and the smoke, and the sulphur, which proceeded from their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails [are] like serpents having heads, and with them they injure. And the rest of the men who were not slain by those plagues, changed not from the works of their hands, that they should not worship the demons, and the idols of gold and silver, and brass and stone, and wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk, and they reformed not from their murders, nor from their sorceries, nor from their fornication, nor from their thefts.

The one voice from the four horns of the golden altar, was either a joint voice, formed by voices from the four horns uttering in harmony the command to loose the angels at the Euphrates; or a similar voice uttering successively from each a command to loose one of the angels.

The golden altar was that on which incense was offered with the prayers of the saints, and was a symbol of the cross, the instrument of Christ's death, by which men have access to God, and obtain pardon and acceptance. The cry from the horns of that altar denoted accordingly a connection of the judgments those symbolized by the angels were to inflict, with the sacrifice of Christ, and doubtless that his honor as mediator required vindication, by an infliction of the avenging judgments which the symbol foreshows on those who had set him aside, and substituted others in his place. The Euphrates was doubtless visible to the apostle, and not improbably passed, or apparently beneath the station of the sixth angel. The four angels were leaders of bodies of men, and doubtless of four armies, that with their successors constituted the two myriads of myriads. The release of the angels from bonds at the Euphrates, simply denotes the removal of obstacles to their invasion of the apocalyptic earth. The analogy is drawn doubtless from the relations of the Euphrates to ancient Babylon, and the access which Cyrus and his troops gained to that idolatrous capital by the diversion of the river from its channel. Some barrier resembling that, not a mere indisposition, was to be removed in order to their incursion into the empire; as is indicated by the representation that they had been prepared for the hour, and day, and month, and year. This is, indeed, usually regarded as denoting the period during which they were to exercise their office as slaughterers of the idolatrous; but that is not the obvious import of the language, nor is the period it is deemed to express, the measure of their career. If the one voice was a similar voice uttered in succession from each of the four horns, and commanded an angel to

be loosed, it doubtless denotes that they were to be loosed successively.

The four angels that were loosed, were indisputably the leaders of the cavalry armies, anterior to their invasion of the empire, not their successors, who commanded the descendants of those armies in subsequent centuries, and after their conquests. Those successors were within the empire, not without; in possession of the territories they desired, not debarred from them, and needed therefore no release from restraint at the river Euphrates. It were solecistical indeed to speak of those who planned and led the invasions, as prepared for the agency of their successors through a period of many centuries. The preparation of the angels therefore for the hour, and day, and month, and year, was a preparation of the leaders to invade the empire the moment obstacles that had before been insuperable were removed, as Cyrus and his army entered Babylon the moment the diversion of the waters of the Euphrates allowed them to pass beneath the walls.

The breastplates of the horsemen, of the color of fire, hyacinth, and sulphur, denote their vehement and aggressive spirit, and disposition to slaughter and devastation. The horses, however, not the horsemen, were the agents of destruction. Their heads were as lions, and from their mouths issued fire, smoke, and sulphur, with which they slew the third of the men; for their power was in their mouth and in their tails. Their heads were the engines of death; their tails, which were like serpents having heads, the instruments of torture; and denote that they were to be terrific, irresistible, and most destructive assailants on the one hand, and to subject those who should escape slaughter to a horrible form of suffering on the other.

The nations whom they were to scourge with those plagues, were to be worshippers of demons and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood; and those of them who were to escape destruction, were to continue wholly unreformed, and be distinguished for atrocious crimes towards one another, as well as daring impiety towards God.

The chief characteristics of these symbolic agents thus are, that they originated without the apocalyptic earth, that they were warriors, that they formed four armies or divisions, that they with their descendants were innumerable, that they were to those whom they assailed what fire, and smoke, and sulphur are to those who are enveloped by them, that their invasion of the empire was the consequence of previous victories, or other events

immediately preceding, which gave the requisite power to the leaders, that they slaughtered immense multitudes, that they were serpents to those whom they allowed to survive, that the nations whom they invaded were apostates from Christianity to demon and idol worship, and that they remained unreformed by their sufferings. And all these characteristics meet in the Tartar tribes who invaded the eastern Roman empire from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. They came from without the apocalyptic earth; they were of four different races or divisions -the Seljukians, the Moguls under the successors of GengisKhan, the Ottomans, and the Moguls under Tamerlane. Their entrance into the empire was preceded by the conquest of intermediate enemies and other events, which gave the chiefs the requisite power. They and their descendants who have acted and are to act the part of slaughterers and tormentors through the whole period of the woe which they inflict, who are denoted by the two myriads of myriads, are innumerable in multitude. They were objects of terror beyond any other conquerors, alike to those whom they assailed and those whom they threatened; and, like burning whirlwinds, spread death and devastation through the scenes of their conquests. They tortured with a serpent-venom those whom they subjected to their dominion; and the nations whom they overrun were apostates to idolatry, and remained unreformed by their miseries.

And these peculiarities meet in those Tartar tribes alone. There have been no other invaders of the eastern empire since the Saracens, nor of the western since the Goths, according in any degree with the conditions of the symbol. And they alone verify the revelation made in a subsequent vision, that the second woe is to continue till near the time of the seventh trumpet. After the slaughter and resurrection of the witnesses, the earthquake and the fall of the tenth of the city, it was announced, the second woe has passed, behold, the third woe comes quickly, and the seventh angel sounded. The agents of the second woe are undoubtedly therefore to continue their office till near the period of the seventh trumpet. It is equally obvious that the great agents symbolized in the vision of the tenth chapter and the latter part of the eleventh, belong also to the period of the second woe. They certainly precede the seventh trumpet. They as certainly follow the sixth. The angel who, descending, set his right foot on the sea and his left on the land, represents, it will be shown in the exposition of the tenth chapter, the Reformers of the sixteenth century. The slaughter of the witnesses, and

the earthquake, and fall of the tenth of the city, will be shown, in the explanation of the eleventh chapter, to be yet future. The agents of the second woe, then, commenced their agency a considerable period anterior to the Reformation, still exercise it, and are to continue through nearly the whole space that yet intervenes between us and the seventh trumpet. But no fact in history is more indisputable than that after the Goths in the west, and the Saracens in the east, no nation except the Mahometan Tartars invaded the Roman empire, and established a vast dominion that continues to the present time without a change of religion. The Tartar conquerors of Hungary in the ninth century who were pagans, cannot be regarded as denoted by the symbol, as besides a want of likeness in other respects, they became converts to Christianity. There is an absolute certainty therefore that the Mahometan Tartars are the race represented by the symbol.

The first horde were the Seljukians, who invaded the eastern empire about the middle of the eleventh century, under Togrul Beg. The events by which he was released from restraint, were doubtless his conquest of western Persia and Media, and nomination as temporal vicegerent over the Moslem world. He suddenly overrun with myriads of cavalry the frontier, from Taurus to Arzeroum, and spread it with blood and devastation. Alp Arslan his successor, soon renewed the invasion, conquered Armenia and Georgia, penetrated into Cappadocia and Phrygia, and scattered detachments over the whole of lesser Asia. His troops being subsequently driven back, he renewed the war, and recovered those provinces. His descendants, and others of the race, soon after extended their conquests, and established the kingdoms in the east of Persia and Syria, and Roum in lesser Asia, which they maintained through many generations, and made their sway a scorpion scourge to the idolatrous inhabitants. The Christians were allowed the exercise of their religion on the conditions of tribute and servitude, but were compelled to endure the scorn of the victors, to submit to the abuse of their priests and bishops, and to witness the apostasy of their brethren, the compulsory circumcision of many thousands of their children, and the subjection of many thousands to a debasing and hopeless slavery.1

The second army was that of the Moguls who in the thirteenth century, after the conquest of Persia, passed the Euphrates, plun

1 Gibbon's Hist. chap. lvii.

dered and devastated Syria, subdued Armenia, Iconium, and Anatolia, and extinguished the Seljukian dynasty. Another army advancing to the west, devastated the country on both sides of the Danube, Thrace, Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, Hungary, Austria, and spread them with the ruins of their cities and churches, and the bones of their inhabitants. This horde had been prepared for this invasion by vast conquests in the east.1

The third were the Ottomans, who in the beginning of the fourteenth century conquered Bithynia, Lydia, Ionia, Thrace, Bulgaria, Servia, and in the following century Constantinople itself, and have maintained their empire to the present time. They were released from restraint on the one hand by the decay of the Mogul Khans, to whom they had been subject, and on the other by the dissensions and weakness of the Greeks.2

The last was that of the Moguls under Tamerlane, who in the beginning of the fifteenth century overrun Georgia, Syria, and Anatolia, and spread them with slaughter and desolation. He also had been prepared for this incursion by his previous victories and conquests.

Grotius, Dr. Hammond, Eichhorn, and Rosenmuller, interpret this symbol of the Roman armies which under Titus devastated Judea and captured Jerusalem; but they exhibit none of the requisite resemblances. They were not foreigners. They had not previously been excluded from Judea, but had held it as a province for generations. The Jews were not worshippers of creatures or idols. That period was many centuries too early. Their dominion was terminated by the conquests of the Saracens. It has never been renewed. They cannot therefore be the agents of the second woe who are to continue till near the seventh trumpet.

Cocceius interprets it of the wars of the Catholics under Ferdinand against the Protestants in the seventeenth century. But that is to reverse the symbol and exhibit idolaters as the inflictors of the evils it denotes, and true worshippers as the subjects of the judgment. The worshippers of idols are those who are slaughtered and tormented, not those who torment and slaughter.

Vitringa and Dean Woodhouse regard the Saracens as the first of the four hosts denoted by the symbol. But that is founded on the assumption that the Saracens were not the agents denoted by the locusts of the fifth trumpet, and is disproved also by the consideration that the public and legalized apostasy to idol2 Ibid. chap. Ixiv. ' Ibid. chap. lxv.

'Gibbon's Hist. chap. Ixiv.