sun shall be obscured in his rising, and the moon shall not give her light." And in another passage he says, "The moon shall blush, and the sun shall be ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in mount Sion, and before his ancients, gloriously '."

The heaven, earth, and stars, betoken as we shall afterwards see, the various parts of the kingdoms of this world. As the Lord says to the Israelites "I am the Lord thy God, who divided the sea," &c.—" And I put My words in thy mouth, (that is, I gave thee My law,) and I covered thee with the shadow of My hand, that I might plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth"-i. e. that I might appoint thee a kingdom, or political constitution. Heaven, according to this image, will signify whatever is eminent in the extent of any kingdom, earth, on the contrary, its basis or foundation; the sun, the chief majesty; the moon, the second; the stars, the nobility.

In the present vision the sun may justly represent the dragon, or Satan; who is otherwise called the seven-headed red dragon; the moon, the supreme pontificate, established under him, which was annexed to the imperatorial dignity; the stars, the Roman deities, with their priests.

1 Isai. xxiv.

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These were darkened and hurled from their places, when the Roman emperors, having at their baptism abjured Satan and his angels, and pomps and worship, dedicated themselves to Christ the Sun of Righteousness. The office of Pontifex Maximus was rejected by Constantine, Constantius, Valentinian and Valens. The name, however, was retained for a time, and inscribed among their titles, and Gratian was the first who refused it. But it was not effectually abandoned till Theodosius the First, that destroyer of heathenism, took away the pontifical college, with the whole remaining crowd of priests, and confiscated all their revenues to the treasury. With reference to this fall of the stars, the Holy Spirit says in Isaiah', speaking of the ruin of the kingdom of Edom, likewise a kingdom of idols; “The heavens shall be rolled up as a book, and the whole host of them (that is the stars,) shall fall as a leaf from the vine, and a deciduous fruitling from the fig-tree; so that Scripture, compared with itself, gives a clear interpretation of the meaning of these prophetical images. The gods of the heathen are also generally spoken of in sacred writ as the host of heaven. The mountains and islands next mentioned, as removed out of their places, probably allude to

Isai. xxxiv. 4.

the temples and shrines of idols, erected in high places. These were finally removed by the same Theodosius. The temples had been only shut up by Constantine, except at Constantinople, where they were destroyed; and Julian opened them again for a time, but Theodosius utterly demolished them. Then was the time when the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and every slave, and every freeman; including Maximian, Galerius, Maxentius, Maximin, Sicinius, Julian, and others, found their efforts ineffectual in defending the cause of their gods, and the religion of their forefathers, and in attempting to restore them when overthrown; being baffled, routed, and overcome. with all their forces, they fled in despair from the wrath of the Lamb, and cried on the mountains to fall on them, and on the rocks to cover them. For they say in truth— the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand? All those who contended with the standard-bearers of Christ felt this conviction, but Galerius, Maximin, and Licinius confessed it.

Though the meaning of the different images may in general be aptly and satisfactorily explained by reference to other passages in the prophetic Scriptures, yet Mede has referred like

diers when crowned and unarmed, having broken the amicable engagement which he had previously made with them.

We come now to the pestilence, or death, as it is called; and so it is generally denominated in the oriental language, since the Chaldee paraphrase for the Hebrew word pestilence generally substitutes death, and the Hellenists usually translate it @ávaros. In a similar meaning it is called mortality among us, as the cause of numerous and rapid deaths. It is stated as matter of history by Zonaras, that in the times of Gallus and Volusianus, a pestilence arising from Ethiopia pervaded all the Roman provinces, and for fifteen successive years exhausted them in an incredible manner. It has been remarked too by a later writer, that he never read of a more grievous plague. Orosius observes that the pestilence did not extend itself farther than the edicts of Decius went for the destruction of the Churches. Among the four sore evils which were suffered at this time to pervade a part of the Roman empire, and the catalogue of which is taken from Ezekiel, namely, sword, famine, pestilence, and wild beasts, famine remains to be enumerated. And it would be obvious to human reason, without historical statement, that at a time when the Scythians were laying waste the empire; when almost all the cities without walls

were taken, it was impossible that the fields should not be left without culture, and that the usual stores of food should not be destroyed. And Dionysius of Alexandria bears testimony to the prevalence of famine at this period. "After the persecution of Decius," says he, (he means that which preceded the pestilence,)

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war and famine followed, which we sustained as well as the Heathen."

The last in this tetrarchy of calamities is the irruption of wild beasts; and this likewise, when the country had been deprived of inhabitants, might naturally be expected. Testimony is borne to this too by contemporary writers, who state that five hundred wolves entered a city which was despoiled of its inhabitants, and in which the younger Maximin chanced to be.

I cannot conclude this portion of the Revelation without remarking, with Bishop Newton, how appropriate the circumstances related are to the living beings (or beasts, as they are called in our translation,) who preside over the first four seals. The lion denoting power and victory; the ox slaughter; the man a care for provisions which are intended for the sustenance of man; and the eagle those carcases which must have been left when a fourth part of the earth was destroyed by the sword, and with famine, and pestilence, and the beasts of the earth.