ment of the heavenly Canaan. And if so, what power but that of the now nearly dominant antichristian apostacy?—It is observable, and perhaps confirmatory of this view, that in the ancient Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, there was kept up a constant commemoration of the above-noted manner of the fall of the ancient Jericho; and this with a certain reference to the future, in the ritual, as well as to the past. On seven successive days, (according to the divine ordinance) a palmbearing procession, with trumpets blowing, were then wont to visit the Temple; and, on the last of the seven, seven times to compass the altar, still sounding the trumpets, and chanting Hosanna! 1 Now as the cry of Hosanna was, as I have elsewhere observed, supplicatory, signifying Save Lord, it seemed to refer to some enemy yet to be conquered by Messiah for his people, some Jericho yet to be overthrown.-Many a time must St. John himself have taken part in this ceremonial. And thus when he saw prefigured an earthly antichristian power to which the duration meted out was that of the seven trumpet-soundings, and under the seventh trumpet the seven vials out-pouring, the remembrance of it, and the application, could scarce fail to strike him.-Of the fall of the first or Canaanitish Jericho, the commemoration was in that Jewish Feast of Tabernacles of which I was just speaking. Of the fall of the second, the celebration was to be in the antitypical heavenly Feast of Tabernacles, yet future: that same that St. John had a little while before seen anticipatively in vision; and to which the eyes of the saints have ever since been directed, as the scene of blessed consummation to all the evils of the wilderness, and to the persecutions and opposition of every enemy.

1 See Goodwin's Moses and Aaron, and Horne's Introduction, on this Festival.

CHAPTER II.

THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPETS.

"And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

"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 the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.-And the second angel sounded: and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed, And the third angel sounded: and there 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 water; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded: and the third part of the sun was 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 likewise."-Apoc. viii. 5

-12.

The four first Trumpet-visions, like those of the four first Seals, are connected together by certain strongly marked features of resemblance; and which are here of such a nature as to make it desirable to consider the four visions together. They depict the destructive action of a series of tempests, successively affecting the third part of the Roman earth, third part of the sea, third

part of the rivers, and third part of the firmamental luminaries. By English Protestant interpreters they have been generally explained, and I doubt not truly, of those successive invasions and ravages of the GоTHS, chiefly in the fifth century, which ended in the subversion of the Western Empire. At the same time there has been as to the details, and the apportionment of its part in the Gothic ravages to each one of the four Trumpet-visions distinctively, such a remarkable difference of opinion,-scarcely two commentators, I believe, explaining them alike,-as to have thrown discredit, in the opinion of not a few, on the Gothic application altogether; and to have shown that the principles on which we are to form a distinctive and particular application of the several figurations, need still to be established.-To this point, then, let us first direct our attention.

1. ON THE PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION APPLICABLE TO THE FOUR FIRST TRUMPET-VISIONS.

Now on the preliminary question whether these four Trumpet-visions were intended, or not, to prefigure the Gothic irruptions, the reader who has thus far followed and agreed with me, will soon see reason not to hesitate. Considering that we were brought by the visions of the six first Seals to that period of the Roman history when Paganism fell, and Christianity was established under Constantine and his successors, and that the connected visions of the threatening tempest-angels, the sealing, and the palm-bearers next ensuing, (the latter figuring at once the then first marked unfolding of the apostacy, and the cotemporary Augustinian counteractive revelation) advanced our position to the Gothic insurrection under Valens, and its wonderful restraining by Theodosius,-a restraint of which the instant ending at Theodosius' death might seem to mark a new and fateful epoch, just such as to answer to the seventh Seal's opening,-considering, I say, that in comparing the parallel course of the prophecy and the history, we were thus brought by the apocalyptic

visions to the precise epoch of the commencement of the great Gothic irruptions into the Roman empire, and that then (just after a preliminary figuration strikingly though allusively indicative of that æra's crowning sin of saint and martyr-worship,) the symbols in vision next following were such as well to suit those Gothic devastations, -being the symbols of trumpet-sounding from on high, and an earthquake with thundering and lightning; then of tempests, volcanoes, and meteors, successively cast upon the Roman earth,-it seems almost impossible to doubt but that the latter were intended as a prefiguration of the former. There are two further coincidences that must not be omitted, as furnishing corroborative evidence of the truth of this conclusion. The one is, that as the Gothic ravages terminated in the extinction of the Western emperors and empire, so the fourth Trumpet-vision, the last of the series, depicted the partial darkening of what were the well-known symbols of rulers, the sun and the heavenly luminaries. The other, that as the Gothic desolations were succeeded, after a half-century's interval, or rather more, by the Saracen invasions, so the fourth Trumpet-vision was succeeded, after a forewarning notice which might well correspond with that interval, by the fifth Trumpet-vision ;-a vision demonstrably prefigurative, as I doubt not to prove, of that very Saracenic woe.

The which preliminary point being settled to our satisfaction, we come next to the question of the right particular application of each one of the four visions to the one particular irruption of the Goths really corresponding. For that some such particular application is intended, and that distinctive marks are given in the visions to fix it, we cannot doubt. The divine selection of the symbols, being the best possible, must needs, as we might feel assured à priori, be precise and distinct : and their precision and appropriateness in every one of the apocalyptic visions that we have hitherto considered, has very strikingly illustrated and confirmed the fact.

1 See my observations on these symbols, under the sixth Seal, p. 221, suprà.

The only doubtful question is as to the distinctive mark intended.The question is narrowed by the important fact, to which notice has been called already, of the fourth vision of the series almost obviously prefiguring (if the general reference be admitted) the extinction of the Western Cæsars. So that it is only in the cases of the former three, that we have need to seek out the distinctive characteristics.

And now then, as with this view the reader considers the three Trumpet-visions in question, this will, I think, very soon strike him ;-that though there may be, and probably is, something partially characteristic of each particular invasion in those of the symbols, respectively, that prefigure the powers invading, I mean the hailstorm, the volcano, and the blazing meteor,-yet that the measure of similarity of character between them, as being all alike figures of hostile and desolating armies, is such as to preclude them from furnishing any decisive distinction. And thus he finds himself forced to look to other stated particulars in the several visions, for the marks he is in search of; specially to their designations of the locality or geographical division in each case invaded: the which indeed, from the singular and marked character of the phraseology that defines them, appear expressly intended to fix the attention of the reader; "the third part of the trees, and of the land," 2 "the third part of the sea," " the third part of the rivers." 3

1 Thus Vitringa observes in his Preface, that "the burning mountain cast into the sea might, of itself, indicate either the evils which the Jews suffered from the Romans, those which the Western Romans suffered from the Goths,-or the Eastern Romans from the Turks."

2 So Griesbach, Scholz, and Tregelles; TO TρITOV τns yns being added to the το τρίτον των δένδρων.

3 Mr. Faber suggests a geographical distinction of a different kind; viz. with reference to the quarters (not on which the tempests were to fall, but) from which they were to blow. This is founded on the hypothesis of each one of the four tempest-angels corresponding with one of the four trumpet-angels; and of their blowing one by one singly, in the first four trumpet-visions, then ceasing: -a supposition that takes for granted what should be proved, as to the separate action of each of the four tempest-angels; not to add that it is inconsistent with the much longer commission which it seems probable (as I have hinted p. 272, in my chapter on the sealing vision) attached to them.-And even waiving these objections, how indistinct would be the distinction proposed; because there