Star.
London, England, 1809-11-16 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.

NO. XXXiI.—TIIE Jeerer TRUMPET.
$ IV. Of the Command given to ti:e Locusts.
" jt was commanded them that they should not hurt the
grass eartli, nor any gr.ln ihiag, nor any tree ; but
th:he ntrn 1.2.,h0 have nil the seal of Gon in their fore-
/teals. And to than it was
,riven that they should not kill
them, but that they should be tormexed five months, and
their form: nt [to is .] as the torment of a scorpion when he
strik. th a num." (Rev. ix. 4. 5).
That symbolical, and not natural, locusts are in-
ten led in the prophecy is here declared in positive
terms. for they .ue not to hurt vegetables, the natural
food of but men ;—and here we are preclUded
m considering ;rats and trees as symbols, because
that, to which they arc put in antie:esis, is not a sym-
bol, 'au men —thee! ;inn who have trtt the sae of Gon in
their forrheadt. Here is a direct allusion to the seal-
ing 01 the 11.4,000 narrated in the 7th chapter, and
which, from its being introduced before the sounding
of the trumpets, seems to have been intended as an
intimation that the faithful followers of the Lama,
who, 66 are sealed unto the day of redemption"—
(Ephes. 1. 19. iv. 9(0) should be preserved by his
power f)m being carried away in the general apos-
tacy. The declaration in the passage before us was
a further warning to those " sealed with the holy spi-
rit of firomise," not to be intimidated by the threats,
ner led away by the high swelling words end promises
ofpicity (` Pet. ii. 19) which the false teachers were
to dispense to their followers—to the men not sealed;
since to the Teri persons who should reverence them
and submit to their authority, they should prove a
snare, a curse and a torment. " They have no rest day
nor night, who worship the beast and his image."
This trumpet is silent respecting the hatred, en-
mity, and persecution, which the locusts were to ma-
nifest towards the followers of the rider on the It•tf;te
h,rse, because that had been before fully declared—
and because this trumpet is a declaration of WOE-oot
to these but to the locusts, or rather to their suppor-
ters, the men who have not the seal of Goo. One thing
deserves particular notice : to the locusts it was given,
that rtirr shoold act 111 them, but torment them—not that
they should not pt ()cure the death of thousands of thou-
sands, but THEY were to be the INSTIGATORS to mur-
der, not the EX ECUTIoNERS ; the honour of killing was to
remain with the seeular power; and has not this beenuni-
formly the practice of themen symbolized bythe locusts,
—to traduce mad vilify all who differed from them in
religions sentiments ; to convert opinions into crimes ;
to torment men with the subtleties of their " dark
senten.-et," and idle logomachies, and then to employ
the arm of the civil power to fine, imprison, banish,
torture and extirpate, all who dared to question the
propriety of any of their dogmas ?—Was their vin-
dictive malice exercised only against the simple fol-
lowers of the LAMB ? Isla—locusts warred with lo-
casts—different parties of them attacking each other,
:and with the most fervent zeal devoting their respec-
tive adversaries to eternal perdition ! Had their ven-
geance been confined to anathemas, the evil would
soon have ceased, or at best their malice would have
been impotent, for " the curse causeless shall net come"
(Prov. xxvi. `.!) ; but the tolly and wickedness of the
ruling powers ._rave an importance and •e• :-.itience to
their con-enytible avemales, • l•ich filled ery king-
dom with misery and woe, and deluged the world
with blood.
It was foretold in the sealed book that the King,
(that is the kingdom) or the locusts, si. iuld destroy
wordtrittl?9, but not by his o,on power—hut the meaning
of this was sealed, nor woold e he, been easy to
conceive, before the event bac ;retied, how the thing
possibly take plaea, had it not been declared :o
th:R:veLtion that the kings themselves would gire their
j.cwer to these men, to enable them, in this manner,
to•torment mankind. How could it have been thought
possible that potentates should ever become so blind
to.their own interest, as to waste the strength of their
states, and do every titling in their power to dry up
their own resources, by wars carried on against their
own subjects, for mere opinionS ? Reason revolts at
the idea—humanity shudders at the recital of the mi-
series that were thus for ages entailed upon mankind,
and revelation tells us that this could never have hap-
petted but for the smoke and darkness which came with j
these kcusts from the pit of the abyss.
I shall not now detain the reader with a particular
recital of the manner in which they endeavoured to
avoid the odium of these murders, by making the
• Ruling powers their instruments of slaughter, as this
is more largely insisted on ia a part of this prophecy
Lot ye: before us ; but we must not pass over a strik-
ing circumstance, which accompanied the torment of
the locusts, and which in fact was a principal part of
t'e torture they inflicted :""".
" ilsTse days shall 717t11 death and shall not fad
it, anal shall desire to die, and (haat shaft? from them."
How can this be reconc,led with whit has been al.
ready advanced, respecting the murders perpetrated
by the procurement of an- locusts ? Let the reader keep
this fact constantly in his memory—that the locusts are
a Body, a Kingdom, represented in another part of
this prophecy (Rev. xiii. 11.) by a beast rising out of the
carit, 1): cause it was .established by the Kings of the
earth ; and yet said, in another place ( Rev. xv.i.
t 3 ft.7,-;:nd cut :;0 tier dcyss, bec ese thence came
that darknc,s ttaiclt enabled its principal members,
the locusts, to establish their empire. Now, as an
aei mai posy,n;irg, life has living members; in other
words, as every individual member a: a livia:; creature
partakes of the that animate.; the whole body, so
politico-religious body !..:s a life proper to itself,
in which all its members particivate ; and its rulers
estimate its health, vieour and prosperity by its in-
crease—by the number, not the quality, a. its ad-

he: cots.
by the laws of C..IIPIST every rotten member must
be q- from his church, even if the operation sbou!d
b._ painful to th.• feelings of the other rnemb:rs, like
etzf;ng ?If a or j .7:.-hing cut a ri7!!! ye (Mat.
Uai. v. it.) r-,:x=e, the word employed
in such passa;e!, mein.s to serar horn the source
of life, as to cut off a bc.lnch of a tree from its parent
stock. The member so put ::way ceases to perform
of e functions in body, thiit is,
any be is I,'eacl as
to the body to which he iormerly belonged ; and not ,
sc:;posed t eternal should this dls.'
only so-1
cipline fail in producin7, the eiTect intended, namely
repentance and
,r:icrmaiion, that the pci:, rosy be
restored to the oody ; 1,:;. a i,eparated branch may
mzein 4,4 srafied its ocru tree (Rom. xi. 21.)