Islam in Revelation, an historic look at Protestant eschatological thought on the rise and fall of Islam. This Reformation audio resource is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. There is no copyright on this material and we encourage you to reproduce it and pass it on to your friends. Many free resources as well as our complete mail-order catalog containing classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books at great discounts is on the web at www.swrv.com. We can also be reached by email at swrb at swrb.com by phone at area code 780-450-3730 by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L3T5. If you do not have a web connection, please request a free printed catalog. The following excerpt on Islam and Revelation is taken from a dissertation on the prophecies that have been fulfilled, are now fulfilling, or will hereafter be fulfilled, relative to the great period of 1260 years, the Papal and Mohammedan apostasies, the tyrannical reign of Antichrist or the infidel power, and the restoration of the Jews, 2 volumes, 1811, by George Faber. from volume 2 starting at page 272 to 288 as read by Leah Domes. The Archdeacon's interpretation of the seals I shall consider hereafter. At present I shall confine myself to that of the trumpets. The forefirst of these he will not allow to relate to the overthrow of the Western Empire, on the ground that the subject of the Apocalypse is the fates and fortunes of the Christian Church. Footnote, page 218 to 222. End of footnote. But are not those fates and fortunes most closely connected with the overthrow of the Western Empire? According to the usual interpretation of the four first trumpets, and the tyranny of the two beasts during the period of the 1260 years, everything appears in strict chronological order, and the one succession of events arises naturally out of the other. Paul teaches us that when he that led it, or the western empire, shall be taken away, then shall the man of sin be revealed. Now what is the particular portion of the Apocalypse which we are now considering except an enlarged repetition of Paul's prediction? He that wetted is taken away, and the man of sin forthwith rears his head. The Western Empire is taken away by the operation of the Four First Trumpets and the Great Apostasy of 1260 days. The reign of the False Prophet and his temporal supporter shortly commences. The one is preparatory to the other. The Four Trumpets are merely the prelude to what may be termed the grand subject of the Apocalypse, a wonderful tyranny exercised within the Church itself by the upholders of the apostasy, and a contemporary apostasy in the Eastern world scarcely less wonderful than that in the Western. Paul and John are perfectly in unison. They alike connect the downfall of the Empire with the fates of the Church, thus even independent of the Archdeacon's chronological arrangement which shall presently be discussed. I see not why the old interpretation of the Four Trumpets or at least the great outlines of that interpretation ought to be rejected. The Archdeacon, however, brings an argument against such an interpretation of the four trumpets from the homogeneity of all the seven trumpets. He insists most justly that what the nature of one is, the nature of them all must be, and observes that Mead, in order to make them homogeneal, interprets the fifth and the sixth trumpets as relating to the attacks made upon the empire by the Saracens and Turks, as he had already referred the four first to the attacks previously made upon the empire by the Gothic tribes. But he adds that the seventh trumpet announces the most clearly the victory obtained by Christ and his church not over the Roman Empire but over the powers of hell and of Antichrist and a corrupt world. Over the dragon, the beast, the false prophet and in process of time for the seventh trumpet continues to the end over death and hell. If then, under the seventh trumpet, the warfare of the Christian Church be so clearly represented, and in this all writers are agreed, what are we to think of the six? How must they be interpreted so as to appear homogeneal? Are they to be accounted with Mead and his followers, the successive shocks by which the Roman Empire fell under the Goths and Vandals? Homogeneity forbids. They must therefore be supposed to contain the warfare of the Christian Church, and this warfare may be successful under the seventh and last trumpet. When it had been unsuccessful before, yet the homogeneity be consistently preserved. For the question is not concerning the success, but concerning the warfare. and the trumpets may be deemed homogeneal, if they all represent the same warfare, namely of the powers of hell and of the anti-Christian world against the Church of Christ, whatever may be the event. Footnote. Page 222. End of footnote. That the object of the seventh trumpet is to introduce the victory obtained by Christ and His Church, and to usher in the happy period of the millennium, few will be disposed to deny. But the question is, how is this desirable object accomplished? The Archdeacon himself allows, by the triumph of the Church, over those instruments of hell, Antichrist, the Beast, and the False Prophet. Now, Whether I be right or wrong in my own notions of Antichrist, what is this but a triumph over the Roman Empire and the apostate communion inseparably connected with it? Accordingly, we find that the seventh trumpet, after conducting us through six of its vials, all of which are poured out upon God's enemies, magnificently introduces under the seventh vial the judgment of the great harlot. the downfall of Babylon and the complete destruction of the beast along with a false prophet and his confederated kings. In other words, the overthrow of the papal Roman Empire both secular and temporal. How then is the homogeneity of the trumpets violated by Mead's exposition? Under the four first, the Western Empire falls. Under the two next, the Eastern Empire follows the fate of its more ancient half. Under the last, the revived Beast or Papal Empire is utterly broken, and prepares a way by its overthrow for the millennial reign of the Messiah. In short, as matters appear to me, if we argue backwards from the seventh trumpet, homogeneity, instead of forbidding, requires it to refer all the six first trumpets to different attacks upon the Roman Empire, the final ruin of which is ushered in by the seventh. 2. By my objection to the Archdeacon's arrangement of the Apocalypse, on which a great part of his subsequent interpretations necessarily depends, is infinitely stronger than to his very limited system of applying the prophecies. It appears to me to be so extremely arbitrary and to introduce so much confusion into the three septenaries of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials, that, if it be adopted, I see not what certainty we can ever have that a clue to the right interpretation of the apocalypse is attainable. The archdeacon supposes that the six first seals give a general sketch of the contents of the whole book. and that they extend from the time of our Savior's Ascension even to the great day of the Lord's Vengeance, a description of which day is exhibited under the sixth seal." Footnote, page 135, 174, and 196. End of footnote. Having thus arrived at the consummation of all things, how are we to dispose of the seventh seal? The Archdeacon conceives that the same history of the Church begins anew under it, that the connection which had hitherto united the seals is broken, that the seventh seal stands apart containing all the seven trumpets, and that the renewed history comprehended under this seventh seal begins from the earliest times of Christianity, or to speak more properly, from the period when our Lord left the world in person and committed the church to the guidance of his apostles from this time the first seal takes its commencement from this also the first trumpet footnote page 197 and 200 and a footnote hence it is manifest since the seventh seal brings us back for the purpose of introducing the seven trumpets to the very same period at which the first seal was opened, that the opening of the seventh seal synchronizes in the judgment of the Archdeacon with the opening of the first seal, and that the seventh seal singly comprehends exactly the same space of time as all the six first seals conjointly. The seventh seal then introduces and contains within itself all the seven trumpets, the first six of which constitute the Archdeacon's second series of prophetic history, as the first six seals had constituted his first series, and these two series are in a great measure, though not altogether commensurate. For though they both alike begin from the Ascension of our Lord, the six seals carry us to the Day of Judgment, whereas the six trumpets only carry us to the end of the twelve hundred and sixty years. The third series is of course that of the vials, which the Archdeacon arranges under the seventh trumpet, as he had previously arranged the seven trumpets under the seventh seal. But where is the place of the seventh trumpet, and consequently of the first vial? The Archdeacon does not bring back the seventh trumpet and the first vial to the ascension of our Lord, as he had previously brought back the seventh seal and the first trumpet, but only to the beginning of the times of the beast, or the 1260 years, through the whole of which he supposes the seventh trumpet and its component vials to extend. He concedes, however, that the 6th trumpet introduces Muhammadism in the year 606 and reaches to the downfall of Muhammadism at the close of the 1260 years. Consequently, the beginning of the 7th trumpet exactly synchronizes with the beginning of the 6th trumpet. But the seventh extends beyond the sixth and reaches, like the sixth seal and the seventh seal, to the final consummation of all things. Footnote. Page 308, 399, 400, 401, 252-273, 274, 359, and 360. End of footnote. In brief, the chronological arrangement of the Archdeacon's Three Series is as follows. The first is that of the Six Seals, and it reaches from the Ascension of Our Lord to the Day of Judgment. The second is that of the Six Trumpets, introduced by and comprehended under the Seventh Seal, and it reaches from the Ascension of Our Lord to the termination of the 1260 years. The third is that of the seven vials, introduced by and comprehended under the seventh trumpet, and it reaches from the commencement of the times of the beast, or the 1260 years, to the day of judgment. Now it is impossible not to see that the whole of this arrangement is purely arbitrary. and consequently that the various interpretations built upon it must in a great measure be arbitrary likewise. The Apocalypse must either be one continued prophecy like each of those delivered by Daniel, in which case, with the single exception, as all commentators are agreed, of the episode contained in the little book, We must admit it, unless we be willing to give up all certainty of interpretation to be strictly chronological. Or it must be a book containing several perfectly distinct and detached prophecies, like the whole book of Daniel, each of which, for anything that appears to the contrary, might either exactly synchronize or not exactly synchronize with its fellows. If the former opinion be just, the Archdeacon's scheme immediately falls to the ground, for then all the seven trumpets must necessarily be posterior in point of time to the opening of all the seven seals, and in a similar manner all the seven seals to the sounding of all the seven trumpets. If the latter opinion be just, then the question is how are we to divide the apocalypse into distinct prophecies? The only system that to my own mind at least seems at all plausible would be to suppose that each of the three septenaries of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials forms a distinct prophecy. If we divide the Apocalypse at all, we must attend to the Apostle's own arrangement, and homogeneity plainly forbids us to separate the seals from the seals, the trumpets from the trumpets, or the vials from the vials. So again, this homogeneity requires us to attend to the Apostle's own arrangement in case of a division, It equally requires us to suppose that these three distinct prophecies exactly coincide with each other in point of chronology. Otherwise, what commentator shall pretend without any clue to guide him to determine the commencement of each? But the seals, as all agree, commence either from the ascension of our Lord, or at least from some era in the Apostle's own lifetime. Therefore, if we divide the Apocalypse, homogeneity requires us to conclude that the trumpets and the vials commence likewise from the same era. Accordingly, I have somewhere met with a commentator, whose work I have not at present by me and whose name I cannot recollect, that proceeds upon this very principle. He divides the Apocalypse into the three prophecies of the seals, the trumpets, and the vials, and supposes that all these prophecies run exactly parallel with each other, extending alike from the age of John to the end of the world. To this scheme, when examined in detail, the Archdeacon, as well as myself, will probably see insurmountable objections. Sir Isaac Newton adopts a somewhat different plan. He arranges all the seven trumpets under the seventh seal, and supposes them chronologically to succeed the six first seals, thus making the seals and the trumpets one continued prophecy. But when he arrives at the vials, he conceives them to be only the trumpets repeated, thus making the vials a detached prophecy synchronizing with the trumpets. Nothing can be more manifest in this plan than its arbitrary violation of homogeneity. What warrant can we have for asserting that the seals and the trumpets form jointly a continued prophecy, but that the vials form a distinct, separate prophecy, synchronizing with the part of the former prophecy which is comprehended under the trumpets? But if Sir Isaac violated homogeneity in his arrangement of the Apocalypse, much more surely does the Archdeacon for he not only separates the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet from their respective predecessors, but divides the apocalypse into three distinct prophecies, not one of which exactly synchronizes with another. A violation of homogeneity, however, is not the only objection to the Archdeacon's arrangement. It seems to me to involve in itself more than one obvious contradiction. For what reason is the seventh seal styled the seventh? The most natural answer is, because it succeeds the six first seals. Now according to the Archdeacon's arrangement, it does not succeed them. for the opening of it exactly synchronizes with the opening of the first, and therefore, of course, precedes the opening of the remaining five. Although the contents of the seventh seal itself are chronologically commensurate with the contents of all the other six, but if the opening of the seventh seal synchronized with the opening of the first, and therefore precede the opening of the remaining five, With what propriety can it be styled the seventh seal? The same remark applies to his arrangement of the trumpets. The first sounding of the seventh trumpet, which introduces the seven vials, exactly synchronizes the first sounding of the sixth, although in point of duration the seventh trumpet extends beyond the sixth. Such according to the Archdeacon being the case, why should one be termed the seventh rather than the other? The three last trumpets are moreover styled the three woes. How then can the seventh trumpet be the third woe if it, in a great measure, synchronized with the second woe? I am aware that the Archdeacon does not consider the seventh trumpet as being itself the third woe. but only as introducing at some period or other of it sounding that third row. Such a supposition, however, is forbidden by homogeneity. For since the 5th and the 6th trumpets manifestly introduce at their very earliest blast the 1st and 2nd woes, we seem bound to conclude that the 7th trumpet should similarly introduce at its earliest blast the 3rd woe. In this case, then, the 2nd and the 3rd woes exactly commence together. Whence we are compelled to inquire both why they should be styled 2nd and 3rd and what event or series of events is intended by the one and what by the other. Nor is even this the only difficulty. The seventh trumpet is represented as beginning to sound after the expiration of the second woe and is introducing quickly the third woe. is likewise represented as beginning to sound after the death and revival of the witnesses, which must take place either as me thinks, at the end of the 1260 years, or, as I am rather inclined to believe, toward the end of them. The Archdeacon himself thinks it most probable that these events are yet to come. Now in either of these cases, how can the seventh trumpet succeed the death and revival of the witnesses, if it began to sound at the very commencement of the 1260 years? That is to say, at the very commencement of their prophesying. Hitherto I have argued on the supposition that it is allowable to divide the apocalypse into distinct predictions. and have only attempted to show that it is next to impossible to fix upon any unobjectionable method of dividing it. I shall now proceed to maintain that the system of dividing it rests upon no solid foundation. If we carefully read the Apocalypse itself, we shall find no indications of any such division as that which forms the very basis of the Archdeacon's scheme of interpretation. John only specifies a single division of his subject, the greater book and the little book. This division therefore must be allowed, and accordingly has been allowed by perhaps every commentator. But the very circumstance of such a division being specified leads us almost necessarily to conclude that no other division was intended by the Apostle. For if it had been intended, why was it not similarly specified? The Archdeacon draws an analogical argument from the distinct prophecies of Daniel in favor of the system of dividing the Apocalypse. After treating of his first series, that of the first six seals, which he supposes to extend from the Ascension of Christ to the Day of Judgment, he adds, such appears to be the general outline of the Christian history. Many important intervals yet remain to be filled up under the seventh seal, which will be found to contain all the prophecies remaining, and by tracing the history over again to supply many events which were only touched upon before. This method, a divine prediction, presenting at first a general sketch or outline, and afterwards a more complete and finished coloring of events, is not peculiar to this prophetical book. It is a just observation of Sir Isaac Newton that the prophecies of Daniel are all of them related to each other and that every following prophecy adds something new to the former. We may add to this observation that the same empires in Daniel are represented by various types and symbols. The four parts of the image and the four beasts are varied symbols of the same empires. The bear and the he-goat in different visions represent the same original, and so do the ram and the leopard. We are not, therefore, to be surprised when we find the same history of the church beginning anew, and appearing under other, yet corresponding, types, thus filling up the outlines which have been traced before. Footnote, page 197. End of footnote. This analogical argument appears to me to be inconclusive on account of the defectiveness of parallelism between the manifestly distinct prophecies of Daniel and the only supposed distinct prophecies of John. who for instance can doubt even momentarily of the complete distinctness of the two visions of the image and the four beasts, although they plainly treat of the same four empires. The one is seen by Nebuchadnezzar, the other by Daniel himself. Hence the line of distinction is so indelibly drawn between them that we cannot for a moment suppose either that the feet of the image belongs to the prophecy of the four beasts or that the first beast belongs to the prophecy of the image. Much the same remark applies to the three chronological visions seen all by Daniel. He beheld that of the four beasts in the first year of Belshazzar, that of the ram and the he-goat in the third year of Belshazzar, after that which appeared unto him at the first, and that of the things noted in the scripture of truth in the third year of Cyrus. Thus it is plain that we can neither doubt the distinctness of these visions nor hesitate where to draw the line of distinction between them. But will anyone say that the same positive directions are given us for dividing the Apocalypse into distinct prophecies? The whole is evidently revealed to John in one single vision on one single Lord's Day and in one and the same Isle of Patmos. He does not exhibit himself, like Daniel, as awakening from one vision and afterwards at a considerable interval of time as beholding another. But he describes himself as seeing the whole at once, although the different objects which passed in review before him appeared sometimes to be stationed in heaven. sometimes to emerge out of the sea, sometimes to occupy the land, and sometimes to be placed in the wilderness. Such being the case, how can we fairly argue from the distinct visions of Daniel, each of which nearly repeats the same portion of history, that the Apocalypse ought likewise to be divided into distinct visions? And what commentator who proceeds upon this system can justly require us to accept his particular division of the book, a division which must be altogether arbitrary because unsanctioned by John? If the Apocalypse is to be divided, a point which can never be proved, and which indeed the whole structure of the book seems to me to disprove, How can the Archdeacon pronounce, with even an appearance of certainty, that he has discovered the proper mode of dividing it? When I am told that the first division comprehends the six first seals, the second division the six first trumpets, ushered in by the seventh seal, and the third division, the seven vials, ushered in, be the seventh trumpet. I feel myself walking on very unstable ground, for if the Apocalypse be divided at all, it seems unnatural to separate one seal and one trumpet from their respective fellows. But, even granting that the Apocalypse ought to be divided, and further granting that the Archdeacon's division is the right one, it still does not follow that his interpretation ought to be admitted. If the six first seals constitute the first series, what right have we to say that the second series introduced by the seventh seal chronologically commences from the self-same era as the first? If John himself had specified the Archdeacon's division and told us that his second vision commenced with the seventh seal, as the second historical vision recorded by Daniel commences with the winged lion, Should we, on that account, have any right to conclude that John's second vision ought to be computed from the same era as his first? Would it not, on the contrary, be more natural to suppose that, since his first vision was that of the six seals, and since his second vision was introduced by the seventh seal, the first chronologically succeeded the second, instead of commencing and running parallel with it? In fact, If we once allow the propriety of dividing the apocalypse, and of supposing that the first division is a sketch of what is more largely predicted under the second division, as the prophecy of the image in Daniel is a sketch of the prophecy of the four beasts, we seem to preclude the possibility of its ever being satisfactorily explained by an uninspired commentator. For, in this case, who is to divide it? And where shall we find any two expositors that write upon this plan who will agree in their mode of division? There is, for obvious reasons, no discrepancy between commentators in determining where each of Daniel's four prophecies both begins and ends. But can we expect the same freedom from discrepancy if they attempt to divide the apocalypse into distinct visions agreeably to the analogy of Daniel's predictions? On these grounds I feel myself compelled to adhere to the common opinion that the Apocalypse, with the already mentioned and universally allowed exception of the little book, is one continued vision, and if such an opinion be well founded, since the septenary of the trumpets and the septenary of the viols, each of these septenaries must, as Newton argues, chronologically precede the other. Whether we suppose the last seal absolutely to comprehend as well as to introduce the seven trumpets and the last trumpet in a similar manner the seven vials is of no great consequence so far as the chronological arrangement of the apocalypse is concerned. Though I think there is reason for admitting, with Newton, the propriety of such a supposition. For what does the seventh seal contain, unless we conceive it to contain the seven trumpets? And where shall we find the third bow announced under the seven trumpets, if we do not find under the seven vials those seven last plagues in which is filled up the wrath of God? But if once we adopt a belief of the continuity and indivisibility of the Apocalypse, always accepting the little book, it is plain that by far the greater part of the Archdeacon's interpretations cannot be admitted because they are founded upon its non-continuity and divisibility. 2. I shall now proceed to offer a few observations on some particular expositions of the Archdeacon. promising that it is not my intention to notice every little matter in which I happen to dissent from him. 1. His exposition of the first six seals I, of course, cannot admit, because, extending as it does from the ascension of our Lord to the Day of Judgment, it seems to me to militate against the whole chronology of the Apocalypse. Yet his principle of expounding the four first seals is so very satisfactory that I cannot but think it highly deserving of serious attention. And if I mistake not, the Archdeacon himself points out what is probably the right interpretation of them. Till now I never met with anything satisfactory on the subject, and I forbore to treat of it in my own dissertation both on that account and because it has no connection with the 1260 days to the consideration of which I was peculiarly directing my attention. Hence, I merely stated in a note that I could not believe, with Newton, that the rider on the white horse under the first seal could symbolize the age of Vespasian, because the homogeneity of the Apocalypse required us to suppose him the same as the rider on the white horse described in the nineteenth chapter. But that rider is plainly the Messiah. Hence I inferred with Mead that the other rider must be the Messiah likewise, and that his going forth conquering and to conquer denoted the rapid propagation of the gospel in the pure apostolical age. Yet, though I approve of Meade's interpretation of the first seal, I could not but see his inconsistency in referring the three riders and the three succeeding seals to classes of Roman emperors, for homogeneity, as the archdeacon very justly and forcibly argues, requires us to suppose that there must be some degree of analogy, some common bond of connection between all the four riders and all the four horses under the four first seals. Newton avoids the inconsistency of Mead by interpreting the four riders to denote four successive classes of Roman emperors. But then he equally, though in a different manner, violates homogeneity by teaching us that the rider on the white horse in the 19th chapter is Christ, but that the rider on the white horse of the first seal represents the age of Vespasian. I entirely agree with the Archdeacon that the 19th chapter must be our clue for interpreting the four first seals. And consequently, since the first seal must relate to the spiritual victories of Christ in the Apostolic Age, the three other seals must depict three successive states of the Church. These four periods the Archdeacon does not attempt precisely to divide from each other, observing both truly and beautifully that the progress of corruption was gradual. and that its tints melted into each other like the colors of the rainbow. The first period is that of primitive Christianity. The second is that of internal dissensions leading to bloodshed. The third is that of spiritual bondage and a death of religious knowledge. And the fourth is that of persecution. The Archdeacon thinks that the vengeful character of the Second Seal is to be distinctly in the 4th century, though its commencement may be fixed from the end of the 2nd century. That the abuses of the Third Seal did not arrive at their height till the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th centuries, though their origin may be traced so early as in the 2nd century. and that the persecution of the fourth, though it did not attain its utmost horror till the twelfth century, began in some measure under the influence of the second seal with the reign of Constantine, increased under that of Theodosius, and seems to have been in positive existence at least so far as edicts in favor of persecution are concerned under that of Honorius. The cry of the martyrs described in the fifth seal, he supposes to be the cry of those who have suffered in the cause of Christ, whether by the instrumentality of pagans or papists, and their cry is at length heard, and produces the opening of the sixth seal, which ushers in the awful day of general retribution. The archdeacon argues, and I think with much appearance of reason, that the rider of the third seal does not carry a pair of balances as we read in our common translation, but a yoke expressive of that spiritual bondage which commenced indeed in the second century, but was fully matured by the agents of potpourri, and agreeably to this exposition he conceives the dearth to be not a famine of bread nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. Let us now see whether an interpretation of the seals cannot be given founded upon the archdeacon's own principle of homogeneity, and yet according with what I believe to be the right chronological arrangement of the apocalypse. I am not aware that we are necessarily bound to suppose that each apocalyptic period terminates precisely when another commences. John indeed expressly tells us that the first woe ceases before the second begins, and that the second ceases before the third begins. Whence we must conclude that the three periods of the three last trumpets are not only successive, but that each entirely expires before the commencement of another. Respecting the duration of all the other periods, he is totally silent. Whence, although we are obliged to suppose some successive and point of commencement, it is by no means equally clear that we are obliged to look upon one as terminated when another begins. As far as induction goes, we may rather infer the contrary, for it seems needless for the Apostle so carefully to inform us that each woe terminates before its successor commences, as such were likewise the case with every other apocalyptic period. We may conclude then that the influence both of each seal and of each vial probably extends into the peculiar period of its successor. On these grounds, suppose we say with the Archdeacon that the first seal represents the age of primitive Christianity, that the second represents that of fiery zeal without knowledge, commencing towards the end of the second century, when the Western rulers of the Church and the wise and moderate Irenaeus were seen to interpose and exhort the furious Bishop of Rome to cultivate Christian peace. and extending so far as to include the schism of the Donatists and the bitter fruits of the Arian Controversy, and that the third represents that of spiritual bondage and religious thirst, which began, like its predecessor, in the second century, but extends through all the worst periods of potpourri. Suppose we further say, slightly varying from the Archdeacon, that the Fourth exhibits to us what may emphatically be termed the Age of Persecution, not indeed of persecution inflicted by the Church, but of persecution suffered by the Church. This may be conceived to commence about the year 302 or 304, with the dreadful and general persecution of Diocletian. Other persecutions, indeed, there had been before this, but none either of equal violence or of equal extent, none under which the Church could appear so emphatically subject to the powers of death and hell, none under which the slaughter was so great as to cause the symbolical horse to assume a hue pale and livid green, like that of a half-putrid corpse. There were other persecutions before, but this was by far the most considerable, the tenth and last general persecution, which was begun by Diocletian and continued by others, and lasted longer and extended farther and was sharper and more bloody than any or all preceding, and therefore this was particularly predicted. Eusebius and Lactantius, who were two eyewitnesses, have written large accounts of it. Orosius asserts that this persecution was longer and more cruel than all the past, for it raged incessantly for ten years by burning the churches, prescribing the innocent, and slaying the martyrs. Salpicius Severus, too, describes it as the most bitter persecution, which for ten years together depopulated the people of God. At which time all the world almost was stained with the sacred blood of the martyrs, and was never more exhausted by any wars. So that this became a memorable era to the Christians under the name of the Era of Diocletian, or as it is otherwise called the Era of Martyrs. Newton's dissertation on seal 5. End of footnote. The consequences both of all the other persecutions and we may suppose peculiarly of the Diocletian one are exhibited to us under the fifth seal. John beholds the souls of the martyrs under the altar and hears them crying with a loud voice for the just vengeance of heaven against the persecutors. Their prayer is heard and is in a measure answered under the sixth seal. Though it will not be completely answered until the great day of retribution, until their fellow servants also, and their brethren, that should be killed as they were in subsequent days of popish bigotry, should be fulfilled. The sixth seal is opened, and at the very time when the affairs of the Church appear at the lowest ebb, the reign of persecuting paganism is suddenly brought to an end. and Christianity is publicly embraced and supported by Constantine. This great revolution is portrayed indeed under images borrowed from the Day of Judgment. But although the Archdeacon applies the Sixth Seal literally to the Day of Judgment itself, he is too skillful a biblical critic not to know that the very images which it exhibits are repeatedly used by the ancient prophets, and even by our Lord Himself, to describe the fates of empires. The reason seems in some measure at least to be this. The downfall of any false religion or of any anti-Christian empire may be considered as an apt type of the last day when retribution will be fully dealt out to all the enemies of God." Footnote. C. Meade, Newton, and the Archdeacon. End of footnote. The first seal then exhibits the church of a spotless white color and under the influence of a heavenly rider. The second exhibits her of a red color and under the influence of a spirit of fiery zeal and internal discord. The third exhibits her as a change to black and beginning to be subjected to a grievous yoke of will worship and to experience the horror of a spiritual famine. The fourth exhibits her under the last and most dreadful persecution of paganism. as having assumed a livid, cadaverous hue, as bestridden by death and pursued by hell, as experiencing the excision of a fourth part of her members throughout the whole apocalyptic earth or the Roman Empire, and, we may add, as falling into danger of the second death through constrained apostasy. The fifth exhibits to us the souls of the martyrs, and represents their blood like that of Abel, as crying to God for vengeance upon their persecutors. And the sixth symbolically describes the overthrow of paganism and the establishment of Christianity. The seventh seal introduces the septenary of the trumpets. We are now arrived at the days of Constantine, but Paul had predicted that a great apostasy should take place, that a power which he styles the man of sin should be revealed, after he that led it, or the Western Roman Empire had been taken out of the way. In exact accordance with his prophecy of Paul, John proceeds to describe, under the four first trumpets, the removal of him that wedded, and then, at the sounding of the fifth, the great apostasy in both its branches commences in the selfsame year, and the man of sin is revealed. Such is the interpretation which I give of this part of the Apocalypse, and which appears to me to accord better with its probable chronological arrangement, than that brought forward by the Archdeacon. 2. After my general objections to the Archdeacon's arrangement, it may be almost superfluous to state that, if there be any cogency in those objections, his application of the fifth trumpet, or the first bow to the Gnostics, must be deemed inadmissible. Yet since he has objected to the common exposition of this trumpet as relating to the rise of Mohammedism and the ravages of the Saracens, it may be expedient to say a few words on the subject. The archdeacon supposes that the sixth trumpet or the second woe does not relate exclusively to the Turks as most modern commentators have imagined. but to all the professors of Mohammedism, Saracens as well as Turks, and consequently that it begins to sound in the year 606, whence the rise of Mohammedism is most properly dated. Such an exposition of the two first woes does not seem to me to accord with the Archdeacon's own very excellent principle of homogeneity. In addition to the fifth and sixth trumpets being alike styled rows, the prophecies contained under each of them bear a most striking resemblance to each other, insomuch that there is nothing else in the whole apocalypse that is at all similar either to the one or to the other of them. Yet besides their being represented as successive and as constituting two distinct roles, there is a sufficient degree of difference between them, to show plainly that they cannot relate precisely to the same people and the same event. Now independent of the Gnostics not harmonizing with the chronology, of the Apocalypse, if there be any force in my general objection, I cannot but think homogeneity violated by referring the one prophecy to the Gnostics and the other to the Mohammedans. There is a great difference between the actions of the Gnostics and the actions of the Mohammedans that the obvious similarity of the two predictions will warrant. and, at the same time, there is a less striking resemblance between their principles than the predictions seem to require. The actions of the Gnostics and the actions of the Mohammedans were totally unlike, and I can see no reason why the principles of the Gnostics should be thought to resemble those of the Mohammedans more than the principles of many other Christian heretics. But in the case of the Saracens and the Turks, we exactly find at once the required similarity and the required dissimilarity, and while homogeneity is thus preserved in violet, The chronology of the Apocalypse, supposing it to be as I have attempted to prove it to be, one continued vision, remains perfectly unbroken. With so much in favor of Mead's interpretation, I cannot feel my faith in it shaken by the Archdeacon's objections. I fully agree with him that the fallen star of the fifth trumpet cannot mean Mohammed. but this objection is removed by the interpretation which I have given of it. His three next objections do not seem to me insurmountable. The symbolical darkness of the fifth trumpet I do not conceive to mean the darkness of preceding heresies. It began to issue out of the bottomless pit, or hell, when the false prophet retired to the cave of Hera to vent his imposture. I cannot see why we are bound to conclude that the darkness must extend to the whole Christian world merely because it is said that the sun and the air were darkened, any more than we ought to suppose the whole natural world darkened because a great smoke darkened the sun and the air to the inhabitants of a particular country. The regions in which the Waldenses most flourished certainly did escape in a remarkable manner the incursions of the Saracens, and I think, with Newton, that this escape is a sufficient fulfillment of the prophecy. The fifth objection is invalid, supposing the prediction to relate to the Saracens in particular, and not to the Mohammedans in general. The Saracens indeed subsisted as a nation more than 150 years, just as the Gnostics continued as a sect more than 150 years, but they subsisted as an unsettled nation, answering to the character of a woe inflicted by Locusts exactly 150 years. In the sixth objection there is some weight, but I cannot allow it to counterbalance the arguments in favor of Mead's interpretation. In prophecies of validly descriptive, we not unfrequently meet with a mixture of the literal with the symbolical. Thus, in the final battle of Armageddon, if we compare the description of it with other parallel prophecies, Christ is probably a literal character, the kings of the earth and their armies are certainly literal characters, and the beast is just as certainly a symbolical character. Apply this remark to the Archdeacon's objection that commentators, in order to refer the fifth trumpet to the Saracens, sometimes expound it, literally and sometimes symbolically, and perhaps it may not be thought wholly unanswerable. footnote, page 249, 250, and 251. End of footnote. So again, whatever might have been the state of the Turkish nation before it is mentioned by John, it was certainly immediately before the period of its supposed introduction into the apocalypse divided into four sultanies. and those four Sultanies were seated upon the Euphrates, whereas the rise of Muhammadism from the cave of Hera in Arabia can by no ingenuity be transferred to the Euphrates. It is not sufficient to say that the Saracens were at a subsequent period seated upon the Euphrates. A prophecy relating to the rise of Muhammadism must commence from Arabia. Footnote, page 271. End of footnote. With regard to the propriety of considering the Saracens and the Turks as woes, the Archdeacon cannot object to it even according to his own definition of a woe. Footnote, preface, page 17. End of footnote. For surely the rapid propagation of Muhammadism by the Saracens and its establishment by the Turks may well be considered as two heavy woes to the Christian Church, especially if we take into account the contemporary rise and establishment of the Western apostasy. On the same ground, neither can he object to the interpretation which I have given of the third woe, as ushering in the open development of French atheism and anarchy. But I much doubt whether his idea of the three apocalyptic woes be perfectly accurate. They are woes to the inhabitants of the earth. Footnote. Revelation 8.13. End of footnote. But the inhabitants of the earth are not the pure church, but the idolatrous inhabitants of the Roman Empire. Accordingly, all the woes supposing the seven viles to constitute jointly the third woe are represented as punishments afflicted both upon the Eastern and Western Romans." Footnote, Revelation 9, 4, 20 and 21. 5, 15, and 18. 16, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, and 19. End of footnote. The sense which the Archdeacon affixes to the apocalyptic earth, or as he sometimes translates the original word, land, is irreconcilably with many passages wherein that symbol is introduced. Footnote. Compare the Archdeacon page 210 and 211 with Revelation 13, 8, 12 and 14. End of footnote. Therefore I consider it as untenable. And I think his definition of the apocalyptic sea to be equally untenable, and for the same reason. Footnote. Page 211. End of footnote. 3. The Archdeacon supposes the women described in the twelfth chapter to denote the Church, not merely while Christian, but from the very earliest ages, and he conceives the man-child to be the literal Messiah, with whom the church had been travailing in earnest expectation through a long series of years. The war in heaven he likewise understands literally, and believes it to relate to the expulsion of Satan and his apostate angels, not indeed that he supposes a battle to have been actually fought, but he refers this part of the Apocalypse to the same conflict as that alluded to in Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2.4. It is obvious that this scheme is liable to much the same objections as those which I have already induced against the schemes of Mead and Newton. The whole of the little book as itself repeatedly testifies treats of the 1260 years This is so manifest that all commentators who depart from such an opinion are obliged to have recourse to the most arbitrary glosses upon the text. Newton accordingly asserts that the flight of the woman into the wilderness mentioned in the sixth verse is introduced proleptically because it was posterior in point of time to the events which he supposes to be intended by the war in heaven. The Archdeacon, in a somewhat similar manner, would throw the whole of that word into a parenthesis, in order that he may be at liberty to apply it to the expulsion of the devil and his angels from heaven. After carefully reading, however, all that the Bishop and the Archdeacon have said in favor of their respective schemes, and after attentively considering the structure of the little book, I cannot think that either the prolepsis or the parenthesis are at all warranted by the general tenor of the prophecy. And to myself it certainly appears a complete breach of chronological precision to suppose that in the very midst of an insulated prediction, severed by the Apostle himself from his larger prediction, which professes the treat of the 1260 years, we should be suddenly carried back either to the age of primitive Christianity, the age of Constantine, or a period preceding the very creation of the world. Nor is this the only objection to the Archdeacon's exposition. It contains likewise a violation of homogeneity. The woman is said to be in the same heaven as the dragon, but by that heaven the Archdeacon understands the literal heaven, out of which the apostate angels were cast. The woman therefore must have been in the literal heaven. But when was the church from the time of Adam, down to the present time, whether patriarchal, levitical, or Christian, in the literal heaven from which the devil was expelled? I have already mentioned the agreement between the Archdeacon and myself that the first apocalyptic beast in the Roman Empire and the same as Daniel's fourth beast, not as some have supposed, the Papacy, and the same as the little horn of Daniel's beast. The Archdeacon indeed may perhaps be thought by some needlessly too refined on the subject. Footnote. See page 329 to 335, 421 to 425, and 436. End of footnote. Yet his opinion of this beast is substantially the same as my own. To his remarks, however, on the seventh and the eighth forms of Roman government, I can by no means subscribe. He concedes the 7th to be the Exarchate of Ravina, and the 8th, unless I altogether mistake his meaning, to be a compound of all the Popish sovereigns, a college, if I may so speak, of all the Ten Horns. Footnote, page 431 and 432. End of footnote. As I have in the body of my work given my reasons very abundantly why I cannot allow the exegete of Ravina to be the seventh head, I shall confine myself to some observations on the archdeacon's opinion of the eighth. The first objection to it is obviously that it confounds the members of the beast, making his ten horns the same as his last head. The next is that this apparently distinct eighth head is to be one of the preceding seven, so that the beast has really only seven, though it may seem upon a superficial view of his history to have eight. With which of his seven predecessors can this supposed collegiate regal head be identified? The last is that the eighth head of the beast is represented as something perfectly distinct from the kings seated within his empire. Although it manifestly influences their actions, we read that the beast is to go into perdition while subsisting under his eighth form of government. Now if we turn to the passage where his prediction is described, we find him heading a confederacy of those very kings whom the Archdeacon conceives jointly to constitute his last head. Footnote, Revelation 16, 13 and 14, 19, 19. End of footnote. 5. Though I quite agree with the archdeacon that the low horn of Daniel's fourth beast was generally considered as the same as the second apocalyptic beast or the false prophet, yet if we descend to the particulars I am unable to ascend to his exposition of these kindred symbols. He thinks that the second apocalyptic beast represents the whole of the great apostasy, and that his two horns denote one the papacy and the other Muhammadism. Footnote page 256 through 374. End of footnote. It is somewhat remarkable that I had once in the course of my study of the Revelation fallen upon the very same opinion, but it is liable to what appears to myself insuperable objections. of the second apocalyptic beast, strict unity of action is predicted. But it is natural to suppose that if his two horns had been designed to represent two such distinct powers as Popery and Muhammadism, a separate set of actions would have been ascribed to each, as there are, for instance, to the two little horns described by Daniel. And, what is perhaps more strictly analogical to the several horns and the little horn of Daniel's fourth beast, The second apocalyptic beast makes his appearance in the little book, which, according to the Archdeacon himself, footnote page 277, 278, and 279, end of footnote, peculiarly relates to the other anti-Christian usurpation, as contra-distinguished from the already predicted Mohammedan usurpation, and of which the Western nations of the Gentiles are to be the object. Surely then, if we would be consistent in our expositions, we cannot expect to find in the little book any mention of Mohammedism. The second apocalyptic beast is represented as being one false prophet, or what amounts to the same thing. One body of personal false prophets. Now when we consider the nature of what many properly terms the counter elements, footnote, Greek words, end of footnote, of the apocalypse, and when we find that the true prophets of God are said to be two in number, we can scarcely conceive that the counter element to the two true prophets would have been one false prophet, when so fair an opportunity was presented of producing a perfect counter-element by exhibiting two false prophets, namely, potpourri and Mohammedism. One false prophet, however, is alone mentioned, once it seems most natural to conclude that one power is alone intended. The power which the second beast exercises under the protection of the first is among other particulars as the Archdeacon himself allows. Footnote, page 350 and 351. End of footnote. Idolatrous, and if the exposition which Dr. Zouch and myself give of the image set up by him be just, it is idolatrously persecuting. The disciples of Mohammed have ever warmly protested against idolatry, and have repeatedly charged the Papist with being guilty of it. The second beast is represented as very closely connected with the first, and is exercising his authority under his immediate sanction. This perfectly accords with Popery, and, but by no means, so with Mohammedism. which has ever been in direct opposition to the Papal Roman Empire, and against which repeated crusades have been undertaken. The second beast is allowed by the archdeacon to be the same as the little horn of Daniel's fourth beast. Therefore, the little horn must, according to his scheme, typify at once both potpourri and Mohammedanism." Footnote, page 350 through 357. End of footnote. But what is there in the character of this little horn which can reasonably induce us to suppose that it denotes two entirely distinct religious powers? All the other horns of all the other beasts represent each a single power. Homogeneity therefore forbids us to suppose that it alone represents two. Its actions equally forbid such a supposition. Like those of the second apocalyptic beast, they are strictly the actions of one. The low horn, for instance, subverts three of the other horns. Popery and Muhammadism cannot both subvert the self-same three horns. And if they had each subverted three, then their common symbol, the low horn, would have subverted six. But Mohammedanism never subverted any three and the low horn does not subvert three. Therefore Mohammedanism can have no connection with the low horn. The truth of these observations will yet further appear if we consider the character of the mystic apocalyptic harlot. This character is so strongly drawn that the archdeacon cannot but confine it to the papal apostasy. Hence, in order to preserve consistency, he is obliged to say that the harlot is not absolutely the same as the second beast or the false prophet, but only as one of his two horns. Yet to any unprejudiced reader, the harlot must appear to perform exactly the same part to the ten-horned beast described in the seventeenth chapter that the second beast does to the ten-horned beast in the thirteenth chapter, and the little horn to the ten-horned beast in the seventh chapter of Daniel. The archdeacon indeed himself both draws out in three columns the parallelism of the little horn, the second apocalyptic beast, and the man of sin. And elsewhere parallelizes in two columns the false prophet or the second apocalyptic beast and the harlot. Footnote. Page 354 and 423. End of footnote. What then can we conclude but that all three denote one and the same power, whatever that may be? And consequently, since the harlot and the man of sin are exclusively the papal power, then both the others must be exclusively the papal power likewise. Before this subject is altogether dismissed, I must remark that the Archdeacon has adduced some very forcible arguments to prove that the second apocalyptic beast cannot denote, as it hath recently been conjectured, the infidel democratic power of France. He seems to me likewise to describe most justly the motives of the kings in stripping the harlot. This hostility between the kings and the harlot, says he, does not seem to proceed from any virtue in them, but from worldly avarice and ambition. They covet her power and her riches, and this change in their conduct seems to take place from the time when they awake from their intoxication. They who had been the means of exalting the harlot became the instruments of her fall." Footnote, page 433. And a footnote. The Archdeacon, I am persuaded, will not be offended at the freedom of these remarks. If we be rapidly approaching to the time of the end, as there is abundant reason to believe that we are, we certainly ought to redouble our caution in admitting any exposition of prophecy which will not stand the test of the strictest examination. It is by the running to and fro of many that knowledge is increased, and every person that attempts to unfold the sacred oracles of God ought not only to expect but to desire that his writings should be even severely scrutinized. He may indeed fairly demand that he should be treated with civility, But, while he depreciates the offensive illiberality of sarcasm and the disgusting coarseness of vulgar scurrility, by some esteem the very acme of wit and perfection of criticism, he ought never to shrink from the manly sincerity of calm and dispassionate investigation. I cannot conclude with greater propriety than in the words of the Archdeacon himself. Truth in this important research is, I hope, as it ought to be, my principal concern, and I shall rejoice to see these sacred prophecies truly interpreted, though the correction of my mistakes should lay the foundation of so desirable a superstructure. Footnote. Preface, page 20. End of footnote. End of quote. The following excerpt on Islam and Revelation is taken from Lectures upon the Principal Prophecies of the Revelation, 1814 by Alexander Malloud, pages 147 to 163. The Two Woe Trumpets, Lecture 6 Revelation 9 And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth, and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were darkened by the reason of the smoke of the pit, and there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. The religion taught by the Son of God For our salvation hath two great and distinguishing qualities, truth of doctrine and pure morality, affecting both the understanding and the heart of man with that invisible power which produces real piety. It makes itself externally evident in the profession of an orthodox faith and in a deportment truly moral. When either of these, when either truth or holiness is absolutely wanting, we do not merely suspect the absence of piety, but we are certain that it does not exist. Divine revelation assures us that Christians are all children of light and are also sanctified. By works without faith it is impossible to please God, and faith without works is dead. If this, brethren, be a correct representation of Christianity, it is easy to observe the certain evidences of its decline. The departure of God and of true religion from among a professing people is indicated by a growing deficiency in orthodoxy and virtue. or in either of the two, and although it may indeed commence with any one of them, it will certainly in a short time, if a reformation do not prevent it, extend also to the other, and accordingly affect them both. Will be unto that people who do not resist the introduction of error with alacrity, and who do not promptly express their detestation at the impure behavior of professed Christians. Such was the condition of the Catholic Church during the period of the apocalyptical trumpets, particularly that of the last three at the close of the preceding chapter called the woe trumpets. And I beheld and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound. We have in this chapter the prophetic history of the last part of the second period, including two of the world trumpets being the fifth and the sixth. I shall lay before you what appears to me to be the correct interpretation of each of these two and conclude my discourse with practical reflections. We have, in the last lecture, given a short account of the state of the Fourth Great Kingdom of the Earth from the time of Constantine to the dismemberment of the Western Empire of the Caesars into several independent kingdoms. Then, according to the predictions of Daniel, this beast displayed his 10 distinct toes or horns, and according to the Apocalypse, the beast with 7 heads and 10 horns was about to be fully revealed. Had it been the design of prophecy to pursue this subject in precise chronological order, limiting its remarks by the destinies of the Western Empire, we should now of course pass on to the contemplation of the man of sin, and to the events of that period which includes the reign and fall of Antichrist. We should in that case have entered upon the period of the vials, the first four of which immediately refer to the state of things produced by the four apocalyptic trumpets already expounded. This could not, however, be done with consistency. The grand design of exhibiting the state of the moral world as affected by or affecting the social concerns of the Christian religion renders it necessary that the line of chronological order be in the first instance followed from the fourth trumpet to the Eastern Roman Empire. At this period, it was more interesting to the Church of God to know the condition of the East because the Emperor of the East was still the principal power, and because more learning and science, and probably more of the members of the Church, were found at that age beyond the boundaries of the Western Empire. In process of time indeed it became otherwise, and of course we find that after this period comparatively little notice is bestowed in prophecy upon either the Greek churches or the nations in which they are established. The period of the trumpets is that of the Christian Empire, and after the events of the fourth had utterly demolished the political heavens of the Western system, It was proper under the fifth trumpet to exhibit the condition of the eastern third of the world. The trumpets must, of course, unfold the scenes which completely overturned the whole Christian empire. It was about the middle of the sixth century that the judgment announced by the fourth trumpet had pronounced the obscuration of the political rights of ancient Rome. And from this event we are to turn our attention, during the remainder of the period of the trumpets, to the state of the moral world in those regions over which the emperors of Constantinople claimed the supreme power, until we shall witness the overthrow of this last representative of the Caesars. To such concerns the two trumpets before us have reference. We shall give the interpretation of each. Trumpet 5 being the first row trumpet, verses 1 through 11. And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star far from heaven unto the earth. And to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace. And the sun and the air were darkened by the rising of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. And unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months, and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the shapes of the locusts will liken to horses prepared unto battle. And on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of a woman, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates as it were breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails, and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. We have already assigned our reasons for weighing the scene of these events in the Eastern Empire, and the interpretation must proceed accordingly. In the progress of my exposition, abundant external evidence will be furnished by the prophecy itself, which, independently of the introductory argument, would prove that we have not misunderstood the scene of the vision. The sounding of this full trumpet announces an approaching judgment and a hieroglyphical representation of the peculiar agents and events is immediately made to the Apostle and by him communicated to the Church. The principal objects of attention to the expository in this representation are the fallen star opening the pit, the locust issuing from the smoke of the pit, the depredations which they committed, and the time of their depredations. 1. The Fallen Star. This symbol has been already explained. Footnote, page 136. End of footnote. A star falling from heaven to earth signifies either a civil or theological character degraded from the political or ecclesiastical heavens. I cannot, therefore, conceive of a greater perversion of figurative language than to apply it with Dr. Johnston to the exaltation of Pope Boniface III, to the bad eminence of universal bishop by the emperor. The application of it to Mohammed, whether considered in the light of the founder of a religion or the head of an army, is also incorrect. Not degradation, but elevation and success, characterized this eminent imposter. He never fraud from either an ecclesiastical or political heaven. The contrary of being a fallen star was the case both with the Eastern imposter and with the Pope of Rome. They rose from obscurity to eminence. This fallen star, with a key bestowed on him, opened the bottomless pit. In the providence of God, he is permitted to promote the purposes of fallen angels. Instantly a smoke ascends from the pit, the place of impiety and suffering, that obscures the sun and the air. Truth is light, error is darkness. A system of misrepresentation and falsehood originating from the father of lies and deceiver of the nations is the smoke of the pit by which the sun and the air were darkened. Footnote. By smoke in the figurative language of scripture are denoted dark, confused doctrines clouding the light of pure revelation. Woodhouse, page 261. End of footnote. Such are the doctrines of the Quran. The fallen star is, in plain terms, a degraded man, who is instrumental in contriving a system of delusion of which hell approves, and by which moral darkness is spread abroad among the nations. The description suits the monk Sergius. We shall, as yet, only name this man, and proceed. 2. To take a view of the locus, issuing from the smoke of the pit. Their appearance is formidable in a high degree. They are compared to a troop of horses prepared for the battle. Adorned with crowns, with a manly countenance, with effeminate ornaments, as the hair of women, with breastplates of iron, with scorpion stings, the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots, and they had the teeth of lions to devour their prey. The natural locusts are flying insects, very destructive to the fruits of the earth. They abound in Asia and sometimes fly in astounding multitudes, like an immense cloud which darkens the air, threatening destruction wherever they light. They constituted one of the plagues of Egypt, Exodus 10, 14-19, and are used by the prophets as the symbol of a destroying army, Joel 1, 4 and 2, 4-6. The symbolical locusts, under consideration, issued from the figurative smoke, that is, were excited to their destructive excursions by hellish delusions. We are therefore to look for the fulfillment of this prophecy to some fierce and barbarous people who appear after the close of the 6th century in the Eastern Empire, influenced to cruel warfare in immense multitudes, under the auspices of a system of false doctrines contrived by the instrumentality of some fallen star. The history of Arabia, the natural seat of the locusts, furnishes the interpretation of the prophecy in the conduct of the Saracens. 3. The locusts had a king over them. He was a messenger of hell, the angel of the bottomless pit. His name is Abaddon, or Apollyon. Both these words signify a destroyer. This king is the personage who acts as chief over the destroying armies, who are committed in the providence of God to inflict judgments upon the Eastern Roman Empire. 4. The power with which this new foe is invested appears to be placed under restrictions. The depredations of locusts are limited to that class of people who have not the seal of God on their foreheads. They are confined to those nations and people who either oppose the Christian religion or made a profession of it without receiving its truth or experiencing its living power. True Christians are to have remarkable protection. Please continue listening on tape number 5. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. You are welcome to make copies and give them to those in need. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. It is likely that the sermon or book that you just listened to is also available on cassette or video, or as a printed book or booklet. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reformed books, tapes, and videos at great discounts is on the web at www.swrb.com. It can also be reached by email at swrb at swrb.com, by phone at 780-450-3730, by fax at 780-468-1096 or by mail at 4710-37A Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L 3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship, or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship, commenting on the words of God, which I commanded them not, neither came into my heart. From his commentary on Jeremiah 731, writes, God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions, since he condemns by this one phrase, I have not commanded them, whatever the Jews devised. There is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions than that they are not commanded by God. For when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies, and attend not to His commands, they pervert true religion. And if this principle was adopted by the Papists, all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground. It is indeed a horrible thing for the Papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions. There is an immense number of them, as it is well known, and as it manifestly appears. Were they to admit this principle, that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying His word, they would be delivered from their deep abyss of error. The prophet's words, then, are very important, when he says that God had commanded no such thing, and that it never came to his mind, as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required, nay, what he never knew.