whole, without a close attention to all its parts. That which these writers apply to us as a term of censure, we therefore glory in, viz., that we are anatomists of the Word of God. Let them not, however, say, that in so doing, XXXU PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION drink every former cup twice ; and if twice, why not oftener, why not a dozen of times ? The very essence of a chronological prophecy is, that the events signified in it are to be accomplished within a specified period ; and if after being once fulfilled in that period, they are again to be acted in another period of time, it nullifies the chronology, and introduces we wrangle with proud familiarity over it, or " essay it in the flesh." To analyze God's Word with the deepest sense of its importance, and with deep reverence, is not to wrangle over it, and is not a fleshly, but an eminently spiritual exercise ; in which we expect, and desire, and pray for that illumination of the Spirit, ■without which we know that our labour is vain. There is, however, one species of anatomy, in which we dare not hold fellowship with some of these writers. We dare to anatomize the written Word of God, because we believe that it was given us for that end ; and we believe the eating of the Word, spoken of by Jeremiah xv. 16, to be just that intense study of it, which leads to a perfect analysis. But we dare not to dissect and anatomize the Word made flesh, and plimging into the mazes of human metaphysics, to declare, that the flesh in which he, the Lord of Glory, tabernacled when upon earth, was flesh of sin, (Morning Watch, No. xi. p. 33,) and that he took sinful flesh, and that " if Christ was made under the law, he must have been made by his human nature liable to, yea, and inclined TO, all those things which the law interdicted." See Mr. Irving's pamphlet on the Human Nature of Christ, pp. 8 and 10. From such doctrines we start back mth fear and dismay, counting them to be directly contrary to the Word of God. It is only since I began to pen this Preface, that I, for the first time, have had in my hand, Mr. Irving's tract above-mentioned ; I had before, indeed, met with passages in his Lectures on the Apocalypse, respecting our Lord's humanity, which I pointed out to some of his Mends, as containing most fearful sentiments ; but tiU I saw the pamphlet last-mentioned, I was not aware how far he had gone. I have now introduced this subject from a sense of duty, considering myself called upon to embrace the earhest opportunity of publicly expressing my utter opposition to this doctrine ; and the more so as an idea has wddely gone forth, that aU who hold the belief of our Lord's pre-millennial advent and reign, participate in the sentiments of Mr. Irving, as to our Lord's humanity. Let me add, however, that if Mr. Irving has erred on one side, it is to be feared that many have erred on the other, in denying that the humanity of our Lord was the frail humanity of fallen Adam. The Fathers held quite other doctrine, as is evident from a passage in Athanasius against the Arians, wherein he uses the following words respecting our Lord's incarnation, Ow8e yap eu aaafiaTa ra tov a'cifiaros av eyeyovei ft /xr; acojia Xa^cov rjv (pdaprov Kai 6i/rjTov. — " The things belonging to a body could not be in that which was incorporeal, unless he had taken a body corruptible and mortal." Athanas. Oper., vol. i. part i. p. 604, Benedictine edition, Paris, 1689. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XXXIU endless confusion. Moreover, wluit is to hinder a commentator, if this be once aihnittod, from affirming that the whole four empires of Daniel are again successively to receive power and dominion, and act their part a second time, and even a third and fourth time, in the great drama of prophecy. But I shall be here met m limine by an objection to the whole of the foregoing reasoning. It will at once be said that I am carnal, resisting the Holy Ghost ; for that the interpretations which I am now arguing against, are according to the testimony of Mr. Irving, and, to use his words, the result of " the idea which, with many precious words of heavenly utterance, the Holy Ghost declaring and approving himself by other tongues, hath at sundry times, and through several vessels, made known in the midst of us." " All which carefully noting in my memory, pondering in my heart, and applying to the opening of Holy Scripture, struggling all the while against my own evil heart of unbelief, and endeavouring to attain to the riches of the full assurance of the understanding, I do now, by the Grace of God, take in hand to expound for the edification of the Church ; in no case attempting to repeat the words spoken by the Spirit, nor the forms purely spiritual, in which the truth is given forth, which our God hath taught us would he a profanation^ " So that no one will mistake or misuse these inter- pretations, as if they were altogether avouched by the Holy Spirit of God, placed beyond the region of doubt, and not to be questioned ; whereas, though the light came from heaven direct, it hath been refracted through the prism of my own mind, and thereby assumed the form of my own understanding, as well as the utterance of my own fallible lips."* Towards Mr. Irving personally, I have never felt any other senti- ments than those of kindness — a desire to believe all that is good concerning him, and to discredit or palliate all that is imputed to him as evil. But when Mr. Irving comes before the public as an expositor of prophecy, I must, with the apostle, say that " henceforth know we no man after the flesh." I must try every interpretation of the learned writer, even as I am commanded by the apostle to do; who, while he warns us on the one hand, " Despise not prophesy- ♦ Morning Watch, Sept. 1832, p. 18. c XXXIV PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION ings," forthwith adds, by way of holy caution, " Prove, or try, all things." * All prophesyings, all voices, all tongues, all interpretations, must therefore undergo this sifting process. Proceed M'e now, there- fore, to try the above sentiments of Mr. Irving. In the passage which has been quoted, he surrounds himself with a certain mysterious halo, informing us that the interpretations which we oppose are, in a certain sense, the result of words of heavenly utterance, made by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Yet we are cautioned not to mistake or misuse these interpretations, as if they were altogether avouched by the Holy Spirit. Now, by saying they are not altogether so avouched, it is plain that Mr. Irving wishes us to believe they are in the main avouched by the Spirit. But it will here be obvious to the simplest capacity, that Mr. Irving is bound to inform us how far they are avouched by the Spirit, and how far they are not. Not only does he omit to do this, but he refuses to communicate to us any one of the utterances of the Spirit, on which his interpretations rest, because God hath taught him that it would he a profanation. I read in the Word of the living God, that the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne having received from God the book of his Divine Apocalypse, counts it no profanation to communicate the whole thereof to his Church upon earth. I read also that the prophets of a former dispensation, when, rapt in the Holy Ghost, they saw the mystic visions of God, were always com- manded to write them for the information of the Church. When, therefore, Mr. Irving tells us that it would be a profanation to reveal to the Church the words spoken by certain individuals in his secret chambers, he is thereby, in appearance, attributing to these words a higher honour than is in the Scripture given to the Apocalypse itself. But while he, in appearance, attributes high honour to these words, he in reality dishonours them. For it is not, as we have already seen, the character of the Revelations of the Holy Ghost to affect concealment. The Eleusinian mysteries, wherein certain deep and recondite words were hidden from the profane vulgar, belong not to the religion of Jesus Christ, but to Paganism, the religion of Satan ; and as Mr. Irving, instead of * 1 Thess. V. 20, 21. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. XXXV obeying the words of the Lord himself to his apostles, " JFhat 1 icll you in darkness, that speak ye in light ; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops,* appears to imitate in this matter the reserve of the Hierophant of Eleusis, I must obey the Word of the Lord, and refuse credence to him. And seeing that not only the words, which are said to have been spoken in the Spirit, are denied to us, but even the names of the individuals through whom the utterances were given, it follows that the words themselves are, to us, a nonentity. It is therefore our duty still to try all Mr. Irving's interpretations by that sure Word of prophecy which the Lord has vouchsafed to us, without paying any regard to alleged utterances, of which no part hath reached our ears, and of the authenticity of which no evidence hath been produced to us. Indeed, to require us to give credence to interpretations of the Scripture, said to be deduced from utterances which are not revealed to us, is an extravagance of pretension, similar to which, I presume, no example is to be met with even in the records of the Pythian oracles. The responses of the priestess of Apollo were, it is true, expressed with a studied ambiguity, but the words themselves were not concealed.f In the next place, even if the alleged utterances on which Mr. Irving professes to found his interpretations were really given by the Holy Ghost, yet, as Mr. Irving tells us that his interpretations are not the very truths uttered, but are rather inferences from them, the heavenly light having been refracted through the prism of his own mind, I must on this account also wholly reject them, because I altogether disbelieve that the mind of the learned author is a perfect prism. I have great confidence in Mr. Irving's sincerity, but I place no trust whatever in the accuracy of his judgment, or the soundness of his reasoning faculties ; and having already, in two Tracts against his scheme of prophetic interpretation, laid before the public, and • Matt. X. 27. t It is further observable, that by concealing the words of these prophets from the Church, Mr. Ining absolutely precludes us from putting them to the trial in the manner commanded in Dcut. xviii. 22. " AVhcn a prophet speakcth in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor conic to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously : thou shalt not be afraid of him." c 2 XXXvi PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION Mr. Irving himself, iny reasons for this entire distrust, I do not feel myself called upon to repeat them here. Lastly, I shall offer a final, and, as it appears to me, a conclusive reason, for refusing to believe that an authoritative interpretation of the Apocalypse, or any part of it, has been, or Mali be given to the Church by the Holy Ghost during this dispensation. As the inter- pretation of Daniel's vision of the four beasts, which was given to him by the angel in answer to his inquiries,* was added to the original vision as a part of the prophetic record, so, were the Holy Ghost now to vouchsafe to any individual an authenticated and authoritative interpretation of the apocalyptic visions, since the sup- posed interpretation would be of the same authority as the original visions, we conclude that it must be added to them as a new revelatiouy and become a part of the inspired volume of the Holy Scriptures. Now, such a supposition is in direct contradiction to the import of the description of the seven sealed hook, for it has already been proved, in a former part of this Preface, that the description of that book implies, that it is a complete and a final revelation of the purposes of God to his Church in this dispensation, and that when the seven seals are opened and their contents communicated, this very act, and the mystical perfection of the number seven, negative the idea of any further or supplementary revelation. But we are not left to form this conclusion by implication only. The awful sanction of the Holy Ghost himself is added, to authenticate the completeness of this book as originally given to John : " If any one shall add UNTO "I" these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are * Dan. vii. 16—27. f Let it be observed, that our verb to add, does not appear to express the whole force of the Greek E'rinOnf/.i. An authoritative interpretation would be something put upon these visions, as much as a new series of visions. Let me here be permitted to add, to prevent the wilful misrepresentation of my meaning, that I have ever held that all true interpretation proceeds from the internal illmnination of the Spirit. But were a book containing even a perfect interpretation, without one mistake, to come forth, it would have no authority to command our assent, although it would doubtless possess such intrinsical power and beauty, as to win the assent of persons whose senses were exercised to discern both good and evil. I also wish to add, that I give no opinion as to the nature of the utterances and tongues which are heard in Mr. Irving's church. OF A DISSERTATION ON TIIK SEALS. XXXVII written in this book." In tliesc words the Church of God is informed that there is to be no addition to the book till the Lord himself come, as is solemnly announced in the next verse ; and since an authori- tative interpretation would be something added to, or put upon the visions originally communicated, I, on the authority of this word of the Holy Ghost, refuse to believe that any such interpretation has been given. Feeling it to be now necessary to relieve the reader from this long Preface, I am desirous of saying a few words upon the form in which the present edition is given to the public. The original text of the present work was written in the year 1812, and published in 1813. In the Second Edition, printed in 1817, considerable additions, as well as modifications, were introduced. When I contemplated the present edition, it became a matter of some difficulty to decide, whether the work should be altogether remodelled, or whether the old text should be permitted to remain untouched, and the new matter added in the form of notes. Not choosing to trust my own judgment on this point, I consulted several of my Christian friends. One of them in whose Christian wisdom I placed great confidence, and who has since slept in the Lord,* answered my question in the following words, " I have no hesitation whatever in answering your question about the work on the Seals and Trumpets. I should deeply regret any alteration in it which would take away the strong proof there is in it, that a solid and humble student of unfulfilled prophecy may throw great light on the future. This is highly important." In the present Edition, the text of the year 1817 is, therefore, preserved with few alterations; and the additional matter has been inserted, either in the text, or in notes, as I found it most convenient. I am sensible that the mode in which it has been introduced, often detracts from the finished appearance and unity of design which belong to an original composition ; but it has the advantage of exhibiting to the reader the progress of events since the work was first written, and also the general harmony of that progress with my expectations in the year 1812, as well as the advance of the mind of the writer in the knowledge of the subject — and this without concealing his former mistakes. I feel, however, • The late, excellent and greatly lamented, Rev. C. S, Ha^vtrey, of the Jewish Episcopal Chape!. XXXviii PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION OF A DISSERTATION, &C. after all these explanations, that it is still necessary to throw myself on the indulgence of my readers, by stating, that this edition has been prepared in the midst of many and laborious duties, which have not permitted me to give to it that undivided attention which the unspeakable importance of the subject demanded. I should, indeed, have desired to keep it from the press for some months longer ; but time and events are both pressing forward with giant steps. And we were, when it went to the press, surrounded on every side, with pestilence and death. It seems to me also, that the religious press is inundated with crude and ill-digested expositions of prophecy, so that I have felt myself compelled by all these considerations to send forth the volume in its present state, and without further delay. And now, O thou glorious fountain of uncreated light. Lord Jesus Christ — Eternal Word — bright effulgence of THY Father's glory — Wonderful Counsellor — Father of the everlasting age — the Root and Offspring of David — the bright and morning Star — the Prince of the kings of the eartpi — the Lamb that was slain, who art about TO come, with clouds, to break in pieces the kingdoms of the Heathen, and establish thy everlasting Kingdom of PEACE and righteousness : look, O Lord Jesus, with favour on this humble work. Forgive in it that which is of THINE unworthy SeUVANT, FOR ALL THAT IS OF THE CREATURE IS DARKNESS. BlESS IN IT THAT WHICH IS THINE, FOR ALL TRUTH IS THINE, BY MAKING THIS BOOK TO SEND ABROAD THE KNOWLEDGE OF THINE OWN ApOCALYPSE, THROUGH THE TEACHING OF THE Holy Ghost ; and graciously accept at the hand OF THINE UNWORTHY SERVANT OF THIS OFFERING TO TheE HIS Saviour and his God. Thou knowest, O Lord, with what DEPTH OF meditation AND ARDOUR OF PURSUIT THY SERVANT hath sought the truth ; and o grant that in that day when he shall stand before thy dread and impartial Tribunal, it may be accepted as an evidence that he hath NOT HID THE ONE TALENT OF TheE HIS LoRD AND MASTER IN A NAPKIN, BUT HATH RENDERED TO THEE THINE OWN WITH SOME INCREASE. — Amen. November 5, 1832. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION OF A DISSERTATION, &c. The long period of thirty years has elapsed from the publication of the First Edition of this Dissertation, and nearly eleven years since that of the Third. In the present Edition the text of the Third, published in 1832, has been preserved almost untouched, and it has been the rule of the author wherever new matter has been introduced to inform the reader that it belongs to the Fourth Edition. This remark is necessary to explain certain passages where the time present is used. In the shape in which the work now appears it may probably seem to many readers, that there is much superfluous matter, especially in the Notes, which might have been curtailed. This, however, (even if the objection be just, which does not to the author appear to be the case, as he deems the information in the Notes to be always important), would have made it necessary to remodel the whole volume, a labour to which, in the midst of various other occupations, the author does not now feel himself to be equal. The work would then also have lost the character which it now in some measure possesses, of being a sort of running commentary on the events of the last thirty years in their relation to the fulfilment of the Apocalypse — showing, moreover, the past anticipations of the author often justified as to the general results, and yet proved to have been erroneous with regard to the particular mode of their fulfilment — a remarkable example of which is to be seen in the fact of the expiration of Daniel's 1290 years, which, having, in the author's first paper on prophecy (in the Christian Observer for November, 1807), been placed 30 years after 1792, that is, in 1822, his expectation was also stated, that it would be signalized by the battle of Armageddon and the beginning of the reign of the saints. Now that the 1290 years did actually expire in Xl PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION 1822, the author at present holds with as much confidence as any truth revealed in the prophetic word, but he needs not add, that he was wholly mistaken as to the event which he expected then to occur. What were the events which actually distinguished the end of that period will be found in the fifteenth chapter of this volume* Since the publication of the Third Edition the author has been enabled, as he firmly believes, to place the chronology of the Scrip- tures on the basis of such evidence as cannot be shaken, and to establish its scientific character, and to demonstrate, that the great times of the Church and the world are measured by periods of exact science. Now seeing that the Apocalypse is simply the discovery of that portion of the times of the world which were yet future, when it was given, it appears to be a legitimate conclusion from the discoveries thus made, that the apocalyptic times may be expected to be regulated by the same principles as the former times of the world, and therefore, that, if rightly discerned by the interpreter, they must exhibit the same features of exact science. In the Supplement, whereof the First Part was published early in the year 1838, and the Second in February, 1842, I have accordingly applied to my own scheme of interpretation the principles of the Scientific Chronology as a new element towards the attainment of certainty. I shall next observe that I am not ignorant of the fact, that the reasoning in my Supplement is generally above the range of the common readers of prophecy. Still, however, there are considerable portions of it to which this remark does not apply, and which will be easily understood by persons accustomed to the smallest degree of mental application. Even the more difficult calculations probably require no greater intellectual exertion than is necessary for the solution of the simplest questions in algebra or geometry. I am well aware, however, that this is making too great a demand upon the great majority of the prophetic readers of the present day, few of whom, it is to be feared, apply to this highest object an equal degree of mental energy to that which is given by our young ladies to the acquisition of French grammar or the elements of music. Events are approaching which will awaken the minds of men from this * Especially pp. 245—248. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. xU fatal lethargy. Tlie time is at hand when the ephemeral literature of this age, and all its other expedients for extinguishing serious thouglit, shall be swept as with the besom of destruction, and not a ray of light sliall remain but that which is afforded by the apocalyptic visions — all without this shall be blackness of darkness. In the meanwhile a thick cloud of moral and spiritual fatuity or delusion appears more and more to overspread the minds of men — even of those who are viewed by many as the lights of the religious world. The leading organs of public opinion, the religious news- papers, think, reason, and speculate, as if there were no such books as Daniel and the Apocalypse, and as if no such event were revealed to be the object of constant expectation, as the second coming of our Lord. They do thus virtually extinguish, as to themselves, the light of that sure word of prophecy, which Peter tells us is the lamp of the Church in this night of darkness, and in just judgment they are smitten with a blindness no less great than that of the Scribes and Pharisees when our Lord first appeared. One of the circumstances which has in an especial manner awakened ray mind to a perception of the awful state of things among the strictest religious professors in this country, has been the tone of the remarks of a leading religious newspaper of the day upon the acquittal of the assassin who shot the late Mr. Drummond, at noon-day, in the streets of the metropolis. The law of God as to the punishment of the murderer is express ; " And surely your blood of your lives tvill I require ; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man ; at the hand of every maris brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed : for in the image of God made he man," Gen. ix. 5, 6. This solemn statute of the Almighty, given at the very same time with God's everlasting covenant with Noah and the whole family of man, is plainly binding upon all nations that have the light of revela- tion, and every act of disobedience to it by the public and judicial authorities of any State, will be visited on the nations which they represent, in that day when the Lord shall make inquisition for blood.* It would not be difficult to find scriptural examples, to show that it is • Psabn ix. 12. Xlii PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION the unalterable purpose of God to avenge innocent blood on the nations that do not avenge it. In the law of Moses also, the statutes for the punishment of murder are laid down with the greatest minuteness. The various modes in which life might be taken being specified, the punishment of death is in each case commanded to be inflicted, in the following solemn and express words : he is a murderer : the murderer shall SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH. ThE REVENGER OF BLOOD HIMSELF SHALL SLAY THE MURDERER: WHEN HE MEETETH HIM HE SHALL SLAY HIM.* Even in the case of accidental death, without malice or intent, the person who had in this manner slain another was obliged to remain in the city of refuge, till the death of the High Priest, and if found without the city, the avenger of blood might slay him with impunity. An express prohibition is added to take satisfaction either for the life of a murderer, or for one who had fled to the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest, and the law is summed up in the solemn words. So shall ye not pollute the land wherein ye are : for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of THE blood that IS SHED THEREIN, BUT BY THE BLOOD OF HIM THAT SHED IT.f Not only in presumptuous disobedience to this commandment of God, but in daring defiance of its solemn injunctions, it is now laid down, that a man may plan and purpose the death of another, may purchase pistols, may day after day watch his victim, and at length at noon-day shoot him unto death in the streets of our metropolis, the seat of Government and of justice, and on the testimony of a mad doctor or two, be acquitted of the crime of murder, and shut up and nourished and fed for life in a lunatic asylum with better and more delicate food than is within the reach of the labouring poor of the country. This newly-discovered disease of monomania, or partial madness, is fitly termed by a most respectable journal J " the nerv euphemism for the instigation of the devil to shed blood.'' " Saul," says the same journal, " the odious king of Israel, was a monomaniac of this description ; he * Numbers xxxv. 16—19. f Ibid. ver. 33. I London Standard, March 16, 1843. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. xHii abandoned his duty to his Creator, and an evil spirit from the Lord fell upon him — not the less judicially did the visitation overtake him, because it came, as experience shows, by a natural process."* It may indeed be observed, that by a course of reasoning, quite as plausible as that by which this murderer escaped the penalty of death, Cain, the murderer of Abel, and Judas, the betrayer of our Lord, might be justified. Of Judas it is written, that after he had received the sop, *' Satan entered into Jdm;"-\ and it is certain that he then was no longer master of his own actions. Assuredly also there is madness in every great act of sin.:j; Now, seeing that journals not professedly religious, but political, reason thus justly on this awful subject, how does the Record, the leading religious ne\vspaper of the day, treat it ? I shall quote its own language : — " The prevailing feeling of our mind, in considering the trial of M'Naughten and its results, is that of admiration of the law and Constitution of England, and respect for the morality, justice, and truth of the English people." § • Standard, 6th March, 1843. + John xiii. 27. X Tlie same journal, the Standard, reasons at great length on this case in its number for March 13. I extract from it the following remarks : — " It is said, that the -wTetch was afraid of certain persecutors. Now, would it be the act of a man flying from persecution to take up his quarters in London, to spend months in reconnoitering the pubUc offices, to haunt "\^Tiitehall for three weeks with pistols in his pocket, lying in wait for somebody, and then to shoot the gentleman whom he had most frequently seen emerge from Sir Robert Peel's house, believing that gentleman to be Sir Robert Peel ? " The Standard also quotes from the Spectator the following remarks: — " That the concealment of his weapons betrayed the consciousness that the intended use of them was a crime ;" that " the dangerous notion which this and other examples is calculated to produce is, that a delusion excuses an act to which it has any tendency, even though the perpetrator may be conscious of its criminality." " All the bad passions may be aroused and indulged to insanity ; and is the law then to grant impunity to the actions to which the delusion does not extend, though it may in some degi'cc tend to them ? " The latest account that I have seen of this wretched man is to be found in an article headed Monomaniac Museum in the Glasgow Herald of April 14, and it contains the following words : — " M'Naughten still continues to occupy an apartment on the ground-rioor gallery, and still continues to impress his attendants with the full conviction of his sanity." I own it appears to my mind, that if there be such a disease as monomania, it is evinced by those who deny his sanity. § Record, March 9, 184.3. Xllv PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION " According to our perceptions, it is a noble, we had almost said, a sublime spectacle. There was no effort, no straining for effect, no false sentiment, such as is frequently exhibited in a neighbouring country. The course of public justice ran quietly and steadily along, overflowed and pressed aside the desires of a mighty people, bore the homicide securely and above them all ; and the result, we are per- suaded, amidst the ill-considered outcry of certain classes, is acceptable to God and highly honourable to the country. The supremacy of the law is gloriously vindicated ; and there is recalled to the mind the honour which attaches to him that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not."* Now, in reading such sentiments in a professedly religious journal, I own that, at the same time that I sigh and groan because of them, I am also forcibly reminded of our Lord's words, " If the light that is in thee he darkness, how great is that darkness ; " and also of the awful denunciations of the prophet, " Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; that put hitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter," Is. v. 20. It is known in medical science, that when mortification reaches the vital organs, or the trunk of the body, death must ensue. When, in like manner, in the body politic, the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint ; when the courts of justice acquit murderers and assassins, whether intentional or actual,-)- under the plea of insanity, which we know, from the example of David, may be successfully counterfeited ; and when even the organs of the religious bodies of the nation tread under foot the most solemn, and express, and reiterated injunctions of the Divine law, commanding every murderer to be put to death, and making no exceptions in favour of a disease, the existence of which, unless it be a simple Judas-like or Saul-like possession of the devil, may justly be questioned, — it is an infallible proof and indication that the moral gangrene has reached the vitals of the body politic, and that much of the strictest religious profession of the day is no better than Pharisaism, rigidly contending for outward things, as the Pharisees did for the Sabbath, and zealous for doctrines, as they were in contending * Record, March 9, 1843. f In the case of Oxford, intentional ; in that of M'Naughten, actual. OF A DISSERTATION ON THE SEALS. xlv with the Sadducees, but neither desiring nor expecting the glorious coming of our Lord and Saviour. If any feel disposed to ask what connexion the matters now touched have with the interpretation of the Apocalypse, my answer is, that as the ancient prophets reproved all sin, whether in Church or State ; so there is no sin of a public nature that does not come within the legitimate range of the true interpretation of prophecy, which must always imbibe the spirit of the prophets. Moreover, as the guilt of all innocent blood, unavenged by the blood of the murderer, rests on the whole NAxroN, every individual in tlie nation is bound, according to his opportunities, to purge himself from all share in the sin by a loud protest against it. It will readily be acknowledged also, by all who feel as they ought to do, that the evil is a very crying one ; for, since it is now decided that monomania is to be a passport to the commission of crime, and that the evidence of mad doctors is to be placed above the express injunctions of the law of God; and seeing, moreover, that the decisions of our courts of justice form the standard of our public law, it follows, that it is now the declared law of England that any monomaniac may, yea, is at liberty, to commit murder at noon-day with perfect impunity. It is manifest from the observations of the four most eminent Law- Lords,* made in the House of Peers, as reported in the Standard newspaper of the 14th of March last, that they feel the necessity of some remedy for this state of things, and yet they appear to be at a loss to suggest anything in a definite shape. There is yet one REMEDY, and ONLY ONE, and it is, national repentance and OBEDIENCE TO GoD. Let, then, an Act of Parliament be passed, with a preamble, solemnly acknowledging our great national sin, in having disobeyed the commandment of God, as to the punishment of the murderer, in all cases for blood, shed in duels, as well as in the trial now under discussion ; and our having thus, as a nation, broken the ever- lasting COVENANT which was given to Noah with the express • The Lord Chancellor, Lords Brougham, Cottenham, and Campbell. xivi PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION OF A DISSERTATION, &C. condition that all murderers should be put to death.* — Acknowledging also the supreme authority of the Divine law, and enacting in humble obedience to it, that in all cases where men are guilty of wilfully shedding the blood of man, the punishment of death shall follow, and that proof of monomania, or partial insanity, shall not be admissible in any case for actual murder or homicide. That such a law, or any one approaching to its character, shall pass, there is not a shadow of hope, until we shall have experienced the effects of that rod of iron which is about to inflict upon us the severest chastisements, if not utter destruction. Indeed, it is a lamentable proof of the hopelessness of our national condition with reference to the requirements of the Divine law, that in the foregoing discussions in the House of Lords, as reported in the newspapers, the commandment of God, as to the punishment of murder, was not once adverted to. Our Legislators, even when they desire to enact laws outwardly good, appear to act too much upon the principles of Heathen philosophy, not discerning and acknowledging God as the Governor of the nations. To conclude. All the events of our own times — the growing dis- organization of the body politic — the fears and expectations of men — the deep persuasion of an impending convulsion inrooted in every thinking mind, similar to the instincts of animal nature before the approach of the earthquake — the solemn and awakening declarations of Scripture — the clear unequivocal voice of prophecy — every sign — every promise — every inspired testimony — unite in announcing his APPROACH BEHOLD HE COMETH WITH CLOUDS, AND EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM, AND THEY ALSO THAT PIERCED HIM, AND ALL THE KINDREDS OF THE EARTH SHALL WAIL BECAUSE OF HIM. Even so, amen I * In Is. xxiv. 5, the charge against the inhabitants of the earth of having broken this covenant seems expressly to refer to their having permitted innocent blood to remaia unavenged. Lainshaw, April I9th (Nisan, I9th), 1843. POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION OF A DISSERTATION, &c. I HAVE omitted in the Discourse on the Scientific Measures of the Mundane Times, forming Appendix I. of the Supplement, to state, that there are two chasms in the Chronology of the Scriptures, The Jirst results from the fact, that the number of the years from the Division of the Promised Land in the 47th year, or 4G complete from the Exodus* to the beginning of the First Servitude under Cushan Rishathaim, is not to be found in the present text of the Scriptures, although from the words of Clemens in the Stromata there is reason to think that it was in the copy of the Book of Joshua which he used.f The second blank is in the period from the end of the captivity of the ark at Kirjath-jearim (1 Sam. vii. 1, 2), to the accession of David, there being no account in the Old Testament of the years of the administration of Samuel and reign of Saul. St. Paul, however, in Acts xiii. 21, gives 40 years for Saul, so that it only remains to fix the length of Samuel's administration. Having mentioned the existence of these two chronological chasms, I shall now briefly state how Ave ascertain their length, so as with perfect confidence to include them in our tables. As to the^r*^ chasm, we have the testimony of nearly all our most judicious writers, that the whole interval from the entrance into Canaan to the first Servitude under Cushan Rishathaim was 27 years. Among the ancients, Clemens, of Alexandria, (as we have seen in the alleged testimony of his copy of the Book of Joshua,) Eusebius,t Syncellus,§ Nicephoi-us, Archbishop of Constantinople, || and Theophilus ; and among the moderns, excepting Usher and Hales, almost every writer of note, concur in assigning the same number of 27 years to this interval. I have treated the point largely in my Chronology of Israel.^ • Josh. xiv. 7—10. t o)f 8e TO ^ijSXiov Tov lr](TOV -rrepiexei- Biede^aro tov Mwiiafa 6 npoeiptjfievos avTjp fTT) K^' . — " According to the Book of Joshua, he succeeded Moses for 27 years." — Strom, lib. i. xxi. I shall add, that, after the 27 years without any interval, Clemens places the first Servitude of 8 years. X Chronol. p. ii. ; canon, p. 111. Armenian copy. Venice, 1818. § P. 150, or Bonn Edit., 1829. Vol. i., p. 284. II Chronol. Compend. Ibid. vol. i. p. 740. ^ Chap. v. xlviii POSTSCRIPT TO THE PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION A.S to the second c/ms?», being the years of Samuel's administration, Josephus* and Theophilusf both assign 12 years to it. Moreover, Josephus, in two places, + gives 612 years as the length of the whole period from the Exodus to the foundation of the Temple, which is the exact chronology of my tables, and it necessarily gives 27 years as the length of the interval from the entrance to the first Servitude, and 12 years for Samuel. St. Paul's period of 450 years, Acts xiii. 20, also entirely harmonizes with the length attributed to the first chasm of 27 years, since it will be seen in my tables that the division was in b. c. 1593, and the death of Eli, b. c. 1143, the interval being 450 yeai-s. Furthermore, I have the concurrence of Mr. Clinton as to the length of both these chasms, as well as to the whole period of 612 years from the Exodus to the foundation of the Temple. — It is also observable that this period proves itself by the internal evidence arising from the number of 4 squares of 12 ^ 576 years from the Exodus, b. c. 1639, to the taking of Jerusalem by David, b. c. 1063 ; whence to the foundation, b. c. 1027, are 12 X 3 = 36 years. Again, as the Chronology of the Dedication flows from that of the Foundation, we have evidence of the exact truth of my date of the Dedication, b. c. 101 9, in the great Jubilean series from Creation to that date mentioned in the Appendix, § to which it were easy to add various other periods equally exact, and by a reflex argument this again proves the accuracy of my date of the Foundation and of the whole chronology prior to it. I shall observe, in the next place, that Clemens, in the Stromata, || gives the chronology of the world from Creation to the death of Commodus a. c. 192, and his sum total is 5818 years, being 148 more than the truth. Among the particulars which make up this total are the following : — YEARS. M. From the Division of the land of Canaan to Samuel 463 7 Thence to the end of the Kings .... 572 6 Thence to the end of the kingdom of Persia . . 235 Throwing aside the odd months as being compensated by deficiencies to an equal extent, the whole is . 1270 years, Being the exact length of the period in my tables from the entrance of Joshua into Canaan . b.c. 1599 To the end of the kingdom of Persia . . . 329 Equal to 1270 years. Now in the particulars which make up the sum total of 1270 years in the * Ant. vi. 13. 5. f Ad Autolychum, lib. iii. p. 266. Oxford, 1684. X Antiq. XX. 10. 1. Against Apion, ii. 2. § Page 523. |1 Lib. i. xxi. p. 403. Potter. ON THE SEALS AND TRUMPETS. xlix text of Clemens thei-e is an ciTor of excess of 2G years in the third period of 235, balanced by an equal error of deficiency in the first period. The proof of this is, that if from the entrance of Joshua into Canaan, . n.c. 1599 we compute 4G3 -}- 2G = 489 years, we anuve at the accession of Saul 1110 The second period of Clemens being 572, brings us to the taking of Babylon by the Medes and Persians ...... 538 Thence the third period of 235 years minus 26 = 209 terminates at the end of the kingdom of Persia ....... 329 The whole sum of this period, does thus exactly accord with the Chronology of my Tables, while in filling it up, there are, as is usual in the works of the ancient Chronographers, considerable anachronisms, not always, it is to be feared, undesigned, but frequently introduced from the desire, among the learned in ancient ages, to bar the gate of the temple of knowledge against the entrance of the PROFANE VULGAR. The above period, as subdivided by Clemens himself, will be found destitute of internal evidence, since the subdivisions do not touch any remarkable eras in the sacred history, but by the correction which I have offered it is sealed with the intrinsical evidence of truth. If no other pemt were to arise from the discussion of the points noticed in this Postscript, should it only convince the attentive reader of the great pains and labour bestowed on the rectification of the Chronology, and that nothing has been taken for granted, and that every difficulty has been probed to the very bottom, it will not be in vain. April 22d, 1843. CONTENTS. Preface to the First Edition iii Preface to the Second Edition ix Preface to the Third Edition xix Preface to the Fourth Edition xxxix Postscript to Preface to the Fourth Edition xlvii CHAPTER I. THE FIRST FIVE SEALS The Hieroglyphics of the First Four Seals homogeneous E rrors of Interpreters with regard to these Seals The scheme of Archdeacon Woodhouse adopted in this work THE FIRST SEAL A White Horse — his Ruder crowned Signification of Horses, Chariots, and their Riders in symbols Import of the Crown, 2Tecf)avos, and Diadem, ^laSrjfia The Horseman of this Seal is the Host of the Lord, or his Church militant And marks the triumphs of the Gospel in the first ages 1 ib. ib. ib. ib. 3 4 ib. THE SECOND SEAL .... 5 A Fire-coloured Horse, his Rider armed with a Sword ib These emblems exhibit the Church under the influence of the spirit of discord and dissension ... ......... ib. Proofs from History of its fulfilment 6 THE THIRD SEAL . . . . ib. A Black Horse, his Rider with a Yoke ib. The chanix of wheat for a, penny ......... 7 The ivine and oi? ............ 8 This Seal exhibits the Church under the Papal Yoke during the dark ages . 9 THE FOURTH SEAL . . . .10 A Pale livid green Horse, his Rider, Death, followed by Hades . . . . ib. This Seal represents the Church in the ages of Papal persecution . . . ib. The Albigenses extirpated in France — the Inquisition 11 d 2 Hi CONTENTS Detail of slaughters by Papal Eome 11 Remarks on the instruments of destruction employed by the Rider on the Pale Horse 12 THE FIFTH SEAL . . . . 13 The Souls of the slam Martyrs under the altar ib. The imagery of this Seal explanatory of the nature of the slaughter perpe- trated under the Fourth Seal 13 It exhibits the Church as apparently extirpated 14 The white robes given to the Martyrs are a symbol of the improved condition of the Church in consequence of the i?e/br»ia<«on 15 CHAPTER II. THE SIXTH SEAL . . . .16 A Cheat Earthquake ib. The symbols of this Seal explained ib. It describes the general consternation at the arrival of the day of wrath . 17 Passages cited from Joel, St. Matthew, and St. Luke, descriptive of the same events ib. This Seal is incongruously referred, by Mede and others, to the events of the reign of Constantine 18 Reasons against this interpretation ib. These reasons confirmed by the authority of Vitringa 21 The Sixth Seal relates to the final Revolution before the second advent . . 22 It is the same revolution as that of the Seventh Trumpet and Seventh Vial . 23 This interpretation confirmed by the authority of the Ancients . . . ib. The Sixth Seal commenced at the French Revolution 24 CHAPTER III. THE SIXTH SEAL CONCLUDED . . . 25 The whole of the seventh chapter of the Apocalj^pse belongs to the Sixth Seal ib. A question — what is to become of the Church of Christ in the awful convul- sions of this Seal? ib. The visions of Rev. vii. contain an answer to this question . . . . ib. Four angels holding the four winds, and an angel with the Seal of God . . ib. The place of this vision in Apocalj-ptic Chronologj' 26 This vision illustrated by one in the ninth of Ezekiel ib. What signified by the /o«r angels 27 Remarks on the sealing ib. The ^-ision fulfilled in the pacification of Europe by the confederacy of four great powers 28 Followed by a most extensive circulation of the Scriptures . . . . 29 After an interval, the earthquake shall be renewed, and the sealed servants of God miraculously delivered 30 Vitringa quoted in support of this interpretation ib. And ]\Ir. Canning's speech in the House of Commons on 12th December, 1826 31 The efforts of the Governments of Europe to preserve peace ■. . . .32 OF THE DISSERTATION. Uii The winds are yet held 32 Signs of the near approach of the hurricane ;J5 Vision of the whito-rubod palm bearers ........ ib. It denotes the translation of the Church into her millennial rest . . . . 3G The Chronology of this vision ascertained ....... ib. It relates to our Lord's Kingdom, predicted in Daniel vii 37 At his second coming ........... ib. The application of this vision to the times of Constantine shown to be false . 38 Recapitulatory view of the import of first Six Seals 40 And further arguments for its truth -41 CHAPTER IV. THE SEVENTH SEAL . . . .44 Import of the silence in heaven ib. Seven Angels, to whom were given Seven Trumpets ib. The Tnunpets show the revolutions of the Roman Empire 4.5 An Angel oft'ers incense — fire cast on the earth ib. This fire an emblem of the wrath of God 46 The earthquake which follows is the Revolution in the time of Constantine . 47 CHAPTER V. THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS . . .49 The subject of them is the partial destruction of a symbolical universe . . ib. The Trumpets cannot relate to the Church . 50 But must be applied exclusively to secular objects 51 The first four Trumpets generally applied to the overthrow of the Western Empire by the Goths — this interpretation adopted ib. In the year 376 the Visigoths admitted into the Empire . , . . ib. They defeat and slay the Emperor Valens, and desolate the provinces . . ib. The First Trumpet sounded at this invasion in 376 . . . . .52 The second period of the Gothic invasions was in 395 53 Alaric invades Greece ........... ib. Italy invaded by Alaric and Radagaisus — Rome sacked . . . . . ib. Gaid invaded by the barbarians, and afterwards Spain ..... 54 The Roman Empire in Africa subverted by Genseric 55 The Second Trumpet sounded in 395 ib_ The third period of the irruptions of the northern nations begin in 441 . . ib. Attila invades the Eastern Empire — aften\ards Gaul, where he is defeated — and Italy ib. These invasions were the fulfilment of the Third Trumpet . . . .56 The sounding of the Fourth Trumpet 57 Rome taken by Genseric in 455 ......... ib. The Imperial Government subverted by Odoacer in 476 ib. Remarks in confirmation of the foregoing interpretation of the Jirst Jour Trumpets ............. ib. On the third part of the sjTnbolical universe mentioned in these Trumpets . 59 Concluding remarks on the symbols of these Trumpets 62 Hv CONTENTS CHAPTER VI. THE FIFTH TRUMPET, OR THE FIRST WOE ... 64 Denunciation of Three Woes — and the pui-poses of this denunciation . . ib. The Locusts of this Trumpet are the Saracens under Mahommed . . . ib. 'The symbolical star — the smoke — the darkening of the sun and air . . . 65 The fallen star is the Bishop of Home 68 Remarks on the symbol of the Locust army, as applicable to the rise of the Mahomedan religion and power ......... ib. State of the Christian Church when they appeared — testimony of Gibbon . . 69 The other particulars of the Locusts 70 The five months allotted to their ravages 71 The smoke from whence they issued was not the false religion of Mahommed . 72 The fallen star not Mahommed, but the Pope ib. CHAPTER VH. THE SIXTH TRUMPET, OR SECOND WOE . . .74 A voice fi'om the golden altar to loose the four angels bound in the River Euphrates ib. This Tnunpet relates to the overthrow of the Eastern Empire by the Turks . ib. The opinion of Mede as to the Pour Angels rejected ib. The right explanation of these Angels proposed 75 'Rema.rks on the ex'pression " the hour, and day, and month, and year" . . 77 The mystical sense of this number explained. It consists either of 391 years and 15 days, or of 396 years, 3 months, and 15 days ib. The mystical sense rejected in the former editions of this work, but now adopted 78 Arguments in favour of the period of 39 1 years ib. Reasons for that of 396 years 79 Various historical details, showing the different applications of both numbers to the Ottoman History ib. The Author's view that the number consists of 391 years, and measures the period of the preparation of the Euphratean Angels from 1057 to 1448 . 83 The slaughter of a third part of the men signifies the overthrow of the Eastern Empire ............. ib. The description of the armies of the Euphratean Angels . . . . . ib. Concluding remark on the accomplishment of the first Six Trumpets . . 84 CHAPTER Vni. THE VISION OF THE ANGEL WITH AN OPEN BOOK , 85 A prophetic intimation at the close of the Sixth Trumpet ib. A mighty Angel descends with a little book — the Angel is our Lord . . ib. This descent belongs to the time of the end 86 Reason of the circumstances which foUow our Lord's descent . . .87 His crying -with a loud voice — Seven Thunders ib. Meaning of the expression that there should be time no longer . . .88 OF THE DISSERTATION. Iv ArVliat is signified by the Little Book . . 89 What is intended by the Apostle eating the book 90 The Chronology of this vision ib. CHAPTER IX. THE TfVO WITNESSES 92 The Apostle commanded to measm*e the Temple ib. Analysis of the compartments of the Temple, and their signification . . ib. The compartments which the Apostle was commanded to measure were the holy place, and the court of the Priests, with the altar 94 Meaning of this measurement ib. "Why the court without the Temple is left out 95 The two Witnesses are the true spiritual Church ib. Described also as two olive-trees and two candlesticks ib. Testimony of Gibbon as to the accomplishment of this prophecy . . .96 The Witnesses are slain by the Beast — they rise and ascend to heaven . . 97 Chronological argument, to show that the death and resurrection of the Witnesses are past 98 They were accompHshed in the events which followed the dissolution of the Smalcaldic League 99 Spiritual state of Europe at the commencement of the sixteenth century . . ib. The preaching of Luther begun in the year 1517 100 Progress of the Reformation till the formation of the League of Smalcalde in 1530 101 That League continued in existence till 1546 ib. The Emperor Charles V. takes the field against the Protestants . • . ib. The League falls to pieces — the Elector of Saxony defeated at Muhlberg . ib. The Interim presented to the Diet of Augsburg on 15th May, 1548 — the Emperor procures its reception 102 The Protestants are compelled to submit, and their worship suppressed . . ib. The death of the Witnesses was at the promulgation of the Interim . . 103 Maurice of Saxony takes arms for the Protestant cause ib. Marches towards Upper Germany — Charles V. flies 104 The Treaty of Passau restores liber to the Protestants, and secures to them equal pri\ileges with the Catholic 105 These events were the revival of the Witnesses, and their ascension into Heaven 106 An earthquake, and fall of tenth part of the city 108 The Reformation, and the events which followed it, were this revolution . ib. The tenth part of the city which fell in it was England 109 The last shock of the earthquake was at the English Revolution of 1 688 . Ill The passing away of the Second Woe is the chronological max'k to distinguish the Apocalyptic period of the death of the Witnesses 114 The Second Woe passed away in the year 1699 116 The Third Woe cometh qiuckly ib. CHAPTER X. THE SOUNDING OF THE SEVENTH TRUMPET . . 117 Passage from Mede, to show that the succession of the Four Ivingdoms of Daniel constitutes the great kalendar of prophecy ib. Ivi CONTENTS The great importance of ascertaining the place of the Seventh Trumpet in this kalendar 118 Scriptural argiunent to prove that the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet takes place at the coming of the Ancient of Days, Dan. vii. 9 ib. The Seventh Trumpet includes in it the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth — but dreadful judgments are first to be executed . . . .119 It includes in it the judgment of the quick and dead . . . . . . ib. At the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet the Temple of God is opened in Heaven 120 This opening of the Temple marks the place of the Seven Apocalyptic Vials, and shows that they belong to the Seventh Trumpet ib. The lightnings, voices, and thunderings — the earthquake and haU considered 121 They are the same as the similar phenomena of the Seventh Vial . . . ib. The Seventh Trmnpet sounded at the fall of the French Monarchy in 1792 122 Five Propositions stated in reference to the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet 123 A sixth Proposition as to the identity of this Trumpet with that of the Archangel who accompanies our Lord at his descent 124 Corollary that the Seventh Trumpet sounds at least twice ib. Importance of this conclusion towards estabUshing the Apocalyptic harmony 125 The 1260 years expire also at the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet . . 126 CHAPTER XI. THE WOMAN AND THE DRAGON . . . 127 A Woma7i clothed with the sun travails in birth ib. The Woman is the Church ib. H^er dnld is the Mi/stic Christ — or Christ formed in his members . . . 128 He is a symbol of the bodi/ of true converts within the Roman Empire . . 129 The Man-child caught up to the throne of God 130 The Dragon is the De\'il enthroned in the Roman Empire . . . . ib. The Woman flies into the wilderness 131 War in Heaven between IVIichael and the Dragon 132 Remarks on the different interpretations of this war 133 Reasons for applying it to the same events as the gestation of the Woman . 135 The faU of the Dragon from Heaven ib. He persecutes the Woman 136 The Woman's flight into the mlderness — at what time accomplished . .137 The Dragon casts a flood of waters after the Woman ib. The earth swallows up the waters 138 The Dragon makes war with the remnant of the Woman's seed. . . . ib. CHAPTER XH. THE TEN HORNED BEAST OF THE SEA . . 139 The fourth Beast of Daniel is the Roman Empire ib. The Apocalyptic Ten Homed Beast is the same with Daniel's Fourth Beast, i. e., he is the Roman Empire after its division into ten Kingdoms . . 140 Authorities in support of this interpretation ib. Arguments in support of it 141 OF THE DISSERTATION. Ivii Enumeration of the Ten Primitive Horns of the Beast, or Western Roman Empire I43 The Seven Heads of the Beast signify the successive forms of government of the Roman Kingdom . , . . . . . , , . .144 Enumeration of the First Six Forms ib. Great Diversity of sentiment as to the Seventh and Eighth Forms . . .145 Abstract signification of the Symbols of Seven Heads and Ten Horns . .146 The interpretation of the Seventh and Eighth Forms in the first edition of this Work abandoned as erroneous . .148 The Seventh Head is the Christian Imperial Power ib. That head wounded to death at the fall of the Western Empire . , .149 The Eighth form is X)ece«irc(/a/, consisting of Ten Go^A/c ^/wjrrfoTfts . . . 150 These kingdoms formed a sort of federal republic, the rise of which was the political fulfilment of the prophetic character of the Beast, that he was, and is not, and yet is 151 The healing of the wound of one of the Heads considered . . . . 152 The history of the Roman Empire offers also the phenomenon of a spiritual Resurrection, and how fulfilled I53 The description of the Beast, that he was, and is not, and yet is, belongs to him only under his last or eighth shape . . . . . . . . . 154 In his eighth form he goes into perdition I55 The ascent of the Beast from Sea, and the Abyss, is one and the same . .156 The Dragon gave him his seat I57 The worship paid to the Beast ib. His mouth speaking blasphemies ib. His war with the Saints 158 His end is to be slain with the sword 159 CHAPTER XIII. THE TWO HORNED BEAST OF THE EARTH AND THE IMAGE 161 The second Beast is the Papacy ib. He exerciseth the power of the first Beast before him 162 He causeth the Earth to worship the first Beast ib. He maketh fire to come down from Heaven 163 He causeth an Image to be formed to the first Beast . . . . . ib. The Image is a symbol of the corrupt Church ib. The second Beast caused all men to receive a mark 167 The number of the Beast, 666 169 Original solution of the number given by Irenseus adopted, viz., that it is contained in the Greek letter of the name Lateinos, Aareti/oy . . .170 Mr. Faber has receded from that interpretation and adopted another . . .171 Mr. Clark's objection to the former solution stated ib. His own solution of the Mystical Number 172 The more modem and usual, as well as the original orthography of the name Latinus, ascertained 173 Both solutions harmonized and adopted — that of Irenseus as founded on the original — that, oi Dt. Q,\a.rke on the more modern orthography . . . . 174 Reasons against Mr. Faber's interpretation 175 The name of the Beast must be either chorographical or national . . . ib. Iviii CONTENTS How the prophecy was fulfilled in the exclusion from the common charities of life, of all who dissented from the Latin Church . . . . ' . .176 CHAPTER XIV. ON THE PROPHETICAL PERIOD OF TWELVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT SIX SCRIPTURAL PROPOSITIONS LAID DOWN .... 180 There is frequent mention in chap, xi., xii., and xiii., of the Apocalypse, of a mysterious period of triumph to the enemies of the Church . . . . ib. It is mentioned in seven different texts of Daniel and the Apocalypse . . ib. And alluded to in two others . . . . . . . . . . ib. The period, though differently expressed, is one and the same, viz., 1260 days 181 Arguments to prove that these 1260 da>/s signify a period of 1260 years . . ib. The great importance of this period 182 Six Propositions laid down, containing the Internal Scriptural Marks of its commencement and end 183 PROPOSITION FIRST. TTie commencement of the 1260 years is to be marked by the giving the Saints, and times, and laws, into the hand of the little horn 185 The Uttle horn being the Papacy, the giving of the Saints into its hand, must be by a formal act of the secular power ib. Such an act was issued by the Emperor Justinian, in March, a.d., 533 . .186 The supposed act of Phocas conferred no new title on the Pope . . . 187 The period of 1260 years being reckoned in current time, which is the principle of the Scriptures, actually began in 533, and expired in 1792 . . . 193 Recent astronomical reasons for carrying back the period to 532, Note . . ib. PROPOSITION SECOND. At the termination of the 1260 years, the Aircient of Days comes, and the judgment sits to take away the dominion of the little horn, to consume and destroy it unto the end . . 19 4 Until the French Revolution the judgment had not begun to sit . . . ib. Inference from the Series of Events which began at the Fall of the French Monarchy in 1792, that the judgment then began to sit . . . . ib. And consequently the 1260 years then elapsed 195 PROPOSITIONS THIRD AND FOURTH. When the Witnesses put off their sackcloth, the \2&0 years are ended . . . 198 When the Woman, the Church, begins to emerge from the wilderness, that period is elapsed .......•••••• ib. There have been three eras of light in the Church, the third, being the present period, bears all the marks of the time when the Witnesses put off their sackcloth, and the "Woman returns from the wilderness 199 Reasons for this conclusion . ib. Inference therefrom that the 1260 years are expired 202 The exact Apocalyptic period when the Woman begins to return from the wilderness shown .....•••••• ^"' OF THE DISSERTATION. 1»X PKOPOSITION FIFTH. The 1260 years end at the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet . . • • • ^"'"^ That Trumpet sounded in 1792, therefore the 1260 years then expired . . ib. PROPOSITION SIXTH. T}w times of the Gentiles, or 1260 years, end, when the signs in the heavens in , . • ,- I • .... 205 Lithe xxu 2.) begin ,_ t^ . .• e The difficulty of interpreting our Lord's discourse on the Destruction ot Jerusalem » ,. j- • i That prophecy was given in answer to certain questions of four disciples . 206 The Jewish nation then expected the Messiah as a temporal deliverer . . ib. Our Lord gradually prepared his disciples to receive the doctrines of the Cross 207 Still they clung to the expectation of a temporal kingdom . . • • ib. What the Apostles had in their minds when they asked the questions recorded . ,, • n .... lb. in Matt. XXIV. 3 Remarks on the Greek word, A.u,v, rendered World, and its corresponding Hebrew word ^ The questions of the cUsciples were three in number . . • •.■,•" The first part of the discourse was intended to correct the notion, that the elorious reign of the Messiah was at hand . . • • ' ' ^^^ The next part of the discourse declares the sign which shall immediately precede the destruction of Jerusalem ' j " u ' ^ ' The third division of the discourse contains the signs which shaU precede the second advent • These signs are in the symbolical and not the 7iatural heavens .... ^i^ By what events these signs have been fulfilled ^ • Passage from the charge of Bishop Porteus in 1794 ..... • lO- Character of these events as drawn by a Writer of the present day . . 213 The ecHpse of the sun and moon, and faU of the stars . . . ' • Distress of nations, the sea roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear . .26 The signs precUcted by our Lord are to continue till his Advent with clouds . 218 Concluding division of oiur Lord's discourse . • • • • ; • A discussion of the clause, « This generation shaU not pass tiU all these things _^ be fulfilled" !^^' Mede's solution of this difficulty rejected ^^^ Diffisrent solutions stated c .u ' a Another solution rests on a close attention to the proper sense of the word, ^^^ yivofixi ....•'••■* 222 The difficulty is thus removed . . . • • ' , ' ^ ' *i " The inference from the whole prophecy is, that the times of the Gentiles, ^^^ or 1260 years, ended in the year 1792 . . • • • ' '. ' Another inference, that the celestial signs predicted by our Lord, synchromze ^^^ with the Seven Apocalyptic Vials CHAPTER XV. ON THE PROPHETICAL PERIOD OF TWELVE HUNDRED AND . 229 SIXTY YEARS CONCLUDED An argument to be now offered, founded on the number in Daniel viii. 14, in _^ aid of the conclusions of the preceding chapter . • • * „ ' . ' ^* Daniel's Vision of a Ram, the symbol of the Empire of the Medes and Persians ib. Ix CONTENTS The year b. c. 536, was the date of the establishment of that Empire, but its rise was in b. C. 559 230 The date of the Vision cannot be prior to B.C. 536 ib. Reasons for fixing it in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, and in B. c. 508, or, as now corrected, B.C. 509, iVote 232 The he Goat with a large horn the symbol of the Macedonian Empire . 233 The division of the empire of Alexander symbolized by the four horns of the goat ib. Daniel sees a little horn come out of one of the four horns of the goat . . ib. This horn is a symbol of the Roman power in the East ib. The rise, progress, and exploits, of the Roman power in the East . . . ib. Chronological coincidence between the rise of the horn, and that of the Roman power in the territories of the Macedonian Empire 236 The nvunber of 2300 days in Daniel viii. 14, which ends at the cleansing of the sanctuary, is the whole length of the Vision 238 The cleansing of the Sanctuary begins at the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet ib. Therefore, the 2300 years must end precisely at the same time as the 1260 years, i. e., in 1792 239 This conclusion confirmed, by calculating the 2300 years backwards from 1792 ib. An objection to the above conclusion, founded on Daniel xii. 5 — 13 . . 241 The end of the 1290 days revealed in that passage may probably be marked by the begun restoration of Judah 242 The end of that period is in 1822 ib. The argument of Mr. Eaber, foiinded on the above passage, considered and answered 243 The mistake of the Author, as to the date of the expected Restoration of Judah, acknowledged in his Third Edition 245 The event which signalized the intermediate period, between the 1260 and 1290 days of Daniel, appears to have been the great preaching of the Gospel of the present age ib. In March, 1822, the first Jewish Missionary appeared in Jerusalem . . 246 In 1822, the Mssionary exertions of the London Jewish Society commenced ib. In 1822, the Greek Insurrection also assumed an organized form . . . ib. The foregoing mistake, the result of another error, as to the order of events ib. CHAPTER XVI. THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER OF THE APOCALYPSE . 250 A lamb standing on Mount Sion, and with him an hundred and forty-four thousand ib. The interpretation of this vision by Bishop Newton, Mr. Faber, and Arch- deacon Woodhouse rejected . . . ib. This vision belongs to the Sixth Seal, and Seventh Trumpet, and Vials . 251 The song which the 144,000 learn is that of Moses and the Lamb, in the following chapter 253 The Chm-ch is here presented to us as returned from the wilderness, but not yet entered into rest ib. The Church appears to have already assumed the posture here mentioned . ib. The above exposition was written in 1812 — the principles of it still retained . 254 The 144,000 now conceived to represent that portion of the Church of God which shall be caught up to meet the Lord . ib. OF THE DISSERTATION. Ixi Thoy are as j^ot in their militant state following tlie Lamb , , . . 254 Threo Anp;i'ls — tho first having the everlasting Gospel — the second proclaiming that Babylon is fallen — the third denouncing tho judgment of the worshippers of the Beast 255 The interpretations of this passage by former writers rejected . . , . 256 The flight of the first angel applied to the great preaching of the Gospel in the present day ib. The flight of the second and third angels still future 257 Since the year 1812, there has been added to the preaching of the Gospel by the first angel, the voice of prophetic exposition 258 Some preludious sounds also heard of the voices of the second and third angels ib. Kemarks on the words, " Here is the patience of the Saints" . . . . ib. And on the words, " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord" , . 259 The Son of man sitting on a cloud reaps the harvest 260 The Vintage 262 Kecapitulatory view of the fourteenth chapter of the Apocalypse . . 263 CHAPTER XVII. THE VISION OF SEVEN ANGELS, WITH SEVEN VIALS OF WRATH 264 Remarks on the scenery of this vision . . ib. Who the harpers of the vision are 26£ The temple in Heaven is opened — This denotes the opening of the Holy of Holies — Argimient hence deduced that the Vials all belong to the Seventh Trumpet 266 The opening the Holy of Holies denotes the near approach of the rest of the Church ib. No man coiild enter the Temple till the close of the Vials ib. The entering of men into the Holy of Holies is at the marriage supper of the Lamb 267 CHAPTER XVIII. THE EFFUSION OF THE VIALS. . . 268 Introductory Remark 269 The Roman Empire is the principal subject of the Vials . . , . ib. The Sixth Vial refers to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire . . . ib. The efiusion of the Vials began in 1792 270 The Vials are all poured out on the earth — What the earth denotes — It is a symbolical world ib. Reasons for believing that all the Vials began to be poured out at the same time, and are sjiichronical ib. The First Vial is pom-ed out on the dry land ib. The noisome sore of the Vial denotes the principles of Atheism and anarchy, which broke out at the French Revolution 271 These principles have been the germ of all the calamities of Europe under the third Woe 273 The full stream of this Vial is now, in 1832, pouring down on the British Empire ib. The Second Vial is poiured on the sea 274 Ixii CONTENTS The symbolical sea here signifies the French nation 274 How the Vial has been fulfilled ib. The Third Vial poured out on the rivers and fountains 275 This symbol denotes the other nations of Europe which have all drunk of the cup of blood ib. The dregs of these cups remain yet to be poured out 276 The Fourth Vial was poured on the sun 277 The sun denotes the government of France, the tyranny of which has tormented the men of the Roman earth . ib. The indirect influence of this tyranny throughout Europe . . . . ib. Men, being scorched with heat, blaspheme God .... This is evinced in the state of the Continent and of this country At the end of sixteen years the foregoing interpretation still retained Further details, illustrating its accuracy No voice is heard acknowledging the hand of the Lord . Profligacy and wickedness are rapidly increasing Proofs of this as to our own country The state of Continental Europe is worse , 277 ib. , 279 280 282 ib. 283 , 284 The Fifth Vial is poured on the throne of the Beast — import of this symbol . 285 The effects of this YiiA first on the throne of Austria ib. Next on the throne of Bonaparte till his final overthrow . . . .286 On the whole of the Bestial Empire, and especially France . . . . 287 The efifects of this Vial on the coVin.cTls, oi England, from the year 1817 to 1832 289 The Sixth Vial is poured out on the great river Euphrates . . . .301 The Euphrates sj^mbolizes the Ottoman power, to be gradually dried up . . ib. The fulfihnent of this prophecy ib. Who the kings of the East are 303 Progress of events in Tiu-key, from the year 1812 to 1832 . . . . ib. The three unclean spirits are now at work throughout the Bestial Empire, preparing it for the last awful contest 304 Our Lord's words, " Behold, I come as a thief" 305 The Seventh Vial is poured into the air ib. The air signifies the political and ecclesiastical constitutions of the States . 306 Effects of this Vial briefly described . ' ib. The great earthquake ib. Quotation from Vitringa in confirmation of this interpretation . . . . 307 Seasons for believing that during the holding of the four winds in the Sixth Seal, the operation of the Seventh Vial is suspended 309 The tripartite division of the great city ib. The cities of the nations feU 310 Great Babylon came up in remembrance before God 311 Every island fled away, and the moimtains were not foimd . . . . ib. The great hail 312 Under this Vial the Bestial Empire will be moulded into that shape which is to prepare it for its last blasphemous opposition to the Lamb .... 313 Arguments to show that the Vials are synchronical 315 Some Remarks on the marriage of the Lamb predicted in chap. xix. . .318 A short view of the events which are to be expected previous to the consum- mation of the Vials it'- The conversion and restoration of the Jews ib. Passages from Deuteronomy and Jeremiah relating to their restoration .319 OF THE DISSERTATION. Ixiu The events predicted from these passages are future 319 Arguments to show that their restoration is to be in the period of the Vials . ib. Their conversion not to be completed till after their restoration, nor until the second advent of our Lord 320 This is confirmed by a passage from Joel 321 The remaining events which are to precede the day of Armageddon . . ib. The revelation of the Lord from heaven — the gathering of the elect — and the final judgments ............ 322 Passages cited from the Scriptures descriptive of the final judgments, and short remarks upon them . 323 Some inferences from the passages quoted as to the nature of the events which are approaching 325 The righteous are to be saved in the a,wivl period described in these passages . 327 Observations on the prospects of our own highly favoured nation . , . ib. The second causes by which the approaching desolations are to be effected — remarks on vmsanctified knowledge 330 Bishop Horsley's remarks on the forty-sixth Psalm 331 Observations on the near approach of the day of the Lord ib. CHAPTER XIX. ON THE ORDER OF THE EVENTS CONNECTED WITH THE SECOND ADVENT OF OUR LoRD, AND THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON. 333 Introductory observation ib. The key to the present state of the world and position of the Church is the vision of the holding of the winds in the Sixth Seal ib. When the mystic 144,000 are all sealed, the winds are loosed . . . ib. The advent is at the loosing of the winds 334 The days of Noe and of Lot are the special types of the state of things at the advent 335 The coming of the Lord finds the world in a state of peace . . . . ib. As soon as the elect are with Christ, the hurricane of wrath goes forth . ib. The coming of our Lord is to be also in a season of shaking and alarm . . 337 In the events of our owtq times, both sides of the prophetic picture are exhibited ib. Evidence of this ib. The national idolatry of the Eeform Bill 338 Further evidence illustrative of the signs of the times — ephemeral literature . ib. Protocols of the Great Powers — notes of alarm in the ablest political journals 340 The sudden advent of our Lord — the rapture of the saints . . . . 342 This is the great event to be now looked for ib. The restoration of Judah 343 The Whirlwind of wrath, or War of Aimageddon ib. The Church with our Lord in the air 344 The marshalling of the heavenly armies in their various degrees of glory . 345 The judgment according to works — the marriage — the investiture in the kingdom ib. An endeavour to trace the various other events which may fill up the interval during which the Church shall bo with the Lord in the air . . . .346 The Feast of Tabernacles a type of this period ib. A great preaching of the Gospel by a part of the Church left in the midst of the great tribulation 347 Ixiv CONTENTS. The political resuscitation of Israel is to give occasion to the confederacy at Armageddon 348 Remarks on the political history of Israel as set before us in the last prophecy of Jacob and the visions of Balaam ib. Ten scriptural Propositions respecting the advent of our Lord . . . . 350 CHAPTER XX. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORLD IN CONNEXION WITH PROPHECY .... 353 On the extraordinary aspect of the present times ib. We are called upon to sit loose to temporal things ib. There is no individual or national safety but in repentance and faith in the Son of God 354 To this country the voice of these judgments is still the voice of mercy . . 355 The nature of the repentance required by Christianity 356 Concluding remarks ib. APPENDIX ... . . 357 Note A., p. 108 ib. B., p. 243 358 C, p. 267 359 D., p. 333 360 E., p. 341 362 CONTENTS OF THE SUPPLEMENT, PART I. Ixv SUPPLEMENT TO A DISSERTATION, &c. IN TWO PARTS. Part I. Containing the application of the Scientific Scriptural Chronology as a test to the scheme of this work 365 Preface to the Supplement, Part I cccbtvii Postscript to the Preface ccclxxxii CHAPTER I. On the Scientific Chronology of the Scriptures as a test of the interpretation of the Apocalypse. — General harmony of the scheme of this work with that Chronology. — By the correction of certain dates the harmony made complete. — The connexion of the Prophetic Numbers of Daniel with the Scientific Chronology shown, and the dates of the termination of these periods in this work thereby proved to be exactly true .... 383 CHAPTER n. On the Two Witnesses. — Their Death, Eesurrection, and Ascension . . . 402 CHAPTER ni. The foregoing interpretation of the Witnesses, — their Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, brought to the test of the Scientific Chronology . . .414 Concluding Remarks 435 SUPPLEMENT TO A DISSERTATION, &c. Part II. Containing additional evidence of the Scientific Character of the great Numbers of Daniel, and their intimate connexion with all Mimdane Times . 445 Explanatory Note to the Reader 446 SECTION I. Further Remarks on the date of the Fifth Trumpet as laid down in the former part of this Supplement 447 SECTION II. Remarks confirmatory of the date of the Third Seal in the former part of this Supplement, and on the Scientific Chronology of the year 532, the com- mencement of the 1^60 years 454 e Ixvi CONTENTS OF THE SUPPLEMENT, PART II. SECTION III. Additional evidence of the Scientific Character of the great Prophetic Numbers of Daniel, and their intimate connexion with all Mundane Times . . 462 SECTION IV. On the Chronological Connexion between the leading Old Testament and Apocalyptic times and the birth of Moses, and the argument thence deducible for the truth of the scheme of interpretation of this work. — Further Remarks on the drying up of the Euphrates under the Sixth Vial. — And on the Apocalyptic season, to which specially belongs the manifestation of the Witnesses as two candlesticks and two olive-trees 470 SECTION V. The arithmetical solution and chronological appHcation of the Number 666 . 480 Remarks on the series of events from the year 1838 to 1843 . . . 492 SECTION VI. Chronological relation between Israel and England. — The United States in separating from England lost its national protest against Rome. — The Eighteenth of Isaiah. — Its begun fulfilment by England. — Turkey may recover strength for a moment. — The Oxford heresy 495 SECTION VII. On the times of the fall and rising again of the kingdom of Judah . . 504 SECTION VIII. How do the Doctors of the Synagogue interpret the Great Numbers of Daniel? 508 APPENDIX I. TO SUPPLEMENT. . . 515 A DISCOURSE, Sec, On the various scientific measures of the Mundane Times. — Reasons for including in the following Table of Chronology the Jubilean difierence between the Greek and Hebrew times. — General reasons for rejecting the Hebrew and receiving the Greek Chronology 517 APPENDIX II. TO SUPPLEMENT. A TABLE OF SACRED CHRONOLOGY, Showing the Greek and Hebrew Chronologies, and their difference at each date in Years and Jubilees — ^From Creation to the point where they meet, viz., the accession of Uzziah, in the year b. c. 810, and carried on fi-om that date to the Destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and end of the Jewish war — The scientific periods being reckoned according to the Greek and authentic Chronology 537 Addenda to Appendix I. to Supplement . . . . . . 549 AN EXPLANATION OF SIGNS AND ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS WORK. As many persons who read works on prophecy are not acquainted wth the signs of arithmetic and the abbreviations of chronology, I add for their sakes the following brief table: — + Plus or more is the sign of addition. Thus 2 + 2 is equal to 4. — Minus or less is the sign of subtraction. Thus, 6 — 2 is equal to 4. X Is the sign of multiplication. Thus 3 X 3 is equal to 9. -r Is the sign of dinsion. Thus 9 -i- 3 is equal to 3. = Is the sign of equality. Thus, 3x3 = 9. 5" Means the square of 5, that is, 5 multiplied by itself. Thus 5 X 5 = 25 ; and so of any other number. 5* Means the cube of 5, that is, 5 multiplied twice by itself. Thus 5x5x5 = 125 ; and so of other niunbers. 5* Means the biquadrate of 5, or 5 three times multiplied into itself. Thus 5X5X5X5 = 625 ; or it is the cube multiplied by the root. Thus 125 X 5 = 625. If the letters t. f. follow a number, they mean that the trinal fraction of that niunber is intended, and the meaning of that term is explained in Appendix I. to the Supplement. CHRONOLOGICAL ABBREVIATIONS. B. C. means year before Christ, or the year before the Vulgar Era of the nativity or birth of Christ, which is 3 years later than the true era of his birth. He was bom therefore, b.c. (before Christ) 3. Thus, Jerusalem was taken by Pompey B. c. 63, or 63 years before the Vulgar Era. A. C. means after Christ, or years after the Vulgar Era of his birth. Thus Christ died on the cross a. c. 33, or 33 years after the Vulgar Era, or 35 years complete from his actual nativity, b. c. 3. I shall add one remark necessary for readers not accustomed to Chronological computations, that in computing from years before the Christian Era, or years b. c. to points of time subsequent to that era, or A. c, the whole period is one year less than the sum of years. Thus from the 1st June, B.C. 1, to the 1st of June, a. c. 1, is just one year. In like manner, from the taking of Jerusalem by Pompey, B.C. 63, to its taking by Titus, a.c. 70, are not 133 years, as superficial readers would suppose, but exactly 132 years. ERRATA. Postscript to Preface, page xlviii., notes, line 1, for Autolychum, read Autolycum. , — xlix., line 5 from bottom, for /)OJWt, read yrujY. Page 76, note 1, line 1, for 88, read 58. — 80, line 7 from bottom, for Ottoman, read Othman. — 83, line 17, for befere, read before. — 152, note, line 3 from bottom, for Perro, read Porro. — 169, line 7, after law, for the semicolon, substitute a comma. — — , line 12, for decree of Trent, read decrees of Trent. — 316, note, line 2, for 19, read 18. — ccclxxiii, line 18, place a semicolon after meeting and erase the comma after them. — ccclxxiv, last line, for oratore, read oratores. — 397, line 7 from bottom, for a, read are. — 398, line 11 from bottom, for 8 m., read 3 m. — 405, note, line 1 1 from bottom, erase the double comma after hoc, and place it after cap. — 436, line 13, for Apostles, read Apostle. — 453, line 1 and 2, for consesequent, read consequent. — 465, line 15 from bottom, for 2876, read 2376. — 514, line 15 from bottom, after coincide insert a double comma. The Table of Chronology, Appendix 11. of Supplement, was printed from the Chart of Chronology of the Author, pubUshed last year, and the word Chart has, through the oversight of the compositor, been printed instead of Table at the head- title of pages 540, 542, and 544. NOTE TO THE READER. Of the above errors, those in the Postscript to Preface, p. xlix., in the Note, p. 169, and in p. ccclxxiii. anJ/j. ccclxxiv., materially affect the sense, and are not immediately discernible. The reader is therefore requested to correct them with the pen. ADDENDA TO THE ERRATA. Besides the foregoing errors I have discovered, since the publication of tho volume, some mistakes not attributable to the press, but to the author onlj'. In the Note, page 52, the taking of Rome by Genseric and the Vandals, is placed in the year 456, whereas, as is stated in every other passage where it occurs, it was in 455. In the long Note in pages 498 and 499, the interval from the 1st of Cyrus to the 2l)th of Artaxcrxes and Commission of Nehemiah is stated, in three different places, tu have been 116 years, whereas it was only 91 years ; and the residue of the period is stated in page 499, line 1st of the Note, to have been only 420, whereas it was 445 years. I will now show how these mistakes arose. There were in the deliverance from Babylon various consecutive steps, whereof the dates and the periods of yeai-s computed down to the Commission of Nehemiah, in the 20th of Artaxerxes, b.c. 445, were as follows : — I. The release of Jehoiachin from prison just at the end of the Jewish Sacred year, b.c. 562. This event was the dawning of the retui'n from Babylon, and as it were, the first fruits and pledge of it, and since our Lord was then, as to the flesh, in the loins of his progenitor Jehoiachin (See Heb. vii. 9), his release was as that of our Lord himself. This event dates from the 1st Nisan, B.C. 561, whence to the Commission of Nehemiah are . . . . . . . .116 years II. The Proclamation of Cyrus, b. c. 536, 25 years after the release of Jehoiachin ; and thence to the Commission of Nehemiah are . . 91 years III. The second foundation of the Temple, Hag. ii. 18, in the 2nd of Darius, B. c. 520, whence to Nehemiah are ..... 75 years IV. The dedication of the Temple and its first Passover, B.C. 515, whence to Nehemiah are 70 years V. The Commission of Ezra in the 7th of Artaxerxes, b.c. 458, whence to Nehemiah are 13 years Now the errors in the Note, pages 498 and 499, which was finished while the sheets of the Supplement were in the press, and amidst the arduous labour of correcting them, appear to have arisen from my having inadvertently assumed the first period of 116 years as the measure of the second interval from Cyrus to Nehemiah instead of its own proper period of 91 years. I, in the second place, having rightly given the period from Cyrus to the Christian Era as 536 years, but having deducted from it the erroneous period of 116 years instead of the true number of 91, the residue was stated as being 420 years instead of its true length of 445 years. While I cannot but regret the occurrence of these mistakes in a Note rather hastily finished, I believe I may assure the reader, that the utmost pains have l>een taken to secure the minute accuracy of the dates and computations in this volume, but should any other errors have escaped notice, the Table of Chronology at the end of the volume will enable the attentive reader immediately to detect them. London, July 3, 1843. A 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 already exhibited to the apostle. The first four seals discover to us the same number of hieroglyphics, each of which is sufficiently distinguished from the rest, by its appropriate characters, to mark that they all relate to different events : but yet, as all the four hieroglyphics are evidently homogeneous, or of the same kind, they must, according to the just principles of interpre- tation, be applied to objects of the same nature. Most interpi-eters have lost sight of this principle 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 the three following 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 visions of the four horsemen ; and this he does by applying the first seal to the history of the Roman empire during the reigns of Vespasian, 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 * It will be understood that I here speak of interpreters whose works hear an earlier date than that of the first edition of this volume, viz., the year ISl.'l. B 2 FIRST SEAL. 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 Apoca- lypse, seems to be the first writer who has adopted a consistent interpretation of that part of the prophecy, which we are now about to consider. And as I have followed his scheme in its great outlines, as to the first six seals, I think it right to set out by acknowledging my obligations to him. I may add, that till I saw his work, I rested in the commonly received interpre- tation of the above seals, the inconsistency of which he has clearly shown. Having made these general remarks, I now proceed to consider more particularly the prophecy of these seals. THE FIRST SEAL. The symbol or hieroglyphic exhibited under this seal is a WHITE HORSE with a RIDER, having a bow: "^ croion ivas given him, and he icent forth conquering, and to conquer" Horses, chariots, and their riders, are, in the Scriptures, used to denote hosts, or armies. Thus the chariots and horsemen, or horses, seen in Isaiah xxi. 7, 9, signify the united armies of the Medes and Persians. The horsemen of the sixth trumpet, or second woe, are the armies of the Turks. Now we know from the Scriptures, that God in the administration of the moral universe employs various agents. His holy angels are his celestial hosts, or armies, who run to and fro on mingled messages of love and of penal inflictions, Ps. ciii. 21. These angels are therefore his chariots, or horsemen, and the symbols are manifestly used in this sense in Ps. Ixviii., where the twenty thousand chariots of God, according to our authorized version, and also that of Bishop Horsley, signify angels. The chariots of fire and horses of fire which surrounded Elisha, 2 Kings vi, 17, are in like manner to be understood as signifying the heavenly host of angels. But the Lord has also his spiritual armies of the race of Adam, and these are his Church, whether militant upon earth or triumphant in the presence of her Lord. Thus the prophet Elijah, from his pre-eminent zeal and holy integrity, embodying as it were in himself, the strength of the Church in his OM^n time, is called FIRST SEAT.. 3 ^^thc chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof."* Our Lord also, when he comes forth to tread the wine-press in the day of Armageddon, is followed by the armies in heaven on white horses, that is, his Church tuu mphant. The horse and rider of the first seal (and consequently those of the three seals which follow), do therefore indisputably signify a liost, or army. A close attention to the prophetic description enables us also to discern that no earthly host is here designated. The white colour of the horse indicates that the conquests of his rider are holy and pure, and are therefore such as cannot be attributed to any earthly warrior. White, is everywhere used as the symbol of holiness. Thus in Dan. xi. 35, " to purge and make white," and in Rev. iii. 4, " tliey shall icalk with me in ichite, for they are worthy." The rider on the white horse has a bow, the well-known instrument for discharging arrows; and from Ps. xlv. 5, we learn that wounds inflicted by arrows are emblema- tical of the conquests of Messiah. The crown, crTe(f>ayos also, with Mhich this rider is invested, is nowhere in this book, used as the hieroglyphical mark of kingly authority upon earth, but uniformly the diade.ai, SiaSTjfia. Thus the dragon in imperial Rome appears having on his heads, chap, xii., hiah'^fxara kirra, seven diadems. The beast, the symbol of decemregal Rome, or the empire divided into ten kingdoms, appears having on his horns, chap, xiii., Se/ca hiahr^^ara, ten diadems. Christ himself when he appears as King of kings, to possess all the kingdoms of the earth, has on his head, chap. xix. 12, SiaSrifxaTa TroXka, many diadems ; although when seen at a previous point of time in prophetic chronology, chap. xiv. 14, as the prophet and high priest of his Church, reaping the earth, or gathering the elect, he appears wearing not the Btabrj/xa, diadem, but only the o-recfjavo^, or croicn. On the other hand, the croicn, See thou hurt not the wine and the oil." By wine and oil, we may understand, those comforting and sanctifying influences of the Spirit of God, which are imparted only to true believers, while the ordinances, are dispensed to all, within the pale of the visible church, whether they be nominal professors or real disciples. The prohibition to injure the wine and oil, signifies, therefore, that even in the midst of the spiritual famine of the word of God, which should peculiarly distinguish the period of this seal, those who truly feared God, should still have an abundant share of the com- forting, and sanctifying, and illuminating influences of the Holy Ghost, to support them under every discouraging and trying circumstance. The above prohibition is analogous to the triumphant declaration of the apostle Paul, that " neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall he ahle to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," Ptom. viii. 38, 39. To recapitulate the contents of this seal : The black colour of the horse, the yoke with which his rider was armed, the procla- mation from the midst of the living creatures, that a chaenix of wheat should be sold for a penny, and three chsenices of barley for a penny, and the command not 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 burthen- some yoke of rites and ceremonies, and likewise of un scriptural articles of faith, should be imposed upon the necks and consciences of men ; when there should be a great want and a THIRD SEAL. 9 fixmine of the preaching of the true Gospel in the Cliurch : but, when, notwithstanding this coinpUcated train of evils, the consolations of the Spirit, his enlightening influences compared to oil, * and his gladdening and comforting influences likened to wine,f 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 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 ; J 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 oges, 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, and 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 Provi- dence, to bear testimony against the universal corruption,§ 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 influence to those parts of the world, hitherto unblcst with the knowledge of Revelation. || Thus has the command not to hurt • 1 John ii. 20, 27. t Zechariah x. 7. Ephes. v. 18. X Mosheim, Cent. V., part ii., chap. 4. § See Milner's History of the Church of Christ, passim. II It has become the practice of some, among the students of Prophecy, to throw a species of reproach upon the Missionary efforts of the present age. I, on the contrary, believe^ that though it were vain to expect the conversion of the world by our Missions, yet, with all their defects and imperfections, tliey are the glory of this age. Already is the whole edifice of Idolatry in British India shaken to its foundation, by our Protestant Missions. The savage tribes of Southern Africa have felt the healing virtue of the doctrine of the 10 FOURTH SEAL. the wine and oil, received its accomplishment in every period of the Church. THE FOURTH SEAL. ^^Iheheld, and h ! a ■pale livid green horse, and his name that sat upon him loas Death, and Hell folloioed loith him : and j)ower was given unto them over the fourth part of the earthy to kill icith the sivord, and toith hunger, and tvith death, and loith the beasts of the earth," vi. 7, 8. The word used to express the colour of the horse under this seal, which is rendered /)aZe, in our authorized translation, signifies, as Archdeacon Woodhouse remarks, a grassg-green hue, which, though beautiful in the clothing of the trees and fields, is very unseemly, disgusting, and even horrible when it appears upon flesh ; it is there the livid colour of corruption. The pale livid green colour of this horse is emblematical 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 aZ7]s, 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 malig- nant demons and savage beasts, and of Death himself; and should extirpate, by fire and sword, all who dared to prefer death to the sacrifice of a good conscience. This seal evidently repre- sents 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 pre- tended to judge for themselves in matters of religion. Early in the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent HI. 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 cross, and even the cannibals of New Zealand are beginning to bow the knee to Jesus. — Third Edition. FOURTH SEAL. H ample indulgences, to extirpate all 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 converted to the Church by terror, and the rest committed 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 this dreadful tyranny. It is computed, that, in the war against the Albigenses 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 thousand men perished. One hundred and Jifty thousand were destroyed by the Inquisition in thirty years.f The ferocious Duke of Alva is reported to have boasted, 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.:]: 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 were butchered in cold blood. § During the dreadful persecution in France, in the reign of Louis XIV., half a million of Pro- testants were driven into banishment, in the space of a few years, and the prisons and galleys were filled with those who • Mosheiin, Cent. XIII., part ii., chap. .5. t Mede, Comment. Apocalyptic, ad cap. xiii. X Watson's Reign of Philip II., vol. i., p. 392. § Modern Universal History, vol. xxiv., p. 273. 12 FOURTH SEAL. M'ere stopped in their flight. About four hundred thousand still remained in the kingdom. Tliey were compelled to go to mass and communicate. Some who rejected the host after having 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 import 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. To the foregoing view of the contents of this seal, which was given in my former editions, I shall now add some remarks upon the different instruments with which the rider on the pale green horse was to execute his work of destruction. He kills, 1st, with the sword; 2dly, with hunger; 3dly, with death, whereby pes- tilence may be intended; 4thly, with the beasts of the earth. Each of these seems to admit of a distinct and appropriate signification. 1st. The sword is the emblem of war and perse- cution, killing the body. 2d. Hunger may denote spiritual famine, even greater than that of the preceding seal. 3d. Death or pestilence may import the pestilence of error and idolatry slaying the soul. 4th. The beasts of the earth may signify those swarms of ravening wolves in sheep's clothing, who were let loose by the Papal power, the various orders of monks, especially the Dominicans, the great actors in the bloody scenes of the Inqui- sition, and afterwards the Jesuits. The whole description is applicable to the Papal power, in the ages which intervened between the establishment of that dreadful tribunal, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantz. I apprehend also, that it is * Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. f Voltaire, in giving an account of these dreadful scenes of cruelly, makes the following striking remark : — C'etait un etrange contraste, que du sein d'une cour voluptueuse, ou regnaient la douceur de nioeurs, les graces, les charmes de la societe, il partit des ordres si durs et impitoyables." He afterwards quotes the following passage from the letters of tlie Marquis de Louvois, the minister of Louis: — '*Sa majeste veut qu'on fasse eprouver les dernieres rigueurs a ceux qui ne voudront pas se faire de sa religion ; et ceux qui auront la sotte gloire de vouloir demeurer les derniers, doivent etre pousses jusqu' a la derniere extremite." — Vide Siecle de Louis XIV., chap, xxxvi. FIFTH SEAL. 13 onli/ applicable to the Papal power, for it is not given to any secular princes to destroy with the literal pestilence. This is a weapon which belongs alone to God. Therefore the pestilence or ileath of this seal is sijmholical, signifying that deadly poison of error slaying the soul, and all history testifies that the Papacy did send forth this pestilence. THE FIFTH SEAL. "iiYHf under the altar the souls of them that icere slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held; and they cried with a loud voice, saying, Hoic long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dicell on the earth ? And white robes were given unto every one of them ; and it icas said unto them, that they shoidd rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also, and their brethren that shoidd be killed, as they ivere, should be fulfilled," vi. 9 — 11. The language and imagery of this seal, appear to be of a mixed character. The Apostle sees the souls of the slain martyrs of Jesus lying under the altar of burnt offerings, crying for vengeance against their persecutors. This imagery is at once literal and symbolical. The souls of the slain saints are a real object which we are not permitted (in the primary sense of the vision) to symbolize. But the place under the altar where they lie is evidently a symbol. It denotes that place under the earth where the saints bow the knee to Jesus,* or, in other words, that compartment in Hades where dwell the spirits of the just. The whole of this imagery is explanatory of the nature of the slaughter perpetrated under the former seals, and particularly the fourth ; and it shows that the Church of Christ was the peculiar object, against which Death and Hades in that seal had directed their dreadful weapons of destruction. 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 imagery 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 • Philip, ii. 10. 14 FIFTH SEAL. 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 tranquilUty, entirely unconscious of the storm that was approaching. The Albigenses and Wal- denses 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 undis- turbed and uncontrollable sovereignty.* To such a state of things the hieroglyphical representation with which the seal opens seems appropriately to belong. The true Church having as it were vanished and been extirpated from the earth, the prophetic scene is transferred or shifted to Hades. There the * Mosheim, Cent. XVI., Hist, of Reformation, chap. i. Milner's Hist, of the Chuixh, Cent. XVI., chap. i. Fleming, in his Discourse on the rise and fall of the Papacy, p. 42, gives the following account of the state of the Church at the end of the fifteenth century. — " Comenius tells us, that ahout the year 1467, the Waldenses in Austria and Moravia had complied so far as to dissemble their religion and turn to Popery, in profession and outward com- pliance. The Taborites, upon their refusing to do so were so destroyed, that it was much that seventy of them could get together to consult about continuing their church, and finding some qualified person to be their minister, for they had none left. These Taborites (called also Speculani from their lurking in dens and caves) sent out four men to travel ; one through Greece and the East — another to Russia and the North — a third to Thrace and Bulgaria — and a fourth to Asia, Palestine, and Egj-pt. These messengers returned to their brethren with this sorrowful news, that they found no Church of Christ that was pure and free from the grossest eiTors, superstition, and idolatry. This was in the year 1498; and when they sent two of their number two years after- wards, Luke Prage and Thomas German, into Italy, France, and other places, to see if there were any of the old Waldenses left, they i-eturned with the melancholy news, that they neither could find nor hear of any remaining, only they were informed of the martyrdom of Savanarolla (who suffered in the year 1493), and they were told of some few remains of the Piemontois that were scattered and hid among the Alps, but no one knew where. A few years after this, even the few remains of the Taborites, were found out and persecuted, hardly any escaping; so that A. C. 1510, six suffered together publicly, and the year following, that famous martyr, Andreas Paliwka, who, I think, was the last of that period; from whose death, in the end of the year 1511 or beginning of 1512, to the dawning of the Reformation, by the first preaching of Carolstadius and Zuinglius, (who appeared at least a year before Luther, as Hottinger and others tell us,) there was only about three years and a half, ■which answers as near as can be to the three days and a half of the unburied state of the witnesses." In the above quotation I have somewhat abridged the style of Dr. Fleming. It will be seen afterwards, also, that I differ from his view of the death of the witnesses. FITTH SEAL. 15 mystic vision ofters to the view of the apostle John, the souls of the slain martyrs as heing at that time the most prominent object; all, as it were, that remained visible to the eye, 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.* Then shall their blood be avenged ; and then shall they receive the crown of glory. This clause I however conceive to be also capable of a symbolical interpretation. The white robes given to these saints may be an emblem of that improved condition of the Church on earth, 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, however improved, was one of hope and expecta- tion, rather than of joy. The cause of the Church was yet unavenged. The promises of her future glory remained unac- complished.— It was therefore necessary that the servants of God should arm themselves with the faith and patience of the saints, during the remaining period of trial allotted to them, before the triumphant reign of their Lord. The second part of this seal thus explained seems to fill up the interval between the Reforma- tion and the Sixth Seal and Seventh Trumpet, when the cries of the martyred saints are completely answered, and the overwhelm- ing judgments of God are poured forth on their enemies.f * These words show that the persecutions of the Fourth Seal were to be continued after the proper period of that Seal was expired. This was fulfilled in the persecutions subsequent to the beginning of the sixteenth century in Ocrmany, Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands. t The learned Vitringa gives an explanation of this Seal very similar to the above. J 6 SIXTH SEAL. CHAPTER II. THE SIXTH SEAL. " A'i^i'D I beheld, token he had opened the sixth seal; and lo, there ivas 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 Jig-tree casteth her untimely Jigs, 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 cap)tains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, 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 lorath of the Lamb : for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" vi. 12 — 17. In the hieroglyphical language of prophecy, the natural universe is used as a symbol of the political world ; whence it follows, that a great earthquake denotes a mighty revolution in the w^orld politic. The sun and moon, being the symbols of the sovereign 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 beneficial influence on the affairs of men. The stars denote princes and nobles, subordinate to the imperial power.* Their falling to the ground, like the unripe fruit of a fig-tree when shaken by a mighty wind, signifies the degradation of the princes and nobles, by means of sudden and violent political convulsions. The heaven or firmament, in the natural world, is the medium through which the sun, moon, and stars, commu- nicate to us their heat, and light, and influences. Consequently, * See, in illustration of the symbolical language, Jacob's interpretation of Joseph's dream, Gen. xxxvii. 9, 10. Also, Sir Isaac Newton's Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel, chap. ii. On the Prophetic Language. SIXTH SEAL. 17 the synibolieal heaven must be that in the world poHtlc, through which the symbohcal sun and other luminaries act upon us; /.c, the political constitutions and governments of the empires and kingdoms of the world. The passing away of the heaven, tlierefore, denotes the utter subversion and destruction, of the political and ecclesiastical constitution 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 terrific convulsions of this seal ; and it shows that they shall at length be forced to yield to the conviction, of the arrival of that awful day of visitation of the wrath of God, of which we so often read in the prophetical Scriptures. In the prophecy of Joel we are informed, that " the sun shall he turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come," Joel ii. 31. Our Lord in his remarkable discourse upon the destruction of the temple, and the signs of his second advent in the clouds of heaven, predicts these signs in the following language. ^^Immediately after the tribulation 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 jjowers of the heavens shall be shaken : and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven : and then shcdl all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coining in the clouds of heaven with power a?id great glory" Matt. xxiv. 29, 30. 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 pro- phecy. " They (the Jews) shall fall by the edge of the sxcord, and shall be led away captive into all nations : and Jerusalem shall he 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; nnduponthe earth distress of nations, with perplexity ; the sea and the wares roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, c 18 SIXTH SEAL. and for looMncj after those things vJiich are coming on the earth : for the powers of the heavens shall he shaken. And then shall they see the Son of Man coining in a cloud, loith power and great glory. And lohen these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, for yoiir redemption draioeth nigh,^^ Luke xxi. 24 — 28. 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 precisely at the period when " the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." The meaning of this expression will be investigated in a subsequent chapter. The passages quoted from Joel and the Evangelists, are so exactly similar in their import and form of expression, that there is no 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, con- sequently, 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 very incongruously been supposed by Mede, Bishop Newton, and the great body of modern commentators, that this seal was fulfilled by the change which took place in the established religion and government of the Roman empire, in the time of Constantine, it may be necessary to make some remarks, by way of refutation of this interpretation. 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 icas 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 obscui'ation of the imperial dignity. It is true, that in the person of Constantine, the imperial * Mr. Faber, in his " Sacred Calendar of Prophecy," entirely concurs with me in the synchronism of these various passages of Joel, and the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.— Sacred Cal., vol. i. pp. 217—220, 282, SIXTH SEAL. 19 dignity of Rome, passed from the Heathen emperors, to a new line professing the Christian faith. But that dignity itself, was neither extinguished nor obscured by this event: on the contrary, it shone forth with increased splendour, after the defeat and death of the rivals of Constantine. Momentous in its conse- quences, therefore, as the above change confessedly was, it yet seems utterly inconsistent with the just rules of interpretation, to apply to it a symbolical description, denoting the complete subversion of the supreme power in the empire, which is the subject of the prophecy.* 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 mightg tcind." This symbol is equally inapplicable to the events of the above period. The rivals of Constantine, 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 fitly applicable 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 : recognising, 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.f The stars which then shone in the • I sliall afterwards endeavour to show, tliat the revolution in the reign of Constantine, was signified hy the earthquake in Rev. viii. 5, and by the fall of the sixth head of the beast and rise of the seventh, xvii. 10. f If we adopt Sir Isaac Newton's principles of expounding the Prophetic language, it will somewhat modify this reasoning, without effecting in it any fundamental change. He supposes Ihe xun to denote the whole species and race of k'ngs ; the moon, as the king's allegorical wife, the body of the people ; and stars, to be put for subordinate princes and nobles. Now, when this work was originally composed, in the year 1812, the whole of the regal powers of the Western Empire, as it existed before the French Revolution, had been hurled from their thrones. 1. The Emperor of Germany; 2. the King of France; 3. of Spain; 4. of Portugal; 5. of Sardinia; 6. of Naples; 7. the Dutch Stadtholder ; 8. the Pope of Rome ; 9, the King of Great Britain was mentally c 2 20 SIXTH SEAL 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.* 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 Constantine. The heaven, or political constitution and govern- deranged, and a Regency established. Thus was the sun darkened, and hecome hlaclc as sackcloth of hah: The subordinate European states of Venice, Genoa, Tuscany, Switzerland, had also disappeared, and the nobles, or stars, of most of tlicse kingdoms, had in whole or in part, shared the fate of their Sovereigns ; and the kingdoms of Europe, had been drenched with their own blood, so as to fulfil the symbol of the moon being tiirned into blood. — Third Edition. * Since this was written, viz., in the year 1812, another mighty alteration has been effected in the state of Europe. The fabric of the revolutionary govern- ments 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 this subject. The present state of Europe seems to me to resemble an edifice, hastily built with loose stones, WITHOUT MouTAR OR CEMENT. I Still belicve that we are in the midst of the last great earthquake. — Sectmd Edition. February, 1817. Such were my views, at the date of the preceding note, and I need scarcely say, writing as I now do, in October, 1831, that the above language was almost prophetic. The monarchy of the Bourbons, rebuilt in the years 1814-15, by the confederated military powers of Europe, and cemented with the blood of twenty destructive campaigns, has once more fallen, never again to rise. Its fall in July, 1830, was even more sudden than in 1792, inasmuch as it had fewer warnings. In its fall it has pulled down the ill-assorted monarchy of the House of Orange, in the Netherlands. Tlie new shock of the earthquake has vibrated into the states of the Church, in Italy — it has convulsed Switzerland — it has raised Poland in rebellion against the Russian Autocrat — a rebellion whicli has been quenched with blood. The throes of the earthquake are even now, heaving the political earth of Great Britain itself, by whose white-cliffed shore, tlie waves of revolution were indignantly repelled, in all the former convulsions of the European earth. The " Journal des Debats," a Paris paper, as quoted in the " Morning Watch," No. XL p. 175, says, " Europe ferments and boils: it seems that the volcano which closed in 1814, is beginning to emit flames again ; some gi'eat eruption approaches." " Within a year from the 1st July, 1830, (says the "Watch," p. 178,) four dethroned Sovereigns sought an as) lum on these shores ; the King of France, tlie Crown Prince of Belgium, the reigning Duke of Brunswick, and the Emperor of Brazils."— Third Edition, 1832. I now write in October, 1842, and I ask, whether the prognostics of the future are more promising of peace than they were ten years ago 1 The hearts of men are failing ihem. — Fourth Edition. SIXTH SEAL. 21 ment of the Roman empire, did not then pass away, nor did the mountains and ishmds, the kingdoms and states, remove from their places. In fact, there were at that time no independent kingdoms and states within the Hmits of the empire; it formed one nndivided 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 Jis the cham/c and subversion of the state of some empire^ xchich should he accomjAished with a sudden shaking and the most violent commotion.' But the alterations introduced by Constantine, were executed in a period of profound peace ; and there was nothing in them that corresponded to the figures of the 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 divina- tion 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 permitted ; and a large pro- portion of the Roman senate, many years after the time of Constantine, continued in the belief, and persevered in the patronage, of the Heathen superstitions. Do these, and other things which I 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 subsisted and flourished in the principal cities of the empire?" In further confirmation of the arguments of \'itringa, it may 22 SIXTH SEAL. be iTientioned, that the first seven Christian emperors continued to accept, without hesitation, the title, the ensigns, and pre- rogatives, of sovereign pontiflf of the Pagan rites, which had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus.* The foregoing reasoning seems sufficiently to refute the common interpretation of the sixth seal ; and the whole imagery of it shows, when compared with various other passages of the prophetical writers, particularly those above quoted from Joel and the EvangelistSjf that it relates to that great and final revolution, which is to agitate and convulse the nations of Christendom, before the second advent of our Lord with the clouds of heaven. Indeed, no other application of this seal will either correspond with its sublime and terrific imagery, or its place in the chro- nology 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 martyrs 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 recompense, but altogether forced and unnatural to turn back to the times of Constantine for its accomplishment. Indeed, in what possible 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 revolu- tion, as it is termed by Sir Isaac Newton, which is immediately to precede the establishment of the glorious kingdom of Christ upon earth, f This revolution is predicted by the prophet Daniel, * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, cap. xxi. t See also Isaiah xxxiv. 4 — 8 ; which evidently refers to the destniction of the Antichrisiian powers, and in which the same language is used as in the sixth seal. X "The event," says Sir I. Newton, "will prove the Apocalypse; and this prophecy thus proved and understood will open the old prophets, and all together will make known the true religion and establish it. For he that will understand the old prophets must begin with this ; but the time is not yet come for understanding them perfectly, because the main revolution predicted in them is not yet come to pass." — Observations on the Apocalypse, chap. i. SIXTH SEAL. 23 under the imagery 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 his glorious kingdom. 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,! and more particularly described 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. Tlie first of these filled the episcopal See of Pettaw, in Austria, and suifered martyrdom under Diocletian ; the second, about the close of the fifth century, was bishop of Ca^sarea, 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 considering 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 compUtehj fulfilled at the coming of Antichrist ; not in the quarter of Judea only, hut in the ichole loorld. This," says Vitringa, " he afterwards confirms by the symbols of the 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 ])ersecution of "Antichrist." Now it is well known, that the ancient fathers connected the coming of Antichrist with the last times, and imagined, that the second advent of our Lord was to take place immediately after the revelation of Antichrist. According to this view, therefore, any event which was placed by them at the coming of Antichrist • Dan. vii. 9—14. f Rev.xi. 19. : lb. xvi. 17—2 § Illustrations of Prophecy, chap, xxiii. 24 SIXTH SEAL. 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 Constantino, but to the final revolu- tion which is to precede the second advent of our Lord, I 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, that Rev. vi. 12 — 17, and xi. 15 — 19, are completely 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 revolution in France, and the earthquake therein mentioned is to be applied to that revo- lution. SIXTH SEAL. 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 revolution, 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 ecclesiastical constitution, together with the whole fabric of tlie 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 destruc- tion ? — Or is it to be with them as with the Christian Jews at the destruction of Jerusalem, and are they to be preserved 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 on the four corners of the earth, and holding the four xoinds of the earth, that the ivind should not hloio 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," vii. 1 — 3. 26 SIXTH SEAL. 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," Ps. xi. 6. " Behold, the whirhoind of the Lord goeth forth ivith fury; a consuming ichirlwind : It shall fall icith pain upon the head of the wicked" Jer. xxx. 23. 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 earthquake 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 consummation 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 undefined duration in the midst of the earthquake. It is an hleroglyphical representation, indicating an interval of universal peace before the end, which is granted for the specific pui-pose of sealing the servants 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 Ezekiel; and by comparing it with that passage we discover, that the sealing of the righteous denotes their being marked for preservation from the ruin im- pending 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 expresses 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 * This passage was written in the year 1816, and I leave it to the reader to judge whether it does not exactly describe the state of Europe from that year to 1842, Fourth Edition. THE FOUU WINDS HELD. 27 describe the faithful as constituting an exceeding great mul- titude.* Tiiese four angels seem to be the emblems or representations of those powers which God will employ as his instruments, to restrain the calamities of the earthquake, and thus procure the allotted period of universal peacc.f When that time is elapsed, they will cease to hold the winds ; and the tempest of calamity, which had already desolated, and is about to overwhelm 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.:]: 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 in the preaching of the word. || In the last chapter, I endeavoured to show that the sixth seal commenced at the period of the French revolution : and it seems to me that we now witness the fulfilment of the vision of the holding of the four winds.f After more than twenty years of unceasing convulsions, and bloodshed unequalled in the past history of the world, peace has at length been obtained by the ♦ Archdeacon Woodhouse in loco. f By universal peace, I mean universal as it respects the scene of the prophecy. There may at the time be wars in Asia, or America, which countries are not within the limits of the Apocalyptic world. : See Isaiah vi. 9, 10; Jer. i. 10. § 1 Pet. i. 22—25. II See Acts x. 44. ^ This was written in 1817. 28 SIXTH SEAL. gigantic efforts of a mighty confederacy of the nations of Europe,* led on by the four great powers of Austria, Britain, * This confederacy is, without question, the greatest which is recorded in history, in 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 accoimt for the unanimity of the allies in their operations in the field, hut 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 Castlereagh's speech in the House of Commons, on February 19, 1816, which I copy from the "Morning Post" newspaper of February 20. " By the means they had employed they had contributed to bring into the field a confederacy, so great and jiowerful, 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 airangenients with the French Commissioners for their subsistence, and his Grace declared that the numbers had not been exagge- rated." " Besides the force brought into action, had the war continued two months longer, 100,000 Austrians, 250,000 Russians, 70,000 Spaniards, and other contingents, would liave entered France, which would then have con- tained 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 army, and obliged to answer to it for all its operations. He felt, that although we might now look to repose imder 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 dis- solution 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 Louis XVIIL was at Ghent, laid it down as a fundamental and positive principle, that that army should be totally dissolved ; and 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, in its state of dissolution ; for if any man supposed that it had ceased to exist, because it no longer existed on parade, he knew TUF, rOLlK WINDS HELD. '29 Prussia, and Russia, which, after breaking in pieces the vast power of the French empire, and twice driving its late sovereign from his throne, now occupies France with its armies, and thus restrains the fire of that revoUitionary volcano, which has here- tofore been the source of such incalculable calamities to the inhabitants of Europe. This interval of tranquillity, has also been marked by another circumstance, which precisely corresponds with the description given in the vision. The four winds ai-e 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-establishment 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 I shall show more parti- cularly 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.* nothing of the deep-rooted principles of Jacohinism with which it had been actuated fi'om the commencement of its disorganizing career." "Tlie noble Lord, continuing to descant on the attachment of the military con- spirators fo 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 difttcult to find a chief who would soon have led it into its former career." Did my limits permit me to enlai-ge these extracts, I might add other passages to show that the great purpose of this alliance was the conquering and securing peace ; and also illustrative of the very remarkable imion which existed among the members of the confederacj'. Now we know that the expedition of Xerxes into Greece was tlie subject of prophecy, see Dan. xi. 2. It cannot therefore be asserted, with any c jlour 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 sulficient magnitude to find a place in the Apocalyptic history, for surely its importance is greater than was that of the expedition of Xerxes. I 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 shown erroneous, interpretation of the earthquake, in chap. vi. When it is considered that the triumph of the Churcli at that time was immediately followed by the JS rian controversy and 30 SIXTH SEAL. We are no where informed, how long this interval of peace shall continue. But if the interpretation 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 over- whelming impetus. From these final judgments, which are to bring utter destruction on the Bestial empire, the sealed servants of God are, however, Joel ii. 31, 32, Malachi iv. 1 — 3, Dan. xii. 1, to be delivered; and there are many passages which seem to indicate that their preservation 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, parallel 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;* 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.f 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 preservation 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.if 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 writer, who thus expounds it. " A remarkable adjunct of the judgment shown forth in the emblem of the great earthquake is here described, viz., the preservation 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. * Matt. xxiv. 31. f Luke xxi. 36. X The concluding half of this jiaragraph, was written in the year 1812, and belongs to my fii'st edition. The former part of it was composed for my second edition, in the year 1816. At neither of these periods, had I a distinct perception of the manner in which the sealed ones are to be preserved from the hurricane of wrath. I now believe that they are those liv'mg sainis, who, at the advent of our Lord in the air, shall be caught up to meet him. 1 Thess. iv. ] 7. This subject will be treated at greater length, in a future chapter. — Third Edition. THE VOVn WINDS HELD. 31 of the elect, professing the pure faith of Jesus Christ, from the stupendous calamities which fall on the enemies of the Church, in the last time. For although there shall be great and terrible c^^mmotions in the world, and throughout 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 afterwards explains the Jour 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 religion ; 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." Such were my views respecting the vision of the holding of the winds, when I gave to the public the second edition of this work. And now, after the lapse of fourteen years, I find scarcely any- thing to alter in what I then wrote.f The foregoing exposition, has indeed received elucidation, from quarters that I scarcely dared to hope for. The late Mr. Canning in his celebrated Speech in the House of Commons, on the 12th December, 18-26, after some general observations on the position of Great Britain, made use of the following most remarkable language. " Some years ago in the discussion of the negotiations respecting the French war against Spain, I took the liberty of adverting to this topic. I then stated that the position of this country, in the present state of the world, was that of neutrality, not only between contending nations, but between conflicting principles, and that it was by neutrality alone, that we could maintain that balance, the preservation of which I believe to be essential to the welfare of mankind— I then said, that I feared that the next war which should be kindled in Europe, would be a war, not so much of armies, as of opinions. The situation of England amidst • The Germanic empire. t I may now add, after twenty-five years I find nothing to alter. — Fourth Edition. 32 SIXTH SEAL. the struggle of political opinions, which agitates more or less sensibly different countries of the world, may be compared to that of the Ruler of the Winds as described by the poet — Celsa sedet ^Eolus arce Sceptra tenens; moUitque animos et temperat iras : Ni faciat, maria ac terras ccelumque profundum Quippe ferant rapidi secuin, verrantque per auras. " The consequence of letting loose the passions at PRESENT chained AND CONFINED would be to producc a scene of desolation, which no man can contemplate w ithout horror : and I should not sleep easy on my couch, if I were conscious that I had contributed to precipitate it by a single moment." — " This then is the reason — a reason very different from fear, the reverse of a consciousness of disability, why I dread the recurrence of hostilities in any part of Europe; why I would bear much, and forbear long; why I would as I have said, put up with almost any thing that did not touch national faith, and national honour — rather than let slip the furies of war, the leash of which w^e hold in our hands, not knowing whom they may reach, or how far their ravages may be carried." In accordance with the sentiments thus expressed by Mr. Canning, it will be found, by a careful examination of the political Journals of Europe, during the last fourteen years, that the whole efforts of its leading Governments have been directed, specially, to the one great object of maintaining the general peace. There seems a sort of instinctive fear in the minds of all Statesmen, of the terrible nature of the war, which is approaching, and a con- sequent unwillingness to draw the sword. The only image in nature, which has struck me, as affording a fit illustration of this general dread and horror of w-ar, so opposite to the former character of the rulers of Christendom, is the instinctive agony which may be observed in cattle, when driven into a slaughter- house. The next general war will be the slaughterhouse of Europe. In reference to the above feeling, there is a passage in the prophecies of Jeremiah, chap. xxv. 28, which represents the nations as unwilling to take the cup of blood ; but as this passage will be brought into view, in a subsequent chapter of this w^ork, I shall not at present pursue the subject further. It appears evident, therefore, that the four winds are still held by the restraining angels. All the recent state papers of the THE FOUR WINDS UliLD, 33 great powers, especially those having relation to the Belgian question, manifest their extreme anxiety, to avoid war.* Similar * It were easy to multiply evidence upon this point: I select from the Journals of the last and present year, some remarkable passages, having reference to this desire for peace. In the French Chamber of Deputies, Marshal Maison, Minister of Foreign Affairs, used the following words, in a speech delivered last 3'ear, in answer to one of Mons. Mauguin, " We are confident then, that Europe will preserve the greatest of blessings — peace. Peace, is the expression of all the European tva/its, and is preferable to the greatest victor//." On December 1st, 1830, M. Lafitte, President of the Council, thus expressed himself in the Chamber of Deputies, " He still pei-sisted in saying, that peace was more probable than war. When France and England, (continued he,) wish for peace — when other great powers are anxious for it, how can a war, I ask, be anticipated ? " Marshal Soult, Minister of War, thus spoke, " The unanimous cry of France, is for peace ; she has given too many pledges of her pacific intentions to be doubted." From the protocols, of the five great powers, viz., Austria, Russia, Prussia, England, and France, in reference to the affairs of the Netherlands, it is no less evident, that the preservation of the peace has been their great object. The protocol of January 9tli, 1831, contains the following passages, "The plenipotentiaries of the five Courts, have met for the purpose of examining the complaints, which the Court of London has received from the Provisional Government of Belgium, against the prolongation of the measui'es which continue to impede the navigation of the Scheldt ; and on the part of his Majesty, the King of the Netherlands, against the acts of hostility com- mitted by the Belgian troops; considering that, the protocol of November 4th, 1830, contains the following sentence. Hostilities shall entirely cease." The protocol afterwards declares to the King of the Netherlands, " that the five powers cannot allow on the part of his Majesty, the continuation oi any measure hearing a hostile character, and that such being the character of those measures, which hinder the navigation of the Scheldt, the five powers are obliged to demand for the last time, the revocation of them." It, in like manner, declares to the Provisional Government of Belgium, in reference to the acts of hostility near Maestricht, " that the acts of hostility, above-mejitio7ied, must cease without the least delay, and that the Belgic troops must return, immediately, according to the above-mentioned declaration, to the position which they occupied on 21st November, 1830." The protocol concludes with the formal declaration, " that the entire and reciprocal cessation of hostilities, is placed under the immediate guarantee of the five great powers ; that they will not allow the reneival of them, under any supposition, and that they have taken the immutable resolution to obtain the accomplishment of the decisions, which are dictated to them by justice, and their desire to preserve to Europe, the benefit of general peace." Principles exactly similar to the above, are to be found, established in a subsequent protocol, bearing date, the 19th February, 1831. It says, that the plenipotentiaries of the five powers " having assembled, directed their whole attention to the divers interpretations given to the protocol D 34 SIXTH SEAL. pacific sentiments breathe in the speeches of the ministers both of France and England, in the legislatures of both countries. But though the winds are not yet loosed, still there are many of tbe conference of London, of December 20th, 18.30, and to the principal acts which have followed it. The deliberations of the plenipotentiaries led them to admit, unanimously, that they owe it to the position of the five Courts, as well as to the cause of general peace, which is their own cause, and that of Eurojiean civilization," 8fc. It then declares, that, in 1814, "the Belgian provinces were occupied by the military forces of Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia ; and the rights which these powers exercised over them, were completed by France's renuncia- tion of the possession of the same provinces. But France's renunciation was not made in favour of the occupying powers ; it proceeded from an idea of a more elevated order. The powers and France herself, equally disinterested then, as at present, in their views upon Belgium, kept the disposal, but not the sovereignty of it, with the sole intention of making the Belgian provinces contribute to the establishment of a just balance of power, in Europe, and the maintenance of the general peace," The protocol afterwards states, that the union of Belgium with Holland, being now broken, " it did not belong to the powers, to judge of the causes which had just severed the ties which they had formed. But when they beheld these broken, it belonged to them, again to accomplish the object which they proposed to themselves, in forming them. It belonged to them to secure, hy neiv combinations, that tranquillity of Europe, of which the union of Belgium with Holland, had formed one of the bases." The result of these endeavours of the five powers to maintain peace, is thus announced in the speech of his Majesty proroguing Parliament, on 20th October, 1831. " The conference assembled in London, has at length terminated its difficult and laborious discussions ; by an arrangement, unanimously agreed upon by the plenipotentiaries of the five powers, for the separation of the states of Holland and Belgium, on terms, by which the interests of both, together with the future security of other countries, have been carefully provided for. A treaty, founded on this arrangement, has been presented to the Dutch and Belgian plenipotentiaries, and I trust, that its acceptance, by their respective Courts, which I anxiously expect, will avert the dangers with which the peace of Europe was threatened, while this question remained unsettled." On proroguing Parliament, upon the 16th August, 1832, the King expresses himself as follows : — " I continue to receive the most friendly assurances from all foreign powers, and though I am not enabled to announce to yovi, the final arrangement of the questions which have been so long pending between Holland and Belgium, and though, unhappily, the contest in Portugal, between the princes of the house of Braganza, still continues, / look with confidence, through the intimate union which subsists between me and my allies, to the jjresej-vation of general peace." The contents of this long note, will enable the reader to see, even (as is at THE PALM-BEARERS. 35 reasons in the present condition of Europe, for believing that event to be at no great distance. The revolution in France, in July, 1830, and the continued progress of things in that kingdom, since that revolution, towards a pure democracy, the movements in Switzerland, and the Papal states, in Belgium, in Germany, and in England, all seem to testify to the near approach of that awful hour, when the hurricane of WTath shall again go forth, and sweep into one common gulf of ruin, the institutions of former affes, as well as those more recent forms of administration and government, which have, in states already revolutionized, been substituted in their room. 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 torujues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed tcith white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying. Salvation to our God which present, apparently, too probable) should war ensue, how great have been the eflbrts of the statesmen of Europe, to avert war, and how, to the very letter, the vision of the foiu- angels holding the winds, has been fulfilled, hitherto. This desire of peace, is, as already said, forcibly depicted in the prophecies of Jeremiah, by the nations refusing to drink the cup of wrath, xxv. 28, " And it shall he, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shall thou say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, ye shall certainly drink." — Third Edition, 1832. I now, at the end of ten years, viz., in October, 1842, add to the foregoing note a remark, that the whole policy of the European Governments, since 1832, has been guided by the principle of preserving the general peace, and yet there never have been entirely absent elements of discord sufficient to fan into a flame the smouldering embers of war, had they not been supernaturally held in. — I copy from the '•' Record" newspaper of October 20th, 1842, the following remarks: — " It is a remarkable and not uninstructive fact, that at the present moment the so-called Liberal and Democratic party in the three most powerful countries of the world, is striving to foment war in different directions. In France, we find that those who court the favour of the people are compelled to avow antipathy to England — that war has for the last two years been the avowed object of the stanchest adherents of popular government, and that, but for the sagacious control of Louis-Philip, this belligerent and unruly spirit would most probably have burst forth into open action." The Editor then goes on to remark, that the Democratic party in the United States, and the adherents of the late ministry in England, are actuated by a similar spirit ; but the whole is too long to be inserted here. The loosing of the four winds may be just the loosing of the spirit of Democracy, now tied up, and the war of Armageddon will immediately follow. D '2 36 SIXTH SEAL. 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 lohence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou hnoivest. And he said unto me, These are they which came out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them tchite 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 icaters : and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,'' chap. vii. 9, 10 and 13—17. We have seen in the seahng of the 144,000, in the preceding passage, an emblem of the certain preservation of the Church of Christ from the general 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 promised to her from the earliest ages. The chronology of this vision of the palm-bearers is marked by the circumstance, that they are described as " standing before the throne, and serving God day and night in his temple ; " that is, in the inmost recess of the temple, or the holy of holies, in 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.f It will further be discovered, that though the temple of God is opened at the * The whole imagery of this vision is taken from the ceremonial of the feast of tabernacles. It was the custom of the people of Israel, at that festival, to encircle in solemn procession the altar of the Lord, with branches of palm trees, crying aloud in the words of Psalm cxviii. 25, " Hosanna (save now, I beseech thee), 0 Lord — 0 Lord, L beseech thee, se7id now prosjierify." In like manner the white-robed palm-bearers cry aloud, ^^ Salvation to our God tvhich sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb ! " At the feast of the tabernacles, also, water was wont to be drawn with golden pitchers from the brook Siloam, and with every demonstration of joy poured on the altar of God. So in the Apocalyptic vision it is said, " the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe all tears from their eyes." t Chap. xi. 19. THE I'ALM-BEARERS. 37 sounding of the seventh trumpet, yet it continues to be filled with smoke from the glory of God, and therefore inacces- sible to men till after the fulfilling, or finishing, of the seven plagues of the seven last vials of the wrath of God.* The worship performed in the teinple 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 Antichrist, at the battle of Armageddon, the scene of that multitude "clothed in white raiment, witli palms in their haiids,^' must also be subsequent to the destruction of the Antichristian 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 establishment of the kingdom of our Lord, which is thus described in the prophecies of Daniel : "I saio in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of Man, came icith the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they hrouyht him near before him. And there loas given him do7ninion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages shoxdd serve him : his dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass aicay, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." — • " 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," Dan. vii. 13, 14, 27. 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 kingdoms. 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."\ 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. || And the same thing may be gathered from the Apocalyptic description of the marriage of the Lamb, already referred to.i[ • Chap. XV. 8. t Chap. xix. 7—9. % Cliap. xx. I— 0. § Chap. xxi. II Dan. vii. 13, It. ^ The interpretation of the vision of the pahn-bcarc-rs here given, is tliat of 38 SIXTH SEAL. 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 anything have a greater tendency both the former editions of this work, and it supposes the pahn-bearing and white-robed multitude to be substantially the same body as the sealed 144,000 ; but that they represent the Church of a later period, and with the veil of symbol drawn aside. After long and attentive consideration, I have found myself obliged to abandon that opinion, and have arrived at the conclusion, that the sealed ones and the palm-hearers are distinct bodies, and that they stand in the same relation to each other as the loaves of the first-fruits of the harvest to the harvest itself, Levit. xxiii. 17. Accordingly, when the sealed ones are first brought on the prophetic scene, Rev. xiv. 1 — 5, they are expressly said to be first-fruits, arrapxi], to God and the Lamb, while at a subsequent period, and in a distinct vision (v. 14 — 16,) the Son of Man is revealed with his sharp sickle to reap the (wheat) harvest of the earth. This act I apprehend to be the same with the gathering of the palm-bearers out of the great tribulation. The sealed ones of the former vision are, therefore, that eminently faithful part of the professing Church which shall be counted worthy of escaping the things which shall come to pass, and standing before the Son of Man, Luke xxi. 36. They shall not be even touched by the last storm of wrath. Being changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52, they shall, along with the raised saints, be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, 1 Thess. iv. 17. The palm-bearers, or the wheat of the full harvest, are another portion of the professing Church, who not being counted worthy of that special glory and happiness, shall, for a season, be left in the midst of the great tribulation to ensue on the loosing of the four winds, and having been purified in the furnace shall, perhaps, with great multitudes (especially among the Heathen nations) who, at the same period, may have turned to God and cried for mercy, be at length brought out of it. They shall not, indeed, inherit the same transcendent glory as the sealed ones, but they are, along with them, to keep the feast of tabernacles at the commencement of the age to come ; when God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. The attentive reader will see that the explanation now given, though, in some respects different, does not affect or change any of the great principles of my former exposition of these visions of the seventh chapter of the Apocalypse. It is very remarkable that the learned Vitringa, whose work on the Apocalypse I had not seen, when I published my first edition, explains these visions on the very same principle as I did formerly, and at the same time admits, as an alternative, the probability of my present explanation of them. His words are, "That number of 144,000 was mystical and allegorical, and did truly signify the total and vast multitude of the elect to be preserved by God from that general calamity. But John being about to describe the elect without allegory or figure, says that he ' saw a great and innumerable multitude,' lest any one should suppose that the number of the elect, to be preserved from the general affliction and calamity,^ was to be limited to that of the 144,000 which he had expressed. If, however, any one thinks it better that the palm-bearing TUli PALM-BEAIIEUS. -39 to excite the scorn of unbelievers, than such an expUcation of so important a passage of this mystical book. However much it may have the sanction of great names, the chronological mark above referred to, would show the commonly received explanation to be erroneous, even were there no other reason for refusing it. * In reference to the foregoing interpretation. 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 jnace and protection it shoidd enjoy under the civil poivers, and the great accession lohich should be made unto it, both of Jeivs 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 consideration and power, yet did it acquire no real accession of worth, dignity, or exaltation, by its connexion 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 dissimu- lation 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, as Mosheim multitude should be distinguished from the sealed ones, he may understand by this body, a very great midtilude of men added to them, and to be united in that last time to that radical (original) Church, which coining out of Babylon had stood fast in the faith of the apostolic doctrine, tvhich, according to our expec- tation, is to be spread throughout the whole world." — Anac. Apocalyp. p. 307. Edit. 1719. • As this work was composed in 1812, wlien neither Mr. Frcre nor Mr. Irving, nor a host of later writers had published on propliecy, it is proper that I should explain that what I intend by the commonly received expla- nation, is that of Mede and Bishop Newton, which has, till lately, been generally followed in this country. In my tract, " The Scheme of Prophetic arrangement of Mr. Irving and Mr. Frere critically examined and its Appen- dix," and in my "Strictures on Mr. Irving's Lectures on the Apocalypse," I have given my reasons for utterly rejecting the scheme of these writers. 40 SIXTH SEAL. observes, in name^ not in reality. The worldly professors of Christianity in this century were so far from fulfilling the prophecy, by washing their robes in white, and by being ^e J and conducted hy the Lamh, that they appear rather to have assumed the hue of another leader^ the Jire-coloured dragon, and to have greedily sought from him those worldly riches, and 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 offer upon them by a brief recapitulation, 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, chap. xi. 15, and that the sixth seal offfers also a brief description of the great revolution in the latter days, which is to precede the establishment of the king- dom 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."-f- We find the same method followed in the book of Daniel, wherein the prophetical history of the world is first given in its 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 afterwards 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, frst, pure and triumphant ; secondly, that it was filled with quarrels and * Archdeacon Woodhouse, p. 196. t Ibid. RECAPITULATORY ARGUMENT. 41 discord; thirdly^ that it was undei* the yoke of superstition and icnorance ; fonrf/ilt/, 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 scries and order of vicissitudes, as I have endeavoured to trace in the characters 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 is dis- coverable in the commonly received interpretation of these seals, all the arguments for the scheme that I have adopted derive new strength, and seem to show, almost to demonstration, that it is the true one. If, however, any reasons for confirming the foregoing inter- pretation, be still wanting, they will be supplied by placing in contrast with it, the theory of INIede and Bishop Newton. Let the reader advert 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 I^amb 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 incon- sistent) writers above-mentioned, we shall find, that four out of the seven seals, the opening of each of which is also marked by a ceremonial of the most significant nature, are supposed to relate to certain vicissitudes, of no great moment, in the secular affairs of the Roman empire daring the first three 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 prophecy is, by that exposition, debased and secularized, and constrained to imbibe the sordid and grovelling spirit of earthly * See chap. v. 1 — 9. 42 SIXTH SEAL. objects. After some observations respecting the capacity and price of the chsenix 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 regulations, about the necessaries of life, imply some want and scarcity of them. Scarcity obligeth 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 apprehending thieves, that all these mighty 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 important nature.* But the high nature of the theme, forbids our speaking, even of the errors of those who have treated it, except 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 * Mr. Irving, in his " Lectures on the Apocalypse," p. 1312, offers a similar interpretation of the words, "See thou hurt not the wine and oil" He refers them to " the stores of wine and oil which were laid up in Rome, and which are here commanded not to be injured, because of their preciousness in con- sequence of the destruction which was about to come over the oliveyards and the vineyards." I have, I hope, sufficiently shown, in my " Strictures on the Lectures " of the learned writer, p. 58, that the foundation on which this literal interpretation is made to rest is utterly unsound. RECAPITULATORY ARGUMENT. 43 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 object, that I myself expound the seven trumpets as having a reference to the secular fortunes of the Roman empire, and that I am tliereforc inconsistent in opposing a similar application of the seals. The answer to this is, that I consider the great mutations only of tlie empire to be predicted in the trumpets, and not those minor changes which Mede and Bishop Newton suppose to be referred to in the seals. The Roman empire I consider to be the subject of prophecy only on account of its connexion 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. 44 SEVENTH SEAL. 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 loere given seven trumpets," viii. 1, 2. In the general view which I have taken of the contents of the first six seals, I have followed Archdeacon Woodhouse ; but I am now about to take leave of my respectable guide, being obliged to differ from him with regard 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 exhibited for the purpose of denoting a change in the mode or in the subject of the prophecy ; to disunite the succeeding scene from that which had gone before ; to unfold a new chain of prediction." * 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 trumpets. As this is the first object exhibited under the seventh seal, we may infer from it that this seal relates principally to the sounding of these trumpets, and comprehends within itself the whole of the events signified by the trumpets ; and in this inference I have the support of some of the most distinguished writers on the Apocalypse, f Now, seeing that the first six seals contain an epitome of the state of the Church, down to that final consummation of all things on this earth, when " the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever," Dan, vii. 18, and that the trumpets cannot extend beyond this final consummation, it follows that the seventh * Archdeacon Woodhouse, p. 200. t Vide Bisliop Newton in loco, also Mede on the Apocalypse. SEVENTH SEAL. -46 seal, and seven trumpets, must relate to the 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 Church, so the trumpets contain an epitome of the great political and ecclesiastical events 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.* " And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer ; and there teas given unto him mucli incense, that he should offer it with the pragers of all saints, upon the golden altar which 7cas before the tlirone. And the smoke of the incense ascended, with the pragers of the saints, from the hand of the angel before God. And the angel took the censer and filed it icith the f re of the altar, and cast it upon the earth ; and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake,'' viii- 3 — 5. Incense is a symbol of the prayers of true Christians. Thus in jMalachi, it is predicted, in reference to the times of Messiah : " Fi'om the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, my * Dan. vii. 11 — 13. The learned Vitringa makes some introductory obser- vations on the trumpets, whicli are well worthy 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 trumi)ets, 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. Tiie 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 i-ound it seven times, and at the end of the seventh time the people were commanded to shout 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 Vitringa, the inheritance of the world is promised to the Church, Dan. vii. 18, 22, 27, but the city and empire of Rome oppose themselves 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, idolatr)"^, and superstition, are destined to be destroyed by various steps, and with peculiar demonstrations 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. 46 SEVENTH SEAL. Name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense shall he offered unto my Name, and a pure offering : for my Name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts," Mai. i. 11. And in the Apocalypse we are expressly told, that the vials full of incense, held by the twenty-four elders, are the prayers of saints, chap. v. 8. In the passage we are now considering, the incense which is offered by the angel, (who is our Lord himself,) with the prayers of all saints, signifies, that their prayers find acceptance with God, and are to receive an answer. The answer is 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 presence 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. " JVIiose fan is in his hand, and he loill throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he xvill burn with Jin unquenchable" Luke iii. 17. It is 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, whicli is, throughout this mystical book, used to denote the world, as opposed to the cause and kingdom of Christ; and since the fourth kingdom 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, signifies the wrath of God coming down upon that empire, in answer to the prayers which had been offered. The effects of the descent of this fire are voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. We have already 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 * Luke iii. 16. Conip. Is. vi. 6, 7. SEVENTH SEAL. 4? these words are used symbolically, they must, therefore, signify such convulsions as affect the political atmosphere, 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 lightnings, and the earthquake, mentioned in this passage, denote a political convulsion in the government of the Roman empire, attended with a revolution. These events occur befoi'c the sounding of any of the seven trumpets. But it is generally admitted by our ablest inter- preters, that the first four of these trumpets refer to the over- throw of the Western Empire by the Goths and Vandals; and I shall afterwards give my reasons for concurring in this inter- pretation. 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; and that was the revolution in the time of Constantine, when Paganism ceased to be the established religion of the empire, and Christianity was embraced by the imperial family. This revolution was so important in its consequences, that the great body of interpreters, have, as we have seen, referred 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 sufficient magnitude, to render it probable, that some mention should be made of it in the Apo- calypse, and it seems to find its place in the passage we are now considering. In this passage, we behold then, 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, thunderings, and lightnings, and a revolution or earthquake, whereby Paganism is cast down to the ground, and Christianity occupies its place, as the religion of the Government. The Heathen persecutions are thus brought to a period. 48 SEVENTH SEAL. This interpretation is original, as I have not met with it in any former writer on the Apocalypse: I shall, therefore, oiFer 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 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 inter- preted 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 convulsion which began by the overthrow of the French monarchy, and has since then, never ceased to shake 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 Jirst.\ * A revolution may be defined as a change in the state of an empire, arising from internal convulsions. The overtln-ow of the Western Empire, by the barbarous nations, and of the Eastern, by the Turks, were not revolutions ; they were conquests. — First Edition. f The principles of this interpretation have lately received unexpected con- firmation from the following passages in Mons. Merle D'Aubigne's " Histoire de la Reformation :" — " Une revolution est un changement qui s'opere dans les choses du monde. C'est quelque chose de nouveau qui se deroule du sein de I'humanite ; et meme ce mot avant le fin du dernier siecle a ete pris plus souvent en un bon qu' en un mauvais sens; une heureuse a-t-on dit, une merveilleuse revolution." — Tome i., p. 2. " Le Christianisme et la Reformation sont les deux plus grandes revolutions de I'histoire." — " C/irisfiani/y and the Reformation are the (greatest revolutions of Historrj." — Ibid. p. 3. Fourth Edition of this work. FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. 49 CHAPTER V. THE FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. "And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound. The Jirst angel sounded^ and there folloxoed 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 teas burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and, as it ivere, a great mountain burning icith fire, teas cast into the sea ; and the third part of the sea became blood ; and the third part of the creatures which tcere in the sea, and had life, died ; and the third part of the ships icere destroyed. And the third angel sounded, and tliere 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 IVormioood : and the third part of the waters became wormwood ; and many men died of the wafers, because they tcere made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun teas 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 likeicise," viii. 6 — 12. That which takes place under the first four trumpets is the partial destruction of an universe, consisting of dry land, a sea, rivers and fountains, and 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 trumpets wholly to spiritual objects, and supposes, that they relate to the general warfare which the Christian religion underwent, on its first establish- ment.* 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 • Archdeacon Woodhouse on tlie Apocalypse, p. 218. £ 50 FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. 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 involves such a consequence, cannot be the true one. Some other inter- preters 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 applied to signify the doctrines of the Gospel, or the consolations of the Holy Spirit, it is either denomi- nated the water of life, to distinguish it from material water, or there is something in the context 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 helieveth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living ivater," John vii. 37, 38. And when he conversed with the woman of Samaria, he not only used the expression liviny water, but afterwards he distinctly shows 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," John iv. 10 — 14. The waters seen by the prophet Ezekiel, in his vision, Ezek. xlvii., 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, chap. xxii. 1; is expressly called a pure river of water of life, to distinguish 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. That some of them refer to the secular Roman Empire, has been admitted by all the writers whom 1 have met FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. 51 with, excepting Archdeacon Woodhouse ; and for rejecting the interpretation of this learned writer I have already offered a sufficient reason. These arguments are, I think, conclusive in showing, 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 keeping 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 relation 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 Goths, 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 afterwards it is my intention to offer some general remarks in support of my interpretation. In the year 376, the Visigoths, driven ft'om 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, ha^ they been received, when they rose in rebellion against the Roman govern- ment, 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 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 Adrianople, 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 Theodosius 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 • Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xxvi. e2 52 FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. of the Gothic irruption in the reign of Valens, a.c. 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 destructive 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.* * In placing the sounding of the first trumpet so early as the year 376, I diiFer from Mede, Sir Isaac and Bishop Newton, and also Mr. Faher, who all concur in applying it to the Gothic irruption which followed the death of Theodosius in 395, which I suppose to be the fulfilment of the second trumpet. It seems to me, however, that I am supported by the voice of history. Mr. Whiston also accords with me in assigning the first trumpet to the year 376. Gibbon dates the fall of the empire from the reign of Valens. " In the disasti'ous period of the fall of the Roman Empire, which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens, the happiness and secm-ity of each individual were personally attacked, and the arts and labours of ages were rudely defaced by the barbarians of Scythia and Germany." " Decline and Fall," chap. xxvi. Mede, in his Latter Times, fixes three different degrees of the ruin of the Western Empire, the first from the great earthquake in the year 365 ; the second at the sacking of Rome by Alaric in 410; the third at the taking of Rome by Genseric, king of the Vandals, in the year 456. He also cites a passage from the third Epistle of Jerome, written before the year 400, containing the following words:—" It is now more than twenty years that from Constantinople to the Julian Alps Roman blood is every day poured out. Thrace, Macedon, Dardania, Dacia, Thessaly, Achaia, Epirus, Dalmatia, both Pannonias, are wasted and spoiled by Goths, Sarmatians, Quadians, Alans, Huns, Vandals, Marcomans, &c. The Roman world is rushing to destruction." Being thus guided by the voice of history to the reign of Valens as the first period of the ruin of the empire, I feel myself warranted in departing from the sentiments of all the foregoing interpreters, in placing at that time the sounding of the first trumpet ; and although the Gothic irruption in the reign of Valens was at first felt, chiefly in the Eastern Empire, yet as the desolation extended to the foot of the Julian Alps, including the provinces of Pannonia and Illyricum belonging to the Western Empire ; this invasion forms the first step in the ruin of the Western no less than the Eastern Empire, and the more especially, as it was followed by a permanent settlement of the Gothic nations within its tei'ritories. In interpreting the trumpets which are next in order, viz., the second and third, I simply follow the order of history, and this I conceive to be the best answer to the objections of a Reviewer in the " Investigatoi", " vol. i. p. 309, that Alaric and other barbarian leaders were equally stars with Attila. Why, the Spirit of God signifies the invasion of one barbarous king by the symbol of a mountain, and another by that of a star, it is not easy to say, but the order FIRST FOUR TRUMrETS. 58 The second period of the Gothic invasions commenced in the year 395, on the death of the great Theodosius. " He died in the month of January ; and hcfore the end of the winter of the same year the Gothic nation was in arms." * — " The barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued from their forests ; and the uncommon severity of the winter allowed the poet to remark, that they rolled their ponderous waggons over the broad and icy bank of the indignant river." f In the year 396, Alaric, the leader, and subsequently the king of the \'isigoths, marched into and ravaged Greece. The fertile fields of Phocis and Baeotia were covered by a deluge of " barbarians, 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 promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted with the baneful presence of the barbarians; 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 without resistance to the arms of the Goths ; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved by death ft-om beholding the slavery of their families, and the conflagration of their cities.:]: Italy was invaded by Alaric in the year -^00, and in the year 406 by a mixed army of Vandals, Suevi, and Burgundians, under the command of Radagaisus ; and though both these armies of invaders were defeated by Stilicho, 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 reduced 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 of a large ransom. It was besieged a second time in the following year, when Attains, the pr?efect of the city, was by the Goths and Romans created emperor, and the gates of the city having been thrown open, he was placed on the throne by the Gothic armies. In the year 410, however, Attains was despoiled of the ensigns of royalty, of the tiimipets necessarily leads lis to apply the mountain of the Kccond trnnipet to Alaric, because he preceded Attila in time. Tiiis remark I deem quite sufticient on this point. * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xxx. f Ibid. J Ibid. 54 FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. and degraded by command of Alaric ; and in the same year 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 invaded by the remains of the great army of Radagaisus.f After defeating the Franks, who opposed their progress, " the victorious confederates pursued 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 separated 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: 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 multiplied without control in the desert, were exasperated, 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 pro- portion 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 * Gibbon, chap. xxxi. f Ibid. chap. xxx. J Ibid. FIRST FOUR JRUMPETS. 55 introduced, fixed their permanent seats in the depopulated country." * In 4*29, the Vandals under the command of Genseric, passed from Spain into Africa, and established themselves in that province ; and the Roman dominion was entirely subverted by them in the year 439, when they obtained possession of the city of Carthage. The second period of the Gothic irruptions, which began in A.C. 395, was tlie fulfilment of the second trumpet^ on the sounding of which " a great mountain burning with Jire, was cast into the sea." A mountain, in the prophetical style, signifies a kingdom. It is well known that the irruption of the northern nations into the Roman Empire was of this peculiar natui'e, 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 invasions of the northern nations 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 about five hundred 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 unskilfully retired towards 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 pos- session of the field. From the Hellespont to Thermopylae, and the suburbs of Constantinople, he ravaged without resistance and • Mariana, quoted by Gibbon, cliap. xxxi. 56 FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. without mercy the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia. Heraclea and Hadrianople might perhaps escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns ; but the words the most expressive of total extirpation and erasure, are applied to the calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the Eastern Empire." * In the year 450, Attila invaded Gaul, and ravaged it with 6re 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 generation could scarcely discover its ruins. The cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua, were also reduced 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 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 fountains of water s^^ 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 a prince armed with the fire of war. The wormwood into which the waters were con- verted by this star, seems emblematical of the bitter and dreadful sufferings inflicted on the empire by Attila and his Huns.f * Gibbon, chap, xxxiv. t Tbe Reviewer of this work in the "Investigator" feels here a difficulty, because a star falling from heaven, is commonly understood to signify, when spoken of secular princes, not a career of victory, but the loss of authority and rank. I answer, that our verb to fall, though usually neuter, has also an active sense. Were I to say, that A fell upon B, and wounded him, it may be that A fell from an elevated scaffold, Avhere he was working, upo7i B, who was below — or it may be that A and B were together, and had a dispute, when A fell upon B, with a large stick, and severely beat him. So the Greek verb, TTLTTTO), has not only a neutral sense, but also an active. Thus, in Acts xi. 15, the Holy Ghost /e// upon them, erreae. Now it is plain that tbe sense is active in this passage. In like manner, the star of the third trumpet being armed with FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. 57 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 476, the imperial Government was subverted, and Augustulus, 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 brief sketch of the series of events to which the symbols of the first four trumpets seem to be appli- cable, I shall now offer some remarks in confirmation of the foregoing interpretation. It is important, in considering these trumpets, not to lose sight of the oneness of the complex symbols 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 symbolical universe, and 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 consisting 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 hence follow, that each of these portions of the symbolical earth is applicable to distinct and specific parts of the Roman Empire.* The above division of the fire of war, burning as a lamp, certainly falls on the rivers and fountains, in an active sense. • This remark, and the one made at the beginning of the following para- graph, receives a very remarkable confirmation from the following passage of Vitringa's commentary : — " Ego vero lubens concedo, imagines symbolicas 58 FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. 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 fountains. When, therefore, the natural world is used as a symbol to denote any particular empire, the destruction of that empire, in all its parts, must be shown by the destruction of the symbol which represents 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 affected. But as in these trumpets, the dry land, sea and fountains, are all affected, it denotes universality in the desolation of the empire. In making the above remarks, it is not my intention to main- tain, that there are no eases, in which the symbolical dry land, and sea, and rivers and fountains, have specific and definitive significations. In considering the prophecy of the last seven vials of wrath, which relate 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 meanwhile I 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, variis casibus non esse nimis qusesite et anxie ab intei-prete tractandas, sed ssepe in coniplexu, non singulatim esse exponendas ; nee abnuo in ipsa hac imagine symbolicaid forte alibi usu venire : aliis tamen locis et in hac prophetia, ubi partes emblematis fusius et explicatius recensentui', et subjectum ad quod emblema referendum est partium emblematis prEecipuarum interpretationem particularem admittit, eadem riegligenda non videtur, cum aliunde constet partes emblematis, ut sunt sol, luna, stellae, insulse, montes, arbores, singulas per se mystice et allegorice res alias significare posse, et ad eas figurandas adhiberi." — Vitringa Anak. Apocalyp. p. 283. It is proper for me to add, that when the two paragraphs, so remarkably confirmed_^by the language of Vitringa, were originally written, I had no knowledge of the writings of Vitringa. * Faber's Dissertation on the 1260 years, vol. i. chap. 2. FIKST FOUR TRUMPETS. 59 the united population of the empire, or the " peoples^ and multi- tudes, and nations, and tongues" who inhahit it, chap. xvii. 15. There is a circumstance with respect to the trumpets, we are now^ considering, which seems to have perplexed all our inter- preters. It is, that on the sounding of each trumpet, only a third part of the object against which it denounces vengeance is destroyed. 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 follovved 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 Roman Empire in particular, which is the special subject and theatre of the Apocalyptic prophecies ; and, in the interpretation of the vials, Mr. Faber himself admits this to be the case. " 'Jlie earth," says Mr. Faber, in his remarks on the first vial, " is the Roman platform, in general, the territorial empire at large." f If, then, the entire symbolical earth denote the Roman Empire, to suppose that the frequent mention 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 prefectures, and he quotes Dr. Cressner in support of this explanation of the * In his " Sacred Calendar," Mr. Faber lias adopted a new exposition of the third part. He divides the Roman Empire and s^-mbolical univei'se into three parts, the Western, the Eastern, and the /jrow/jccs q/^/Wcfl, 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 effects of those vials to certain parts of the Latin, or Western Empire. Thus the sea of the second vial is France. Now, if the whole sea of the vial be France only, where is the consistency of saying the third part of the sea in the second trumpet is the whole Western Empire? Mr. Faber's new explanation does not, therefore, afford a satisfac|pry solution of the difficulty. See his Sacred Calend., vol. ii. p. 350—53. f Ibid. vol. iii. 60 FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. difficulty. But were this idea well founded, it would be incum- bent on Mr. Bicheno to show that each of the trumpets affected only one particular prefecture ; and as this cannot be done 1 must reject the mode of solving the difficulty which he proposes. The following observations upon the point now under con- sideration have occurred to me, and I leave it to the reader to judge how far they serve to remove the difficulty. I shall introduce them by a quotation from Mede's works : " I conceive," says that learned writer, " Daniel to be Apocalypsis contracta (the Apocalypse compressed), and the Apocalypse, Daniel expli- cated, 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."* Now, from the book of Daniel, we learn that the fourth beast, or Roman kingdom, was to exist in two different states : first, as an undi- vided empire ; and secondly, as divided into ten kingdoms, symbolized by ten horns, Dan. vii. 23, 24. This change in the condition of that empire 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 con- querors, 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 Empire 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, Dan. vii. 10 — 14; 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 establishment of the kingdom of Christ. Now, the Jirst Jour t?mmpets relate not to the final destruction of the empire, but to the overthrow of the Western Empire, pre- * Works, book iv. ep. 32. FIKST FOUR TRUMPETS. Gl paratory to its partition among the ten kings. After the sound- ing of these trumpets, therefore, the empire was still to exist, though in a ditferent shape ; and hence we discover a reason for their effects being limited to a part of each object against which they were directed. 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 representatives of sounds; though, it must be con- fessed, that fi'om our more partial knowledge of the symbolical language, the discovery of the true interpretation, 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 Jinal excision of the empire represented by the symbolical world; but as these trumpets were designed to represent only the subversion of the Roman Empire 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 ruin 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 soid dies. 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 eradication of the object. The vials are both universal in their extent, and unlimited in their operation : and thus they signify the utter and Jinal destruction of the objects against which they are directed. 62 FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. 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 proportion of one-third^ and neither more nor less, of the symbolical universe, is the limit which has been fixed to these efffects? 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 trumpets, 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-ofierings, and 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 symbolical 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 were 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 probability, 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 desolation of the symbolical earth, sea, and rivers, by foreign bodies precipitated upon them, which are used as symbols of FIRST FOUR TRUMPETS. G3 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 betw^een the smaller apparent magnitude of the blazing comet, and the rivers and fountains upon which it fell. 64 FIFTH TRUMPET. CHAPTER VI. THE FIFTH TRUMPET, OR THE FIRST WOE. " And / beheld, and heard an angel Jiying through the midst of the heaven, saying with a loud voice. Woe, looe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, ichich are yet to sound," viii. 13. This solemn denunciation seems to be introduced for the purpose of drawing our attention to the great importance as well as the awful nature 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 introduc- tion 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 loas 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," ix. 1, 2. 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 Mahommed : and I shall afterwards give my reasons for holding this opinion. But in interpreting the symbols which are introductory 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 falling from the heaven to the earth, signifies his fall from primitive * Rev. i. 20. " The seven stars are the angels (bishops) of the seven Churches." Fill ST WOE. Go purity and simplicity into apostasy. This star, or apostate bishop, is the groat agent in opening the pit of the abyss, or pit of hell, out of which a black smoke arises, which appears to be a symbol of the false doctrines and gross ignorance that overspread the Cbristian Churcli, during the fifth and sixth centuries. These false doctrines consisted, chiefly, in the adoration of saints, relics and images, and in rigorous monastic austerities, the merit and efficacy of which, were highly extolled by the ignorant and superstitious clergy, the blind leaders of the blind. The follow- ing account of the state of the Church, during the sixth century, taken from Mosheim, seems sufficiently 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 principles, a blind veneration for the clergy, and a stupid zeal for a senseless round of ridiculous rites and ceremonies. This, perhaps, will appear less surprising, 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 ap- pointed to instruct. " To be convinced of the truth of the dismal representation we have here given of the state of religion at this time, nothing more is necessary than to cast the eye upon the doctrines now taught cuncerninr/ the xoorship of images and saints, the fire of purgatory, the efficacy of good works (i. e. the observance of human rites and institutions) towards the attainment of salvation, the poicer of relics to heal the diseases of body and mind, and such like sordid and miserable fancies which are inculcated in many of the superstitious productions of this century, and parti- cularly 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 F 66 FIFTH TRUMPET. 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."* 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 beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised fi'om the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian Congregation." — " The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in 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 of their infirmities; the fruitfulness of their baiTcn 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 misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs, to celebrate with grateful thanksgivings their obligations to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons." f It will scarcely be disputed by those who have given a close attention to the analogies of the language of symbols, that the universal prevalence of the false doctrines, which are described in the foregoing passages, is fitly symbolized by a Mack smoke rising out of the pit of the abyss, or the infernal 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. * Mosheim, Cent, vi, part ii. chap. iii. f Decline and Fall, chap, xxviii. FIRST WOE. 67 In the preceding trumpet, a third part of the sun is smitten. But the sun of that trumpet is the sun of the poHtical, and not the ecclesiastical 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. 77