The Ninth Chapter

THE FIFTH TRUMPET, produces the falling of a star from heaven, which opens the bottomless pit, and emits smoke as from a furnace, darkening the sun and air, and letting out an innumerable company of locusts, (v. 1 — 3,) which are thus described; “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” v. 7 — 10: These torment men so that they” shall seek death (because of the calamity of those

IX. 14 — THE SIXTH TRUMPET. 595

times,) and shall not find it,” (v. 4,£;) figuring out the introduction of Mahometanism, that greatest imposture the world ever knew, which darkens the sun and air, by quenching the light of Christian profession, through the apostacy of that star, who opened hell to bring forth that damned religion of his; to whom numberless of his country men- Arabians, (who were as locusts, Judg. vii. 12,) did cleave, and set him up as king, for “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 hath his name Apollyon” v. 11. These wrenched off from the eastern empire, Arabia, Egypt, Assyria, Armenia, and much of Asia Minor; and extending their dominions further over Persia, East India, and a great part of Africa and Spain, they almost vied with the former western empire; Mahomet extending his dominions another way, besides possessing half of the eastern empire: But these are bidden by God, “to hurt only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads” (v. 4, see c. vii. 3;) for there were some who remained Christians in that part of the eastern empire. This kingdom began to be set up A.D. 630, and continued many hundred years.

THE SIXTH TRUMPET is ordained to bring calamities on the other part of the eastern empire, still standing under the successors of the Roman monarchy, and professing Christianity in Asia Minor, and Greece, (commonly called the empire of Greece;) to ruin which four angels were ready prepared with four several armies of horsemen, amounting to two hundred millions, as in v. 14 — 16, “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 the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them” These armies, with the angels their leaders, hovered for a long time under restraint about the borders of Euphrates, whom the angel of this second woe-trumpet let loose by God’s command, like so many furies, to fall on the last remaining part of the eastern empire, and also to conquer those other dominions, which the Saracens under the fifth trumpet had before over-run. Now according to all the characters and foot-prints in Turkish history, no prophecy can more exactly describe any nation or event, than this of the Turks’ irruption on the eastern empire; at whose first coming out of their native country, about A.D. 1040, they seated themselves by the river Euphrates, and were divided into the four several governments or kingdoms of Iconium, Aleppo, Damascus, and Bagdat or Babylon: after two centuries, about A.U. 1300, they over-run all Nalotia, (or Asia Minor,) and uniting all into one kingdom under Ottoman, (the fore-father of the present great Turk,) ceased not till they had

2 R “2

596 THE ANGEL WITH THE OPEN BOOK. [REV. X — XII.

won Constantinople itself, an all Greece; which last relics of the Roman empire they put down A.D. 1453; and thus they possess the whole eastern empire unto this day: for the number of the Turk being one year, one month, one day, and one hour, (prophetically three hundred and ninety six years,) would not thus be fulfilled, according to the latter date, until A.D. 1849. I shall now proceed to a short view of