Chapter VIII. II.—The Seventh Seal Opened

2.—Preparation-Judgments upon Ghost-Worshippers

Could it have been possible for “seducing spirits,” or demons, who had departed from the faith, and speaking lies in hypocrisy, to have invented and set up such a system of abomination in the fourth century, and in the name of christianity, and the Deity not have poured out of his wrath upon the deceivers and the deceived? The whole Roman Catholic world had gone wondering after the NEW IDOLATRY, against which none opposed a scriptural testimony but the SEALING ANGEL, or those engaged in the work of sealing the servants of their Deity with His seal, in their foreheads. A presbyter or elder, among these took up his pen to oppose it. His book was directed against the institution of monkery, the celibacy of the clergy, praying for the dead, and to martyrs, celebrating their vigils, and lighting up candles to them after the manner of the heathen. Jerome, who is esteemed a saint and luminary of the catholic church, and who was a zealous advocate of all these popular superstitious rites, undertook the task of refuting him, whom he styled “a most blasphemous heretic,” and “the organ of the Devil.” An individual denounced after this fashion by a monk, or a clergyman, must have been one of the excellent of the earth; for it is only such who are obnoxious to their reproach. The following extract from Saint Jerome’s answer to his book, will satisfactorily explain the heresy of Vigilantius, for that is his name, who has still the honor of being enrolled in the list of those who are anathematized as heretics by the Mother of Harlots, whose citadel is Rome. “That the honor paid to the rotten bones of saints and martyrs,” says Jerome, “by adoring, kissing, wrapping them up in silk and vessels of gold, lodging them in their churches, and lighting up wax candles before them after the manner of the heathen were the ensigns of idolatry—that the celibacy of the clergy was a heresy, and their vows of chastity the seminary of lewdness—that to pray to the dead, was superstitious, inasmuch as the souls of departed saints and martyrs were at present in some particular place^a from which p. 397 they could not remove themselves at pleasure, so as to be everywhere present attending to the prayers of their votaries—that the sepulchres of the martyrs ought not to be worshipped, nor, their fasts and vigils to be observed—and finally, that the signs and wonders said to be wrought by their relics, and at their sepulchres, served to no good end or purpose of religion.”

These were the sacrilegious tenets, as they are termed by the fanatical and superstitious Jerome, which he could not hear with patience, or without the utmost grief, and for which he declares Vigilantius a detestable heretic, venting his foulmouthed blasphemies against the relics of the martyrs, which were working daily signs and wonders. He tells him to “go into the churches of those martyrs, and he would be cleansed from the evil spirit which possessed him, and feel himself burnt, not with those wax candles which so much offend him, but with invisible flames, which would force that demon that talked within him to confess himself to be the same who had personated a Mercury, perhaps, or a Bacchus, or some other of the heathen deities.” Such is the style in which this renowned father of the church rants and raves through several pages against the sealed servants of the Deity, who, in the days of the sealing, protested with Vigilantius against these delusions which had then become so strong.

As it may gratify the reader’s curiosity, the following specimen of Jerome’s absurd manner of refuting their testimony, is presented: “If it were such a sacrilege or impiety,” says he, “to pay these honors to the relics of saints, as Vigilantius contends, then the Emperor Constantius must needs be a sacrilegious person, who translated the holy relics of St. Andrew, Luke, and Timothy to Constantinople; then Arcadius Augustus, also, must be held sacrilegious, who translated the bones of the blessed Samuel from Judea, where they had lain so many ages, into Thrace; then all the bishops were not only sacrilegious, but stupid too, who submitted to carry a thing the most contemptible, and nothing but mere dust, in silk and vessels of gold; and lastly, the people of all the churches must needs be fools, who went out to meet those holy relics, and received them with as much joy as if they had been the prophet himself, living and present among them; for the procession was attended with swarms of people from Palestine, even into Chalcedon, singing p. 398 with one voice the praises of Christ, who were yet adoring Samuel perhaps, and not Christ, whose prophet and Levite Samuel was.”

What a development in this extract from Jerome, one of the greatest luminaries of the Apostasy in that age, of the darkness and superstition that overspread the Catholic World, and that in less than a hundred years after the Catholic superstition was established by law! The sentiments of Jerome were a sample of the opinions of Ambrose, Augustin, and the clergy at large; how deplorable then must have been the state of their flocks! Jerome’s defence of their stupid sacrilege against which the 144,000 lifted up their united voice, and which found a record in the writings of Vigilantius, is childish and ridiculous. The thing cannot be gainsaid, that to worship a bone, or a tooth, or the dust of a dead man, however excellent his character may have been, is idolatrous impiety of the basest, and most degrading kind. None would attempt to gainsay this but the clergy, who hold Jerome and his fraternity in admiration. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the emperors aforesaid were sacrilegious, the bishops both sacrilegious and stupid, and the people fools; and because of the intense disgust with which the Lamb contemplated their adulterous prostitution of his name to their gross and lying vanities, He caused the Seven Angels to prepare to sound; and in the preparation to execute upon them the calamities I shall now, briefly recite.

“As soon as,” says Gibbon, “the death of Julian had relieved the barbarians from the terror of his name, the most sanguine hopes of rapine and conquest excited the nations of the east, of the north, and of the south.” The chiefs of the Allemanni being offended, crossed the Rhine, A. D. 365, and before Valentinian could cross the Alps, the villages of the ghost-worshippers of Gaul were in flames; and before his general could encounter them, they had secured the captives and spoil in the forests of Germany. In the beginning of the ensuing year, the military force of the whole nation, in deep and solid columns, broke through the barrier of the Rhine, during the severity of a northern winter. This irruption having been repelled, Mentz, the principal city of the Upper Germany, was unexpectedly attacked A. D. 368, while the relic-worshippers were celebrating one of their festivals. Rando, a bold and artful leader, suddenly passed the Rhine, entered the defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captive idolators of either sex. Valentinian soon after followed them with a powerful force, and giving them a signal overthrow, recrossed the Rhine, and wintered at Treves. As his ambition was not to conquer Germany, he wisely confined his p. 399 attention to the important and laborious defence of the Gallic frontier, against an enemy whose strength was renewed by a stream of daring volunteers, which incessantly flowed from the most distant tribes of the north. This influx from distant regions to the frontiers of the catholic world, was a very important and essential element of the preparation for sounding.

About the middle of the fourth century the Burgundians, a warlike and numerous people of the Vandal race, occupied the countries on either side of the Elbe, insensibly swelled into a powerful kingdom, and finally settled in the days of the sounding on a flourishing province of the catholic empire.

Three small islands toward the mouth of the Elbe, comprehended in the duchy of Sleswig-Holstein, were occupied by the Saxons. These were a gate, as it were, through which poured forth upon the sea and maritime parts of the doomed empire, inexhaustible swarms of barbarians, who descended from the gloomy solitudes of their woods and mountains; and as a military confederation gradually moulded into a national body, under the name and laws of the Saxons, sallied forth upon the ocean in quest of plunder. In this preparatory enterprize they acquired an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of the West, after which they extended the scene of their depredations, so that the most sequestered places had no reason to presume on their security,

In the preparation for sounding, A. D. 371, under the reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were afflicted by the Saxons. They landed from their frail coasters, and spread desolation among the relic-worshippers with fire and sword. They were at length repelled, however, as the time of their permanent settlement under the sounding of the angels had not yet arrived.

From the reign of Constantine to A. D. 366, that is to say, during an interval of thirty years, there had been peace between the Catholic Empire and the Goths. During this period these barbarians under Hermanric, the king of the Ostrogoths, extended their dominions from the Danube to the Baltic, including the greater part of Germany and Scythia. The name of Hermanric is almost buried in oblivion, his exploits are imperfectly known; and the Roman and Greek worshippers of the dead themselves appeared unconscious of the progress of an aspiring power, which threatened the liberty of the north, and the peace of their dominion.

Civil war between Procopius an usurper, and Valens, A. D. 366, became the occasion of the Goths crossing the Danube to foment, as the allies of Procopius, the civil discord of the catholics of the p. 400 East. The suppression of the usurpation by Valens, left him free to carry on the war against the Goths alone. “But,” says Gibbon, “the events scarcely deserve the attention of posterity, except as the preliminary steps,” or preparation, “of the approaching decline and fall of the empire.” The war, which had inflicted much evil on both sides, terminated A. D. 369; after which the Goths remained tranquil about six years; till they were violently impelled against the Catholic empire by an innumerable host of Scythians, who appeared to issue from the frozen regions of the north.

This period of preparation which opened the way, under the sounding of the four wind trumpets to the inroads of so many hostile and savage tribes from the Danube to the Atlantic, was also signalized by terrible and wholesale destruction of catholic idolators by earthquakes, A. D. 365. On the twenty-first of July, the greatest part of their empire was shaken by a violent and destructive convulsion of the earth. The shores of the Mediterranean were left dry by the sudden retreat of the sea, and valleys and mountains were laid bare, which had never since the Mosaic Era of the globe been exposed to the sun. But the waters soon returned with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was severely felt on the coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece, and of Egypt; large boats were transported, and lodged on the roofs of houses, or at the distance of two miles from the shore; the ghost-worshippers, with their habitations, were swept away by the waters; and the city of Alexandria, the origenic birthplace, and alternate throne of Homoousianism and Homoiousianism, annually commemorated the fatal day, on which fifty thousand Trinitarians and Arians lost their factious and blasphemous lives in the inundation. This calamity astonished and terrified the subjects of Rome, who rightly considered these alarming strokes as the prelude only of still more dreadful calamities, which would ultimate in the submersion of the fabric of their world.

From the reign of Valens was a most disastrous period for the Laodicean Apostasy. “The fall of the Roman empire,” says Gibbon, “may be justly dated from the reign of Valens.” In this period of disaster, the happiness and security of each individual were personally attacked; and the arts and labors of ages were rudely defaced by the barbarians of Scythia and Germany. The invasion of the Huns from the rear and remoter countries of the north, A. D. 376, precipitated on the provinces of the west the Gothic nation, which advanced in less than forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a way by the success of their arms, to the inroads of so p. 401 many hostile tribes more savage than themselves. The original principle of motion was concealed in the remote countries of the north, whence these destructive emigrations issued.

In the year 375, Valens, then resident at Antioch, was informed by his officers who were intrusted with the defence of the Danube, that the north was agitated by a furious tempest, that the irruption of the Huns, an unknown and monstrous race of savages, had subverted the power of the Goths; and that the suppliant multitudes of that warlike nation, whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a space of many miles along the banks of the river. They earnestly sought permission to cross the Danube, and to settle on the waste lands of Thrace, promising perpetual obedience to the laws, and to defend the limits of the empire. The prayers of the Goths were most imprudently granted, on condition of delivering up their arms, and their children to be dispersed through the provinces of Asia, as hostages to secure the fidelity of their parents. Upon these ignominious conditions the whole body of the Gothic nation was transported across the Danube, by the most strenuous diligence of the infatuated officials, who were careful that not a single barbarian of those who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be left upon the opposite shore. The stipulation, however, most offensive to the Goths, and the most important to the Romans, was shamefully eluded by bribery and corruption. The catholic officials allowed them to retain their arms in exchange for the prostitution of their wives and daughters, and contributions of cattle and slaves. When the transportation was finished, and their strength collected on the southern side of the Danube, an immense camp of two hundred thousand Visigothic warriors in arms, was spread over the plains and hills of the Lower Mæsia, and assumed a threatening and even a hostile aspect.

The leaders of the Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, pressed also by the Huns in their rear, sought the like favor that had been granted to the Visigoths. But this was absolutely refused by Valens, whose suspicions and fears were now thoroughly aroused. His generals, however, whose attention was solely directed to the Visigoths whose discontent and hostility they had excited by their tyranny and avarice, had imprudently disarmed the ships and fortifications which constituted the defence of the Danube. The fatal oversight was observed, and improved by Alatheus and Saphrax, who anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping from the pursuit of the Huns. By the help of such rafts and vessels as could be hastily procured, the leaders of the Ostrogoths transported, without p. 402 opposition, their king and their army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the territories of the empire.

A secret union having been formed between these Gothic powers, they were prepared for a desperate conflict with the catholics who had treated them with great inhumanity and treachery. The flames of discord and mutual hatred soon burst forth into a dreadful conflagration. At Marcianopolis, the capital of the Lower Mæsia, about seventy miles from the banks of the Danube, they sought to purchase supplies in the plentiful markets of the city. They were refused, however, with insolence and derision; and as their patience was now exhausted, passionate altercations and angry reproaches ensued. A blow was imprudently given; a sword was hastily drawn; and the first blood that was spilt in this accidental quarrel, became the signal of a long and destructive war.

Valens removed from Antioch to Constantinople to be nearer the seat of war. He was received as the author of the public calamity; and provoked to desperate rashness by the vain reproaches of an ignorant multitude, whose contempt he had not firmness to resist, he hastened the downfall of the Roman empire, and the termination of his own inglorious career, by the terrible defeat of Hadrianople, A. D. 378, in which two thirds of the catholic army of 82,000 horse and foot were destroyed. The pride of the Goths, who had been joined by their former enemies the Huns, Alani, and other tribes, was elated by this memorable victory. The scene of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent solitude, and abandoned for other fields. The Gothic inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianople to the suburbs of Constantinople. Laden with the spoils of these, and the adjacent territory, they slowly moved from the Bosphorus to the mountains which form the western boundary of Thrace; and securing the important pass of Succi, the Goths who had no longer any resistance to apprehend from the scattered and vanquished troops of the East, spread themselves over the face of a fertile and cultivated country, as far as the confines of Italy, and the Hadriatic sea.

Jerome, a saint of the Apostasy, vehemently deplores the calamities inflicted by the Goths and their allies in the provinces of the catholic empire—the rapes, the massacres, the conflagrations, and, above all, the profanation of the “churches,” that were turned into stables, and the contemptuous treatment of the pretended relics of fictitious saints, rubbish regarded by him as worshipful and holy. The triumph of the Goths extended far beyond the limits of a single day. One of their chiefs was heard to declare, with insolent moderation, p. 403 that, for his own part, he was fatigued with slaughter; but that he was astonished how a people who fled before him like a flock of sheep could still presume to dispute the possession of their treasures and provinces. The formidable name of the Goths spread terror among the subjects: and soldiers of the catholic dominion, who, if they had been hastily collected, and led by Theodosius, the successor of Valens, would have been vanquished by their own fears. But this more fortunate emperor, through the superior vigor of his mind, effected the deliverance and peace of the provinces by prudence rather than valor, which was seconded by favorable circumstances, which he did not fail to seize upon and improve. By the death of Fritigern, their heroic leader, and the predecessor and master of the renowned ALARIC, the Gothic confederacy was broken into many disorderly bands of ferocious robbers, who destroyed every object which they wanted strength to remove or taste to enjoy, and they often consumed with improvident rage, the harvests or the granaries which soon after became necessary for their own subsistence. At length, a very considerable part, who already felt the inconvenience of anarchy, acknowledged Athanaric for their king, who, instead of leading them to battle, entered into treaty with Theodosius, A. D. 382, which resulted in the final capitulation of the Goths. By this treaty, a numerous colony of Visigoths was settled in Thrace, and the remains of the Ostrogoths in Phrygia and Lydia, as the allies of the Roman State. Prudence and necessity extorted the concessions and privileges of this treaty from Theodosius, who, nevertheless, had the address to persuade them that they were the voluntary expressions of his sincere friendship for the Gothic nation. It was apparent, however, to every discerning eye, that the Goths would long remain the enemies and might soon become the conquerors of the catholic empire. It was generally believed that they had signed the treaty of peace with a hostile and insidious spirit, and that their chiefs had previously bound themselves by a solemn and secret oath, never to keep faith with the Romans; to maintain the fairest show of loyalty and friendship, and to watch the favorable moment of rapine, of conquest, and of revenge. But the renewed outburst of the Gothic tempest was restrained by the firmness and moderation of Theodosius; so that the public safety seemed to depend on the life and abilities of a single man.

Such, then, is the historical illustration of “this unhappy period,” as Gibbon styles it, in which the Lamb was gathering his hosts and bringing them into position on the four corners of the earth, that p. 404 they might be prepared to subvert the western empire of Rome when the sealing of the 144,000 should have sufficiently advanced. His hosts were in position, the battle was arrayed, and nothing remained but that the trumpet should sound “its harsh and mournful music” for the dreadful combat to begin, that was to hurl fire and blood and bitterness into the highways and fastnesses of catholic superstition and crime.

Sounding of the Trumpets

All things being prepared—the iniquity of the catholic apostasy being matured, the executioners of judgment upon it being ready, and the 144,000 to be taken from it duly sealed—there was no longer any reason for holding back the tempests that were appointed to blast “the earth,” “the sea,” and “the trees,” of the section of the catholic dominion doomed to judicial overthrow. We proceed, then, to consider them in the order of their release, which was successive and not contemporary; that is, the winds did not rush forth against all “the four corners of the earth” at the same instant, which would have been to make the winds blow against each other instead of against the earth and sea. In ch. vii. 1, 2, we are not informed as to the order and effects of the blowing of the winds. It is not said whether the blowing was consecutive or not. They were to blow when released, and their blowing would be, in the general, injurious; this is all that can be extracted from the testimony there. It was reserved for the latter half of the eighth chapter to reveal the details omitted in the seventh. These have been sufficiently supplied in the symbolism of the first four trumpets, which are clearly identical with, and expository of, the four winds. Indeed, the reference to the winds, in ch. vii. 1, is a prefatory announcement to the first four trumpets, as the angel-proclamation of “Woe,” in ch. viii. 13, is prefatory to the last three of the seven. The first four are, therefore, very properly styled “Wind-Trumpets,” and the last three, “Woes” (ch. xi. 14), or “Woe-Trumpets.”

But, before proceeding to expound these “winds” and “woes” in detail, it may assist the reader in the comprehension of so much of the Seventh Seal as is hitherto interpreted in this work, to present him with the following

Chronological Synopsis

A. D.

324. Opening of the Seventh Seal, marked by the victory of Constantine over Licinius at Chrysopolis.

Silence in the heaven a half hour begins.

p. 405 337. Silence, or peace, ends.

During this half-hour period the Sealing of 144,000 proceeds—ch. vii., and the prayers of these saints ascend abundantly as incense of supplication and thanksgiving—ch. viii. 3, 4.

The silence ends with the ascension of the three sons of Constantine, who each reign independently over a distinct division of the catholic empire.

At their accession, “Fire is cast into the earth, and there were VOICES”—ver. 5. The two brothers and seven of the nephews of Constantine, the præfect Ablavius, and the patrician Optatus, massacred by order of the “pious” Constantius.

350. Constans, emperor of the “third” then comprising Italy, Africa, and the Western Illyricum, assassinated by order of a usurper.

354. Gallus, the Cæsar, a nephew of Constantine, beheaded by Constantius.

“And There Were Thunders.”

Verse 5.

337. War between the Romans and Persians twenty-three years.

356. War with the Allemanni and Franks.

357. War with the Quadi and Samaritans.

“And There Were Lightnings.”

340. Civil war between the sons of Constantine “the Great,” Constans and Constantine, in which the latter is slain.

350. Usurpation of Magnentius and Vetranio, which produces a revolt throughout the præfectures of Italy and Gaul, with the Illyrian countries from the Danube to the extremity of Greece. The civil war continues three years.

355. Revolt and assassination of Sylvanus.

“And There Was an Earthquake.”

Verse 5.

360. The Roman legions at Paris proclaim Julian, the last of the House of Constantine, emperor. He declares war against Constantius.

361. Constantius dies, and Julian, the pagan, is acknowledged. He reforms the court of the second “christian” “sovereign pontiff” by turning out a thousand barbers, a thousand cupbearers, a thousand cooks, and eunuchs numerous as clouds p. 406 of insects on a summer’s day. He appoints the Tribunal of Chalcedon for the sanguinary punishment of the sycophants of the former reign. He deprives catholics of the power of tormenting heretics; orders the pagan temples to be reopened; reëstablishes paganism as the religion of the empire; assumes the pago-sacerdotal functions of the Imperial Pontificate; erases the name of Christ from the Labarum; undertakes the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, with a view to a falsification of the prophecies; the enterprise is defeated by earthquake, whirlwind, and a fiery eruption from the foundations.

He orders christians to be called Galileans by way of contempt; abolishes clerical honors and immunities; prohibits “christians” from teaching schools, or practising medicine, or the liberal arts.

He degrades the clergy to the lowest class of the people; excludes catholics from all offices of trust and profit, on the plea that it is unlawful for christians to use the sword either of justice or of war; condemns them to make full and ample satisfaction for the pagan temples they had destroyed in the last reign.

The result of this earthquake is recorded by the sophist, Libanus, in these words: “Every part of the world displayed the triumph of religion, and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer and music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for their joyous votaries.”

363. Julian is wounded in battle, and dies. Jovian, a catholic, created emperor in his stead. He abolishes the edicts of Julian, and reëstablishes the Catholic Apostasy as the legal and privileged religion of the state.

“The seven angels which have the seven trumpets prepare themselves to sound”—ver. 6.

395. Preparation-period ends with the death of Theodosius.

The Sealing and separating the 144,000 from among the catholics, previous to judgment, finished.

p. 407Blowing of the Four Winds

After the apostle saw the things represented in the sixth chapter; that is, after he saw in vision the progressive accomplishment of the taking out of the way of that power, even of the pagan Greco-Latin or Roman power, which hindered the revelation of the New Power in the estate of Daniel’s fourth beast—a power both spiritual and temporal, or ecclesiastical and civil, unknown to the Augustan Cæsars who ruled anterior to Constantine; and germinated from that “Mystery of Iniquity” which, as tares, was sown and springing forth in growing vigor in the days of John and Paul; after he saw this power, whom the latter styles “the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition,” and “the Lawless One,” exalted to supreme authority and enthroned; in other words, after the entire exhaustion of the judgments of the Sixth Seal, he saw “four angels” or powers, divinely commissioned to destroy, “standing against (επι) the four corners of the earth”—standing in arms, ready to operate against the four projections of that “third part of the fourth beast earth” or territory, which was to be the arena of the first four trumpets—namely, Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Africa. For a time, even during the time of the sealing of the symbolic 144,000, John saw the authorities, who had the control of these destroying tempests, “holding” or restraining “the four-winds of the earth, that THE WIND,” the one wind of divine fury, blowing now against Italy, and then against Africa, and then in a third and fourth direction, “should not blow against the earth, nor against the sea, nor against any tree.”

That the blowing of the wind was a destruction set in motion against the earth, sea, and trees, is manifest from the proclamation made by the sealing angel commanding the four destroying messenger-powers not to injure them until the sealing work was accomplished. In other words, when the foundation was firmly and thoroughly laid for the witnessing against the rising power of the Beast of the Outer Court, whose Lion-Mouth would be opened in blasphemy, and, aided by tbe ten new regal powers, would overcome the witnesses (Apoc. xi. 3-7; xiii. 6, 7); so that there would be moral force enough to carry on the witnessing against the Apostasy in its decemregal and papal organization during what might remain of sackcloth-prophesying for a thousand two hundred and threescore symbolic days—when the foundation of this witnessing institution was duly organized and strengthened, then, and not till then, the destroying winds might begin to blow to the injury of the fourth-beast earth, sea, and trees.

p. 408The First Four Trumpets

Though the wind blow towards divers points, and is styled the east wind, the north wind, and so-forth, it is still but one and the same wind, air, or spirit in motion. So with “the four winds” of ch. vii. 1, they were the one wind, which, when blown against Italy, Spain, Gaul, and the Roman Africa, “the four corners of the earth” to be tempest-tossed, sounded forth destroying blasts, and swept with withering desolation all green and living things. These hurricanes of destruction are figuratively styled “trumpets;” and as “the wind” was to sweep over the four sections of the western Roman third of the fourth beast territory, each blasting current became a distinct trumpet.

The sounding of trumpets was a divinely appointed Mosaic institution. It was a holy convocation, styled “a memorial of blowing of trumpets,” and was celebrated on the first day of the seventh month—Lev. xxiii. 24. It introduced one of the most important months of the Hebrew calendar—the month on the tenth of which was the Day of Covering of Sins; on the fifteenth, the Feast of Tabernacles; and on every fiftieth tenth, the Jubilee, when sins, were not only covered, but every man returned to his possession and family—Lev. xxv. 8-17.

The trumpets used were of silver, two fabricated from a whole piece. They were blown by the sons of Aaron “for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camp.” If they blew with only one, then the princes, heads of the thousands of Israel gathered themselves to Moses; but when they blew an alarm with both trumpets, it was for war against the enemy that oppressed them; and with the assurance that they should be remembered by Yahweh their Elohim, and be saved from their enemies—Numb. x. 1-10.

When an alarm was blown it portended great evil. This appears from Jer. iv. 5, which says: “Blow the trumpet in the land: cry, Gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities. Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not, for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction. The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste without an inhabitant.”

And again, in Joel ii. 1. “Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of Yahweh cometh, for it is nigh at hand; a p. 409 day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it . . . A fire devoureth before them, and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained; all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war . . . the earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: and Yahweh shall utter His voice before His army: for His camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth His word: for the Day of Yahweh is very terrible, and who can abide it?”

Such is the illustration furnished by the Spirit of what he means by sounding trumpets of alarm against the guilty. The sounding of a plurality of trumpets was indicative of war. This is the indication of nearly all the trumpets of the apocalypse; not of every trumpet, but of all the Seven trumpets certainly. If they blew with only one, “then the princes, and heads of the thousands of Israel gathered themselves to Moses.” None of the seven trumpets indicate a gathering of the saints, or princes and chiefs of the thousands of Israel, to the prophet like unto Moses. They only portend evil to the Apostasy—the throwing down of the walls of Babylon, when the last blast of the seventh shall have sounded against her from the breath of the kings and priests of Yahweh. But before this portentous blast is sounded by them, a trumpet is blown of a different import—one that “gathers them together as the elect from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other”—Matt. xxiv. 31. This is the TRUMPET OF THE JUBILEE, which will bring all the approved into the possession of the inheritance; and is symbolized, by none of the seven, but by “an angel flying in mid-heaven having aion-glad tidings to preach.” These משׁכ׃[?] קשׁת mŏshkai kĕshĕth, or sounders of the truth, of Isai. lxvi. 19, and messengers of Matt. xxiv. 31, go forth “with a trumpet and a great voice,” which declares the glory of Yahweh among the nations. It has no sound of alarm in it, like the sounding of the seven. When the saints, in their graves, and we who may remain, hear this great voice, we p. 410 shall all gather ourselves together to the Moses-like prophet—to Jesus “both Lord and Christ.” This gathering accomplished, and the affairs to be transacted in the presence of the Lord with regard to his household disposed of—then, what remains to be executed in connection with the sounding of the seventh and last trumpet will be proceeded with; and the Lamb, with those “who follow him whithersoever he goeth,” will “execute the judgment written” against Daniel and John’s beasts, till nothing remains of the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the world.

In the prophets, this judicial execution by Jesus and His Brethren, the Elohim of Israel, is styled “The NAME OF YAHWEH coming from far, burning with his anger . . . his lips full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire: his breath as an overflowing stream . . to sift the nations with the sieve of vanity”—Isai. xxx. 27. And Yahweh shall be seen over the sons of Zion, whom he shall raise up against the sons of Greece; “and ADONAI YAHWEH shall blow the trumpet, and shall go forth with whirlwinds of the south”—Zech. ix. 14. This trumpet thus divinely blown, is the winding up of the seventh apocalyptic trumpet. All the preceding events of the seven are operative to the development of this crisis in which is “filled up the wrath of Deity.”

The sounding by Adonai Yahweh of this closing blast of the seven is the great apocalyptic day of sacrifice—the slaying of the beasts, before the sins of the nations are covered over, and they become “blessed with faithful Abraham,” and “in Abraham and his seed.” He executes the Second and Third angel-missions, reaps the harvest, and treads the winepress. All this pertains to “the war of the great day of Almighty Power.” It prostrates Babylon, breaks in pieces the powers of the nations, and establishes the power of the kingdom in all the earth.

The final purpose, then, of the seven trumpets is to abolish the Laodicean Apostasy, which enthroned itself in the reign of Constantine the First, and of which he was the new-born defender of its faith. This is the grand and glorious consummation prepared for the Catholic and Protestant hierarchies of what the world styles “Christendom.” They will then have answered their purpose in the providence of heaven of a spiritual police in aid of the civil government of the nations. There will be no more any use for them; because the nations being enlightened and blessed, will no longer require deceivers and impostors to rule them by terror and imposition. “All nations shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; for thy judgments are made manifest”—Apoc. xv. 4. Clerical p. 411 hierarchies then will be no more; and the truth will cease to bo evil spoken of because of their impiety and folly.

But these deceivers of “the whole earth that goes wondering after the beast” (ch. xiii. 3), were not to be permitted the enjoyment of times of bliss during the centuries of their inhabitation of the high and fat places of the world. They were image makers, relic and demon worshippers, murderers of the servants of the Deity, bewitchers of the people with their sorceries, or theological conceits, corrupters of silly women, and thieves. This is the apocalyptic indictment against them—ch. ix. 20, 21; xi. 7; xiii. 6, 7, 15; xvi. 6, 7; xvii. 3, 6; xviii. 20, 23, 24. Was it to be supposed that the Deity would permit these titled and wealthy blasphemers of His name, and tabernacle; these idolatrous “spirituals of wickedness in the heavenlies;” to enjoy all the sweets of life and receive none of the plagues stored up as his artillery for the day of evil? Such a winking at their iniquity was no part of His wisdom revealed to John. The trumpets were so arranged in their sounding as to give the clergy “wormwood” and “blood to drink;” and to be “tormented” to the gnawing of their tongues for pain and sores—ch. viii. 11; xvi. 6; ix. 4, 5; xvi. 10, 11.

This judicial operation, however, was not to affect all parts and orders of the clerical dominion at one and the same epoch. When the preparation for beginning to sound the trumpet was complete in the Gothic occupation of the Illyrian Third of their domain, the Catholic Empire was permanently divided into Two LIMBS, as represented by the thighs and legs of Nebuchadnezzar’s Image; the EASTERN CATHOLIC LIMB being Greek, with Constantinople for its imperial and ecclesiastical centre; while the WESTERN CATHOLIC LIMB was Latin, with Rome for its Mother City. This western section consisted of Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy and the Roman Africa. This was the first Constantine’s imperiality when he divided the Fourth Beast dominion with his rivals Licinius, who possessed the Illyrian Præfecture; and Maximin, who possessed that composed of the Asiatic provinces and Egypt.

The judgments of the trumpets were ordered with reference to this threefold division of the Catholic World. The first four trumpets were to be blown against the WESTERN THIRD, that its inhabitants of all orders and degrees (except the sealed ones who were cherished) might be plagued until their power was broken, and their sovereignty blotted out for a season.

When these judicial calamities had settled down into the generation of a new and rising order of things, judgment was preparing p. 412 for an ascent from “the Pit of the Abyss” against the EASTERN THIRD of the catholic domain. It was the mission of the fifth and sixth trumpets primarily to torment, and then to kill the political life of the men, who wielded authority and power over the subjects of this imperial præfecture; and secondarily, of the sixth, to inflict “wars” upon the unrepentant spirituals of the Western Third, until the seventh should begin to sound—ch. xi. 14.

The first four trumpets, then, made the Western Præfecture the seat of war—the third part of the Roman Orb, consisting, as we have said, of Gaul, Spain, Britain, Italy and the province of Africa, an area upon which, were caused to bud forth by the judgments that befel, the TEN POWERS seen by Daniel and John as “Ten Horns” upon the Eighth Head of the Fourth Beast.

It may be remarked here, that we do not learn from Daniel that the Fourth Beast had more heads than one. His was a vision of said beast in its constitutional manifestation cöevally with its being slain, and its body politic given to the burning flame, at a time when judgment is also given to the saints for its especial destruction. I speak not now of what he saw concerning the Little Episcopal Horn Power; but of the head. All the horns were seen standing upon the head of the beast. The history of the past is demonstrative that the Eleven Horns did not stand on either of the first seven; though, when the uninstructed in these mysteries undertake to give sketches of the beast, they scatter the ten horns over all the seven heads. The Horns only began to bud forth in the times of the Seventh Head, and therefore cannot be placed upon anyof the previously developed six. This seventh was to continue only “a short space.” The beast and horns have continued many ages since the seventh head fell; unless therefore we view the horns as standing upon the Eighth Head, we have before us a symbolical monstrosity of a beast with ten horns and no head for them to stand upon. It is to John’s writing we are indebted for knowledge about the heads. From him we learn that the beast of Daniel has Eight Heads; and that it is with the eighth that the ten horns are allied for “one hour” in a period of conflict with the Lamb and those that are with him—ch. xvii. 11-14.

The trumpets were not only destructive of much that existed, but formative rudimentally of future political manifestations. The first four destroyed the Latin Catholic Imperial state unity of the western third; abolished the sovereignty of Rome; and formed the ten rudimental powers, which are destined for world-wide operations in the last hour of their existence. In the first four trumpets p. 413 we have to do with things rudimental; but in the seventh and last, with the great and marvellous manifestations of the future, which could by no means have been developed without the preliminary judgments we proceed now in their apocalyptic order to expound.

Act I.—First Wind-Trumpet

The hurting of the earth by hail and fire, mingled with blood, by which a third part of the trees, and all green grass is burned up.

A. D. 395, and onwards.

“And the first angel sounded, and there was hail and fire which had been mingled with blood, and it was cast into the earth; and the third of the earth, and the third of the trees was consumed, and every green blade was burned up.”

Apoc. viii. 7.

1.—The Symbols Explained

A prophesy couched in such terms as these indicates nothing but judgment of the severest kind. It is a tempest of the most scathing description imaginable—a beating down with hail, scorching with lightning, and causing blood to flow.

The prophets give us to understand that by such language as this is signified, “A mighty and strong one casting down to the earth with the hand.” This interpretation is indicated in Isai. xxviii. 2; as “Yahweh hath a mighty and strong one, as a tempest of hail, and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, he shall cast down to the earth with the hand,” or power of the sword. This was a threatened war against the drunkards of Ephraim, which was afterwards executed by the King of Assyria, who cast down their sovereignty, and carried them away into a captivity from which they have not yet returned. They thought themselves secure, and made lies their refuge, and under falsehood hid themselves. But in the seventeenth verse they were informed that “the hail should sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters overflow the hiding place.”

In Ezek. xiii., we find, that the self-constituted prophets of Israel promising peace to Jerusalem, when Yahweh had determined there should be no peace for her, is styled building up a wall, and daubing it with untempered mortar. Ezekiel was commanded to announce to them, that it should fall by an overflowing shower; and then addressing the constituents of the shower, he says, “And ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it.”

p. 414 This prediction was afterwards fulfilled by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar, who as great hailstones, a mighty and strong power, demonstrated the flimsiness and instability of their wall by laying Jerusalem in ashes and destroying the liars out of her.

In the apocalypse, hailstones operate conspicuously in demolishing walls daubed with untempered mortar, sweeping away the refuges of lies, and overflowing all hiding places. Beside the place before us, they are brought into play in chs. xi. 19 and xvi. 21. The hail in these two places signifies the same thing—a mighty and strong power, which falls out of the heaven upon men to plague them exceedingly. This power is the power of the heaven, the Spirit, congealed (if I may so speak) into spiritual bodies weighing one talent a piece. These are the hailstones and coals of fire which result from the thunder voice of the Most High. They are the electrical congelations of the Spirit which beat down the Assyrian in his latter day overthrow; as it is written, “And Yahweh shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of anger, and the flame of devouring fire, scattering and tempest and hailstones; for through the voice of Yahweh shall the Assyrian be beaten down who smite with a rod,”—Isai. xxx. 30. The Assyrian to be beaten down by these living, precious, and all powerful hailstones, is the Gog of Ezekiel, the Fourth Beast of Daniel, and the Eighth Head in alliance with the Ten Horns of John. These are destroyed by the saints when judgment is given to them; they are mighty and strong who fall upon them as a plague of hail and a destroying storm upon the forest.

“The third of the earth,” into which the mighty and strong power is cast for judicial execution, was that third section of the Roman Orb occupied by “the third of the trees.” A third implies two other thirds. The trees of these two thirds were not to be affected by the scorching hail-commingled fire. It was to be confined to one of the thirds, which, as we shall see in our historical illustration, was the Western Third. This is “the earth,” or arena, of the first trumpet.

“Trees” are symbolical of the great men among a people. This is evident from Jotham’s parable in Judg. ix. 8. “The trees went forth,” said he, “to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the Olive Tree, ‘Reign thou over us.’” But, when the olive, and the fig, and the vine, severally declined to be promoted over the trees, all the trees with one voice invited the bramble to wear the crown; to which this prickly bush replied, “If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow; p. 415 and, if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.” All this is perfectly intelligible, and no sane mind would think of trying to interpret it upon what is called the literal principle of hermeneutics. The trees in Jotham’s parable symbolized all the men of Shechem, and all the house of Millo, in whom the king-making and king-sustaining power resided. It is unnecessary to adduce further proof of this notable signification of “trees” in the symbolic language. An aggregation of wild, uncultivated trees constitutes “a forest.” This is prophetically obnoxious to the storm of hail, which descends upon it; while the people, or trees of Yahweh’s planting (Isai. lxi. 3) are dwelling securely, as Israel did in Goshen when the rest of Egypt was desolated and scorched by literal hail mingled with fire; as it is written, “My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure (or safe) dwellings, and in quiet resting places, when it shall hail, coming down on the forest”—Isai. xxxii. 18. This shows that when hail descends on forest trees, there is no peace, safety, or tranquillity, to the wicked represented thereby.

“Grass” is figurative of the multitude. “All flesh is grass”—Isai. xl. 6. It may be either withered or green and flourishing Before the blast of this trumpet is blown, the grass is “green”; but when the trumpet ceases to sound, it is burned up, and consequently black. Before the hail and fire mingled with blood descends, the catholic multitude, consisting of priests and people, are “green grass.” They are so represented, because of their wickedness, and the iniquity worked by them. The proof of this is found in Ps. xcii. 7, as, “When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed forever.” Grass that springs is green and looks flourishing. This is sufficient to determine the meaning of the symbol. When it becomes withered or black, it is “because the Spirit of Yahweh bloweth upon it,” and the tempest licks it up as stubble—Isai. xl. 7, 24.

Hence then, the symbolism of this trumpet is representative of the Spirit of Yahweh blowing upon the great men and people of the catholic apostasy of the West. He did it by destroying agents already in a state of preparation. The hail and fire mingled with blood were these agents, ready to fall upon the pious hypocrites of the Latin West, when the time appointed should arrive.

2.—Historical Exposition

The following historical summary from Elliot’s Horæ Apocalypticæ p. 416 being strictly correct, I cannot do better than to lay it before my readers. “The first angel sounds his trumpet: and lo the same tremendous tempest as before, black with other clouds from the cold hail-generating countries beyond the Danube, and charged with lightning and hail, appears driving westward. “The third of the land,”^a or continental provinces of the Western division of the Roman empire, is declared the fatal scene of ravage. The Asiatic continent and maritime province of Africa are to remain unharmed by the storm: and the European provinces, too, of the Eastern Empire mostly to escape. The skirts of the storm discharge themselves, as it passes forward, on the Rhœtian hill-country. Then quickly its course is towards Italy. As it sweeps across the Italian frontier, other terrific thunder-clouds from the distant northwest quarter of the heaven succeed, and intermingle with the first. Once and again, the almost united tempests spread in devastating fury over Italy, beyond the Alps and Apennines. Then dividing, a part, impelled yet further south, bursts with terrific lightnings directly over the Seven-Hilled Imperial City, and passes thence to the southernmost coast of Bruttium beyond. A part, driven backward, takes a westerly course over the Rhine, into Gaul, and far and wide devastates it; then, crossing over the Pyrenæan chain, pours its fury on the Spanish provinces: nor spends itself till it has reached the far shores, west and south, of the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Thus has the entire continental division of the Western Empire been involved in its ravages. Throughout the whole, the lightning-fire runs along the ground, even as in the plagues of ancient Egypt, burning in wide spreading conflagration country and town, trees and pasture. And there are signs, too, not to be mistaken, of the destruction of life, as well as of vegetation: for blood appears mixed with the fire and hail. Slowly at length the storm subsides, destroying, however, even in its subsidence. The desolation that it leaves is frightful. The land was as the garden of Eden before it. It remains a wasted wilderness.” Vol. i. p. 343.

ALARIC and RHADAGAISUS were the leading spirits of what Claudian, a contemporary writer, styles the “hail-storm.” With singular impolicy, Arcadius, the emperor of the eastern third, which fell to him on the death of Theodosius, made Alaric Master General of the Eastern Illyricum, and furnished him by so doing with arms from the imperial armories. During four years he made preparation p. 417 for the invasion of the West. Installed by imperial authority in the centre of the Illyrian Third, he was seated, as Gibbon expresses it, “on the verge, as it were, of the two empires.” The separate halves of the catholic body politic were before him, devoted of heaven to be ruthlessly scathed and torn in his merciless career. As preliminary to this sanguinary enterprize, the chieftains of his nation, according to ancient custom, raised him upon a shield, and proclaimed him King of the Visigoths.

At this epoch, the first trumpet sounded, A. D. 395-400. “Fame,” says Claudian, “encircling with terror her gloomy wings, proclaimed the march of the barbarian army, and filled Italy with consternation.” The public distress was aggravated by the fears and reproaches of superstition. The pagans had no omens and sacrifices to consult; but the infatuated catholics still derived some comfort from what they regarded as the powerful intercession of saint and martyr ghosts. The emperor Honorius was preëminent in fear. The approach of Alaric to Milan caused the Emperor to flee, and take refuge at Asta, a small fortified town, in Piedmont, in which he was hard pressed by the Goths. The timely arrival of the renowned Stilicho effected his deliverance. The Goths retreated, and were afterwards defeated at Pollentia. But Alaric soon repaired his losses, and boldly resolved to break through the unguarded passes of the Apennine, to spread desolation over the fruitful face of Tuscany, and to conquer or die before the gates of Rome. Before, however, his threat was carried into effect, another “dark cloud collected along the coast of the Baltic, and burst in thunder upon the banks of the upper Danube.” Rhadagaisus, the king of the confederate Germans, passed without resistance the Alps, the Po, and the Apennine, A. D. 406. Many cities of Italy were pillaged or destroyed. Alaric was a catholic and a leader of a disciplined army; but Rhadagaisus was a savage, and a stranger to the manners, religion and language of the South. The senate and people of Rome, “the trees and green grass” of the State, trembled while yet his presence was before Florence, 180 miles from Rome, which he vowed to reduce to a heap of stones and ashes, and to sacrifice the most illustrious Romans on the altars of those gods who were appeased by human blood. But the fierceness of this portion of the hail and fire mingled with blood, was destined to expend itself before Florence. The strategy of Stilicho again saved the capital, and caused more than a third of the vast and various multitude of Sueves, Vandals, and Burgundians, who adhered to the standard of Rhadagaisus, to perish on the fields of Tuscany. But one hundred p. 418 thousand Germans still remained in arms after the death of Rhadagaisus; and the invasion of Gaul, which Alaric had designed, was executed by the remnant of the great army of the Baltic. “This memorable passage (of the Rhine) of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered,” says Gibbon, “as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth were, from that fatal moment, levelled with the ground.”

The subjects of Rome in Gaul, “the trees” and “green grass” of the earth, unconscious of their approaching calamities, enjoyed the state of quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. The banks of the Rhine were crowned, like those of the Tiber, with elegant houses, and well-cultivated farms. This scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert, and the prospect of the smoking ruins could alone distinguish the solitude of nature from the desolation of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand catholics massacred in their temples; and the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to “the hail and fire mingled with blood”—the barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, “the trees” and “green grass,” laden with the spoils of their houses and altars; so that in less than two years, the divided troops of the savages of the Baltic advanced, without a combat, to the foot of the Pyrenees.

As I am not writing a detailed history of the times, but selecting so much from history already written as will illustrate what has been fulfilled of the Apocalypse, it will be unnecessary for me to do more than to note, that the calamities that befel “the third of the earth” were aggravated by the revolt of the army in Britain, which renounced its allegiance to the Emperor of the West, and set up a new emperor, named Constantine, whom they found in the lowest ranks of the army. He established himself in Britain and Gaul, and received also the submission of Spain, whose feeble resistance was ineffectual to prevent the authority of the usurper being acknowledged from the walls of Antoninus to the columns of Hercules.

Adversity had exercised and displayed the genius of Alaric; and the fame of his valor invited to the Gothic standard the bravest of p. 419 the barbarian warriors, who from the Euxine to the Rhine were agitated by the desire of rapine and conquest. After the death of Stilicho, he put his troops in motion, and A. D. 408, with bold and rapid marches, passed the Alps and the Po; pillaged several cities; proceeded on to Rimini, stretched his ravages along the sea coast of the Hadriatic, and meditated the conquest of the ancient Mistress of the World. An Italian hermit sought to turn him from his purpose; but was silenced by the solemn asseveration of Alaric, that “he felt a secret and preternatural impulse, which directed, and even compelled, his march to the gates of Rome.”

During a period of six hundred and nineteen years “the Queen of the Earth” had never been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy. The hour had now arrived for this indignity. The city was blockaded by Alaric, whose vigilance inflicted upon it at length the horrid calamities of famine. Enraged by hunger, the desperate devoured the bodies of their victims; and even mothers tasted the flesh of their slaughtered infants! Many thousands of the inhabitants expired in their houses, or in the streets, for want of sustenance; and the stench arising from so many putrid and unburied carcases, infected the air. At length Alaric was induced to retire by the payment of an enormous ransom, and to enter upon negociations for peace. But these failed through the imbecillity and infatuation of the administration. A second siege of Rome was formed; and a third followed, A. D. 410, Aug. 24. At midnight, the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the inhabitants were awakened by the tremendous sound of the Gothic trumpet. Eleven hundred and sixty-three years after the foundation of Rome, the imperial city, which had subdued and “civilized” so considerable a part of mankind, was delivered to the licentious fury of the tribes of Germany and Scythia.

This awful catastrophe of Rome filled the astonished empire with grief and terror. The people deplored the afflictions of “the Queen of Cities;” while the clergy, who applied justly to recent events the lofty metaphors of oriental prophecy, were foolishly tempted to confound the destruction of the capital, and the dissolution of the globe.

The victorious Goths evacuated Rome on the sixth day, and marched into the southern provinces of Italy, destroying whatever dared to oppose their passage, and plundering the unresisting country. The “hail and fire mingled with blood” continued to consume “the trees,” and to burn up “the green grass” for a still longer period than that reached by the termination of the career of p. 420 the King of the Goths. While meditating further conquests beyond the limits of this trumpet, Alaric was suddenly arrested by the power of death, which fixed, after a short illness, the fatal term to his conquests. His sepulchre was built in the bed of the Consentia, a river in Bruttium, and adorned with the spoils and trophies of Rome. The secret of its location was concealed by restoring the waters to their accustomed channel, and the massacre of the prisoners employed in constructing it:—“The last Italian blood,” remarks Elliot, “that mingled with the fire and hail,” under the judgments of the first trumpet.

Act II.—Second Wind-Trumpet

The hurting of the Sea by a great mountain burning with fire being cast into it, by which the third of the Sea became blood; the third of its living creatures died; and the third of its ships was destroyed.

A. D. 429 and Onwards.

Apoc. viii. 8, 9.

“And the second angel sounded, and, as it were, a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third of the sea became blood. 9. And the third of the creatures in the sea, having souls, died; and the third of the ships was destroyed.”

1.—Symbols Explained

We are plainly informed in this text, that its terms are not to be understood “literally:” that the great mountain in a state of intense combustion was not a real mountain, but something analogous thereto. The information is conveyed by the use of the particle ὡς, as it were. What John saw represented was a destroying power of great force and magnitude, judicially affecting the population of the maritime arena of the Western Third of the Catholic empire.

“The very etymology of the word mountain,” says Daubuz, “helps out the signification of the symbol. For דביר, a mountain, comes from דבר in Hiphil הדביר. This, and the Chaldeee אדבר, and the Arabic רבד, signify to command, subdue, and govern. So, in our military terms, hills and mountains are said to command the places about them. Mountains burning with fire together with a strong wind, and seen by a king in his dream, signify, according to all the interpreters among the Persians and Egyptians, the destruction of his people by a warlike enemy.”

In addressing the Babylonian power of Chaldea, the Spirit styles p. 421 it “a destroying mountain”—“Behold, I am against thee, O Destroying Mountain, saith Yahweh, which destroyest all the earth”—Jer. li. 25. “A mountain burning with fire” is a destroying power; and the direct opposite to “mountains that bring peace to the people.” A mountain burning with fire would throw the sea, if cast therein, into a bubbling and hissing agitation; it would be “a mountain of prey” but, if the mountain were burnt, instead of burning, it would represent a great power deprived of all ability to injure—a power destroyed instead of destroying. Therefore, saith Yahweh to the power of Babylon which had destroyed all the earth subjugated by it, “I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain;” a prediction that was fulfilled when he executed “the vengeance of his temple” by Cyrus and his uncle, “the kings of the Medes.”

“The sea” of this trumpet is the politico-geographical arena of its judgments. The mountain burning, or destroying, with fire was providentially “cast into the sea.” “Sea, clear and serene, denotes an orderly collection of men in a quiet and peaceable state. When troubled and tumultuous, a collection of men in motion and war. Either way, waters signifying peoples (Apoc. xvii. 15), and the sea being a collection of waters, the sea becomes the symbol of people, gathered into one body politic, kingdom, or jurisdiction, or united in one design.”

The four great beasts of Dan. vii. were seen by the prophet to come up out of “the sea” in consequence of the four winds striving upon the Great Sea. The many headed beasts of the Apocalypse are but symbolical parts of the fourth of these in Daniel. As the whole came up out of the sea, so therefore must its parts; and that sea, says the prophet, was “the Great Sea,” or Mediterranean In this trumpet-prophecy “the sea” has a twofold signification, the symbolic and literal. The destroying power was to descend literally upon the maritime region washed by the waters of the Mediterranean; and symbolically upon the peoples inhabiting its coasts. The Romans used the term as inclusive of the islands and maritime coasts of what they regarded as their sea, because situate in the midst of their domain.

“The third of the sea.” This, the sea-third, is the sea of the same “third of the earth,” that was subject to the emperor of the catholic west. It included the coasts of Spain, Gaul, Italy, and the Roman Africa; with the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Majorca, p. 422 and Minorca. This sea-third “became blood.” Its peoples were put to the sword because of the enormity of their blasphemy, hypocrisy, and crime; for it is on account of these things that the judgments of heaven are poured out with volcanic fury and destruction upon mankind.

“The creatures in the sea having souls”^a were the fish of the symbolic sea; and therefore fish in a symbolic sense. “A sea being thus considered,” says Daubuz, “as a kingdom or empire (in the text, the western empire), the living creatures in it must be typical fishes, or men. But if a sea be considered only of the waters, of which it is a collection, then the waters will signify the common people; and the fishes, or the creatures in the sea, living, as having a power to act, will denote their rulers. And in this sense are the fishes mentioned in Ezek. xxix. 4, 5, explained of the princes of Pharoah.”

“The ships.” The introduction of ships into the prophecy indicates that the judgments of the second trumpet have especial regard to the naval and commercial interests of “the third.” Job’s days “passed away as swift ships.” Here ships are used as a metaphor signifying swiftness. In this, his days were analagous to ships. “They that go down to the sea in ships, do business in the great waters.” To destroy these ships, then, would be to destroy the business, whether naval or commercial: and to destroy those who worked them. In predicting this destruction, therefore, of the naval and commercial power of the western third’s dominion, all that was necessary was to say, “the third of the ships was destroyed.”