best interpreters in referring it to that event. Considerable difference of opinion, however, obtains among them, with regard to the subordinate parts of the vision.

Mede supposes that the four angels who are loosed, denote four Turkish Sultanies, established at Bagdad, Damascus, Aleppo and Iconium, which were all at length united under the common empire of the Ottomans, who finally subverted the Greek empire by the capture of Constantinople, in the year 1453. In this interpretation Mede is followed by Bishop Newton, Mr. Faber, and the great body of modern writers. I cannot but think, however, for the following reasons, that it is erroneous.

At the time that the Ottomans overthrew the empire of the East, neither Aleppo, Damascus, nor Bagdad, were under their dominion. Syria formed then a part of the Mameluke kingdom of Egypt. Nor was it till the year 1517, more than half a century after the capture of Constantinople, that Selim I. emperor of the Ottomans, conquered Syria and Egypt, after defeating the Mamelukes in two battles, and thus obtained possession of Aleppo and Damascus.* Bagdad did not become a part of the Turkish empire, until the reign of Solyman I, who took it in the year 1534.†

From what has been said, it plainly appears, that Mede's explanation of the four angels is untenable. It is in fact contrary to the truth of history, and if the four angels were symbols representing any particular kingdoms or nations, we must seek for some other solution of the difficulty.

* Modern Univer. Hist. vol. xii. p. 240-252. + Ibid. p. 293.

We are informed from history, that four different races of Mahomedan conquerors were instrumental in overthrowing the eastern empire; First, the Saracens, whose conquests we have seen form the subject of the fifth trumpet: Secondly, the Turks of the family of Seljuk, who in the eleventh century, obtained possession of the greatest part of Asia Minor, by conquest from the Greek emperors: Thirdly, the Moghul Tartars under Jenghiz Khan, and his successors, who after subjugating the whole of Asia, adopted the Mahomedan faith: Fourthly, the Ottomans, whose rise took place about the end of the thirteenth century. Now the Ottoman power concentrated not only its own resources, but all that remained of the three first races of conquerors in the northern Asiatic provinces formerly attached to the Greek empire, and united them under its own dominion. For this reason perhaps its power might be represented by the four angels.*

I confess however that the above solution, does not satisfy my mind; and I shall proceed to offer, what appears to me a better one. With the great body of interpreters I conceive, that the Euphrates means the Turkish nation, which first invaded and conquered the provinces of the eastern empire, situated near that river. They are on that account, and according to the style of prophecy, symbolized by the Euphrates, in the same manner as the Thames might be used to denote the English nation, or the Forth

*This is very analogous to the interpretation of Vitringa and Archdeacon Woodhouse. But both these writers exclude the Saracens from the fifth trumpet, of which they offer other, but discordant explanations. Vitringa interprets it of the Goths invading Italy; Archdeacon Woodhouse of the Gnostic heretics.

the people of Scotland.* Though the Turks obtained possession of some of the Asiatic provinces of the Eastern empire, as early as the eleventh century, yet they were by the providence of God and by means of the Crusades, prevented from then overrunning the empire. But at length the cup of its iniquity being filled up, they became the ordained instruments of vengeance, for its complete subversion. To signify both the former limits which had been assigned to their conquests, and the office of wrath now committed to them, the power of the Turks or Ottomans, is represented under the symbol of four angels, which had been tied up, or restrained, in the great river Euphrates, but are now to be let loose, in order that they may slay the third part of men. It will here however be asked, why is the precise number of four selected for this end? I answer, that four is one of the mystical numbers of the Apocalypse, denoting what is complete, or entire.† In

* I have already shewn, (see page 68,) that the symbolical waters signify "peoples, nations, and multitudes," Rev. xvii. 15; therefore a particular river denotes a particular people: and it is easy to see, that no river could have been selected so fitly as the Euphrates to designate the Turks,

+ "Quaternarius enim numerus in Apocalypsi sæpe est mysticus, "estque inter numeros plenitudinis sive perfectos qui dicuntur respi"ciens quatuor climata cœli." Vitringa in loco.

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"This number is used frequently in Scripture to denote universality, or completion. It has this force naturally from the figure or for"mation of the human body, which is so fashioned as to occasion a fourfold division of the objects which surround it; so that under "the number four they are comprehended. For instance: a man "face; one quarter of the horizon, the south, he has the north behind "him; his hands extended point to the east and west. Hence is "derived in Scripture the determination of these four cardinal points, "and their corresponding winds, "the four winds of heaven." And

chap. viii. 1. a period of universal peace in the midst of the earthquake of the sixth seal, is represented by four angels, holding the four winds of the earth. The overthrow of the Western empire is also signified in chap. viii. by the four angels with the four first trumpets. In a similar manner, as the eastern empire was to be completely subverted by the Turks, their power is represented, under the symbol of four destroying angels.

Mede,

The four angels were "prepared for the hour, " and day, and month, and year, for to slay the third "part of men." I have seen no explanation of this note of time, which satisfies my mind. Bishop Newton, and others, suppose, that it marks a prophetical period of 391 years, during which the conquests of the Ottomans were to be carried on.* But in every other passage of the scriptures where a mysterious number is given signifying a particular prophetical period, it will be found that the number has in the original Greek no article prefixed to it. In the passage now under consideration, on the contrary, the definite article is prefixed to the first number of the series, ήτοιμασμενοι εἰς τὴν ὥραν, &c. and the expression ought accordingly to have been rendered in our English version, "prepared for the hour, &c." I think that this circumstance overthrows the inter

"thus "the four corners of the land," are used to signify all the "land; whence Philo says, Пavra ev тn Teтgadi. So Pythagoras: Archdeacon "Tetras omnium perfectissimus, radix omnium." Woodhouse on Rev. iv. 4.

* A Jewish year is 360 days, and a month 30 days; these two numbers being added to the one day, make 391 prophetical days; and each day being reckoned for a year, in this way a period of 391 years is made out.

pretation of Mede, and I am inclined to believe, that nothing more is denoted by the expression, than that the precise period, when the angels were to begin their devastations, and also the term of their continuance, were minutely fixed in the divine counsels.*

I think with Bishop Newton, Mr. Faber, and others, that the slaughter of the third part of the men, by the four angels, signifies, the subversion of the eastern empire. The western empire had already been exhibited, in the four first trumpets, under the figure of a symbolical universe, and its subversion by the Gothic arms was denoted, by the destruction of a third part of that universe. The eastern empire is now placed before us as a political community, under the generic appellation of

men;" and its overthrow is in a similar manner signified, by the slaughter of a third part of " the

"men."

The forces of the angels are afterwards described as consisting of two hundred thousand thousands horsemen, by which an indefinitely great multitude is intended; and it is well known that the Turkish armies chiefly consisted of horse, particularly in

* Mr. Faber, in the first editions of his work, followed the explanation of the hour, day, month, and year, offered by Mede; but in his fifth edition he has given it up as untenable, and supposes that it alludes to the circumstance of the precise day of the assault of the city of Constantinople having been fixed by Mahomed II. according to the rules of astrology. "Several days," says Gibbon,

66 were

employed by the sultan in preparations for the assault; and a respite was granted by his favourite science of astrology, which “had fixed on the twenty-ninth of May as the fortunate and fatal "hour."