A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse Part 7

Under the sixth seal, the great men and rich, are seen fleeing to the rocks for refuge from the wrath of the Lamb; and the risen saints symbolized, are in the Saviour's presence; but the infliction of the wrath of G.o.d on the wicked is not there symbolized. The events of that seal come down as far as those in the 19th chapter, which precede the marriage of the Lamb, 19:7.

The half-hour's silence, is the first thing indicated under the seventh seal. Being so expressly noticed, it would seem to be of some significance. As a period of symbolic time, on the scale of a day for a year, "about half an hour," would equal a week's duration-corresponding to the time which intervened between the entrance of Noah into the ark, and the commencement of the deluge, Gen. 7:1-4. As the period evidently synchronizes with the parable of the Saviour, when "the Bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut" (Matt. 25:10),-the others being still without,-it would seem to symbolize the time, between the entrance to the marriage of the Lamb (19:7), and the going forth of the Word of G.o.d with his armies, to judge, make war, and to slay the remnant with the sword, 19:11-21. It would be a period of holy joy to the righteous in the Saviour's presence, and of awful suspense to the wicked.

The seven angels, to whom were given seven trumpets, being introduced here, have doubtless caused the events of this seal to be regarded as anterior to the first trumpet. As those immediately following, evidently synchronize with occurrences of the closing epoch, the angels can only be introduced here in antic.i.p.ation of the symbolization which they are to unfold under the sounding of the successive trumpets-the same as the seven angels with the last plagues are introduced, before the epoch of the commencement of their allotted work, 15:1.

The golden censer was the instrument in which incense was burned in the Jewish wors.h.i.+p. Incense symbolizes prayers (5:8). The offering of much incense with the prayers of all saints and the smoke of the incense ascending up before G.o.d, indicates the acceptance of their offerings in heaven-the act being before the throne, and not on the earth. The acceptance of their prayers, also implies their own acceptance, when presented "faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,"

Jude 24.

The fire from the altar, symbolizes the instruments of divine justice; and the filling the censer with coals after the acceptance of the saints, and the casting of both the censer and fire to the earth, indicate that thenceforth there would be no more acceptance of prayer from those left on the earth, but the speedy infliction of impending judgments.

The "voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake," which followed, evidently synchronize with the same events which follow the seventh trumpet: when the "wrath of G.o.d" has come, with "the time of the dead that they should be judged;" and when those are to be destroyed who have destroyed the earth, 11:19. They are the same, also, as those under the seventh vial, (16:18); and symbolize the final overturn and commotion, previous to the cleansing of the earth and the ushering in of a better day: Then will the

"fire purge all things new, Both Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell."-MILTON, BOOK XI.

The Seven Trumpets.

"And the seven angels having seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound."-Rev. 8:6.

The sounding of each successive trumpet marks the commencement of an era, of a longer or shorter duration, as the striking of a clock does the succession of hours. During each era, were to be fulfilled the events symbolized in connection with its respective trumpet. Those under the trumpets are more of a political character than those presented in connection with the seals.

The First Trumpet.

"And the first angel sounded, and there was hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast into the earth; and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and every green herb was burnt up."-Rev. 8:7.

The earth of the Apocalypse is regarded by most expositors as the Roman empire, in a state of comparative quiet. As no tornado like this described has ever happened, its correspondence must be sought for in the political relations of the empire. There is great unanimity among commentators respecting the period and the agents here symbolized,-that it refers to the invasions of the Goths and other barbarians, from A. D. 363 to 410.

After 395, their incursions were more severe than during the earlier portion of that period. The third part of the earth, would be the third part of the Roman empire, in distinction from the other two-thirds.

The green gra.s.s of the earth, the trees, &c., are distinguished from "those men which have _not_ the seal of G.o.d in their foreheads" (9:4), and must therefore symbolize the people of G.o.d in the third part of the empire. As all the green gra.s.s is burnt up, while only one-third of the trees suffer, the latter cannot include one-third of all the trees in the empire, but only one-third in the parts affected,-the gra.s.s indicating the more weakly, and the trees the more hardy cla.s.ses of Christians.

The infidel historian, Gibbon, has given the events which fitly correspond with the symbolization of these trumpets. After the death of Theodosius, in January, A. D. 395, Alaric, the bold leader of the Gothic nation, took arms against the empire. The terrible effects of this invasion, are thus described:-

"The barbarian auxiliaries erected their independent standard; and boldly avowed hostile designs, which they had long cherished in their ferocious minds. Their countrymen, who had been condemned, by the conditions of the last treaty, to a life of tranquillity and labor, deserted their farms at the first sound of the trumpet, and eagerly a.s.sumed the weapons which they had reluctantly laid down. The barriers of the Danube were thrown open; the savage warriors of Scythia issued from their forest; and the uncommon severity of the winter, allowed the poet to remark, that 'they rolled their ponderous wagons over the broad and icy back of the indignant river.' The unhappy nations of the provinces to the south of the Danube, submitted to the calamities, which, in the course of twenty years, were almost grown familiar to their imagination; and the various troops of barbarians, who gloried in the Gothic name, were irregularly spread from the woody sh.o.r.es of Dalmatia, to the walls of Constantinople. The Goths were directed by the bold and artful genius of Alaric. In the midst of a divided court, and a discontented people, the emperor, Arcadius, was terrified by the aspect of the Gothic arms. Alaric disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had hitherto escaped the ravages of war.

"Alaric traversed, without resistance, the plains of Macedonia and Thessaly. The troops which had been posted to defend the Straits of Thermopylae, retired, as they were directed, without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid pa.s.sage of Alaric; and the fertile fields of Phocis and Botia were instantly covered with a deluge of barbarians, who ma.s.sacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle of the flaming villages. The travellers who visited Greece several years afterwards, could easily discover the deep and b.l.o.o.d.y traces of the march of the Goths. The whole territory of Attica was blasted by his baneful presence; and if we may use the comparison of a cotemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim. Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death, from beholding the slavery of their families, and the conflagration of their cities."-_Gibbon's Rome_, vol. v., p. 177.

Being tempted by the fame of Rome, Alaric hastened to subjugate it. He put to flight the Emperor of the West; but deliverance soon came, and Rome was saved from his hands. Alaric was first conquered in 403. But another cloud was gathering, and is thus described by Gibbon:-

"About four years after the victorious Toulan had a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Khan of the Geougen, another barbarian, the haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, marched from the northern extremities of Germany almost to the gates of Rome, and left the remains of his army to achieve the destruction of the West. The Vandals, the Suevi, and the Burgundians, formed the strength of this mighty host; but the Alani, who had found a hospitable reception in their new seats, added their active cavalry to the heavy infantry of the Germans; and the Gothic adventurers crowded so eagerly to the standard of Radagaisus, that, by some historians, he has been styled the King of the Goths. Twelve thousand warriors, distinguished above the vulgar by their n.o.ble birth, or their valiant deeds, glittered in the van; and the whole mult.i.tude, which was not less than two hundred thousand fighting men, might be increased by the accession of women, of children, and of slaves, to the amount of four hundred thousand persons.

"The correspondence of nations was, in that age, so imperfect and precarious, that the revolutions of the North might escape the knowledge of the court of Ravenna, till the dark cloud, which was collected along the coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the Upper Danube, &c. Many cities of Italy were pillaged or destroyed; and the siege of Florence by Radagaisus, is one of the earliest events in the history of that celebrated republic, whose firmness checked or delayed the unskilful fury of the barbarians.

"While the peace of Germany was secured by the attachment of the Franks, and the neutrality of the Alemanni, the subjects of Rome, unconscious of the approaching calamities, enjoyed a state of quiet and prosperity, which had seldom blessed the frontiers of Gaul. Their flocks and herds were permitted to graze in the pastures of the barbarians: their huntsmen penetrated, without fear or danger, into the darkest recesses of the Hercynian wood. The banks of the Rhine were crowded, like those of the Tiber, with elegant houses and well-cultivated farms; and if the poet descended the river, he might express his doubt on which side was situated the territory of the Romans. This scene of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins, could alone distinguish the solitude of nature, from the desolation of man. The flouris.h.i.+ng city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were inhumanly ma.s.sacred in the church. Worms perished, after a long and obstinate siege; Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, experienced the cruel oppression of the German yoke; and the consuming flames of war spread from the banks of the Rhine over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. That rich and extensive country, as far as the ocean, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, was delivered to the barbarians, who drove before them, in a promiscuous crowd, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, laden with the spoils of their houses and altars."-_Ibid._, vol. v., p. 224.

After this invasion of the empire by Radagaisus, Alaric again returned, invaded Italy in 408, and in 410 he besieged, took, and sacked Rome, and died the same year. In 412 the Goths voluntarily retired from Italy.

In this last year, "a public conference was held in Carthage, by order of the magistrate;" and it was there agreed to inflict the most severe penalties on those who dissented from the Catholic doctrines, in the African part of the Roman empire. Says Gibbon:-"Three hundred bishops, with many thousands of the inferior clergy, were torn from their churches, stripped of their ecclesiastical possessions, banished to the islands, and proscribed by the laws, if they presumed to conceal themselves in the provinces of Africa. Their numerous congregations, both in the cities and country, were deprived of the rights of citizens, and of the exercise of religious wors.h.i.+p."

The Second Trumpet.

"And the second angel sounded, and it was as if a great mountain burning with fire were cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures in the sea, and having life, died; and the third part of the s.h.i.+ps was destroyed."-Rev. 8:8, 9.

A mountain differs from a tornado, and must symbolize a compact, organized body of invaders. Its being of a volcanic nature, renders it so much the more terrible and destructive.

As waters symbolize "peoples, mult.i.tudes, nations, and tongues," the sea into which the mountain is cast, is a people already agitated by previous commotions.

The s.h.i.+ps and fish in the sea, must necessarily symbolize agents sustaining a relation to the Roman Sea, a.n.a.logous to the relation of such to the literal sea. They are those who live upon, and are supported by, the people:-the rulers and the officers of state.

The symbol of a burning mountain fitly represents the armed invaders under Genseric. In the year 429, with fifty thousand effective men he landed on the sh.o.r.es of Africa, established an independent government in that part of the Roman empire, and from thence, hara.s.sed the southern sh.o.r.es of Europe and the intermediate islands, by perpetual incursions. Says Gibbon:-"The Vandals, who, in twenty years, had penetrated from the Elbe to Mount Atlas, were united under the command of their warlike king; and he reigned with equal authority over the Alarici, who had pa.s.sed within the term of human life, from the cold of Scythia, to the excessive heat of an African climate.

"The Vandals and Alarici, who followed the successful standard of Genseric, had acquired a rich and fertile territory, which stretched along the coast from Tangiers to Tripoli; but their narrow limits were pressed and confined on either side by the sandy desert and the Mediterranean. The discovery and conquest of the black nations that might dwell beneath the torrid zone, could not tempt the rational ambition of Genseric; but he cast his eyes towards the sea; he resolved to create a new naval power, and his bold enterprise was executed with steady and active perseverance.

The woods of Mount Atlas afforded an inexhaustible nursery of timber; his new subjects were skilled in the art of navigation and s.h.i.+p-building; he animated his daring Vandals to embrace a mode of warfare which would render every maritime country accessible to their arms; the Moors and Africans were allured by the hope of plunder; and, after an interval of six centuries, the fleet that issued from the port of Carthage again claimed the empire of the Mediterranean. The success of the Vandals, the conquest of Sicily, the sack of Palermo, and the frequent descents on the coast of Lucania, awakened and alarmed the mother of Valentinian, and the sister of Theodosius."

"The naval power of Rome was unequal to the task of saving even the imperial city from the ravages of the Vandals. Sailing from Africa, they disembarked at the port of Ostia, and Rome and its inhabitants were delivered to the licentiousness of Vandals and Moors, whose blind pa.s.sions revenged the injuries of Carthage. The pillage lasted fourteen days and nights; and all that yet remained of public and private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, was diligently transported to the vessels of Genseric. In the forty-five years that had elapsed since the Gothic invasion, the pomp and luxury of Rome were in some measure restored; and it was difficult either to escape, or to satisfy the avarice of a conqueror, who possessed leisure to collect, and s.h.i.+ps to transport, the wealth of the capital."-_Gibbon._

The Third Trumpet.

"And the third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a torch, and it fell on the third part of the rivers, and on the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died by the waters, because they were made bitter."-Rev.

8:10, 11.

The sounding of the third trumpet marks the advent of a third invader of the Roman empire. And such was Attila, the king of the Huns, who invaded Gaul A. D. 451. Gibbon says:-

"The kings and nations of Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed the warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village in the plains of Hungary, his standard moved towards the west; and, after a march of seven or eight hundred miles, he reached the conflux of the Rhine and the Necker." "The hostile myriads were poured with resistless violence into the Belgic provinces." "The consternation of Gaul was universal." "From the Rhine and the Moselle, Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul, crossed the Seine at Auxerre, and, after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the walls of Orleans." "An alliance was formed between the Romans and Visigoths." The hostile armies approached. " 'I myself,' said Attila, 'will throw the first javelin, and the wretch who refuses to imitate the example of his sovereign, is devoted to inevitable death.' The spirit of the barbarians was rekindled by the presence, the voice, and the example, of their intrepid leader; and Attila, yielding to their impatience, immediately formed his order of battle. At the head of his brave and faithful Huns, Attila occupied, in person, the centre of the line." The nations from the Volga to the Atlantic were a.s.sembled on the plains of Chalons; and there fought a battle, "fierce, various, obstinate, and b.l.o.o.d.y, such as could not be paralleled, either in the present, or in past ages! The number of the slain amounted to one hundred and sixty-two thousand, or according to another account, three hundred thousand persons; and these incredible exaggerations suppose a real or effective loss, sufficient to justify the historian's remark, that whole generations may be swept away, by the madness of kings, in the s.p.a.ce of a single hour."

Attila was compelled to retreat; but neither his forces nor reputation suffered. He "pa.s.sed the Alps, invaded Italy, and besieged Aquileia with an innumerable host of barbarians." "The succeeding generation could scarcely discover the ruins of Aquileia. After this dreadful chastis.e.m.e.nt, Attila pursued his march; and, as he pa.s.sed, the cities of Altinum, Concordia, and Padua were reduced into heaps of stones and ashes. The inland towns, Vicenza, Verona, and Bergamo, were exposed to the rapacious cruelty of the Huns. Milan and Pavia submitted, without resistance, to the loss of their wealth;" and "applauded the unusual clemency which preserved from the flames the public as well as private buildings, and spared the lives of the captive mult.i.tude." "Attila spread his ravages over the rich plains of modern Lombardy; which are divided by the Po, and bounded by the Alps and Apennines." He took possession of the royal palace of Milan. "It is a saying worthy of the ferocious pride of Attila, that the gra.s.s never grew on the spot where his horse had trod."

He advanced into Italy, only as far as the plains of Lombardy and the banks of the Po, reducing the cities he pa.s.sed to stones and ashes; but there his ravages ceased. He concluded a peace with the Romans in the year of his invasion of Italy (451), and the next year he died. Thus he appeared like a fiery meteor, exerted his appointed influence upon the tongues and people, who were tributary to the Romans,-as rivers and fountains of waters are to the sea; and like a burning star, he as suddenly expired. As a specimen of the bitterness which followed his course, it is recorded of the Thuringians who served in his army, and who traversed, both in their march and in their return, the territories of the Franks, "that they ma.s.sacred their hostages as well as their captives. Two hundred young maidens were tortured with exquisite and unrelenting rage; their bodies were torn asunder by wild horses, or were crushed under the weight of rolling wagons; and their unburied limbs were abandoned on public roads, as a prey to dogs and vultures."

The Fourth Trumpet.