ing and fear, and solemn prognostications throughout the whole of Christendom, of the approach of an awful crisis. St. Paul had foretold the coming of Antichrist; "but," he adds, "ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time: he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way." From Apostolic times, all the Fathers had construed this let and hindrance to Antichrist's manifestation, as the then existing empire of Rome. "We pray for the emperors and the empire of Rome," said Tertullian, "for we know that convulsions and calamities, threatening the whole world, and the end of the world itself, are kept back by the intervention of the Roman empire." "Things will ere long totter and fall," said Lactantius; "only while the city of Rome is safe, there seems reason not to apprehend it. For that is the state which as yet props up all things." Similar expressions are found in the writings of other Fathers who lived during the fourth and fifth centuries.

When therefore every vestige of Rome's imperial ruling power had been swept away, there seemed scarce room for doubting that the crisis had arrived, and that the awful events and judgments so long anticipated were indeed at hand.

There was also a chronological characteristic of the era, that tended not a little to confirm these gloomy forebodings. Not among the Christians only, but among Jews also, the idea was entertained, that the seventh millenary was to be the millennium of the triumph of the Church—a triumph to be preceded by the last grand outbreak of evil under Antichrist, and the destruction of the world. It was under this conviction, that Hippolytus, the bishop and martyr, (whose works and life have lately been published by the Chevalier Bunsen), predicted that the world would end in the year of our Lord 500. Others entertained the same opinion; because, according to the Septuagint chronology, 6000 years from the creation would then have elapsed. And even when the year 500 had passed, and the consummation came not, many still believed it was at hand—that there had been some error in the calculation;

L

and they looked forward with awful expectations to the close of the

sixth century.

The outward aspect of affairs heightened the gloom of such prognostications. In the West, the Lombards, a fresh and barbarous Gothic tribe from the Danube, in the year 570, seized upon Italy, and established an independent kingdom-which embraced nearly the whole country, with the exception of Rome. In the East, the Avar Tartars had advanced nearly to the boundaries of the empire, and seemed ready to burst upon it like a dark thunder cloud. The inflictions of God also were more alarming than those of man. The historian commemorates the comets, earthquakes, and plagues which astonished and afflicted the age of Justinian. "In his reign," says Procopius, "one hundred millions of the human race were exterminated by war, pestilence, and famine."

Pope Gregory the First, who has been called the last of the good and the first of the bad Popes, and who reigned from the year 590 to 604, has left his forebodings on record. He believed that the Roman empire was within a finger's breadth of its ruin, and participating in the idea that it was only to end with the world's end, he came to the conviction that the last judgment was at hand. In many of his letters he expressed this conviction. The weight of such declarations from such a man, and at such a time, could not fail to impress the whole Christian world. We must remember too, that the Pope's letters missive were at that time the most diffusive as well as the most influential mode of publication. "Throughout the whole of Christendom," says Elliott, "from England to Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria, his warning voice was directed, charged with presage of the dreaded evil.” It was, indeed, like the angel flying in mid-heaven, and crying, “Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the judgments about to come." We have a specimen of his warnings in a letter he wrote to king Ethelbert of England: "We know from the word of Almighty God," he says, "that the end of the world is at hand, and the reign of the saints which shall have no end. In the approach of which consummation, all nature must

expect to be disordered; seasons deranged, wars raging, and famines, and earthquakes, and pestilences." "If not in our days," he adds, "we must expect it in those following." Nor did he omit to warn the world that Antichrist also was at hand. When the title of Universal Bishop was assumed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory raised against it the most solemn protestations. He declared, that whoever, in his elation of spirit, called himself, or sought to be called, Universal Bishop or Universal Priest, that man was the likeness, the precursor, and the preparer for Antichrist;-that he bore the same characteristic of boundless pride; that the tendency of his assumption was the same as Antichrist's, viz. to withdraw the members of the Church from its only true Head, Jesus Christ, and to attach them to himself instead. And in his letters, he states, that he regards the title of Universal Bishop as the name of blasphemy connected with the ten-horned beast in the Apocalypse. It is very remarkable, that though the Patriarchs of Constantinople renounced the ominous title, yet it was assumed by the Pope of Rome in the year 606, only two years after Gregory's death, and has been retained by the Popes ever since.

But, notwithstanding all these forebodings on the part of both priests and people, the great Apostasy in the Church went on increasing-new superstitions and corruptions were added to the old, and the old became more deeply rooted and confirmed. Miracles were now ascribed to the relics of saints, and their pictures and images were worshipped in the churches. "To them," says Gibbon, "incense was offered, and fervent prayers were directed." The doctrine of Purgatory also was now brought into the Church, and with the practice of private confession and indulgences, added immensely to the power of the clergy. The priests thus became masters of the conscience of the living, and were believed to have power over the fate of the dead.

These things must have seemed to the few faithful Christians who lived in those days, as calling for the vengeance of heaven-and as constituting, by their blasphemous assumption, a forewarning cry

of woe against an apostate Church and world. But the three-fold woe-denouncing cry of the angel, would to them also serve to dispel much of what was erroneous in the forebodings of others. For if the woes were successive, the last judgment could not be at hand. There was a notification of three trumpets yet to sound, ere the term of probation and long suffering should be fully ended, and the consummation of the world ensue.

The first two woes refer especially to the eastern part of Christendom, which, though equally guilty with the west, had hitherto escaped comparatively unscathed. But the explanation of the visions in which they are embodied, and the history of their fulfilment, in the attacks of the Saracens upon the Eastern empire, and afterwards in its total subversion by the Turks, must be postponed until our next Lecture.

"Meanwhile our lot is fall'n in pleasant places,

A goodly heritage we have indeed;

The Lamb to follow and shew forth his praises,
And in his footsteps with his flock to tread:
May we, by no false doctrines drawn aside,

Maintain our part with him and with his chosen bride.”

LECTURE VI.

THE SOUNDING OF THE FIFTH TRUMPET.-EXPLANATION OF SYMBOLS. -MOHAMED.-HIS DOCTRINES.-HIS LOCUST-LIKE FOLLOWERS.THEIR POWER AND PROGRESS.-THE CHRISTIAN IDOLATERS.-REVELATION IX. 1-12.

THE subject of the present Lecture is in the ninth chapter, and embraces the leading events which took place in the Eastern Roman empire, extending over a period of 150 years. By these events a more decided change was effected in the political and religious aspect of that part of the world, than by those even which overturned the empire in the West.

These events, as well as all others affecting the fate of nations, seem to be produced naturally, from the passions, the policy, or the fatuity of man. But the hearts of kings are in the hand of God, and he turneth them as the rivers of waters. He sees the end from the beginning, and raises up and employs instruments for the accomplishment of his own purposes: and while men imagine they are carrying out their selfish schemes of ambition or revenge, they are all-unconscious of the designs of the Omniscient Ruler, who impels and directs, or controls and stops them in their course. This doctrine is clearly intimated in the Apocalypse, as well as the foreknowledge by which God shewed to his servant the things which should come to pass.

These things were revealed to St. John in the order in which they should occur in the history of the world; for our God is a God of order. They were exhibited, not in detail, but by pictorial representations, and brief but explicit explanations, of the leading points; or rather, the grand result of each series of events was described, constituting what may be called a campaign in the course of Time. But these leading incidents or culminating points in