God will make the wrath of man praise him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain. Their formidable equipage and appearance, v. 17 . As the horses were fierce, like lions, and eager to rush into the battle, so those who sat upon them were clad in bright and costly armour, with all the ensigns of martial courage, zeal, and resolution. Their artillery, by which they made such slaughter, described by fire, smoke, and brimstone, issuing out of the mouths of their horses, and the stings that were in their tails. However, here seems to be an allusion to what is mentioned in the former vision, that, as antichrist had his forces of a spiritual nature, like scorpions poisoning the minds of men with error and idolatry, so the Turks, who were raised up to punish the antichristian apostasy, had their scorpions and their stings too, to hurt and kill the bodies of those who had been the murderers of so many souls.
Popery is a bloody religion, and seems resolved to continue such.
From this sixth trumpet we learn, 1. God can make one enemy of the church to be a scourge and plague to another. He who is the Lord of hosts has vast armies at his command, to serve his own purposes. The most formidable powers have limits set them, which they cannot transgress. When God's judgments are in the earth, he expects the inhabitants thereof should repent of sin, and learn righteousness.