manners of the Chriftians. In vain did the Emperor Leo the Ifaurian, and his fon Conftantinus Copronymus in the year 718, endeavour to put a stop to the idolatrous practice of image-worthip; and, in order to abolish it effectually, ordered all images to be taken from the churches. Their exertions were violently opposed by the Bifhops of Rome. Gregory II. confirmed the prevailing idolatry by the authority of a Synod, rejected the order of the Emperor, abfolved his fubjects from their allegiance, and even proceeded to excommunicate him; and he obtained a confirmation of the prevailing fuperftitions both in the Eaft and in the Weft, by the decrees of general councils. Of this incorrigible wickednefs we find notice given by the prediction of the woes which were to follow.

One wo is past, behold there come two woes more hereafter. This mode of expreffion evidently fhows that between the ceafing of the first wo and the beginning of the second there fhould be fome interval of time. With this intimation the event

Rev. ix. 12,

G 3

f Whitaker, p. 135.

exactly

exactly correfponded, fince the power prefigured by the four angels bound in the Euphrates did not invade the territories of the Roman Empire, nor torment the Chriftians, who were established in it, till fome centuries had elapfed after the ceffation of the ravages of the Saracens.

One of the tribes of the Turks indeed made an irruption into the Greek Empire, fooner than the time allotted for the ad

vance of "the Euphratean horsemen."

66

Twenty-five years after the death of Bafil, his fucceffors, in the year 1050, were fuddenly affaulted by an unknown race of Barbarians, who united the Scythian valour with the fanaticifm of new profelytes, and the arts and riches of a powerful monarchy. The myriads of Turkish horsemen overfpread a frontier of fix hundred miles, from Tauris to Arzeroum: and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand Christians was a grateful facrifice to the Arabian Prophet "." But the Prophets notice only that

8 The great river Euphrates, to whofe banks they had been confined, defcends from the mountains of Armenia, runs through the provinces of Chaldea and Babylon, and is the centre of the Turkish dominions.

♪ Gibbon, c. 57.

particular nation, whose firmly eftablished. empire has lasted to the present day.

In the year 1055, Togrul Beg, Sultan of the Turks, after having fubdued Chorazin and Perfia, took poffeffion of Bagdad, the capital of the Saracen Caliphs. His fucceffors, Olub Anflam, and Melech Shah, conquered the regions of the Euphrates; and after the death of Melech Shah, these conquefts were broken into the kingdoms of Armenia, Mefopotamia, Syria, and Cappadocia, the capitals of which were Mizapharekin, Moful, Aleppo, and Iconium, according to Sir I. Newton. Bishop Newton supposes these fultanies to take their names from the cities of Bagdad, Damascus, Aleppo, and Iconium, at the periods they fettled themselves there; but this difference does not affect the point in queftion. Thefe four Sultans were for a confiderable time" bound," or reftrained from extending their conquefts farther than the territories bordering on the Euphrates, by the croifades of the European Christians into the Holy Land, in the latter part of the eleventh, and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Religion probably forbad their molesting the Saracens during the attack

G 4

"the

attack of their Chriftian enemies. But when the Chriftians abandoned their conquefts in Syria and Paleftine, then four angels in the river Euphrates were loofed." Soliman Shah, the first chief and founder of the Othman race, was drowned in his attempt to pafs the Euphrates, in his retreat from Jengis Chan: but Ortogrul, his third fon, obtained leave of Aladin, Sultan of Iconium, to settle in the mountains of Armenia, with 400 of his Turks. "From thence they began their excurfions; and the other Turks affociating with them, and following their standard, they gained feveral victories over the Tartars on one fide, and over the Chriftians on the other. Ortogrul dying in 1288, Othman, or Ofman, his fon, fucceeded him in power and authority; and in 1299, as fome fay, with the consent of Aladin himself, he was proclaimed Sultan, and founded a new 'empire; and the people afterwards [a mixed multitude, the remains of the four fultanies] as well as the new empire, was called by his name."

"In this manner, and at this particular

Newton, vol. iii. p. 114.

time,

time, the four angels were loofed to flay the third part of men, that is, to conquer and to overthrow the fubjects of the Roman Empire. The Latin or Western Empire was broken to pieces under the first four trumpets; the Greek or Eastern Empire was cruelly hurt and tormented under the fifth trumpet; and here under the fixth trumpet it is to be flain and utterly deftroyed. Accordingly all Afia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Thrace, Macedon, Greece, and all the countries which formerly belonged to the Greek or Eaftern Emperors, the Othmans have conquered and fubjugated to their dominion. They firft paffed over into Europe, in the reign of Orchan their fecond emperor, in the year 1357. They took Conftantinople in the reign of Mohammed their feventh emperor, in the year 1453; and in time all the remaining parts of the Greek Empire fhared the fate of their capital city. The laft of their conquefts were Candia, or the antient Crete, in 1669, and Cameniec in 1672. For the execution of this great work, it is faid that they were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year.