seemed quite insufficient to conquer; and the prophecy idle, and to be despised. Thus the Mahommedan dynasties to the east and south alone remained to be considered. And certainly, split as the Saracens had been into three hostile Caliphates, and ten or twelve fragments of kingdoms,—from those of Spain, Morocco, and Fez westward, to the principalities of the Fatimites in Egypt and Syria, and so on to the Abbassides at Bagdad, and beyond them the independent dynasties of Khorasan and Persia,-I say, thus divided as they had been among themselves, and inferior as they had proved of late in battle, to the Christians, there seemed little to be apprehended from them. The only really formidable power was that, of which rumour must have told, of the Sultan Mahmoud of Ghizni, near Caubul, in the far East.' But this was far distant. He had almost absorbed himself in the great enterprize of the subjugation of India; and he was now too in his old age, and the empire likely to fall to pieces at his death.-Thus even to that quarter, Basil might have looked without any great apprehension. Political security, and even prosperity, seemed assured to his Greek kingdom by the most considerate review that he could make of the then state of the world. No woe seemed from any side to threaten; least of all from the Euphrates and Bagdad. Could a power so fallen be resuscitated? Could religious fanaticism be rekindled from its embers, and, under a new commission, become again terrible?

So might the royal Basil have naturally thought within himself. Devoted as he was to the Greek superstitions, it is not likely that the guilt of image-worship, and of its many accompanying corruptions, such as, we shall pre

related it to him, and added that it was frequently talked of in the Turkish coffeehouses at Constantinople.

1 Can it be without some high object in the divine counsels, that the British from the far west have, in this latter age of the world, established a political connexion and influence at Ghizni?

[So I had written before the catastrophe at Cabul. But I conceive that we have not yet seen the end of the results of that occupation of the Ghiznivite and Cabul territory by the British. 2nd Ed.]

sently see, still flourished unchecked in the empire, would have weighed upon his mind, as that which must needs bring down again God's vengeance. That fearful declaration against them that receive not the love of the truth, "God shall send them strong delusion that they shall believe a lie," had already begun to have its fulfilment.—But with real Christians, such as John represented, the impression must have been most different. As they had seen one woe already sent to punish the apostate nation, so there must have sounded in their ears a foreboding sound of other judicial woes yet to come. For self-delusion

was not security. Even while saying, Peace and safety, sudden destruction impended on the Greek empire; and that from the very quarter least looked to with apprehension. The agencies were prepared: the Trumpet blown again and the four angels, under a new commission to destroy, let loose from the Euphrates.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SIXTH, OR SECOND WOE TRUMPET.

"And the sixth angel sounded; and I heard one' 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 have been bound by the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed; which were prepared, after the hour and day and month and year, to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were myriads of myriads and I heard the number of them. And thus I

3

1 μιαν φωνην, one and the same voice.

2 τις δεδεμένους επι τῳ ποτάμῳ, &c. that have been bound; not δεομένους, that are bound.-On the rendering of the er, compare Matt. xxiv. 33, eyyus ESLV Emɩ θυραις, he is near at the door ; Thucydides, iii. 99, περιπολιον επι τῳ Αληκι ποταμῳ, by the river; &c.

3 εις την ώραν και ήμεραν και μηνα και ενιαυτον. The proper rendering of this clause will be duly investigated in the sequel.

4 μυριάδες μυριάδων. Griesbach.

saw the horses in the vision, and them that sate on them, having breast-plates of fire, and of jacynth, 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 mouths, and in their tails. For their tails were like serpents, having heads: and with them they do hurt."-Apoc. ix. 13-19.

§ 1. THE OCCASION, LOCAL ORIGIN OF, AND NATION

COMMISSIONED IN, THE SECOND WOE.

"AND I heard one 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 have been bound by the great river Euphrates !-And the four angels were loosed: which were prepared to slay the third part of men."

for

I. The thing most observable in the voice here spoken of is the point whence it issued; viz. the four horns of the golden altar of incense. Now, when a voice of command, whether as here for the commissioning of judgment, or as elsewhere for its arrest, proceeded from the throne in the inner temple, from the heavenly Spirit, or from some divinely-appointed angel,'-in cases like these the meaning is plain. It was an intimation that it originated from God. But what when proceeding (which is more seldom the case) from some other local point, or scene? In every such example we shall find, if I mistake not, that the locality whence the voice invocative of judgment proceeded, was one associated with the sin or guilt to be punished. So in the history of Cain, Gen. iv. 10: "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto

1 Compare Apoc. iv. 5, xvi. 17; xiv. 13; vii. 2, &c.

me from the ground." So in Job's protestation of innocence, xxxi. 38; "If my land cry against me, or that the furrows thereof complain; if I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or caused the owners thereof to lose their life." So in Habakkuk's denunciation against Babylon, ii. 11; "The stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it; Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city by iniquity:" and, yet again, in the denunciation by St. James, iv. 4, against the Jews of his time; "The hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth." Once more in Isaiah lxvi. 6,-an example more exactly parallel with that before us, we read; "A voice from the city! a voice from the temple! a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompence to his enemies:" and we find this preceded by an appalling statement of the manner in which not only otherwise had the Jewish citizens done evil against God, but even in the temple itself had provoked Him, by profaning its holy sacrifices and services. "He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that offereth an oblation as if he offered swine's blood: he that burneth incense as if he blessed an idol." So that in that case the very incense-altar and altar of sacrifice, profaned as they had been by the Jews, were scenes of their guilt; and scenes consequently from which, as well as from the city of their iniquitous lives, a voice issued denouncing vengeance against them:-"A voice from the city; a voice from the temple; a voice of the Lord rendering recompence!"Just similarly, though with an inversion of the reasoning, in the case before us, since a cry was heard announcing and commissioning judgment against the third part of men, from the incense-altar, in the Apocalyptic temple of vision, it was to be inferred that that mystic incense-altar had been a scene of special sin, (whether through profanation or neglect,) on the part of the above-noted division of the men of Roman Christendom.

But this explanation is only partial. The Evangelist

does not in mere general phrase describe the voice as issuing from the incense-altar, but specifically from the four horns of it: "I heard one voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God." It would seem therefore as if there had been guilt contracted, in respect of some such particular ritual as these horns of the altar were one and all alike concerned in. And what, we inquire, the rites of this character? I believe there were just three services in the Mosaic ritual, and only three, in which, agreeably with the divine injunction, this altar's horns were thus used. The two first were the occasional atoning services for sins of ignorance, when brought to light, either of the priests as priests, or of the people collectively as a People; the third that of the stated and solemn annual atonement, for the sins both of priests and people, on the great day of expiation.1 Thus the object of the three services was similar: and, with the exception of what was peculiar to the great day of atonement, in the High priest's entering into the Holy of Holies and the rite of the scape-goat, there was much of similarity in the ceremonials. In each case the hands of the party seeking reconcilement and forgiveness were to be laid on the head of the victim, and his sins told over it; then, after the sacrifice of the animal victim, its blood to be sprinkled by the priest seven times before the vail of the sanctuary, and then some of the blood to be put upon the horns of the altar of incense. So was an atonement to be made for the sins of the transgressors, especially for their sins in respect of holy things; and so

On the rite of atonement for the priest's sins of ignorance see Levit. iv. 3-7 ; on that for the people's, ib. 13-18; on that of the great day of atonement, Lev. xvi. 1-18.-The original command of the last-mentioned rite was given in Exod. xxx. 10. It had been previously said, with reference to that part of the usual ritualistic service with which the incense-altar was associated, "Aaron shall burn sweet incense thereon every morning and at even; a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations. Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon." So that three points were herein enforced; the offering morning and even, the doing it by the Aaronic priesthood,—and the offering sweet incense; besides what was added elsewhere, using fire from the great altar of sacrifice : in any of which points there might be transgression. Then it is added, verse 10; "And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it, once in a year, with the blood of the sin-offering of atonements: once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is most holy unto the Lord." -We may compare also Ezek. xliii. 20.