is joined with the mention of hail, as it is usually accompanied with lightning and thunder, especially in the warmer climates. So Psalm xviii. 13, 14, and Exod. ix. 23. St. John mixes blood with it likewise, as pointing out that the whole imagery relates to war and slaughter. Now, with respect to the mention of trees and herbs, it is to be observed that the former imply, in prophetic language, the great and the rich; as the Chaldee paraphrast substitutes for the oaks of Bashan, the princes of provinces, (Isaiah ii. 13.) for cedars, Is. xiv. 8. rich men, and for firtrees, Is. xxxviii. 24. princes or kings. He paraphrases also a passage in Zech. xi. 2. "Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen." Howl, ye kings, for your princes are debased. The analogy extended a little lower, shows that the herbs apply to the common people with equal propriety. As to the facts confirming the prophecy, they are obvious to every reader, and Jerome, who lived in these times, thus describes them. "Between Constantinople and the Julian Alps, Roman blood is every day shed. The Goths, Sarmatians, &c. &c. invade and seize on Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, Dardania, Dacia, Thessalia, Achaia, Epirus, and Dalmatia. How many matrons, how many virgins of God, and free born and noble persons, are become the sport of these brute beasts! Bishops are taken captive, priests slain, and the functions of divers clergymen suspended. Churches are overthrown, horses are stabled at the altars of Christ, the relics of martyrs are dug up. The whole Roman world falls to pieces," &c. Philostorgius likewise, who lived in and wrote of these times, as quoted by Bishop Newton, says "The sword of the barbarians destroyed the greatest multitude of men; and among other calamities dry heats with flashes of fire occasioned various and intolerable terrors; yea, and hail, greater than could be held in a man's hand, fell down in several places ;"-so that, if this account is to be relied on, the prophecy of hail, and fire mingled with blood, was literally, as well as metaphorically, fulfilled. Claudian also compares the irruption of the barbarians to a storm of hail. "Ex illo, quocunque vagos impegit Erinnys, CLAUD. de Bello Getico. Jerome, in another passage observes, that they marched quicker than report, spared neither religion, dignities, nor age, nor had compassion on shrieking infants. So that they destroyed not only the metaphorical trees, but the green grass of the third part of the world. A reference to the Oriental interpretation of dreams fully confirms the general explanation which has been given of hail, fire, trees, &c. correspondently with the language of the prophets, and of the Apocalypse. "And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire, was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood; and the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and a third part of the ships were destroyed." The image of a burning mountain is taken from Jeremiah li. 13. where it is applied to the destruction of Babylon-"O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure of thy covetousness”—(ver. 25.) "Behold I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyeth all the earth, and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burning mountain." In the 36th verse, likewise, the Lord says by the prophet, "I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry;" which is explained in the 44th verse, where he adds-"I will punish Bel, in Babylon, the nations shall not flow together any more unto him." The effect of the second trumpet may be exemplified by the overthrow of the imperial city of Rome, which was first taken, sacked, and set fire to in several places by Alaric the Goth, with his army of barbarians, in 410. And with respect to the sea, a third part of which, or of the Roman powers over it, was affected by this plague, the image applies metaphorically to the multitude of the people constituting a great empire, and more particularly, as part of the figurative political state, to the amplitude of its dominion or its circumference, it is obvious that the destruction of the chief city must occasion blood and slaughter to the people over whom it exercised its sway, while the distant provinces which formed its circumference being seized upon by the barbarians, the legions which defended them were destroyed, the inhabitants slain, and the commerce with the head of the empire was cut off. This dismemberment was effected not only by Alaric and his Gothic tribes, but by Attila, "the scourge of God," as he very appositely described himself, and who, for fourteen years, kept the whole of the eastern and western empire in perpetual alarm by his irruptions and devastations. The consequence of these repeated attacks and conquests was the dilaceration of the Roman state, the settlement of the barbarians in Gaul and Spain, and other provinces, and the commencement of that division of the empire into ten kingdoms, which is the subject of a future prophecy. "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon 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 of the waters because they were made bitter." This vision, I think with Mede, may very properly be applied to the fall of the western Cæsar -that power, which on the division of the empire into eastern and western, upon the death of Theodosius the First, subsisted in its lustre but for a short period. For after Rome had been captured and pillaged by Genseric, the King of the Vandals, in 455, though the title of Emperor of the West was still preserved by some nominal Cæsars, yet under the fatal name of Augustulus, it was at length hurled from the summit of its power, in 476, by Odoacer, King of the Heruli, and the title and dominion was extinguished. And though, as Mede observes, the Roman bishop, 320 years afterwards, revived the title in the King of the Franks, and afterwards in that of the Germans, yet this was only a cloak for his own |