the cafe with the Turks; for they are reckoned to have no lefs than 719,000 of them difperfed over the feveral provinces of their empire. They were to have "breaft-plates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone; the heads of their horses were to be as the heads of lions, and out of their mouths iffued fire, and smoke, and brimftone. And by these were the third part of men killed.” (ver. 17, 18.) This is, as Mr. Whifton obferves, a moft proper or allegorical description of the way and appearance of battles, fince the woeful ufe of guns and gunpowder, which were invented under this trumpet. By thefe they were enabled, in the infancy of this art, of killing and laying wafte, to atchieve fome of their greateft exploits. By means of his artillery, Amurath the Second broke into the Peloponnefus, and took several strong places; and in particular at their most fatal action, the taking of Conftantinople, in 1453, fuch enormous guns were employed as had never been feen before. One is defcribed to have been of fuch a monftrous fize, that it was drawn by feventy yoke of oxen, and two thousand men. If we moreover confider the cavalry as firing over the heads of their horfes, not only do the men feem to have breaft-plates of fire, but fire, and smoke, and brimftone, feem to iffue from the mouths of their horfes.

But it being allowed, as it is by almost all our writers, that the Turks are intended by this woe, what chiefly concerns us is, when was this loofing effected, of which the prophecy speaks, and for how long a time were these angels prepared to flay the third part of men? Concerning these four angels, fee Mede's Key, p. 108, and Whifton's Effay, p. 199. They understand them to be four fultanies or kingdoms, which the Turks had at or near the river Euphrates, for feveral fucceffions together, whofe capital cities were Bagdad, beyond that river, and Iconium, Aleppo, and Damafcus, on this fide of it. For a great while they were restrained to these parts, and could not extend their dominion as they wished. Several circumstances operated to effect this restraint, particularly the expeditions of the crufaders, in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the power of the khans of Perfia, who, till the beginning of the fourteenth century exercised some control over them. But it is evident, that the feveral reftraints of Providence, which had bound them, began to be taken off towards the end of the thir

teenth,

teenth, and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries. All our writers on the ancient Turkish hiftory, complain of the barrenness of their materials, and the inaccuracy of dates; but let us trace this matter as well as we can. Firft obferve the rife of the Ottoman family itfelf. The first perfon we read of, of this remarkable race, which has been fuch a fcourge to Chriftendom, is Solyman Shah, who attempted, about A. D. 1214, fay fome, later, according to others, to retire out of Perfia, to feek for himself and followers a fettlement under the Seljukide, who then reigned in Afia Minor. In attempting to pass the Euphrates he was drowned. This fo difcouraged his fons, that two of them returned back into Perfia; but Ortogrul, the third, with his three fons, Candoz, Sarubani, and Othman, or Ottoman, ftill remained in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates for fome time, till Aladin, the fultan of Iconium, received him, and gave him, and the four hundred families which emigrated with him, a country to inhabit. Ortogrul died about the year 1289, and his fon Ottoman continued the subject and foldier of Aladin. By his valor and fuccefs he raised himself to great eminence, and the race of the Seljukide terminating in Aladin, he fixed upon Ottoman to be his fucceffor. Oppreffed with age and infirmities, he is faid, in his life time, to have devolved on Ottoman the cares and prerogatives of royalty. Mr. Gibbon fixes this in A. D. 1299; but it is generally determined to have been in 1300. From comparing what is faid of the length of his reign, and the beginning of the reign of his fon Urchan, and other circumstances, there is reafon to conclude that he began his reign in the year of the Hegira (the Turkish epoch) 699 or 700, probably the latter. Now, as the Hegira began July 15, 622, A, C. and the Arabian years being lunar, and the Turks reckoning them by thirties, nineteen of which confist of 354 days, and eleven of 355, their year 700 would commence on Sept. 16, 1800. Thus the fourth month of the Turkish year would be according to the Chriftian era, 1301. Hiftorians feldom take any notice of this difference in the commencement of the Turkish years, and those of ours; but if an event is faid to have taken place in the 700th year of the Hegira, this year commencing in 1300 of our era, it is therefore fet down as in that year. It is probable that Ottoman was inaugurated in the year of the Hegira 700; but history does not fay on what day or month of that year;

it might be towards the latter end of it. Mr. Whiston endeavors very ingeniously to prove from certain circumftances, that he began his reign May 19, 1301. It would certainly afford fome fatisfaction, if we could prove to a day or a month from whence to date the beginning of the Ottoman empire. But I queftion whether this would be enough to prove the exact time of the loofing thefe four angels, or meffengers of deftruction. In Ottoman, it is evident that all these fultanies were united; but perhaps their loofing is to be reckoned from fome great and fuccefsful expedition undertaken fome time after he had mounted the throne. Ι think it is clear that it was foon after the commencement of his reign; and if we are not able to prove the exact day or year, it does not invalidate the conclufion which we mean to draw.

According to Chalcocondylas, quoted by Mr. Whiston, soon after Ottoman was feated on the Turkish throne, the Turks made an irruption into Europe, even as far as the Danube, and a second foon after. This fecond is afcribed to 1302. But let us hear Mr. Gibbon, (Hift. of the Rife and Fall of the Rom. Emp. vol. xi. p. 443) who cannot be fufpected of wishing to ferve the caufe of Chriftianity. He laments, with all other writers on these subjects, the obfcurity of the Turkish annals. He dates the first breach which Ottoman made upon the Greek empire July 27, 1299, but fays it was after the Seljukian dynasty was no more. As authors are pretty well agreed as to the uncertainty of the Turkish dates, and as it is pretty clear that Aladin did not die till 1302, perhaps this date is not quite correct. However this may be, he fays, "The Seljukian dynafty was no more; and the diftance and decline of the Magul khans foon enfranchised him (Ottoman) from the control of a fuperior. He was fituate on the verge of the Greek empire; the Koran fanctified his gazi, or holy war, against the infidels; and their political errors unlocked the paffes of mount Olympus, and invited him to defcend into the plains of Bithynia. Till the reign of Paleologus, these passes had been vigilantly guarded by the militia of the country, who were repaid by their own fafety, and by an exemption from taxes. The emperor abolifhed their privilege, and affumed their office; but though the tribute was rigorously collected, the cuftody of the paffes was neglected, and the hardy mountaineers degenerated into a tremb

ling crowd of peafants, without fpirit or difcipline. It was on the 27th of July, in 1299 of the Chriftian era, that Othman first invaded the territory of Nicomedia; and the fingular accuracy of the date feems to difclofe fome foreight of the rapid and deftructive growth of the monster.". In page 431 he informs us, that till now "all the emirs who had occupied the cities or the mountains, confeffed the fupremacy of the khan of Perfia, who oftentimes interpofed his authority, and fometimes his arms, to check their depredations, and to preserve the peace and balance of his Turkish frontier. The death of Cazan removed this falutary control; and the decline of the Moguls gave a free scope to the rise and progress of the Ottoman empire." This event he dates May 31, 1304. This looks very much like the loofing of which the. prophecy speaks. Between this and the year 1312 he dates the conqueft of the maritime country from the Propontis to the Meander, and the ifle of Rhodes, fo long threatened, and so often pillaged; and that now (p. 437) "the captivity or ruin of the feven churches of Asia was confummated, and the barbarous lords of Ionia and Lydia still trample on the monuments of claffic and Chriftian antiquity." And but a few years after this, so humbled were the proud Christians of Conftantinople, the trembling capital of the emperors in the east, that crowds of naked Christians, of both fexes, and of every age, of priests and monks, of matrons and virgins, were expofed to fale in their public markets; and all they could do was to deplore the fate of their brethren, who were led away to the worst evils of temporal and spiritual bondage. In 1857 or 1858 they entered the European feas with a very numerous fleet of fhips, and never ceafed their conquests, nor received any effectual check, till the latter end of the last century. In 1453 they took and facked Conftantinople, entirely conquered the eastern empire, and made that imperial city the capital of their vaft dominions.

Ver. 15.

But for how long a period was their triumph to continue? "And the four angels were loofed which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to flay the third part of men." According to Mr. Brightman, Dr. Lloyd, Bishop of Worcester, Dr. Creffner, Mr. Whifton, and others,

396 years, and fome odd days, are here fignified. They reckon,

It admits of a doubt whether the Jewish year of 360 days fhould be counted, or the Julian year as above; but as it does not affect the hypothefis I mean to establish, I fhall not detain the reader to examine it. Mr. Whifton argues that it is probable that Ottoman began his reign May 19, 1301, and reckoning from thence to September 1, O. S. 1697, when prince Eugene overthrew the Turks at Zenta, we have exactly the time required. And it deserves to be remarked that ever fince that overthrow they have never been able to make any effectuak head against the Christians, so called, but instead of being a plague to the Christian nations, in the prophetic fenfe of the term, these nations have been a plague to them, and their power has been conftantly leffening; for though they have made war feveral times, it has been uniformly to their lofs, at least with respect to the old western empire, or the Latin church; for immediately after this Providence raifed up Peter of Ruffia, who, by what he effected among the people of his vaft empire, prepared a scourge for those who, for four centuries, had been fo cruel a fcourge to mankind. This is the meffenger who was to bring tidings from the north to trouble him, Dan. xi. 44. and it is probable that Ruffia will be a principal inftrument of his deftruction.

It deferves the attention of the learned inquirer, whether by his planting the tabernacle of his palace between the feas, in the glorious holy mountain, be not fignified his making Conftantinople, which is fituated on the fhores of the Bofphorus, between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the capital of his empire; for as Jerufalem might be called the glorious holy mountain because the capital of the Jewish church, though that church was become very corrupt, and the city polluted with every crime, fo might this city, which was the capital of the Greek Chriftian church, and esteemed by them the holy metropolitan city, though polluted with fimilar abominations, be spoken of in the fame ftyle.

What