punishments now to be executed, join in one voice to tell the angel who had sounded the trumpet, to loose the four angels who were bound in the great river Euphrates. These four angels, who are tied fast on the river Euphrates, are four evil spirits, representing four barbarous great kingdoms or powers, which they stir up to war. And these powers chiefly lie on the eastern side of the Euphrates with respect to Europe, or with respect to St. John, who was at the time of this revelation in the isle of Patmos, in the Archipelago. They are said to be bound in the river Euphrates, because the Almighty had hitherto restrained them, and withheld them from rising up and crossing the Euphrates, to bring mischief to mankind, till the time he had fixed for executing his judgments was come. Then he lets them loose.

"And the four angels were loosed, who were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to kill the third part of men," v. 15. Here we see the cruel and bloody disposition of these four nations, as being ready to kill the third part of men. They are said to be ready at an hour, a day, a month, and a year, to destroy mankind; because, of these four nations, one will inhabit the banks of the Euphrates, and consequently will be ready, as may be said, at an hour's warning, to cross that river. A second nation, lying at some distance, will require a day, that is, a longer time to prepare and march to the Euphrates. A third more distant nation, and a fourth the most distant of all, will respectively require still a longer space of time, expressed by a month, and a year, to reach the Euphrates, cross it, and meet in the field, in order to enter upon the execution of their murderous designs.

This explication is confirmed by what is exhibited under the sixth vial. And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon that great river Euphrates; and dried up the water thereof, that a way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun." As at the sounding of the sixth trumpet, the four angels or powers, who had been tied upon the river Euphrates, are loosed; so the sixth vial is poured out upon the Euphrates; and that river is immediately dried up, or the passage is made easy to the kings who come from the east. Both the trumpet and the vial conspire to announce four great powers or kings, coming from the eastern countries of Asia, with their hands ready for destruction. And these are the agents employed by the avenging hand of God to punish mankind for their wickedness, which will have grown to be excessive at this time. here be asked, which are the powers here spoken of?

It may

If we may be allowed to conjecture from the present situation of empires in Asia, which however may alter, the four great powers in question may be, the Turks, whose dominions extend over the Euphrates and beyond the Tigris, the Persians, the Moguls, and the Chinese with the Chinese Tartars.

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The time of loosing the four angels that were tied upon the Euphrates, seems to indicate the moment in which Satan himself is loosed from the abyss or hell, where we saw, p. 68, he was chained up for a thousand years. And when the thousand years shall be finished," says St. John, "Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and he shall go forth, and seduce the nations, which are over the four quarters of the earth." Apoc. xx. 7. The prince of hell is therefore, by the permission of God, at this time let loose with his hellish crew, and is allowed to employ his art and power in seducing mankind to idolatry, impiety, war, and mischief. And here we date the revival of idolatry. But we have this comfort, that his time will be short: He must be loosed a little time." Apoc. xx. 3. Whoever considers the circumstance of Satan being loosed, needs not wonder if strange and extraordinary events follow. The first age of Christianity exhibited to us a dismal scene of his power and action. On one hand he deceived mankind by his oracles and other delusive arts; while a number of individuals groaned under the weight of his malevolence, from their being possessed by devils, as we read in the gospels and other books of the New Testament. On another hand we saw with what efforts he opposed the birth and growth of the Christian religion; with what fury and malice he instigated the whole Roman empire against it; what persecutions he suscitated; what torments and horrible cruelties he suggested to be employed against the Christians, and what an ocean of their blood he procured to be spilled. If such, then, was the power of Satan at that time, and if so much he could do by means of his infernal agents, and by his instruments, the emperors, Nero, Domitian, Dioclesian, &c. why shall we be surprised to see his last efforts still stronger in the time of Antichrist," whose coming," as St. Paul says, " is according to the working of Satan ?" 2 Thess. ii. 9. The Antichristian period is described by the ancient fathers as the most dreadful of all, and the Apocalypse plainly shows it to be so, as we shall see. viradil

Four of Satan's associates are the four bad angels we saw bound fast upon the river Euphrates, but now are united and permitted to go and raise up the four above-mentioned barba

rous nations, which they will instigate to carry destruction and devastation through the world.

These nations therefore arrive at different times at the Euphrates, which they cross without obstruction, and assemble in the plains on this side that river. The Antichristian prince, who had summoned them to his standard, as before related, assumes the command, and glories in being master of such a prodigious army. "And the number of the army of horsemen," says St. John, "was twenty thousand times ten thousand. And I heard the number of them," v. 16. See text of the sixth Trumpet.

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This army is here described as wholly consisting of cavalry: I suppose for despatch; and the eastern people have always used much cavalry. But the number is excessive, such as has never been heard of in any instance before. read in history of Xerxes, the Persian king, invading Greece with an army of one million of men. But an army of two hundred millions, or twenty thousand times ten thousand, is altogether impossible; as it is doubtful whether there be that number of men, capable of bearing arms, upon the whole globe of the earth; whereas this body of men is chiefly collected from the Asiatic countries that lie on the eastern side of the Euphrates; and yet St. John assures us he heard their number named. And I heard the number of them." Such an immense multitude cannot therefore be accounted for, but by supposing a great part of it to consist of the infernal beings. And that it is so, we have reason to conclude: first, from Satan's having been let loose, as we have just now seen, and probably with him a numerous crew of his associates: secondly, from the fourth seal, which relates, as we observed, to the Antichristian prince, and thus describes him: “Behold a pale horse, and he that sat upon him, his name was Death, and hell followed him." Apoc. vi. 8. Here it is expressly said, that hell follows him. Thirdly, the same we shall see, by and by, confirmed by the prophet Joel.

Such is the immense horrid army of the Antichristian monarch, composed of men and devils in human shape. With this he moves westwards, and is met in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem by those powers, which we mentioned had rebelled against him, and which have advanced in a body to dispute their liberty with him. Dispositions being made, both armies come to an engagement. The appearance of the monarch's troops on this occasion, and the arms they fight with, are described in a very peculiar manner by St. John in the above-given text of

the sixth trumpet, ver. 17. "And thus I saw the horses in the vision; and they that sat on them had breast-plates of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and brimstone." The horsemen appeared to St. John with breast-plates of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone. By this expression is indicated the firing of carabines or such fire-arms as cavalry use; which are applied to the breast when shot off. He saw the firing of these guns, in the manner that it is done now a-days, but not being acquainted with such operations, as gunpowder was unknown in his time, he took the fire, that issued out of the muskets, to come from the horsemen's breasts, on which the muskets rested, and so thought the horsemen had breast-plates of fire. The prophet, here, even describes to us the composition of gunpowder, with its three several ingredients, viz. brimstone or sulphur, fire, or charcoal, the properest matter of fire; and hyacinth or saltpetre. Hyacinth, a precious stone of a purple colour, is here made use of to represent saltpetre, because saltpetre, when set on fire, emits a flame of a fine purple colour, similar to the colour of the hyacinth stone. Here then we see revealed to St. John both the composition and use of gunpowder, to which he and all mankind at that time were strangers.

Then it is said: "and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions, and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and brimstone." Before, we saw the description of the muskets and their fire; here is pointed out the artillery of the army, or cannon. But, as St. John had not naturally any notion of such things, which did not exist in his time; and as he saw, in this vision, the whole army drawn up at a distance, and the artillery placed upon a line with the cavalry, he seemed to confound the cannon with the horses, and the cannon's mouths with the mouths of the horses, as the height of both from the ground is nearly the same.* When therefore he says, the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions, it is the same as if he said, the mouths of the cannon were, as to the noise they made, like the mouths of roaring lions; and from their mouths proceeded fire, and smoke, and brimstone, that is, the fire of gunpowder. Hence it appears, that St. John, in his vision, both saw the fire of the cannon, and heard the explosion. One may further remark, that he points out here a nice difference between musket gunpowder * He describes the appearances, as he saw in the vision, not the reality.

punishments now to be executed, join in one voice to tell the angel who had sounded the trumpet, to loose the four angels who were bound in the great river Euphrates. These four angels, who are tied fast on the river Euphrates, are four evil spirits, representing four barbarous great kingdoms or powers, which they stir up to war. And these powers chiefly lie on the eastern side of the Euphrates with respect to Europe, or with respect to St. John, who was at the time of this revelation in the isle of Patmos, in the Archipelago. They are said to be bound in the river Euphrates, because the Almighty had hitherto restrained them, and withheld them from rising up and crossing the Euphrates, to bring mischief to mankind, till the time he had fixed for executing his judgments was come. Then he lets them loose.

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And the four angels were loosed, who were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to kill the third part of men," v. 15. Here we see the cruel and bloody disposition of these four nations, as being ready to kill the third part of men. They are said to be ready at an hour, a day, a month, and a year, to destroy mankind; because, of these four nations, one will inhabit the banks of the Euphrates, and consequently will be ready, as may be said, at an hour's warning, to cross that river. A second nation, lying at some distance, will require a day, that is, a longer time to prepare and march to the Euphrates. A third more distant nation, and a fourth the most distant of all, will respectively require still a longer space of time, expressed by a month, and a year, to reach the Euphrates, cross it, and meet in the field, in order to enter upon the execution of their murderous designs.

This explication is confirmed by what is exhibited under the sixth vial. 66 And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon that great river Euphrates; and dried up the water thereof, that a way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun." As at the sounding of the sixth trumpet, the four angels or powers, who had been tied upon the river Euphrates, are loosed; so the sixth vial is poured out upon the Euphrates; and that river is immediately dried up, or the passage is made easy to the kings who come from the east. Both the trumpet and the vial conspire to announce four great powers or kings, coming from the eastern countries of Asia, with their hands ready for destruction. And these are the agents employed by the avenging hand of God to punish mankind for their wickedness, which will have grown to be excessive at this time. It may here be asked, which are the powers here spoken of?