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Ancient Heresies generally.

[LECT. by the just hatred which they had conceived for the falsehoods and abominations of the Gnostics, to turn away from the truths of the Gospel. We have it also from unquestionable authorities, that the fanatical eloquence, the learning, and the show of piety, among the Gnostics, were effectual means of seducing but too large a portion of Christians, unable to combat the sophistry, or to detect the falsehood, which lurked under these disguises'.

If, however, it was this first great assault of heresy on the Church to which we may specially refer the imagery of the fifth trumpet, we may perhaps regard it as containing, at the same time, if only the period marked in it be not taken definitely, - - a delineation of other plagues of the like kind which afflicted the Christian world in the early ages. In particular, we might mention the Arian heresy, in its various forms, its restlessly tormenting attacks, and its cruel persecutions, as answering, in many points, to the description before us. Heretical systems, the offspring of a too subtle and unsubdued intellect, were, in fact, the great sin and trial of Eastern Christendom; and tended, by the divisions which they created, to prepare the way, and give an easy conquest to that "Arch-heresy," as it has been fitly designated,-(and, indeed, it was of heresies such as the Arian that Mahometanism was the genuine progeny,)—which was the scourge, in the

6 Matter, Hist. Univ. vol. i. p. 166, (quoted by Rose, vid. inf.) See Note, Appendix.

"Rose's "Christianity always progressive," pp. 40-42, with Notes and Illustrations, there referred to, pp. 155-160.

9 Sale's Koran, Prelim. Disc. Sect. 2. Prideaux's Life of

Mahomet, &c.

9"The doctrines reputed orthodox in the Mahometan religion are chiefly compounded from the Christian heresies." Forster's Mahometanism Unveiled, vol. i. pp. 385, 386. (Compare sections vi. and ix.)

Ix.]

Sixth Trumpet.

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hand of the Almighty, to punish multiplied transgressions and deep corruption.

I have already observed that, in regard to the interpretation of the sixth trumpet as describing the invasions of Mahometan armies, there is that general consent of modern expositors that it is the less necessary to enter upon a distinct consideration of it. Those who, following Mede, have applied the preceding trumpet to the Saracens, have interpreted this exclusively of the Turks: Dean Woodhouse, while he regards its symbols as "more strictly applicable to the first irruption of Mahomet and his Saracens," is of opinion that they "may not unfitly be so applied as to comprehend them all." The imagery in several points resembles that of the preceding trumpet; and seems to describe not merely the assault of armies, but, at the same time, that more fearful one, of corrupt and blasphemous doctrine. The voice which gave the command to loose the four angels who were to lead the army commissioned for slaughter, was heard "from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God;" and the sound of the trumpet containing such a decree, and preceded by a denunciation of" woe," would seem to bespeak the wrath of God kindling for offences concerning His own worship, and bringing "a severe visitation on His people of the Christian Church'." And undoubtedly the great triumph which the Mahometan power obtained over a large portion of Asia and Africa, and at length in the conquest of the European capital of Eastern Christendom, spoke loudly to the Christian Church of judgment inflicted for transgression, and was a call to the nations that

Woodhouse, Annot. pp. 209, 210.

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Vision of the six Trumpets;

[LECT. escaped-even "the residue of the men that were not killed by these plagues 2"-to repent of the various corruptions in worship, in doctrine, and in life, which might bring down upon them the like visitation.

It is the general opinion of commentators that, in the following chapter, in the distinct vision which is interposed, before the second woe of the sixth trumpet is declared to be "past" and the seventh trumpet sounds, there is a transition to another scene-Western Christendom being there mainly concerned. If this hypothesis be correct, the vision of the six trumpets, as contained in the eighth and ninth chapters, having, under the first four trumpets, described the judgments which, in the first ages of the Church's warfare, fell on the world that then was, on the Jew and the Gentile, the wisdom of Greece and the power of Rome, -the two woe trumpets that follow would depict the sufferings and calamities, which, whether in the way of spiritual, or of outward and visible warfare, marked the course of the Church's history; until one half, as it were, of her heritage became the possession of the enemy, and the capture of that city which had been so long the capital of Eastern Christendom, brings to its consummation, in the view of the secular historian, the fall of the Roman Empire

3

But if it be indeed, as I have endeavoured to show, that the vision of wrath revealed in the trumpets is completed only in that of the vials; and if it be also true, as is generally supposed, that this later vision is, at all events, but in course of fulfilment; we may well be content if some obscurity hang over

2 Chap. ix. 20.

3 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. 68.

IX.]

still partially obscure.

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scenes which are not yet fully unfolded, or which, though they be of past events, may be awaiting clearer light to be cast upon them by things yet to come. We shall be found meanwhile, in the spirit of true wisdom, humbly submitting ourselves to that uniform rule and law of Divine Revelation, which discloses to us of the present and the future only enough to lead us to watch for the signs of the Providential hand, as the course of time makes them gradually more and more visible. Sacred Prophecy, -it cannot be too deeply impressed upon our minds as we proceed in the investigation of it from step to step, is to be regarded not merely as affording, in its fulfilment, an evidence to Religion, but also as an exercise of patient faith in Him whose Almighty Power and Wisdom we may trace, though it were but dimly, working out the designs of His mercy towards His Church on earth. If the vision be not made "plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it," this may be because it "is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it shall speak and not lie;" and in the mean time, alike, and in the end "the just shall live by his faith "."

4 Habak. ii. 2-4.

LECTURE X.'

REV. xi. 3, 4.

"And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth."

THE portion of Apocalyptic prophecy upon which we are now to enter, forms, as it were, a distinct scene, or episode, in the vision of which it is part, and is introduced by circumstances of peculiar solemnity.

66

Of the seven angels who, in the vision of the mystic temple, "stood before God," and to whom were given seven trumpets," six had now sounded; the first four, as has already been observed, being separated from those which followed, by the voice that was heard of the "angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound 2!" Of these three, who also are thus connected together, "the fifth angel sounded," and there followed the plague of the

Preached Dec. 1, 1844.

2 Rev. viii. 13.