268 LECTURE LI. FIRST TRUMPET. REV. viii. 7. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. THE calamity of this trumpet is a judgment of hail and fire mingled with blood. It has been generally supposed that there is an allusion to the seventh plague which was inflicted upon the land of Egypt, described in Exod. ix. 22-25. Egypt was literally smitten with hail, which is said to have been very grievous, such as there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.' But here words are taken in their symbolical and figurative, and not in their literal acceptation. We are not, therefore, to suppose that the judgment of a storm of hail is all that is meant. But as hail is gendered by the cold, and proceeds from the north, this emblem might be intended to intimate, that the judgment of this trumpet was to issue from that region, and would be as destructive where it lighted as the plague of hail was to the Egyptians. The hail of this storm was accompanied with fire. This also was the case in Egypt; and nothing is more common in a severe thunder-storm, than to see fire and hail mingled together. While the water may be rushing down in torrents, or falling in countless icy congealed particles in the form of hail, the lightning may be flashing in all directions.-Fire denotes contention. I am come,' said our Lord, to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled? Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division,' Luke xii. 49. 51. It is also taken to denote any sort of severe calamity. Thus it is said, that the Lord' 6 will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire, and by his sword, will the Lord plead with all flesh : and the slain of the Lord shall be many,' Isa. lxvi. 15, 16. The species of judgment intended in this prophecy is deciphered by the next symbol, which is blood. It is a storm of warfare. Coldness and alienation frequently issue in contention; and this last may be so violent as to terminate in mutual slaughter. This view of the prophecy is countenanced from the object of the judgment, which is the earth. The hail and fire mingled with blood were cast upon the earth. They fell in the same region where the burning coals taken from the altar had been scattered by the angel. This mystical hail did not fall by its own gravity, neither did the tremendous bolts of this thunder-storm shoot forth merely by that native and almost irresistible force of which lightning is known to be possessed; both of them received an additional and powerful impulse from an almighty and secret arm, and were therefore cast with violence upon the earth. The effects of such a storm may be more easily conceived than described. They were exceedingly disastrous; for the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. The allusion is borrowed from the appearance of veget able substances after a severe thunder-storm. Lightning blights and withers the grass and corn; and hail repels the sap and breaks off the leaves of trees. A storm of this description gives to all those substances which are affected by it a very bare, naked, and burnt appearance.-Trees and grass are the symbols of persons placed in the different degrees and conditions of life. Great and proud men are compared to trees: The day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low; and upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,' Isa. ii. 12, 13. The common people are compared to grass: Surely the people is grass,' Isa. xl. 7: as for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth,' Ps. ciii. 15. In the corresponding vial, chap. xvi. 2, where the objects of the judgment are described without a figure, they are simply called men; which is sufficient to determine what we are to understand by the trees and grass in the prophecy of this trumpet. The ravages of this storm were to be very extensive; a third part was to be destroyed. A definite is put for an indefinite number; but the proportion of a third being stated, is fitted to impress the mind with this melancholy truth, that the ravages of this mystical storm were to be of great extent. They were to affect the rich as well as the poor, the noble as well as the ignoble; persons of all ranks and conditions of life were to be burnt up, or otherwise destroyed, by its influence. The interesting prophecy of this trumpet is very concisely expressed. Its figures are few in number; and as they are remarkable for their simplicity, they are easily deciphered. It embraces, however, a great deal of matter, and therefore the history of its accomplishment will require to be more fully detailed.—It has been frequently applied to the church; and were it not that the storm is represented as bursting upon the earth, we could hardly suppose that any other association was intended; as the ecclesiastical history of this period has recorded such a multitude of interesting facts, which seem to be an illustration and fulfilment of the prediction. nage. For the space of two hundred years after Constantine, the church was wasted by the hottest flames of contention; the unhallowed strife was without interruption, and was often so fierce as to prove the occasion of a great deal of blood and carThe heresy of Arius was the principal occasion of the quarrel. His monstrous opinions were propagated with amazing rapidity, as if it had been the most consolatory of all doctrines, that the Saviour of men was only a creature, and not the true and mighty God. Multitudes gave it a cordial reception. Council was assembled after council upon this controversy. In some of them, as at Nice in Bithynia, Arianism was condemned; in others, as in the council of Tyre, it was pronounced to be the true faith. Sometimes the state countenanced the one party and sometimes the other; and which ever of them had the countenance of the civil magistrate, generally persecuted the other. In the council of Nice, Arius was deposed and banished; in the council of Tyre, Athanasius was treated in the same manner. Their spirits were so imbittered against each other, that they frequently came to blows; and none of the persecutions in the time of the seals, though conducted by Heathens, were attended with a greater degree of savage barbarity than those which were instigated by the Arians. The Arian heresy was not the only evil by which the peace of the church was disturbed. The winds of error and delusion were blowing during this trumpet in all directions. These winds were numerous, and their breath pestilential and destructive. The doctrine of the Trinity was openly impugned; the mysterious constitution of the person of Christ was attacked with equal subtilty and virulence; while the method of salvation by free grace was set at nought by Pelagius and his adherents. The numerous and pernicious heresies of modern times are only the embers of those fires which burned with such a destructive fury in the 4th and 5th centuries. Besides these contentions respecting matters of faith and worship, there was also a hot consuming flame in the church, kindled by the ambition of her office-bearers for ecclesiastical honours and preferments. A bishop was seldom elected to the see of Rome but the city was in a state of tumult and confusion, and very often a civil war raged within the walls for a considerable time after the election.* On one of these occasions, no fewer than a hundred and thirty-seven persons fell a sacrifice to the rage of the opposite party within the building where the election was conducted. The controversy between the bishops of Rome and Constantinople for precedence, originated at an early period, and was continued from age to age among their successors, till it issued in that breach by which the Eastern and Western churches were separated, and which, to this day, has not been healed. • Du Pin, Des Aut. Eccles. Tome Second, Le Pape Damase. But it does not appear that the church is immediately intended in this prophecy; for the storm of hail and fire mingled with blood was to fall upon the earth. It is therefore in the state of the empire, and not of the church, that we are to look for the history of its fulfilment. Soon after the death of Constantine, the empire was distracted by a very unnatural civil war. By his latter will, he divided the provinces among his three sons, vesting them with equal powers within the limits of their respective dominions. But as none of them was pleased with the share that was allotted him, they soon became mutual aggressors, and attempted to take by the sword what their common parent had refused to grant by his settlement. One of them fell in battle, another was assassinated, and Constantius the only survivor, a few years after the death of his father, became sole emperor. All the different parts of the empire took an interest in the controversy of the three brothers, and felt some of the dismal consequences of this unnatural storm. Before it subsided, a great deal of blood was shed, and the family of Constantine was almost extinct. But fearful as was this contest, it was not the greatest evil with which the empire was visited. What is chiefly intended here, we conceive to be the judgment of foreign invasion, which brought the empire of Rome to the very brink of destruction. Prior to the times of Constantine, the empire had been often threatened with invasion. To prevent this calamity, powerful garrisons were kept in the frontier towns. But after the seat of government was removed to Constantinople, and faction and party had taken deep root, this cautious policy was not so strictly maintained. Many of the garrisons were removed, others were greatly reduced, and the walls and castles were permitted to fall into decay. The Barbarians took advantage of this exposed state of the remotest parts of the empire, and made frequent incursions. Few of them, however, were able to make good a settlement within the limits of the empire, till after the death of Theodosius. The arms of that prudent and active prince were sufficient to keep them in awe; and in him |