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set of invaders wounds with the tail; the other with the mouth and tail. The locusts have the teeth, the horses the heads, of lions. The crowns of gold, the appearance of men, the delicacy as of women, are wanting to the invaders of the sixth Trumpet, who' seem to prosper by terror more than by persuasion. The But both come on with the din of war; both have terrific breast-plates; one army comes on in smoke, t from the bottomless pit; the other destroys by smoke, and by fire and sulphur, which are described in Scripture as produced from the same source. The armour of these assailants agrees with their weapons; being:

Jedes of brimsmoke, εκ See stonet.

Their armour wugnus } of {ixxivdives of
Their weapons Ex wugos fire,ex

7. The attack of the fifth Trumpet is not ordained, as that of the sixth is, to be a plague, or punishment, upon the idolatrous, and such an one as should produce no amendment.

From this comparison it will appear, that the points

* See Is. xxx. 33. Rev. xiv. 10. xix. 20. xx. 10. xxi. 8.

This comparison will shew the sense in which avos is used, namely, to express that black and blue smoky colour which would arise from the burning brimstone on the iron armour: for, the hyacinth, baxvvos of the ancients, appears to have been a dark colour with a cærulean tinge, such as we see on violets,—

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By fire, in the figurative language of Scripture, violence, war, and devastation, are denoted, (see note, ch. vi. 4.); by smoke, dark confused doctrines, clouding the light of pure revelation, (see note, ch. ix. 1-12. p. 196.); and brimstone, in union with these, implies their infernal origin. See ch. xix. 20. xx. 3, 10. xxi. 8.

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in which the visions under these two Trumpets agree, and resemble each other, are these: Both represent invasions on the Christian Church; by an innumerable host of assailants; in formidable power; and. proceeding from the sources of infernal iniquity; under the leading and direction of evil angels; and gaining an ascendency over the men, by applying to their sensual and brutish passions.

They differ in these points. First, as to the body, which is the object of attack. In the fifth Trumpet, we have only a general description of its iniquity; but that under the sixth Trumpet, beside this general description, has a particular character,-it is idolatrous. Secondly, the assailing power: in the one, it attacks like an army; in the other, it is an army. The one is appointed for a certain season of continuance; the other for an appointed period of commencement, or, if of continuance, for an undetermined time. The one is seductive, as well as formidable; the other overbears by terror and force. The one torments the nominal Christian, but hurts not the sincere and sealed; the other destroys and annihilates one-third of the body attacked. The one injures by the tail; the other by the mouth and tail. Lastly, the invaders under the sixth Trumpet, and under that only, are described as instruments of correction and punishment upon the wicked and idolatrous; by which, however, they who survive the calamity are not reclaimed.

In our attempts, therefore, to assort this prophecy, we must endeavour to fix our eyes upon some great calamity (for it is a woe) which has happened to the Christian Church; first, by a multitude of invaders, who are known to have attacked it, not

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only by false doctrines and seductions, as under the

fifth Trumpet, but also by arms: secondly, at a time!!.. X when the Church had relapsed into idolatry, and was s generally corrupt; and when the altars of Religion were so ill served, that from the altar in heaven vengeance was demanded upon them: thirdly, when so large a part of the body as one-third was separated #the from the Church; and in such a manner as to lose their spiritual life in Christ, calling no longer upon his name: fourthly, when the residue of the Church, which witnessed, and seemed itself exposed to, this dreadful visitation, continued unrepentant, corrupt, and idolatrous, as before.

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Before we proceed to apply all these circumstances, in their order, to events in history, it will be useful to ascertain that which belongs more especially to the second of these heads; the time when this calamity took place. It was in a corrupt period of the Church, when the altar of Religion called for vengeance; when idolatry in particular was a reigning vice, (verses 20, 21). Now it is impossible to fix this stain upon the Church in the early periods of it; in the fourth century indeed, and perhaps in some small degree in the third, we may acknowledge the seeds and beginnings of a corrupt and idolatrous worship. Yet the progress of this evil was slow and gradual; and it was a long time before it could justly be said to have amounted to that general prevalence described in the 20th and 21st verses. This character is not fairly and generally applicable to the Christian Church, before the sixth century. But toward the end of the

* Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. viii. c. 1. Mosheim, cent. iv. ch. 3. Cyprian, de Laps. p. 170. Sir Isaac Newton on Prophecy, 124, 202. 287.

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ved *. 3. The success attributed to these armies of valry, under this Trumpet, expressed by their slaying e-third part of the men, that is, of the Christian orld, seems likewise fully completed in this irruption of the Mahometans. By the terror of their arms, and by their arts, imposing on the vanquished nations their newly-modelled religion, (which, although it acknowledge Jesus as a prophet, rejects his mediation and atonement,) they separated from the great body of the Church one-third part of it; which, re

* See Mosheim's Eccl. Hist. cent. vii. part i. ch. 2 & 3. Amm. Marcell. i. 21. Sale's Preliminary Discourse to the Alcoran, p. 44, 45, 51. & 214. Vie de Mahom. par Boulanvilliers, p. 219, &c. Prideaux' Life of Mahomet, preface. Ockley's Hist. of the Saracenes, vol. i. p. 20, 160, 223. Ricaut's Ottoman Empire, p. 187.-A modern writer, who has had access to the Eastern originals, as well as to these authorities, has concisely and eloquently displayed the origin and causes of the Mahometan success: "If in surveying the history of "the sixth and seventh centuries, we call to our remembrance that 66 purity of doctrine, that simplicity of manners, that spirit of meek66 ness and universal benevolence, which marked the character of the "Christians in the Apostolic age; the dreadful reverse which we here "behold, cannot but strike us with astonishment and horror. Divid"ed into numberless parties, on account of distinctions the most "trifling and absurd, contending with each other from perverseness; "and persecuting each other with rancour, corrupt in opinion, and "degenerate in practice, the Christians of this unhappy period seem "to have retained little more than the name and external profession "of their Religion. Of a Christian Church scarce any vestige re"mained. The most profligate principles and absurd opinions were "universally predominant: ignorance amidst the most favourable opportunities of knowledge; vice amidst the noblest encouragements "to virtue; a pretended zeal for truth, mixed with the wildest ex"travagances of error; an implacable spirit of discord about opinions "which none could settle; and a general and striking similarity in the "commission of crimes, which it was the duty and interest of all to "avoid." White's Bampton Lectures, p. 60.

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