the empire seemed to acquire a good deal of its former vigour. But he was no sooner removed by death, in January 395, than the depredations of the Barbarians were renewed, and accompanied with far more distressing circumstances than in any former period of their history. Under the command of the cruel Alaric, all the Gothic tribes were marched to the field. Thessaly, Pannonia, Macedonia, and Thrace, were wasted by their depredations; Greece was converted into a wilderness; and even Constantinople itself was threatened with destruction. These merciless invaders next passed over into Italy, where they committed the same ravages, till they were driven out by Stilicho in the year 403. Soon after the death of this commander they returned and renewed their depredations, till Rome itself, after three successive sieges, was taken by assault on the 24th of August, 410, and a considerable part of it reduced to ashes.

While these depredations were committed by the Goths,→→ the Vandals, the Sueves, the Alans, and other tribes, marched into Gaul, and put every thing to fire and sword where they came. The flourishing city of Mentz was destroyed, and thousands of its inhabitants were massacred. Worms, Strasburg, Spiers, and many others, were reduced to ashes. Almost the whole of those extensive and fertile regions which are bounded by the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Ocean, and the Rhine, were converted into smoking ruins. All these hordes of Barbarians came from the north; so literally does the event correspond with the prediction.

After a storm of hail has beat with violence in one quarter, it sometimes begins to rage with equal violence in another. The mystical storm of the first trumpet appears to have been of this description. For, however little it was expected, that tribes of Barbarians from the remotest regions of the north would have pushed their conquests the whole length of Europe, yet nothing is more certain than that they did so. They traversed the length and breadth of Europe, and then passed over into Africa. Genseric, king of the Vandals, crossed the straits of Gibraltar with a numerous army, and laid waste the

greatest part of the African provinces. His march was like a devouring flame; hardly any thing escaped his fury.—This storm, which had spread such devastation throughout the Roman dominions, intermitted in a considerable degree about the year 435.*

In the kingdom of nature, nothing is more common than for one storm to succeed another; and the succession may be so quick, that they may appear to have the same common origin, and to be only different gusts of the same tempest. When they come from the same quarter, and produce the same pernicious effects, we still speak of them as belonging to the same storm, though an interval of some hours may have occurred between them. This was the case in the storm of this trumpet. For in the year 441, Attila the Hun, turned the whole force of his Scythian and German dominions against the Romans; and in three successive and obstinate battles, overpowered all the armies they were able to bring against him. Wherever he marched, cities and villages were reduced to stones and ashes; and men, women, and children, were put to death. It was the boast of this savage, 'that the grass never grew where his horse had trode.' His delight in cruelty was so singular, that he was gratified with the thought of being esteemed the executioner of Heaven; and therefore ordered, that he should be called The scourge of God. By his sudden death, in the year 453, the Romans were delivered from a cruel and formidable adversary; and the world was rid of a monster who seemed to

The celebrated Augustine, bishop of Hippo, was alive and in the city at the time it was besieged by Genseric. But, as the righteous are sometimes taken away from the evil to come, this great and good man was prevented from seeing either the desolations of the city, or the massacre of his beloved flock. He was taken off by a natural death, about four weeks before the city surrendered. When the Vandals got possession of it, they put all the inhabitants to the sword, without distinction of age, of sex, or of rank. Every thing that was valuable they pillaged or destroyed, except the library of Augustine. Genseric had given previous orders to his soldiers not to touch it, which were strictly obeyed. Protestants have much to remark of the kindness of Providence in the preservation of this library; as the writings of none of the Fathers have been more generally read, nor any of them of greater utility to the Protestant cause, than those of Augustine. While the doctrines of free grace continue to be preached, his admirable work, De Civitate Dei, will continue to be read and esteemed.Ech. Rom. Hist. v. III.

delight in nothing so much as in seeing its fairest fields converted into deserts, and the different classes of its inhabitants either exterminated, or rendered miserable beyond conception.* With the death of Attila, we apprehend the storm of this trumpet was expended: for though after the year 453 we meet with very similar scenes in the history of the empire, yet, as most of them had their origin in an opposite quarter, and partook more of the nature of a fiery blast, than of a storm of hail, they seem to belong to the prophecy of the second, and not to that of the first trumpet.

The language of prophecy is sometimes verified in the letter, as well as in the spirit of its figures and symbols. The history of the period of this trumpet furnishes numerous and astonishing facts in confirmation of this assertion.† That

• The violent irruption of the Goths, Vandals, Huns, and other barbarians, hastened the downfal of the empire. New nations seemed to arise, and to rush from unknown regions, in order to take vengeance on the Romans for the calamities which they had inflicted on mankind. These fierce tribes either inhabited the various provinces of Germany, which had never been subdued by the Romans, or were scattered over those vast countries in the north of Europe, and north-west of Asia, which are now occupied by the Danes, the Swedes, the Poles, the subjects of the Russian empire, and the Tartars.-Great bodies of armed men, with their wives and children, and slaves and flocks, issued forth like regular colonies, in quest of new settlements. New adventurers followed them. The lands which they deserted were occupied by more remote tribes of barbarians; these, in their turn, pushed forward into more fertile countries; and, like a torrent continually increasing, rolled on, and swept every thing before them. In less than two centuries from their first irruption, barbarians of various names and lineage plundered and took possession of Thrace, Pannonia, Gaul, Spain, Africa, and at last of Italy and of Rome itself. The vast fabric of the Roman power, which it had been the work of ages to perfect, was in that short period overturned from the foundation. Wherever they marched, their route was marked with blood; they made no distinction between what was sacred and what was profane; they respected no age, or sex, or rank.-The conquerors who first settled in the countries they had wasted were expelled or exterminated by new invaders; who, coming from regions farther removed from the civilized parts of the world, were still more fierce and rapacious. This brought fresh calamities upon mankind, which did not cease until the north, by pouring forth successive swarms, was drained of people, and could no longer furnish instruments of destruction. Famine and pestilence, which always march in the train of war, when it ravages with such inconsiderate cruelty, raged in every part of Europe, and completed its sufferings. If a man were called to fix upon the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most calamitous and afflicted, he would, withbut hesitation, name that which elapsed between the death of Theodosius the Great in the year 395, and the establishment of the Lombards in Italy in the year 571. Robertson's Chas. V. Introduc.

† Philostorgius the historian, who lived in the times we have been describing, says, that among other calamities, dry heats, with flashes of flame and whirlwinds of fire, occasioned various and intolerable terrors; yea, and hail greater than

the interpretation we have given of these figures is natural and just, might be farther confirmed from the frequent use of them by uninspired historians, and other writers, in their descriptions of Gothic invasions, and the terrible effects which they produced in all the different parts of the Roman empire.*

OBSERV. 1st, Kingdoms erected by violence are usually subcould be held in a man's hand fell down in several places, weighing as much as eight pounds.'-Newton's Diss. v, III. Socrates, who lived in the same period, makes mention of the same facts. Gregory Nazianzen delivered one of his orations on occasion of the terror with which the minds of men were filled, by reason of the extraordinary storms of hail.—When the city of Rome was taken and plundered by Alaric,—in the very time of the devastations, when the streets were covered with dead bodies, and swimming with blood, and various parts of it were set on fire by his merciless troops, such a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning burst over that devoted city as could not fail to strike terror into the most hardened bosom.-Anc. Univ. Hist. v. xvi. There is hardly any period of history in which we meet with more frequent accounts of thunder-storms and earthquakes than in the period of this trumpet. In 365, the waters of the Mediterranean Sea retired in many places to such distances from the land, that the mountains and valleys which that element had covered were distinctly seen. The foundations of the deep, as at the passage of the Red Sea, were disclosed; and the reflux of the waters was equally destructive to all that came within their reach. Their return was with such violence, and to such an extent, upon the coasts of Africa, Greece, and Italy, that a great part of the low countries was overflowed, and men and cattle were overwhelmed by the inundation. In Alexandria alone, fifty thousand of the inhabitants were drowned. What a scene of desolation must the low country of the Delta have presented, and how many hundreds of thousands of the inhabitants must have sunk like lead in these mighty waters!

• The ingenious Mr Faber, to whom I am much indebted for his luminous exposition of the figures of this prophecy, has adduced an example from Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in illustration of them. The instance is the more worthy of notice, that it is selected from the writings of one who was no friend to Revelation, and who had no design to illustrate either its doctrines or predictions. The dark cloud,' says that historian, which was collected along the shores of the Baltic, burst in thunder upon the banks of the upper Danube.-Faber's Dissertation, v. II. Claudian the poet flourished in the beginning of the fifth century, and was an eye-witness of many of the depredations of the Barbarians. In his poem De Bello Getico, he not only compares them to storms of hail, but represents them as impelled by the furies in their course: Ex illo, quoscunque vagos impegit Erinnys, Grandinis, aut morbi ritu per devia rerum

Præcipites, per claustra ruunt.-Claud. v. 173.

With respect to the figure in the close of the verse, it has been very common to conjoin the representation of a scythe with a death's-head or skeleton; and as we naturally think of the mowing of grass when we see this instrument of agriculture; if it be conjoined with a human skeleton, we as naturally think of the destruction of human beings. By this figure, did Alaric the Gothic king reply to the Roman deputies. They wished him to come to some reasonable terms before they would open the gates and give him admission. When this was refused, they craved that they might be permitted to come out and fight him upon the open grounds. His reply was short and figurative, but its meaning was easily apprehended, and peculiarly calculated to inspire them with terror. Thick grass,' said he,' is more easily cut than thin.'-Ech. Hist. v. III. Gold, Rom. Hist.

verted by the same means. The tree of the Roman state was planted in blood, and watered in the same way. Romulus became sole master in consequence of having imbrued his hands in the blood of his own brother. All his successors were fond of power, and seldom scrupled at any means which might add a single inch of territory to their dominions. They were the terror of all the neighbouring states; and never thought of ceasing from their wars of aggression so long as there was any part of the civilized world to subdue. But when the period of the fall of the Roman state was hastened, you see that every measure of violence was employed against it. Seldom are men of bloody ferocious dispositions permitted to descend into the grave in peace; and it may be questioned, if any instance can be adduced of an empire sinking down, merely by the burden of its own weight. With the same violent measures which they had meted out to others, it was given to them in return.

2d, An apostate and sinning people are sometimes punished by those who are even more wicked and detestable than themselves. When the Barbarians broke in upon the empire, it bore the name of a Christian state. But religion had greatly declined: multitudes were Christians only in name; and many others were an open disgrace to Christianity. But bad as they were, we can hardly suppose that they were worse than their invaders, or even so bad. Most of these were mere Heathens, whose religion and morals were equally detestable. Such of them as were called Christians were of the Arian persuasion; and who, together with an insatiable thirst for plunder, had imbibed all the intolerant, cruel, and deceitful spirit of the party to which they belonged. Wolves of a more ferocious character never issued from the forest, than were the invaders from the shores of the Baltic and Caspian seas.

3d, When the Lord has a work of judgment to execute, he is at no loss for instruments. When he had a work of this kind to accomplish upon Babylon, he called a ravenous bird from the east, a man from a far country, to execute his designs. And when he had a similar work to perform upon the Roman empire, he brought thousands and hundreds of thousands of