will arise to the explanation given of these two vials, from the partial synchronism of their events.

To trace in order the events, which I apprehend relate to the second vial, would be to write a long history. I shall mention only a few of those events. Let any one peruse the history of that period; and he will not doubt whether the events were of sufficient magnitude to answer to the second vial. For but little short of 40 years we find an almost continual series of wars, of which Italy was chiefly the bloody theatre. The powers engaged were, the emperor of Germany, (who was at the same time king of Spain and of Naples,) the king of France, the Pope, the emperor of the Turks, the king of the Romans, of Hungary and Bohemia, and more than once the king of England. Terrible battles were

fought. And all the calamities of sieges and captivities, and all those evils usually attendant on furious wars, were experienced in Italy. The Pope himself met with rough treatment. He was more than once a prisoner; and his capital was plundered. Cardinal

Pompeo Colona, a disappointed rival of Pope Clement, instigated by the Imperial ambassador, while the Pope was engaged with Francis in war against the emperor, seized the gates of the Pope, at the head of an army, and dispersed his guards. The Pope fled to the castle of St. Angelo; which was immediately besieged. The palace of the Vatican, the church of St. Peter, and the houses of the Pope's ministers and servants, were plun dered. The Pope capitulated; being forced to agree to grant his cardinal a full pardon for all this conduct; and to withdraw his troops from the confederate army then at Lombardy. Not long after, Bourbon, who had fled disgusted from the king of France to the emperor, and had been made general of the Imperial army in Italy, and duke of Milan, marched at the head of 25,000 veteran troops toward Rome. They had been rendered desperate by want of money and provisions. And without the knowledge of Charles their emperor, they engaged in this expedition. The Pope, then at war with the emperor, became alarmed, and speedily formed a treaty with Lannoy, another Imperial general; in which

he agreed to a suspension of arms, for eight months; and to pay 60,000 crowns toward the support of the Imperial army. Upon this, the Pope thought all was safe; and disbanded his tro ps. This credulous conduct his generals imputed to infatuation. Be it so; it was designed to aid his unprecedented calamity! Quem Deus vult periere, prius dementat. Whom God designs for ruin, he often first infatuates. Lannoy informed Bourbon of the armistice, which he had concluded with the Pope; and desired him to turn his arms against Venice. But Bourbon's hungry and half naked troops, elated with the idea of plundering Rome, would not be diverted from their object. And Bourbon himself discovered little or no inclination to control them. They continued their march. The walls of Rome were scaled. Bourbon fell by a ball from the ramparts. His soldiers took the city. The Pope with thirteen cardinals and others, fled to the castle of St. Angelo. On his way thither, the Pope "saw his troops flying before the enemy, who gave them no quarter; and heard the cries and lamentations of the citizens of Rome."

It is im

possible to describe the horrors of the scene, which followed. Whatever a city, taken by storm, can dread from military rage, unrestrained by any leader; "whatever excesses the ferocity of the Germans, the avarice of the Spaniards, or the licentiousness of the Italians could commit; these wretched inhabitants were obliged to suffer." Churches, palaces, and the houses of private persons, were plundered without distinction. No age, character, or sex, was exempt from injury. Cardinals, nobles, priests, matrons, virgins, all were a prey to a brutal, enraged soldiery, deaf to every call of humanity. Nor did these outrages cease, as is usual in places taken by storm, when the first rage is over. Those 25,000 armed plunderers had the undisturbed possession of that vast wealthy city for several months; in which time their brutality scarcely abated. Their booty in ready money amounted to a million of ducats.*

* Ducat, a coin struck by dukes; in silver 80,75; in gold 98.6d. sterling.

And what they raised by ransoms and exactions, far exceeded that sum. Dr. Robertson observes, that though Rome had been taken at several different times, by the northern barbarians in the fifth and sixth centuries, it was never treated with so much cruelty by the Huns, Vandals, and Goths, as it experienced at this time. Here let the reader be reminded, that expositors suppose the first and second trumpets, (the fiery hailstorm upon the earth, and the burning mountain cast into the sea,*) to have been fulfilled by those former sackings of Rome, to which Dr. Robertson here refers. And if Rome experienced greater severity under the ravages of Bourbon's army, than in those ancient calamities, which fulfilled the first and second trumpets; surely this scene under Bourbon's army, together with those furious wars, which for nearly half a century, shook Italy, Germany, and France, cannot be esteemed too diminutive to have fulfilled the second vial.

While the Pope and his cardinals were confined in the castle of St. Angelo, and Bourbon's army were plundering Rome, the duke of Urbino advanced with an army of Venetians, Florentines, and Swiss, in the pay of France, sufficient to have relieved the Pope, and to have driven the army of plunderers out of Rome. The Pope, from the ramparts of his castle, beheld the advance of those troops at a distance; and leaped for joy, imaging relief was now at hand. But the duke of Urbino, having a private pique against the Pope, on coming in sight of Rome, pronounced the attempt to rescue the city too hazardous; and he wheeled his ar my, and retired; and thus left the Pope and Rome in all their wretchedness.

The Florentines rose in insurrection against the government of the Pope, declared themselves a free people, broke in pieces the statues of Leo X, and of Clement, the then present Pope; and established their ancient popular government. The Venetians also seized Ravenna, and other places belonging to the church. And the dukes of Urbino and Ferrari seized property be

Rev. viii, 7, 89

longing to the Pope, whom they now considered as irretrievably ruined! Also Lannoy, Moncada, and the marquis del Guesto, three Imperial generals then in Italy, at the head of all the troops they could assemble in Naples, marched to Rome; not to relieve, but to add to its distresses. This army, envying the wealth of their companions, who had plundered the city, imitated their conduct; and, with the utmost rapacity, gathered the gleanings, which had escaped the avarice of Bourbon's army. The Pope in the castle of St. Angelo, after being reduced by famine, and feeding on asses' flesh, capitulated; agreeing to pay his besiegers 400,000 ducats; to surrender to the emperor all the places of strength belonging to the church; and to give hostages; and himself to remain a prisoner, till the articles of capitulation should be fulfilled. The Pope was accordingly delivered to the care of Alarcon, who had some years before been the keeper of Francis I, the monarch of France, while he was a prisoner to the emperor. After an imprisonment of six months, the Pope procured his liberty, by the additional sum of 350,000 crowns.

The emperor, when he came to hear of these things, feigned deep mourning and sorrow. But he was inwardly pleased; because the Pope had excited and headed a coalition against him, consisting of the Pope, the king of France, and the king of England. All Christendom was struck with horror at a view of the violence offered to his holiness; and the plundering of Rome. The emperor afterwards came to Rome, restored to the Pope the church lands, and treated him with some apparent respect, that he might seem to make some amends for such indignities.

It has been before hinted that Solyman, the magnificent, on the Ottoman throne, seemed to have been raised up in Providence to aid the same work of judg ment, with Francis and Charles. We accordingly find him, with fleets and armies, repeatedly annoying those great Papal nations, at this period. He attacked Hungary with an army of 200,000 men, and a fleet of 400 sail, and took Belgrade and Rhodes. A second

An

time he invaded Hungary, with 300,000 men. army of 30,000 Hungarians and Bohemians undertook to meet him, led by the monk, archbishop of Golocza, in his pontifical dress. They fought at Mohacz. The Catholic army was cut in pieces. The flower of the nobility, and more than 20,000 of the Hungarians, fell. Hungary was overrun; and nearly 200,000 persons were by the Turks carried into captivity. Solyman, no: long after, laid siege to Vienna with an army of 150,000 men. Naples was ravaged by the Turkish admiral Barbarossa. Rheggio in Italy was plundered and burnt by a Turkish fleet of 110 gallies. The same fleet the next spring ravaged the coasts of Naples and Tuscany. In Hungary the Turks defeated the Germans in a great battle at Essek on the Drave. And repeatedly was the Turkish emperor in alliance with the king of France, against the emperor.

The civil wars, which broke out in Italy and Germany, were far from being of a trifling nature. The events in consequence of Charles's undertaking to destroy the league of Smalkalde, were not without terror and blood. The subsequent war of Maurice, in which he out-generaled Charles, and wrested the rights of the German Protestants, and the liberties of the empire, out of his hands, was a heavy judgment upon the Papal see. Maurice and the landgrave of Hesse, had before had a civil war with Henry of Brunswick, in which the latter was subdued. Albert of Brandenburg, one of the confederates under Maurice for humbling the emperor, conceived the wicked design of forming for himself an empire. And after the emperor and Maurice had made peace, Albert continued in arms, and made awful ravages in the empire. He turned his army of veteran desperadoes against the ecclesiastical states; which, with various cities on the Rhine, he rav aged and plundered, with wanton barbarity. A league of princes was formed against him. An army was raised; and Maurice was appointed their general. The two armies, of 24,000 each, met. The battle was obstinate and bloody. Maurice was slain; and many of his first officers. But the vile Albert was defeated. Soon however, he was in the field again, with 15,000