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upheld by the secular arm, and tyrannizing over the Church of Christ; and finally predict his complete destruction at Armageddon, in the very act of opposing the Almighty conjointly with his temporal colleague the ten-horned beast or revived R»man empire.

"The first angel sounded and there followed " hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth; and the third part of the "trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up."

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*

Throughout a great part of the prophecy of the trumpets, the Roman empire is denominated the third part of the whole symbolical universe, as including the third part of the then known world, and as being seated principally in Europe which at that time was accounted the third part of the world*. Hail and lightning mingled with blood denote a tremendous tempest of desolating war and foreign invasion. The storm therefore, which is here represented as falling upon the earth or Roman empire, typifies that grand compound irruption of the barbarous northern nations, from the effects of which the Roman empire never recovered itself, as it had done from those of the foregoing irruptions. In the natural world a storm is frequently preceded by a calm: hence in the figurafive world the great hail-storm mingled with lightning is represented as being preceded by silence.

*See Bp. Newton's Dissert. Vol. 11. P. 201.

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This silence however is not so deep, but that the latter part of it is interrupted both by thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake *, the immediate harbingers of the hail-storm. Accordingly we find, that the fierce Gothic tribes though perpetually at war with the Romans, and though threatening to overwhelm them by repeatedly violating the long extent of the northern frontier, were for a time restrained by the genius of Theodosius : but, upon the decease of this great prince in the year 395, the northern cloud, which had so long been gathering, discharged itself with irresistible fury upon the Empire. “He died in the month of January; and "before the end of the same year the Gothic na❝tion was in arms-The barriers of the Danube

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were thrown open: the savage warriors of Scy"thia issued from their forests; and the uncommon severity of the winter” (the season in which natural hail and snow are generated)" allowed the poet to remark, that they rolled their ponderous waggons over the broad and icy back of the in

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dignant river-The fertile fields of Phocis and "Beotia were covered with a deluge of barbarians, "who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females with

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* Rev. viii. 5.

"As the impatient Goths," says Mr. Gibbon, " could only « be restrained by the firm and temperate character of Theodo"sius, the public safety seemed to depend on the life and abili"ties of a single man." Hist. of Decline Vol. 1v. P. 443.

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"the spoil and cattle of the flaming villages." The whole territory of Athens was blasted by the baleful presence of Alaric; and "the travellers, who "visited Greece several years afterwards, could "easily discover the deep and bloody traces of the "march of the Goths *."

Such were the first effects of the symbolical hailstorm. Having thus ravaged Greece, it was next carried into Italy and the West. Under the guidance of Alaric, it passed over Pannonia, Istria, and Venetia; and threatened the destruction of imperial Rome herself. At length it was driven out of Italy by Stilicho.

Yet, scarcely was this part of the tempest dissipated, when another dark cloudt, generated like its fellow in the cold regions of the North, (so accurately does the symbol correspond with its antitype) burst in the year 406 upon the banks of the upper Danube, and thence passed on into Italy. Headed by Radagaisus, the northern Germans emigrated from their native land, besieged Florence, and threatened Rome. Stilicho however was again

*Hist. of Decline and Fall Vol. v. P. 176–181.

I have adopted the language of the historian. Unconsci ous that he was bearing his testimony to the truth of prophecy, he has used the self-same allegorical language as that employed by St. John. The correspondence of nations," says he," was "in that age so imperfect and precarious, that the revolutions "of the North might escape the knowledge of the court of Ra66 venna; till the dark cloud, which was collected along the "coast of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the 46 upper Danube." Hist. of Decline and Fall. Vol. v. P. 214.

victorious;

victorious; but the remnant of the vanquished host was still sufficient to invade and desolate the province of Gaul. "The banks of the Rhine were "crowned, like those of the Tiber, with elegant houses, and well cultivated farms. This scene "of peace and plenty was suddenly changed into a

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desert; and the prospect of the smoking ruins "could alone distinguish the solitude of nature "from the desolations of man. The flourishing city of Mentz was surprised and destroyed; and many thousand Christians were inhumanly mas"sacred in the church. Worms perished, after a

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long and obstinate siege; Strasburgh, 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 barbari

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ans; who drove before them, in a promiscuous "croud, the bishop, the senator, and the virgin, "laden with the spoils of their houses and altars *"

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Meanwhile that part of the storm, which was directed by Alaric, soon began to beat afresh. After the death of Stilicho, the Gothic sovereign again invaded Italy; and Rome herself, after three suc

Hist. of Decline Vol. v. P. 225,

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cessive sieges, was sacked by the northern barbarians *.

It is observable in literal storms of hail, that their violence appears for a season to subside, and afterwards to return with redoubled fury. This was exactly the case with the figurative tempest of Gothic invasion predicted in the Apocalypse. After the exploits of Alaric and Radagaisus had been atchieved, the violence of the main body of the hail-storm abated, but its outskirts still continued to beat upon the more remote provinces of the Western empire. In the year 409, Spain was overrun and ravaged by the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Alans; who were afterwards, in their turn, compelled to submit to the arms of the Goths +. The Vandals however still prevailed in Gallicia; and, in order (as it were) that no part of the Roman world should escape the devastating influence of the northern hail-storm, soon afterwards invaded the African province. In the year 429, they crossed the Streights of Gibraltar under the command of Genseric, invited by the mistaken policy of Boniface. At that period the African coast was extremely populous, and the country itself so fruitful that it deserved the name of the common granary. of Rome and of mankind. "On a sudden, "the seven provinces, from Tangier to. Tripoli, "were overwhelmed by the invasion of the Van

* Ibid. P. 184-329. + Ibid. P. 350-355.

"dals.

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