I shall now bring the discourse to a close with some remarks upon this part of the second

prophetical period.

IV. THE CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS.

1. However great the confusion, which from time to time appears over the history of the
nations, it is becoming the ministers of Jesus Christ both to understand for themselves, and
to point out to others, the relation in which the events of history stand to the progress of the
Christian religion, and to the interests of the church of God. Like "the living creatures" of
the Apocalypse, it is their duty to say to intelligent and inquiring men, "Come and see."
Were it possible completely to separate the concerns of this world from those of Zion, so
that they should cease to exercise any reciprocal influence on one another, there might be e
propriety in the watchman of Israel’s refusing to answer any inquiries, such as What of the
night, or the morning? This state of things is, however, morally impossible. The policy of
those nations, in which christianity is either tolerated or established, will be more or less
affected by ecclesiastical considerations; and it is unreasonable not to expect that the
church will feel the influence of worldly political management. All the events which come
to pass, are included in the plans of Providence; and such of course as are interesting to the
moral world, deserve the attention of the christian pastor. Divine revelation too, in its
precepts, and narrative, and predictions, pays particular attention to national concerns; and
thus not only sets an example to the ministers of Christ of their proper duty, but also
imposes an obligation upon them to be acquainted with the history of the world, in order to
understand and expound the scriptures.

You will not, therefore, brethren, charge us with intermeddling unduly with your civil
concerns, or with violating the sanctity of the Lord’s day, by laying before you, with the
necessary exposition, the predictions of the Apocalypse. Assuredly, the Christian who is
persuaded that all things shall work together for good to them who love God; and who is
qualified by liberal views of God’s moral government to form a proper estimate of the
subject, will consider of importance that great system of causes, and their various
operations, which finally demolished the western Roman empire, in which, since the
revolution of Constantine, civil and ecclesiastical concerns were so blended together, that
they could not be otherwise than in idea distinguished.

The total change which took place in the state of society in Europe in this period, renders
the era of the Trumpets interesting to the moralist. "How far this change ought to be
lamented is not now a matter of much dispute. The human species was reduced to such a
degree of debasement by the pressure of Roman despotism, that we can hardly be sorry at
any means, however violent, which removed or lightened the load. But we cannot help
lamenting, at the same time, that this revolution was the work of nations so little
enlightened by science, and polished by civilization.[22]
It was by such means that the ignorance which served the purposes of the Roman antichrist,
was universally spread; and thus upon the downfall of Imperial Rome, "the man of sin" was
speedily revealed.

2. Amidst the revolutions which desolate the nations, we, Christians, have ample grounds
of hope and confidence. Our Saviour reigns, and will do all his pleasure. Light shall arise
out of darkness. Order shall spring from confusion. The divine purpose shall be
accomplished. The generation of his children shall be saved.

Behold him, Christians, in whom you have believed, standing before the altar of incense in
the upper temple, making continual intercession for us. We verily have an Advocate with
the Father. He will not plead in vain. His blood, shed for the remission of the sins of many,
speaketh better things than that of Abel. The blood of the martyrs, unjustly shed, calls for
vengeance on the foes of religion. The blood of the covenant, making satisfaction to divine
justice, calls for the salvation of believers. I will, O Father, that they whom thou hast given
to me, may be with me, that where I am they may behold my glory. The prayers, the praises,
the services of the saints, are accepted: for they are received into the golden censer, and
presented by the High Priest. He never, in any instance, neglects the sighs of the prisoner,
or turns a deaf ear to the solicitations of his anxious disciples. He is ever merciful. He is
moreover just. He scatters coals of fire upon their heads who obey not the gospel. When he
has served up to his Father the devotion of his own church, he casts the contents of the
censer upon the earth. All religion, which is not sanctified by his grace, becomes a curse to
its professors. All, who have no religion, remain under the sentence of condemnation. The
all-merciful Saviour is the all-righteous Governor. His sceptre is right. His enemies shall
perish when his wrath is kindled but a little. Fly to him for safety. Fly to him speedily;
before death and judgment shall overtake you. He invites you to himself. He commands
you to betake yourselves to the city of refuge. He assures you of a ready
welcome. Whosoever cometh shall not be cast out. Represent, with prayer and with
boldness, your personal condition before the throne of grace. Forget not to mention your
brethren in the profession of religion. Plead for the cause of your invaded, your sinful, your
distracted country. The sword is hanging over your heads. Your friends, your neighbours,
are already suffering. Your business is stopped; your commerce is spoiled; your relatives
are carried into captivity; your villages are laid in ruins. War, with its accompanying
horrors of robberies, rapes, and murders, rages in your borders. Repent of your
transgressions; mourn for the sins of the land; confess the justness of the Divine judgments.
Trust not, in the day of trial, on the arm of flesh. Call upon your Redeemer to turn to you in
mercy. He is the Governor of the nations. He directs the whirlwind. He controls the fury of
the battle. He puts down and sets up at pleasure. The race is not to the swift, neither is the
battle to the strong.
The time for visiting Zion is at hand. Arise, and call upon your God, who is able to deliver
you. "Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.
Lord, in trouble have they visited, thee, they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was
upon them." When the blast of the trumpet is heard from afar, it is time to fly to him "Who
has been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the
storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against, the
wall."

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself
as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord
cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth
also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.

THE TWO WO TRUMPETS. LECTURE VI.

REV. ix....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 reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts
upon the earth, &c. &c.

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 h 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. Wo 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 behaviour 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 Wo Trumpets. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst
of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Wo, Wo, Wo to the inhabiters 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 Wo Trumpets, being the fifth and 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 Cesars into several independent kingdoms. Then, according to the predictions of Daniel,
this beast displayed his ten distinct toes or horns; and according to the Apocalypse, the
beast with seven heads and ten 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 Apocalyptical
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 produced the obscuration of the political lights 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 Cesars. To such concerns the two trumpets before us have reference. We shall give
the

INTERPRETATION OF EACH.
TRUMPET V.—Being the First Wo Trumpet. Verses 1—11. 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 reason 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 nets 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 lo 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 were like unto 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 women, 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 laying the scene of these events in the eastern
empire: and the interpretation must proceed accordingly. In the progress of my exposition
abundant internal evidence will be furnished by the prophecy itself, which, independently
of the introductory argument, will prove that we have not misunderstood the scene of the
vision.

The sounding of this Wo Trumpet announces an approaching judgment; and a

hieroglyphical representation of the particular agents and events, is immediately made to
the apostle, and, by him communicated to the church.

The principal objects of attention to the expositor, in this representation, are

The fallen star opening the pit—The locusts issuing from the smoke of the pit—Their king
Apollyon—The depredations which they committed—And the time of their depredations.

1. The fallen Star.

This symbol has been already explained.[1] A star fallen 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 Mahomet, 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 impostor. He never fell from either an
ecclesiastical or political heaven. The contrary of being a fallen star was the case both with
the eastern impostor, 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.[2] Such are the doctrines of the KORAN.

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 locusts issuing from the smoke of the pit.

Their appearance is formidable in a high degree. They are compared to a troop of horse
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 astonishing multitudes, like an immense cloud which darkens
the air, threatening destruction wherever they light. They constituted one of the plagues of
Egypt, Exod. x. 14—19. and are used by the prophets as the symbol of a destroying army,
Joel i. 4. and ii. 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 fulfilment 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 permitted
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 the 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 opposed
the christian religion, or made a profession of it without receiving its truths, or experiencing
its living power. True Christians are to have remarkable protection.

5. The time in which these locusts prevail, like the natural locusts which expire with the
summer that gave them origin, is said to be five months.

Sir Isaac Newton, on account of the repetition of five months, verses 5 and 10, thinks it
proper to double the prophetic time, and render it ten symbolical months of thirty days
each. And according to the prophetic style of a day for a year, this would amount to a
period of three centuries. There is, however, no necessity for thus doubling the time
specified. It is, indeed, twice mentioned in the text: but not with the design of adding the
two sums together. Bishop [Thomas] Newton is more correct in rendering the
interpretation, one hundred and fifty years.

The effects of the judgment announced by the sounding of the fifth trumpet may remain for
a much longer space of time; but the torments inflicted by the Arabian locusts are
represented as peculiarly great during the period of five months, being one hundred and
fifty prophetic days, a century and a half.

This trumpet must be accordingly explained of the WO caused by the Mahometan

Saracens, for the space of one hundred and fifty years after the rise of their false prophet.
The events of that period are so interesting a part of the history of man, and had such an
effect upon the christian churches of the east, that they ought to be known to intelligent
men, and undoubtedly merit a place in the sacred system of prophecy.

That great peninsula, which is washed on the south and east by the waves of the Indian
Ocean, and Persian Gulf, and on the west by the waters of the Red Sea, has since the
remotest ages been known by the name of Arabah or Arabia. This name it received from
the most distinguished of its original settlers, Yarab[3] the son of Joktan, and the fifth in
descent from Shem the son of Noah. Ishmael, the son of Abram by Hagar, settled with his
family in this country; and his descendants were mingled with the former inhabitants. It
was not long before the idolatry of the Sabeans, who derive their name from Saba, the great
grandson of Joktan, became prevalent through the greater part of this extensive territory.
But of its internal history from the time of Moses until the commencement of the christian
era, we know very little. From the Greeks and Romans we have derived our knowledge of
ancient nations; and as Arabia defied the power of these conquering empires, they have not
been at the pains of describing its geography, or recording its history.

The Jews were scattered throughout this country at a very early period, and the first
ministers of Christianity planted churches among the Arabs. Before the close of the sixth
century, the period in which Arabian history became generally interesting, the Nestorian
heresy had spread over the greater part of the churches of this peninsula. Piety and morals
had declined along with orthodoxy, among Christians; and the Jews and the idolaters
adhered to their religion more from habit than any conviction of duty. The most powerful of
the Arabian tribes were the Koreish descendants of Ishmael. They possessed the
distinguished honour of being guardians to the Caaba,[4] and the chiefs united with the love
and the practice of war, the profession of merchandise. They carried on an extensive and
lucrative commerce, between Persia and Egypt, and India and Ethiopia.

In the year 579 was born at Mecca the celebrated Mahomet,[5] the king and apostle of the
Arabs; or to use the words of the sacred text, Apollyon the destroyer, king of the locusts. He
was descended from one of the most ancient and powerful families. His father Abdallah
was the favourite son of Motalleb, a man of great opulence and liberality, who succeeded
his father Hashem in the principality of Mecca, and custody of the Caaba. The aged
Motalleb outlived his son, and took under his protection the orphan grandson. In the eighth
year of his age, however, Mahomet was deprived of this guardian; and came of course
under the immediate protection of Abu Taleb his uncle, who, himself a merchant of the first
rank and wealth, now succeeded to all the dignities of his deceased father.

It appears to me altogether improper, therefore, to represent this impostor as rising from

obscurity to eminence exclusively by his own merits. He was left indeed in early life an
orphan without a patrimonial inheritance: but he had no alliance with poverty. He was
educated in the first families of the age: his connexions were the first in power and rank: he
travelled along with his uncle through Syria and Egypt, while engaged in mercantile
pursuits: he was early made acquainted with the absurd mysteries of the prevailing religion;
and under Abu Taleb, the victorious general of the Koreish, he served in a successful war,
in which he acquired the rudiments of the science in which he afterwards became so
famous in the east. In the twenty-eighth year of his age, Mahomet found himself possessed
of independent property: and to his aspiring mind the most flattering prospects began to be
unfolded. This state of things was brought about by his marriage with Cadigha, an opulent
widow of Mecca, whose extensive mercantile concerns he had, for three years from the
death of her first husband, conducted to great advantage.

He now began to cherish the hope that he might repair the loss incurred by the death of his
father Abdallah, who, had he survived his grandfather, would have been the heir of his
fortunes; and would have of course transmitted to his son the first dignities of Mecca. His
intercourse with men of different nations and religions, was sufficient to convice him, that,
in that age, there was no possibility of acquiring influence over the minds of men, without
some show of religion. That of the Caaba was evidently declining; and, in its present state,
the chief office of the system was lodged in other, and very powerful hands, from which he
could have no hopes of wresting it for himself. The Christians were greatly divided; and the
Jewish system was not well adapted to the condition of the Arabians. New sects of different
descriptions were frequently springing up with various success. He resolved to become the
prophet and apostle of a new religion. Intelligent, wealthy, courageous, crafty, ambitious,
and eloquent, he had much to expect from his influence with the people; and the patronage
of his powerful relatives promised him in the beginning protection from danger. He was in
short remarkably qualified to be the king of barbarous fanatics, or an angel of hell. All that
was necessary was to open the pit, that the smoke which generated the locusts might issue
forth—that a suitable system of religion might be contrived for the deluded inhabitants of
Arabia, a mongrel race of idolaters, half convinced of the folly of their present faith, of
Jews, who knew but little of their own Bible, and of professed Christians, without
understanding or piety.

Mahomet now felt one deficiency which was likely to prove irremediable. He, with all his
natural talents and acquirements, lived in a society into which literature had never been
introduced; and he could not himself either read or write. The Jews and the Christians were
commonly designated as the people of the book; and no new system could be reasonably
expected to prove successful without it were placed in that respect upon a footing with
others. Without the smoke of the pit nothing could be done. The KORAN must be contrived
and executed; and to this task the son of Abdallah is entirely unequal. He had not the key of
the abyss. The Koran is the smoke from which the locusts spread over the land; and the
author of the Koran, whoever he is, (and it is certain it could not be the pretended apostle
himself,[6]) is the person designated in the prophecy as the fallen star, unto whom was
given the key of the bottomless pit. This man is Sergius. To him must be ascribed the work
of composing the religion of the Musselman. The histories of that age appear, it is true, at a
loss whether to ascribe the work to a Jew, a Persian, or a monk; for each of those three were
associates of the impostor: but internal evidence is furnished by the Koran itself that it owes
its origin to some one acquainted with Christianity; and undoubtedly the Apocalyptical
prediction determines the question.

It was a fallen star that opened the bottomless pit, and set loose the smoke of imposture,
from whence issued the Arabian locusts under their king, the destroyer.

Sergius, called, by the Arabian writers, the monk Bahira, was a minister of the christian
church, who had fallen into error and immorality of the deepest die. He had belonged to
that class of people, who in those days of dissention were called Nestorians, from the
celebrated bishop Nestorius, of Constantinople.

The dispute between this arrogant Prelate, and the still more haughty Cyril, bishop of
Alexandria, had more of ambitious policy than of religion to give it origin and support. It
began about the titles of the Virgin Mary: and the question was, whether she ought to be
honoured with the epithet Θεοτοκος, or mother of God. Nestorius, in adopting the negative,
was upon the side of truth. This dispute, however, continued until, in vain attempts to
explain the union of two natures in Jesus Christ, the Nestorians asserted that there were two
persons[7] united under one aspect.[8] This fixed upon them the charge of heresy; and their
enemies triumphed. To this sect of Christians, spread over Persia and Arabia before the
time of Mahomet, Sergius, the intimate associate of Mahomet, and the principal contriver
of the system which bears that impostor’s name, belonged. He had contracted an intimacy
with the youthful and engaging nephew of Abu Taleb, whom he first met at Bostra, a city
on the confines of Syria;[9] and it was further cherished by the particular attention
afterwards bestowed upon him, by the elegant husband of the opulent Cadigha, when he
revisited that city, or when they met at Jerusalem.[10] Shortly after this, Sergius for high
crimes was degraded from his ministry, and became a “fallen star.” Excommunicated from
the church, and expelled from the monastery, he fled to Mecca. A man of genius and
literature, suited to the purposes of Mahomet, and now reduced to the necessity of
labouring for his bread, he entered readily into the views of the grandson of the famed
Motalleb. Both were unrestrained by moral principle: the one was needy; and the other a
splendid merchant, of uncommon address and boundless ambition. This will account for the
connexion which they formed. Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus, Anastasius, the author of
the Historia Miscella, Friar Richard, and several other historians, speak of this fallen Monk,
both under his proper name, and that of Bahira,[11] which he assumed in Arabia as the
agent in composing the Koran.[12] He was the Gabriel[13] of Mahomet. When Sergius had
finished his task, he was put to death by his base patron, for fear he should afterwards
betray the imposture.

The new religion progressed after a few years with extraordinary rapidity; and in its
progress became the wo, announced by the fifth Apocalyptical trumpet, which fell upon the
eastern empire, and ravaged the adjacent countries, tormenting men for one hundred and
fifty years of Saracenic invasion and conquest.

It was in the year 606, Mahomet commenced his imposture by retiring, under pretence of
extraordinary sanctity, to the cave of Hera. In 612 he appeared as the apostle at the head of
his disciples, publicly to propagate the new doctrine. Then did the locusts issue from the
smoke of the pit, opened by the excommunicated monk, under their king Apollyon. In the
year 762 the Caliph Almansor built the city of Bagdad, and called it “THE CITY OF
PEACE.” A stop was then put to the devastation of the locusts. The Saracen empire
continued for a longer time, but after this period it lost the disorderly locust character, and
became a more regular commonwealth. Between the years 612 and 762, during the five
months of prophecy, or 150 years, the Saracens overrun and subdued with terrible
depredations, Syria, Persia, India, Egypt, and Spain.

We may now say with the text,

Verse 12. One wo is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.

The second wo is announced in the succeeding verses, to which we now turn your
intention.

TRUMPET VI.—Verses 13—21. And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from
the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel which had
the trumpet, loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. 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 (he 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 breastplates 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.

This is the description laid before us of the second wo. The first had already passed in
vision before the apostle John. “One wo is past.” Two additional woes shall put a period to
the empire which is the object of these several judgments. “There come two woes more
hereafter.” The eastern empire, the object of the first wo, still continued to stand; and is of
course attacked under the sixth trumpet. Meanwhile the western empire revives under a new
form, and becomes both more guilty in the sight of God, and more alarmingly interesting to
the church; and in this character it is the principal subject of both description and
judgments, in the succeeding prophecies of the Revelation. Its downfall is effected by
the third wo, or the seventh trumpet. At present, however, we are to expound the sixth
trumpet.

I have already in this discourse given my reasons for applying the first and second wo to the
Christian empire, as it still remained in the east, Constantinople being the seat of power.
The Arabian locusts under Mahomet, gave to this power a shock of great violence; but it is
under the sixth trumpet that it is completely overthrown.

History so minutely describes this overthrow, and the means by which it was effected, that
there is no avoiding the application of the second wo, to the Mahometan conquerors of the
empire of the Cesars. The text itself too, is so obviously descriptive of these invaders, that
almost every Commentator of celebrity explains it of the followers of the impostor of
Mecca. Mede, and Newton, and Faber, particularly, have so correctly illustrated the
judgment of this trumpet, that I deem it sufficient to refer you to these writers for a
satisfactory discussion. The objections of Mr. Woodhouse to this part of the scheme of
interpretation are effectually superseded by the considerations already submitted. Even he,
however, is constrained to acknowledge the application of the sixth trumpet to the
Mahometan devastations.

The objects which, in this part of scripture, require the attention of the expositor, are the
Euphratean angels—the specified time of their conquests—and, the character and
consequences of their warfare.

1. THE EUPHRATEAN ANGELS AND HORSEMEN. Verses 13, 14, 16.—And the sixth
angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before
God., saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, loose THE FOUR ANGELS which
are bound in THE GREAT RIVER EUPHRATES. And the four angels were loosed.—And
the number of the army of THE HORSEMEN were two hundred thousand thousand.
The command to loose the four angels is from the Lord God of heaven and earth—A voice
from the four horns of the golden altar. Vengeance upon the sins of men is proclaimed
from the very sanctuary. The Saviour inflicts merited punishment upon them who neglect
the salvation which he offers. The command to loose is immediately obeyed.

The four angels which were thus set at liberty to bring the second wo upon the eastern
empire, are the four principal sultanies of the Turks. These were seated in their respective
capitals, Bagdad, Damascus, Aleppo, and Iconium.
It is not taking an unjust liberty with the text to explain the four angels as the prophetical
symbol of four sovereignties. An angel is a messenger; and, when communities are
employed in the providence of God for accomplishing his work, it is perfectly in point to
represent them as his messengers. A similar use is made of the term angel in reference to
ecclesiastical proceedings, in the descriptive part of the Apocalypse. In the epistles to the
churches of Asia Minor, the whole ministry of each city is addressed as one distinct
community, under the title of “the angel of the church.” This is evident from the fact, that
the one figurative angel is frequently addressed as many distinct agents throughout these
epistles. It is equally appropriate to represent as an angel any other community, employed
in its united character under a suitable leader, to execute the will of God.

It is not at all necessary to this interpretation that these four Turkish sultanies should have
always existed as distinct sovereignties; or that this people never should have made war
upon any christian nation before the sounding of the sixth trumpet: But, if before the time
pointed out in the sacred prediction, the Turks had been well known; and four Turkish
sultanies had in fact existed, and had also been well known as distinct communities,
although actually acknowledging at the time of this wo one common head, there is certainly
no incongruity in designating them as in the text under consideration. England, Scotland,
and Ireland, are still commonly spoken of as “the three kingdoms,” although they have
been united for two centuries under one sovereign.

The words of the prophecy furnish us with other reasons for adopting this interpretation,
and defending it from the animadversions of Archdeacon Woodhouse. The four angels
were bound in the great river Euphrates; and it is not until they were loosed that as myriads
of horsemen they marched on their ferocious warfare for the entire subversion of the Greek
empire. The location of these four powers in the regions watered by this mighty stream,
affords a geographical description too accurate to be overlooked. Every scholar acquainted
with the history of the Turks, is well assured that this was the principal seat of their power
for a long period of time preceding their successful attacks upon the empire of
Constantinople. Mr. Joseph Mede, and bishop Newton, have both faithfully applied the
facts to the prediction. I shall show, in the proper place, that there is sufficient reason for
understanding figuratively the river Euphrates in the judgment of the sixth vial, inflicted
upon the symbolical Babylon, the Latin Roman empire, although in this case we understand
it literally as designating the country from which the enemy came who overthrew the
eastern image of the Cesars.

In the territories adjoining the Euphrates, the Turkish sultanies had providentially been
confined against their will by the successful expeditions of the European Christians, until
the latter part of the thirteenth century. Then the angels of destruction were loosed; and the
Euphratean horsemen in immense multitudes fell upon the subjects of the Christian empire
of the east. And the number of the army of horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand.

2. The specified time of their conquests next demands our attention. Verse 15. 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.]

The third part of men, is the prophetical expression for the subjects of the great empire, the
object of this wo. To torment these men, the expression employed under the preceding wo,
(verse 5.) is to harass and distress the empire; but to slay them, signifies the extinction of its
name and power. This was to have been accomplished in a definite time.

A year, in the symbolical style, consists of as many natural years as there are, according to
the Jewish chronology, natural days in a year; and thus, the hour, day, month, and year, will
amount to a period of 391 years and 15 days. An hour is the twenty-fourth part of a day,
and consequently in prophetical style represents the twenty-fourth part of a year. Each day
for a year, Ezek. iv. 6.[14]
YEARS.
DAYS.
An hour is

A day is

A month is

A year is

30
 360
15

The whole time

391
15
According to this calculation the time allotted for the complete subjugation of the
Constantinopolitan power, and for the establishment of the Turkish empire upon its ruins,
is, from the first success of the Euphratean horsemen, a period of 391 years and a few days.
Had history been as faithful to the dates in respect of days, as it has been in mentioning the
years in which signal events have come to pass, there is no doubt but the most perfect
precision would appear in applying the facts to the sacred prediction. The first conquests of
the Ottoman Turks over the Christians took place in the capture of the famous
city Cutahi; and the last victory by which any advantages accrued to that power in the
augmentation of the empire, was at the capture of Cameniec.
1672

1281
Cameniec was taken in

Cutahi was taken in

391
“The Turks,” says Mr. Faber, “under Ortogrul, gained their first victory over the Greek
empire in the year 1261, by the conquest of Cutahi; in the year 1357, they crossed over into
Europe: in the year 1453, they took Constantinople; and the remaining provinces of the
empire soon followed the fate of the capital: in the year 1669, they made themselves
masters of Crete: and in the year 1672, they wrested Cameniec, their last conquest from the
Poles.”

3. The character and consequences of this warfare.

The besieging armies were an immense multitude—two hundred thousand

thousand. Mahomet II. had at the siege of Constantinople a fleet of two hundred and thirty
sail, and an army of four hundred thousand men to co-operate with his naval force. A very
great proportion of this army was cavalry.

The horsemen appeared in vision as if they had breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and
brimstone.

The colour of fire is red, that of jacinth, or hyacinth, blue, and of brimstone yellow: and
this, said Mr. Daubuz, “had a literal accomplishment: for the Ottomans, from the first time
of their appearance, have affected to wear such warlike apparel of scarlet, blue, and
yellow.” The heads of their horses were as the heads of lions, to denote their strength, their
courage, and their fierceness. Out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and
brimstone, which destroyed the men that opposed them. This refers to the terrible mode of
warfare (unknown indeed at the time of the prediction,) which was introduced under the
sixth trumpet, and hath since been practised extensively among the nations which are called
civilized—the destruction produced by gunpowder. The artillery employed by Mahomet the
son of Amurath, at the siege of Constantinople, was of astonishing size, and produced upon
the walls of that proud city a corresponding effect. One of these great guns is said to have
been drawn by seventy yoke of oxen, and to have discharged rocks of three hundred pounds
weight.

The army under consideration bore in some things a striking resemblance to the Saracenic
locusts. They had tails like unto serpents, and had power to do hurt by their tails. The wild
and raging fanaticism which animated these ferocious Mahometans followed them
wheresoever they went. Their soul-destroying religion was propagated with unabating zeal,
and daring cruelty; and they triumphed alike over the persons and the principles of all that
opposed them. The Bible was torn from the hands of the degenerate Christians, and
committed before their eyes to the flames; and they were themselves compelled throughout
the extent of the empire to do homage to the KORAN.

The consequences were not salutary, or such as indicated reformation among those who
still remained in the profession of the Christian faith, either in Europe or in Asia. The
idolatries, the heresies, the immoralities, and the gross superstition, which provoked the
divine indignation against those who perverted the gospel of God were still adhered to with
persevering obstinacy. Mercy had been abused, and even judgments were unprofitable to a
graceless people. 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.
The Greek church fell with the Constantinopolitan empire. It was first in the transgression,
and it first received its doom. The Latin Roman church refused to take warning by the wo
of the sixth trumpet; and still persists in its impious league with the beast with ten
horns. The third wo, or seventh trumpet, puts a period to the whole system of iniquity; but
the consideration of this judgment must for the present be postponed. The time of the
seventh trumpet falls within the third great prophetical period which we have designated
the period of the vials.

Before we proceed to the investigation of the predictions which have reference to it, this
lecture must be brought to a close; and we shall do so, with the following reflections.

THE CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS

respect, The nature of the Mahometan religion—The progress of the great power which is
its principal support—and the necessity of carefully distinguishing from every other
religion, that personal piety, which, through the faith of the gospel, prepares for eternal
life.

1. The Mahometan Religion.

The creed of the Mussulman is essentially the same with that of the Socinians, which they
presumptuously denominate UNITARIAN, as if they alone worshipped one God. The
coincidence between the religion of the Mahometan, and that of the modern Socinians, has
been distinctly perceived by respectable writers of different countries, and has been
acknowledged by Socinians themselves.[15] Professing reverence for the christian
scriptures, these Unitarians quote them, reject them, and pervert them, at pleasure; and
pretend to found upon them their own incoherent and impious dogmas.

The impostor of Mecca admitted the divine origin of both the Old and the New Testament,
and gave out that they both predicted his own mission, as superior to Moses, and even to
Jesus Christ. In the sixty-first chapter, the KORAN has these words, “Remember that Jesus
the Son of Mary said to the children of Israel, I am the messenger of God; he hath sent me
to confirm the Old Testament, and to declare unto you, that there shall come a prophet after
me, whose name shall be Mahomet.”[16] Four texts of scripture are employed to prove that
the son of Abdallah was a teacher sent from God, Deut. xxxiii. 2. Psa. 1. 2. Isa. xxi. 7. John
xvi. 7. I shall not however, take up your time by repeating the argument or the criticism
upon these passages. There is none of you in danger of taking Mahomet for the Comforter.

As the Mahometan system rejects the idea of an atonement, and of the sinner's total and
original depravity, it entirely discards the doctrine of the Trinity, and the divinity of Jesus
Christ. There is of course no place in this system for regeneration or sanctification, in the
christian acceptation of these terms.

Friday is the Sabbath of the Moslem, because, they say, God on that day created man.
Prayer and fasting, and alms-giving, are the principal ordinances of religion, except a
pilgrimage to Mecca, which is required expressly from every Mussulman once in his life.
The doctrine of fatalism is derived by Mahomet from the divine decrees; religion is to be
propagated by the sword rather than by argument; and the heaven of the false prophet is
modelled, according to his own brutal appetite for the female sex, into a place of sensual
gratification.

It has been much disputed whether he was a fanatic or a deceiver; but there is no ground for
such disputation. He was both. He was enthusiastically ambitious. He believed probably in
many falsehoods; and he contrived others to carry his own purposes into effect. Many
indeed are the contradictions of his Koran; and all admit that much of his pretended
revelation was published in order to cover the crimes he had previously committed. His
apologist, Mr. Gibbon, cannot deny what he endeavours to palliate. “In his private conduct
Mahomet indulged the appetites of a man, and abused the claims of a prophet. A special
revelation dispensed him from the laws which he had imposed on his nation; the female
sex, without reserve, was abandoned to his desires; and this singular prerogative excited the
envy, rather than the scandal, the veneration, rather than the envy, of the devout
Mussulman.”[17]

Dean Prideaux, with his characteristic industry and good sense, examines this religion;
compares its claims with those of Christianity upon our faith; and proves it an imposture.

The marks of an imposture which this writer gives deserve to be held in remembrance.
They may with propriety in other cases also answer as a criterion by which we may try the
conduct of men. They are illustrated in his letter to the Deists, annexed to his Life of
Mahomet.

Such, Christians, is the nature of that cruel and carnal religion which has been forced upon
millions of the human family by the sword of a barbarous and fanatical foe; which fell as a
wo by the just judgments of God upon a corrupt church and empire; which triumphed
effectually over the proud battlements of Constantinople; and which holds in ignorance and
bondage until this day a sixth part of the inhabitants of the earth.

2. The progress of the great power, which is at present the principal support of Mahometan
delusion, deserves attention, as the 1260 years of its prevalence against true religion are
drawing near an end.[18]
Having spread generally through the east under the empire of the Saracens, according to the
predictions of the fifth trumpet, the first wo, it was by the success of the Ottoman Turks the
religion of Mahomet became established throughout the vast extent of the Christian empire
of the eastern Cesars.

The Turks originally occupied the high lands of Siberia, now occupied by the Tartars and
Calmucks, extending from Caf, or Immaus, to Mount Atlas, being, probably the centre and
the summit of Asia. They were the most contemptible of the slaves, working the iron forges
of the great Khan of Geougen. At first a ferocious and lawless race, they soon enslaved,
under the auspices of an upstart leader, their former masters, and became a terror to the
surrounding nations. Roman history takes notice of them as early as the age of Pliny; and
six hundred years before the Ottoman power was known, they were a terror not only to the
Chinese, but also to the Greek Roman empire. Spreading to the south, several tribes of the
Turks became subject to the Saracenic empire; and the Caliph Motassem had in the ninth
century upwards of fifty thousand Turkish youth educated in the Mahometan religion as the
guards of his capital. The progress of the Turks is rapidly sketched with a masterly hand in
the following sentence, which I quote from a well-known historian [i.e., Gibbon]. “Their
Scythian empire of the sixth century was long since dissolved; but the name was still
famous among the Greeks and Orientals; and the fragments of the nation, each a powerful
and independent people, were scattered over the desert from China to the Oxus and the
Danube; the colony of Hungarians was admitted into the republic of Europe, and the
thrones of Asia were occupied by slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. While Apulia
and Sicily were subdued by the Norman lance, a swarm of these northern shepherds
overspread the kingdoms of Persia: their princes of the race of Seljuk, erected a splendid
and solid empire from Samarcam to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks have
maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious crescent has been planted on
the dome of St. Sophia.”[19] In the space of twenty-five years, from 1055 to 1080, Togrul
Beg, Ducas, Melech, and Cutlu Muses, and his son, erected four distinct sultanies in the
regions watered by the Euphrates, and fixed their respective thrones in Bagdad, Damascus,
Aleppo, and Iconium. Confined to their own country, as bound angels, it was not until
some hundred years thereafter, the Turks, who had been previously united
under Othman, the founder of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE, were let loose to invade the
dominions of the Greek Christians. That power, since the present commotions of modern
Europe have commenced, appears rapidly on the decline, and it continues to exist only by
the jealousies which vainly strive to preserve the balance of empire in the great
commonwealth of civilized nations.

3. Let us in reviewing this fanaticism, learn to distinguish true religion from every other
system.
Scepticism often proceeds from the contemplation of the numerous and disorderly sectaries
which make a pretension to real religion ; because, the understanding is amazed, and the
moral sense is hardened, at the sight of so many extravagancies and delusions, as have from
time to time distracted the nations and the churches of the world. Every religion proposes to
make man happy in the worship of a superior being. The christian religion alone teaches
that the sinner cannot have friendship with God, but in a Divine Mediator, upon the foot
ins; of a perfectly satisfactory atonement. This, brethren, is its essential characteristic. In
order to be, even in theory, a true Christian, it is indispensably necessary to believe that
every sinner is, in himself considered, justly condemned to everlasting punishment; that
Jesus Christ has made perfect satisfaction to divine justice for the sins of men ; and that
justice not only admits, but requires, that every sinner who is united by grace to Jesus
Christ in the new covenant, shall, being in Christ, be saved with an everlasting salvation.
To be a Christian, not merely in theory, but in fact, is to be thus united by a living faith to
the only Redeemer of God’s elect.

Such are the Christians who profit by the sorrows of life; who seek the glory of their Father
and their God; who are unhurt by the trumpet of wo ; and who, under the sound of the
glorious gospel, march to conquest and to triumph. There is, therefore, now no
condemnation to them WHICH ARE IN CHRIST Jesus. AMEN.