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.

66

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.

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.

66

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. We 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 Je rusalem 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 horsemea 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.

and that used in cannon. The first he describes as composed of fire, hyacinth or saltpetre, and brimstone; the second, as composed of fire, smoke, and brimstone; that is, the musket gunpowder, which is finer, has in its composition a larger proportion of saltpetre: and the cannon gunpowder, which is coarser, coi ains a larger share of charcoal which produces the smoke. And such, it is known, is really the composition used at this day.

This explanation is further confirmed by what follows in the text: " For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails. For their tails are like to serpents, and have heads; and with them they hurt," v. 19. The power of the imagined horses, or real cannon, lying in their mouths and in their tails, signifies, that the mischievous power of the cannon is directed to the object by their mouths, but takes its birth in the tail or breech of the cannon, where the charge is lodged; whence the cannon's breech is here compared to the serpent's head, which contains his venom.

66

And by these three plagues was slain the third part of men, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths," v. 18. This destructive instrument, gunpowder, the invention of latter ages, will therefore be employed by the Antichristian army, all along in its progress, to slay the third part of men, probably the wicked. And this is conformable to what we read under the fourth seal: "Power was given to him, to kill with sword, with famine, and with death, (or gunpowder,) and with the beasts of the earth," (or cavalry.) Apoc. vi. 8. See the explication of that seal.

As we left the two armies engaged, a question may be asked about the issue of the battle. What it will be with respect to the great hero, the Antichristian emperor, we learn from St. John, who, however, so closely connects this event with that prince's alliance to the Roman empire, that we must beg leave to follow our inspired writer in joining the accounts of both together.

Chap. xiii. v. 1. And I saw," says St. John, "a beast coming up out of the sea, having seven heads, and ten horns, and upon his horns ten diadems, and upon his heads names of blasphemy.

V. 2. And the beast, which I saw, was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his own strength and great power.

66

V. 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were slain to death."

The beast which St. John sees here rising up from the sea, or from the tumultuous scenes of war and the fluctuations of the world, represents the ancient pagan empire of Rome. For the beast he says has seven heads and ten horns; we have before shown, seven heads are seven heathen Roman emperors, persecutors of Christianity, the last of whom will be Antichrist; and the horns are the northern powers that destroyed and divided among themselves the western part of that empire. "Upon his horns were ten diadems or crowns;" whereas in chap. 12. v. 3, on his heads were seven diadems. This passing of the diadems from the heads to the horns, shows that old Rome had lost her sovereignty which had been wrested from her emperors by those northern people who had crowned themselves with it. And the beast had upon his heads names of blasphemy; blasphemies, which the heathen emperors spoke against Christ; blasphemies, or pagan gods which they set up in opposition to him; blasphemies, or divine honours, which those emperors required to be paid to themselves.

Let us take notice that St. John here gives us in abridgment the successive periods of the Roman empire. It is de scribed, as first ruling under a succession of idolatrous heads or emperors, and then pulled down and divided among a number of invaders denoted by the horns. From them it passes to become the Antichristian empire, as appears by what follows: " And the beast which I saw," says St. John, " was like to a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion." But here we must previously observe, that this extraordinary beast is in its exterior form made up of the three animals, the leopard, the bear, and the lion; because the empire of Rome had reduced under its dominion the countries belonging to the three successive empires of Babylon, of Persia, and of Greece, which are exhibited by the prophet Daniel under the types of those three animals. "I saw," says Daniel, " in my vision-And four great beasts, different one from another, came up out of the sea. The first was like a lioness-And behold another beast like a bear-After this I beheld, and lo another like a leopard." Dan. vii. 3, &c. Which three beasts here specified have always been understood to denote the three above-named empires. These empires preceded that of Rome, and then passed into its dominion; for which reason it is here represented as