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And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand and I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breast-plates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions, and out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone. By these three, was the third part of men killed; by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt. And the rest of the men, which were not killed by these plagues, yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk. Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts."

It is seen by comparing verse 12. with Rev. xi. 13. that a much greater length of time was to intervene between the first and the second, than between the second and the third woe. The plague of the Mahometan locusts was accordingly exhausted in about an hundred and fifty years; and, for a very considerable period, they remained quiet in the countries in which they had established themselves; and, contented with the peaceable occupation of them, they gave little serious disturbance to their Christian neighbours. But the remnant of the Greek church having at length filled up the measure of its abominations,

another scourge was appointed, as a judgment upon these transgressors. The command accordingly was given to loose the four messengers of wrath, who were bound at the great river Euphrates, επι τω ποταμω; and who were prepared for an appointed time, that is, for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year,-which, if calculated as a prophetical period, amounts to 391 years and 15 days. These messengers were not to torment like the locusts, but to slay, and to destroy the third part of men and they were exemplified and fulfilled in the four Turkish Sultanies, which for many years were locked up and restrained within their own lands, on the other side of the river Euphrates, chiefly by reason of the crusades of the XIth. XIIth. and XIIIth. centuries. The crusaders abandoned their conquests in the latter part of the XIIIth. century, and then the four messengers or angels were loosed. In the year 1281, the Othman power, springing up from the four Turkish Sultanies, commenced its career of conquest over Christendom. The city of Kutahi

fell first in that year, before the arms of Ostogrul, the father of Othman. In the year 1672, being 391 years afterwards, Cameniec was taken from the Poles, and forty-eight towns and villages belonging to its territory, were delivered up to the Sultan Mahommed the IVth. by the treaty of peace. And Prince Can

temir, in his History of the Othman Empire, remarks, that this was the last victory by which any advantage accrued to that state, or any city or province was added to the ancient boundaries of the empire. The four messengers of wrath, like the Mahometan locusts, are described as being very powerful in horsemen. Such was the character of the Othman armies. The fire, jacinth, and brimstone which marked their breast-plates, may allude to the colours by which their standards, and their apparel were distinguished-scarlet, blue, and yellow. And the fire, smoke, and brimstone from out of their mouths, may possibly allude to the use of gunpowder, then first introduced in warfare; and to their numerous train of artillery of enormous size, which was of peculiar service to them in their conquests. Their tails, like unto serpents, had heads with which they do hurt : and this feature again corresponds with the Mahometan locusts, and seems to allude to the false religion, which they every where imposed upon those whom they subbued; for wherever their arms extended, there also must Mahometanism be established. But, although the Greek empire was thus brought to ruin, and her ecclesiastical power overthrown, the rest of men or Latin church, which was not destroyed by these plagues, was in no wise reclaimed from its

idolatries; and it will be seen, as the subject proceeds, that men still pursued their abominations, undisturbed by the awful lesson which was before their eyes; fulfilling the words of the prophecies, which are to be examined in the progress of this inquiry.

CHAP. XVIII.

Prophecy of the Trumpets continued-The Two Witnesses in Sackcloth.-Rev. x.

The tenth chapter of the Apocalypse proceeds to another subject, which is interwoven with the trumpets; and it introduces the two witnesses of God, ordained to stand up in sackcloth, to proclaim his truth before men during the times of Papal darkness. It has been already intimated at page 153, who these two witnesses are; and this will appear yet more plainly, by tracing the circumstances which are detailed.

Rev. x. 1-7. 66 And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was, as it were, the sun; and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book, open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, and cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth; and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write; and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea, and upon the earth, lifted up to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who

his hand

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