Star.
London, England, 1809-08-30 00:00:00

THE FIFIIi TRUNIFICT.

And thefifthAngel sounded, and I saw a star fallen from
?haven unto the Earth ; and to him was given the key of
the pit of the abyss—and he opened the pit of the abyss,
and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a
'rent furnace ; and the sun and the air were darkened by
Me smoke from the flit.
And there came out of the smoke los-tests against the
tarth ; and unto them errs jivers power as the scor-
pions of the earth have power. And it was commanded
them, that they should not hurt the grass of the earth,
nor any herb, nor any tree ; but only those men .whoj
have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them
was given, not to kill them, but that they should he tor-
mented fve months, and their torment [to be] as the tor-
ment ola scorpion when it strileth a man.
And, in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find
it ; .end shall desire to die, and death shall fee from them.
And the resenttlane:s of the locusts were like horses pre-
pared for battle : and for their head: as crowns of gold—
and their flees as fares of men ; and they had haPt as the
hair of women, and their teeth were as of lMns. And they
had treastldates as breast plates of ircn ; and the sound asr
their wings as the sound of chariots with molly horses run-
ning to battle. And they hatl tails like unto scorpions, and
Ater: were stings in their tails, and their py:ver [is] to
torment men. five months.*
And they had a king over them, the angel of the abyss,
nehose nan,e in ilebrew is "Mahlon, hut in Greek he hat r.
4.;.r name .Apollyon [ln English Destroyer.]
One woe is past. Behold there come two more woes her&
spa-. ( Rev. ix. 1. 12.)

I. Of the language tmployeelin this Trumpet.
Every since the days of Brightman and Medle, com-
mentators and expositors, with very few exceptions,
have referred the woe of this trumpet to the misery
br ,ught upon the christian world (I here use the comb
moo mode of speech) by MAHON( FT and his country-
men, the Saracens. They only differ in this—some
of them consider ManomET as the star who fell
from Heaven ; others, a Monk, of the name of Sea-

oics, who assisted him to fabricate his forged revela-
tion, as the distinguished personage here mentioned,
and to fortify their exposition, they tell us, that as
locuts are numerous, so were the Saracens, &c.—The
reader is requested to recur to the introduction of the
three woe-trumpets, of which this is the first, and he
will thence draw a convincing argument that MA tio-
mrr and the Saracens cannot be here intended; but
:rime affliction more dreadful than any thing denoun•
ced by the former trumpets, either as to its nature or
chaation, or both. It has never been yet contested that
the awful and solemn manner in which those trum-
pets are introduced, imports an aggravation of mi-
sery ; but can the depredations and evils inflicted by
these Arabians be compared to those brought on the
Roman Empire by the Goths, Vandals, liuns, and
oche! barbarians ? Those who apply this Trumpet to
the Saracens admit that though " they besieged Con-
staminople, and even plundered Rome, they could
not make themselves masters of either of those capi-
tal cities. The Greek Empire suffered most from
them, as it lay nearest to them. They dismembered
i; of Syria and Egypt, and other of its best and
richest provinces ; but they were never able to subdue
and conquer the whole. As often as they besieged
Constantinople they were repulsed. and defeated."t
This being the case, with what propriety can the in-
eursions and conquests of the Arabians be emphati-
cally called a woe, in comparison with the evils be-
fore suffered by the Roman Empire ?
Other objections, some of which arc insuperable,
may be opposed to such an application of this pro-
phecy. Thu Star here spoken of is a ruler in church
or state, in the territory of one or more of Daniel's
empires.—MAiromnr was neither—nor was SEEG; :
consequently neither of them could fall front that
eminence. Such a proposition carries absurdity on
the face of it.
The star had fallen from his Sphere----MAIIOMET,
cn the contrary;rose from obscurity, and became and
continued a Lright Star, or rather a Sun, in that sys-
tem of political and religious dominion of which he
was the founder.
The 10.-uits Were not to kill or [slay, aroarm:L.s-tv]
the men who had not the seal of Gon in their fore-
head, but only to torment them.—The Saracens idled!
mon), hundred thoui•ands of them. Those who maintain
that the Saracens are intended by the locusts are obliged
to be inconsistent. " The locusts," say they, " wete
net to kill but only to torment—Not Mat it could Le
supposed that the Saracens would not kill many thousands
in their incursions—they might kill them as indivi-
duals ! but they should not kill them as a political
body ! as a state or empire."§—What ! men enjoy
a polical existence after they are killed as individuals! ;
Is it a wonder that infidels should laugh at these ab- 1
tutdities ? It might be remarked here, that nowhere, I
throughout this prophecy, is the word men put for a
political body or empire ; the men who belong to
such bodies are frequently spoken of, as either acting
or suffering in consequence of their connexion with
them ; but the bodies themselves arc always repre-
sented under some emblem, or hieroglyphic. But this
need not be insisted on to shew the fallacy of
the popular interpretation, when we see those who
maintain it admitting, afterwards, under the next
Trumpet, that the four angels " which were pre-,
pared for an hour, a day, a month, and a year, to!
slay, or kill, [asox-rEivcci] the third part of men, '
,that is, as before, the men of the Roman Empire ¶,"
means " the four Sultanies, or four leaders of
the Turks and Othemans4"—Did these, any more
than the former, " kill them as a political body ?"
They put an end, indeed, to the Constantinopolitan •
empire, but " the third part," in this book always
means the Wectern empire—the " ONE EAGLE,"
marked with so much emphasis under the fourth
trumpet, as a principal agent, and the procuring
came of die thrice repeated " ;Foe to the inhabitants of
ear:h." II
'1 ite substitution of Saelftens for lo,:zuts," because in
the V,ok of ,Ldges ivii. 12.) the people of Arabia are
eemi.ar.d u, k.uiLs or frost,: oppers for multitude, for
in tic original thTwor,i for both [locusts and grass-
.... And they ~re ethruoitted to hart mankind five months."
wAittisttn.

Ntsetcm%; bisiert. Vt.l. iii. page 1411.
S NLwTox's bissert. N'ol. 111. p. p. 116.
11. 114.
I see