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النشر الإلكتروني

SECTION VI.

SIXTH TRUMPET, AND SECOND WOE-TURKISH INVASION. Behold, there come two more woes hereafter. 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, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates." The Eastern empire had stood firm amid all the assaults of the Saracens, for their commission was to torment the empire, but not to overthrow it; but now comes up a power to annihilate it.

1. The four angels in the Euphrates find a full coincidence in the four sultanies of the Turks; the capitals of which were Bagdad, Damascus, Aleppo, and Iconium. In the year 1299, A. D., these were combined, under Othman, and began their conquest and destruction of the east. The sultanies were near, and on the Euphrates. Gibbon says, the first attack of this power on the eastern empire was "on the 27th July, 1299;" and that, from the conquest of Prusa we may date the true era of the Ottoman empire.

2. "And the four angels were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, to slay the third part of men." The third part of men means the third part of the empire; and as the west was already slain, or broken down, the eastern, or Asiatic, empire must be meant; and it was here the Turks prevailed, and do prevail to the present day. The period of this prevalence over Asia, or the eastern empire, was to be for 13791 months, or for 561 years and 357 days.--(See discovery.) If we date this on the 27th July, 1299, we are brought down to the year 1861, and about the fourth of July, for the date is old style, or eleven days too much.

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3. "And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand, and I heard the number of them." The Turks were generally horsemen, and hence, their whole host or population is represented by that symbol. As to the great number of them, it may have had a literal accomplishment by the time the empire falls. They boasted that they produced cavalry by the million.

4. "And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire and jacinth, (or hyacinth) 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 the smoke and the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths." Here is an evident allusion to the use of gunpowder and ordnance, which were first used extensively, by the Turks, in the subjection of the east and attacks upon the west.

5. "For their power is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails were like unto serpents, and they had heads, and with them they do hurt." The mouth here represents civil and military authority, and their tails represent doctrine, or their church, as the tail of the dragon. The Turkish government was an absolute despotism, and exceedingly cruel, and their church was the Mohammedan. The horses' heads and tails are a collective representation of the whole Turkish system, civil, military, and ecclesiastical. They fully overturned the eastern empire and Africa, and were the heirs of the Saracens; so that they may be properly said to have destroyed the third part of the Roman empire.

6. "And the rest of the men that were not killed by these plagues." That is, those parts of the old empire in the west, which were not overturned by the Turks.

"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." These symbols are put for the idolatry of the western church. The Mohammedans and Jews both charged upon the west, that, in the worship of saints they were idolaters. "Neither repented they of

"Nor

their murders."-The murder of true Christians. of their sorceries."-Their deceptious arts over the people. "Nor of their fornication."-Monarchism was the universal and fruitful source of this sainted crime in Europe. "Nor of their thefts." They "stole the livery of heaven to serve the devil in," and swindled the people out of their money, under pretense of giving them salvation in exchange.

7. "The second woe is past." That is, it will be past at the fall of Turkey, and not before. It certainly will not close till after the rise of the witnesses, and the fall of one of the principal or tenth part of Europe, at the coming insurrection; because the end of the woe is placed in the text as occurring there.-Rev. xi. 14. The fall of Turkey is to be simultaneous with this rising of the witnesses. We have placed it in 1861, but, unless we are greatly mistaken, the witnesses will rise much sooner. But we can not be far in error. We have been less particular than usual in explaining these trumpets, because they have, for the most part, been properly explained by Newton, Faber, and others.

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SECTION VII.

SEVENTH TRUMPET-RISE OF THE UNITED STATES AND FALL OF MONARCHY.

1. "And the seventh angel sounded." This period of prophecy had already been announced by the great angel who came down with the little book. He said "in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he declared to his servants the prophets." The mystery referred to, must be the development of the nationality of God's Israel; for this is the great mystery that has been concealed from Christians and the world. The disciples had asked Christ, "if he would at that time restore the kingdom to Israel," and he had replied, that it was not for them to know the times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power." Here, the restoration to nationality is the object and answer of the question proposed, and hence the mystery was to be solved at the beginning of the seventh trumpet period.

2. "And the seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever." As we have already seen, in the vision of the woman and her man child, that the kingdom of God and Christ had come, the beginning of the seventh trumpet must coincide with it. But as the kingdoms that came after the three and a half times were composed of twelve stars, or the confederacy of God's Israel, so must these kingdoms be twelve; and as the former did not fill the world at their origin, but divided it with the dragon, so must these new kingdoms. This truth is further decisively settled, by the facts that

the seventh trumpet period was to be a long one, and, during its progress, the seven vials of wrath were to be poured out on the earth, and the dragon was not to be chained till its close; and these kingdoms are announced as occurring at its beginning, and the great angel said, that at this beginning, the mystery should be finished, and not at its close. Again; the very text itself is proof of our position, for in the original, the words are hai basilciai tou kosmou tou kuoiou humon; these, translated literally, signify the kingdoms of the world of our Lord. The word kosmou, translated world, has thirty-five definitions, and one of them is "world," and another is "the people or territory of Israel."-(Greek Lexicon.) As the prophecy is symbolic, the term world can not be forced into a literal signification, but must coincide with the context and the nature of things among which it appears, and must harmonize with them. And as it can not, when taken in a literal sense, at all harmonize with succeeding prophecies, it must have the symbolic sense we give it. Again; if it were literally true, then it would be the Millennium or final kingdom, which it certainly is not, as the succeeding revolutions among the nations show. That it is the vestibule of the Millennium, we freely admit.

3. "And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshiped God, saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned." Here the dual symbols of Israel give God glory for the great restoration, and the establishing of a nationality on the earth, with himself and Christ as head.

4. "And the nations were angry." That is, they were greatly disturbed at the rise of the new order of things,

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