The rest of the men, &c.— That is, the Latin church, which escaped these calamities pretty well. From the whole it is evident, that these calamities were inflicted upon the Christians for their idolatries. As the Eastern churches were first in the crime, so they were first likewise in the punishment. At first, they were visited with the plague of the Saracens; but this working no change of reformation, they were again chastised by the still greater plague of the Othmans; were partly overthrown by the former, and were entirely ruined by the latter. What churches were then remaining, which were guilty of the like idolatry, but the Western, or those in communion with Rome? And the Western were not at all reclaimed by the ruin of the Eastern; but persisted in the worship of saints, and even in the worship of images, which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk; and the world is witness to the completion of this prophesy to this day, Neither repented they of their murders, their persecutions and inquisitions; nor of their sorceries, their pretended miracles and revelations; nor of their fornication, their public stews and uncleanness; nor of their thefts, their exactions and impositions on mankind: and they are as notorious for their licentiousness and wickedness, as for their superstition and idolatry. As they, therefore, refused to take warning by the two former woes, the third woe, as we shall see, will fall with vengeance upon them.
Inferences.—It is exceedingly natural to reflect, while reading this representation, how exactly the mightiest princes, and most savage destroyers of mankind execute the plan of divine Providence; even while they are intending nothing but the gratification of their own ambition, and avarice, and cruelty. The angel of God holds the keys of the bottomless pit; and it is by divine permission that these voracious locusts issue forth and infest the earth. The ministers of God's pleasure bind the messengers of destruction, and loosen them, at the divine command. And the season, wherein they should ravage the world, is here limited to a year, to a day, to an hour. ABADDON, APOLLYON, the great and mighty destroyer, cannot effect the least of his mischievous and ruinous purposes without the permission of the Preserver and Redeemer of mankind, and cannot go beyond his limits. And even the mischief which he does, is intended and over-ruled to subserve the wisest and kindest designs. But, O, how grievous it is to think of that degree of obstinacy and perverseness which so generally prevails in the world, and which renders men so incorrigible under the most painful chastisements that Satan is permitted to inflict. Send forth, O Lord, the gentle influences of thy Spirit, and melt those hearts which will not be broken by the weightiest strokes of thy vengeance; and deliver us from a temper so much resembling that of hell, and so evidently leading down to those dreadful abodes; the temper of those who are hardened by correction, and, in the time of their affliction and misery, increase and multiply their transgressions against thee.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The fifth trumpet is supposed to refer to the rise of the impostor Mahomet, who is the star spoken of in the first part of the chapter, infecting the earth like a pestilential meteor with his abominable falsehoods: permission being given him to open the bottomless pit, a cloud of errors, black as the darkness of hell itself, immediately burst out, and covered the East; innumerable multitudes of Saracens, thick as locusts, under his banners, rushed forth: they chiefly consisted of cavalry, and made dreadful incursions into the empire, with turbans like crowns on their heads; wore long hair like women; were strong as lions; defended with armour, weapon-proof; and rushed with irresistible fury on their foes. Satan, the angel of the bottomless pit, the great destroyer of men, was at their head: and such was the misery which they every where spread through the apostate church, that death appeared preferable to life. Note; (1.) The heaviest judgments upon the world are these,—when God lets loose the great deceiver; and, because men turn away from the truth, he gives them up to strong delusions, to believe a lie. (2.) Heresy and important errors, like the scorpion's sting, infuse baleful poison into the soul. (3.) Satan, and all his emissaries, are under a divine restraint; God saith unto them, Hitherto shall ye come, and no further. (4.) Whatever prevalence of delusion there may be, those who perseveringly cleave to Christ, shall be preserved in the most trying times.
One woe is now past; two more are yet to come.
2dly, On the sounding of the sixth angel, the voice of Christ is heard from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, the emblem of the prevalence of his intercession for his believing people in the four parts of the earth: his command to the sixth angel is, that he should loose the four angels that were bound in the great river Euphrates, and let them have power for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, to slay the third part of men. This may be referred to the successors of Mahomet, who carried their arms far and wide through Egypt, Africa, Spain, &c. their forces were innumerable and invincible, chiefly consisting of cavalry, and breathing forth threatening and slaughter through the earth; and, like scorpions, they infused their poisonous tenets wherever their arms prevailed. Yet all these heavy judgments reclaimed not those who bore the Christian name, but dishonoured it by the vilest abominations; nor did they repent of their idolatries, the worship of demons, and of images unable to hear or answer their stupid votaries; but continued in the practice of murder, sorcery, fornication, and theft, and all those miscalled pious frauds which priestcraft invented to beguile the superstitious: therefore more deadly woes are yet in store for them. Note; (1.) God sends his judgments that sinners may turn from the evil of their ways. (2.) They who under God's visitations harden their hearts, must inevitably perish at the last.