The angels, appointed to "manifest the judgments of God," by punishing the persecutors, now come forth. They are in the garb of Christ, the priest of his people.* The temple is filled with the smoke of the divine wratht, for judgments are to be done, with which no man can intervene. One of the "living creatures," the special emblems of Providence in the government of the Church, delivers the cups of wrath to the angels, and they are commanded by the voice of God himself, to go forth and execute his anger.

THE FIRST TRUMPET. Chap. viii.

PROPHECY.

Ver. 7. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt

up.

THE FIRST VIAL. Chap. xvi.

Ver. 2. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

INTERPRETATION.

The first Trumpet predicts a long and peculiarly ruinous state of war, designated by the destruction of the products of the soil, great and small alike; the land is covered with sterility and massacre.

The first Vial predicts a great pestilence at the same time sweeping the popish world.

It is to be remarked that the first four Trumpets are declaredly inferior in importance, as they obviously are in extent of description, to the last three, which are specially named "the three, wOES," and are an

† Apoc. i. 14.

* Isaiah vi. 4.-Exod. xix. 13, &c.

nounced by a peculiar minister of Providence "flying through the midst of heaven," and crying "with a loud voice to the inhabiters of the earth;" expressions implying the paramount extent, and havoc, of the three final inflictions.

HISTORY.

A. D. 1229. The reformers in the south of France after having undergone a furious persecution, were now respited from the immediate pursuit of fire and sword; the Provençal war had ceased. As a power the Albigenses had been vanquished; but, as a church, they had conquered. They had preserved the faith, had extended it through Europe, and had made it conspicuous even by their sufferings. The Reformation was fully commenced. The Church of Christ, for the first time since the assumption of the papal supremacy, had taken that visible form, which has never been extinguished. Yet it was still to be a victim; its sea of glass" was to be still "mingled with fire."

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The defeat of the Albigenses, and the establishment of the Inquisition, placed the popedom within view of all the objects of its ambition. But, while the blood of the saints was scarcely dried upon the ground, their cause was solemnly avenged.

A. D. 1303. Rome had slain the Reformers by the sword of France, she was now to be punished by that sword. A quarrel arose touching the supremacy. Pope Boniface the VIIIth was suddenly attacked, was made prisoner, and died of the insult. The popedom was trampled under the foot of the French king. Rome was deprived of the papal throne; and the popes were held in the chains of France during a memorable exile at Avignon, a captivity of seventy

years.

The "seat of the beast" had now been made desolate. But it was to be visited with still more direct

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evil. The "Great western schism" began; rival popes contested the throne; the Guelphs and Ghibelines rose again; and Italy was one vast scene of profligate conspiracy and ruinous battle. "This dissension," says the historian, was fomented with dreadful success. For the space of fifty years the Romish Church had two or three different heads at the same time; each of the contending popes forming plots and thundering out anathemas against his competitors. The distress and calamity of those times is beyond all power of description." The trumpet had sounded sternly against Rome.

A. D. 1340. The infliction was now to fall on the instrument of papal persecution. The slaughter of the Reformed in the south of France has been computed at a million of lives. The avenger that had laid Italy waste; that had "burned up" alike the "tree and the grass," and filled the land with "fire mingled with blood, was civil war. The avenger that was to make a desert of France was invasion. The minister summoned for this act of justice was England. The famous wars of the Edwards and Henries began. The conflict was all but utter ruin. Her king captive, her nobility cut off in the three fatal battles of Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, an English king master of her throne; France was smitten with the deadliest infliction that the modern world had witnessed. "No war had broken out in Europe, since the fall of the Roman empire, so memorable as that of Edward the Third, and his successors against France; whether we consider its duration, its object, or the magnitude and variety of its events. It was a struggle of one hundred and twenty years, interrupted but once by a regular pacification."t

An additional evidence determines the application

* Mosheim, Cen. xiv.

† Hallam, Middle Ages, Vol. I. p. 69. 8vo.

of the "First Trumpet" to this period. An event of the deepest terror fixes the æra. The contemporaneous "Vial" had predicted a pestilence. Italy was still bleeding with civil wounds, and France struggling with the overmastering strength of England, when the prediction was made true.

In 1348 a pestilence, "the most extensive and unsparing, of which we have any memorial, visited France as well as the rest of Europe, and consummated the work of hunger and the sword."*

This tremendous calamity had begun in Asia two years before. It spread through Italy; and crossing the Alps wasted France; in Paris five hundred died in a day. It continued in Europe until 1350, destroying literally a third of the population.

THE SECOND TRUMPET. Chap. viii.

Ver. 8. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood:

9. And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.

THE SECOND VIAL, Chap. xvi.

Ver. 3. And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

INTERPRETATION.

The second infliction falls upon some naval power. There is a vast destruction of ships and men. The destruction is as sudden and striking as the plunge of a volcano into the ocean.

* Hallam, Middle Ages, Vol. I. p. 78.

HISTORY.

A. D. 1588. The Inquisition had been adopted in Spain, in 1232, and had continued to persecute with signal ferocity. The power of Spain was now marshalled against England for the express ruin of Protestantism. The Armada was the floating army of Persecution. It came with Inquisitors, racks and chains on board. All Europe looked on the downfall. of the Church in England as inevitable. In three days this mightiest of all armaments was ruined; part burned by fire-ships, part sunk or captured by the English fleet, part buried in the ocean. Of one hundred and thirty "great ships of war," but a remnant returned to Spain. All invasion was thenceforth extinguished, and Spain received a blow which was the beginning of her decline.

Of a destruction, complete and terrible as this, by the mingled fury of fire, sword, and storm, perhaps imagination could shape no truer emblem than the plunge of a flaming mountain into the waters. He who has seen even a single ship on fire, and, as it burns, going down, will feel the force of this most natural and powerful image.

THE THIRD TRUMPET. Chap. viii.

Ver. 10. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;

11. And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

THE THIRD VIAL. Chap. xvi.

Ver. 4. And the third angel poured out his Vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

5. And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.