Sixth Turmpet - First Part

Revelation


And the sixth angel sounded,
and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet,
Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.
And the four angels were loosed,
which were prepared for an hour,
and a day,
and a month,
and a year,
for to slay the third part of men.
And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand
and I heard the number of them.
And thus I saw the horses in the vision,
and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire,
and of jacinth,
and brimstone
and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions;
and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.
By these three was the third part of men killed,
by the fire,
and by the smoke,
and by the brimstone,
which issued out of their mouths.
For their power is in their mouth
and in their tails
for their tails were like unto serpents,
and had heads,
and with them they do hurt.
And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands,
that they should not worship devils,
and idols of gold,
and silver,
and brass,
and stone,
and of wood:
which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk
Neither repented they of their murders,
nor of their sorceries,
nor of their fornication,
nor of their thefts.
*******

Again- taken from the book Daniel and Revelation by Uriah Smith--



Verse 12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter. 13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates. 15 And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.


The Sixth Trumpet.--"The first woe was to continue from the rise of Mahometanism until the end of the five months. Then the first woe was to end, and the second begin. And when the sixth angel sounded, it was commanded to take off the restraints which had been imposed on the nation, by which they were restricted to the work of tormenting men, and their commission extended to slay the third part of men. This command came from the four horns of the golden altar." [26]


The Four Angels.--These are the four principal sultanies of which the Ottoman Empire was composed, located in the country watered by the Euphrates. These sultanies were situated at Aleppo, Iconium, Damacus, and Bagdad. Previously they had been restrained; but God commanded, and they were loosed.


Late in the year 1448, as the close of the 150-year period approached, John Palaeologus died without leaving a son to follow him on the throne of the Eastern Empire. His brother Constantine, the lawful successor, would not venture to ascend the throne without the consent of the Turkish sultan. Ambassadors therefore went to Adrianople, received the approbation of the sultan, and returned with gifts for the new sovereign. Early in the year 1449, under these ominous circumstances, Constantine, the last of the Greek emperors, was crowned.


The historian Gibbon tells the story:


"On the decease of John Palaeologus, . . . the royal family, by the death of Andronicus and the monastic profession of Isidore, was reduced to three princes, Constantine, Demetrius, and Thomas, the surviving sons of the emperor Manuel. Of these the first and the last were far distant in the Morea. . . . The empress-mother, the senate and soldiers, the clergy and people, were unanimous in the cause of the lawful successor: and the despot Thomas, who ignorant of the change, accidentally returned to the capital, asserted with becoming zeal the interest of his absent brother. An ambassador, the historian Phranza,, was immediately dispatched to the court of Adrianople. Amurath received him with honor and dismissed him with gifts; but the gracious approbation of the Turkish sultan announced his supremacy, and the approaching downfall of the Eastern empire. By the hands of two illustrious deputies, the Imperial crown was placed at Sparta on the head of Constantine. [27]


"Let this historical fact be carefully examined in connection with the prediction [given] above. This was not a violent assault made on the Greeks, by which their empire was overthrown and their independence taken away, but simply a voluntary surrender of that independence into the hands of the Turks, by saying, 'I cannot reign unless you permit.' " [28]


The four angels were loosed for an hour, a day, a month, and a year, to slay the third part of men. This period, during which Ottoman supremacy was to exist, amounts to three hundred ninety-one years and fifteen days. Thus: A prophetic year is three hundred and sixty prophetic days, or three hundred and sixty literal years; a prophetic month, thirty prophetic days, is thirty literal years; one prophetic day is one literal year; and an hour, or the twenty-fourth part of a literal year year, or fifteen days; the whole amounting to three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days.


"But although the four angels were thus loosed by the voluntary submission of the Greeks, yet another doom awaited the seat of empire. Amurath, the sultan to whom the submission of Deacozes was made, and by whose permission he reigned in Constantinople, soon after died, and was succeeded in the empire, in 1451, by Mahomet II, who set his heart on Constantinople, and determined to make it a prey.


"He accordingly made preparations for besieging and taking the city. The siege commenced on the 6th of April, 1453, and ended in the taking of the city, and death of the last of the Constantines, on the 16th day of May following. And the eastern city of the Caesars became the seat of the Ottoman Empire." [29]


The arms and mode of warfare which were used in the siege in which Constantinople was to be overthrown and held in subjection were, as we shall see, distinctly noticed by the prophet.


Verse 16 And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them.


"Innumerable hordes of horses, and them that sat on them! Gibbon describes the first invasion of the Roman territories by the Turks thus: 'The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles, from Tauris to Azeroum, and the blood of 130,000 Christian was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet.' Whether the number is designed to convey the idea of any definite number, the reader must judge. Some suppose 200,000 twice told is meant, and then, following some historians, find that the number of Turkish warriors in the siege of Constantinople. Some think 200,000,000 to mean all the Turkish warriors during the 391 years fifteen days of their triumph over the Greeks." [30] Nothing can be affirmed on the point. And it is not at all essential.


Verse 17 And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.


The first part of this description may have reference to the appearance of these horsemen. Fire, representing a color, stands for red, "as red as fire" being a frequent term of expression; jacinth, or hyacinth, for blue; and brimstone, for yellow. These colors greatly predominated in the dress of these warriors; so that the description, according to this view, would be accurately met in the Turkish uniform, which was composed largely of red, or scarlet, blue, and yellow. The heads of the horses were in appearance as the heads of lions, to denote their strength, courage, and fierceness; while the last part of the verse undoubtedly has reference to the use of gunpowder and firearms for purposes of war, which were then but recently introduced. As the Turks discharged their firearms on horseback, it would appear to the distant beholder that the fire, smoke, and brimstone issued out of the horses' mouths.


Quite an agreement exists among commentators in applying the prophecy concerning the fire, smoke, and brimstone to the use of gunpowder by the Turks in their warfare against the Eastern Empire. [31] But they generally allude simply to the heavy ordnance, the large cannon, employed employed by that power; whereas the prophecy mentions especially the "horses," and the fire "issuing from their mouths," as though smaller arms were used, and used on horseback. Barnes thinks this was the case; and a statement from Gibbon confirms this view. he says: "The incessant volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with the smoke, the sound, and the fire of their musketry and cannon." [32] Here is good historical evidence that muskets were used by the Turks; and secondly, it is undisputed that their general warfare they fought principally on horseback. The inference is therefore well supported that they used firearms on horseback, accurately fulfilling the prophecy, according to the illustration above referred to.


Respecting the use of firearms by the Turks in their campaign against Constantinople, Elliott thus speaks:


"It was to 'the fire and the smoke and the sulphur,' to the artillery and firearms of Mahomet, that the killing of the third part of men, i.e., the capture of Constantinople, and by consequence the destruction of the Greek Empire, was owing. Eleven hundred years and more had now elapsed since her foundation by Constantine. In the course of them, Goths, Huns, Avars, Persians, Bulgarians, Saracens, Russians, and indeed the Ottoman Turks themselves, had made their hostile assaults, or laid siege against it. But the fortifications were impregnable by them. Constantinople survived, and with it the Greek Empire. Hence the anxiety of the sultan Mahomet to find that which would remove the obstacle. 'Canst thou cast a cannon,' was his question to the founder of cannon that deserted to him, 'of size sufficient to batter down the wall of Constantinople?' Then the foundry was established at Adrianople, the cannon cast, the artillery prepared, and the siege began.

"It well deserves remark, how Gibbon, always the unconscious commentator on the Apocalyptic prophecy, puts this new instrumentality of war into the foreground of his picture, in his eloquent and striking narrative of the final catastrophe of the Greek Empire. In preparation for it, he gives the history of the recent invention of gunpowder, 'that mixture of saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal;' tells, as before said, of the foundry of the cannon at Adrianople; then, in the progress of the siege itself, describes how 'the volleys of lances and arrows were accompanied with smoke, the sound, and the fire of the musketry and cannon;' how 'the long order of Turkish artillery was pointed against the walls, fourteen batteries thundering at once on the most accessible places;' how 'the fortifications which had stood for ages against hostile violence were dismantled on all sides by the Ottoman cannon, many breaches opened, and near the gate of St. Romanus, four towers leveled with the ground:' how, 'as from the lines, the galleys and the bridge, the Ottoman artillery thundered on all sides, the camp and city, the Greeks and the Turks, were involved in a cloud of smoke, which could only be dispelled by the final deliverance or destruction of the Roman empire:' and how the besiegers at length 'rushing through the breaches,' 'Constantinople was irretrievably subdued, her empire subverted, and her religion trampled in the dust by the Moslem conquerors.' I say it well deserves observation how markedly and strikingly Gibbon attributes the capture of the city, and so the destruction of the empire, to the Ottoman artillery. For what is it but a comment on the words of the prophecy? 'By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the sulphur, which issued out their mouths.' " [33]


Verse 18 By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths. 19 For their power is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails were like unto serpents, and had heads, and with them they do hurt.


These verses express the deadly effect of the new mode of warfare introduced. It was by means of these agents--gunpowder, firearms, and cannon--that Constantinople was finally overcome, and given into the hands of the Turks.


In addition to the fire, smoke, and brimstone, which apparently issued out of their mouths, it is said that their power was also in their tails. The meaning of the expression appears to be that horses' tails were the symbol, or emblem, of their authority. It is a remarkable fact that the horse's tail is a well- known Turkish standard, a symbol of office and authority. The image before the mind of John would seem to have been that he saw the horses belching out fire and smoke, and, what was equally strange, he saw that their power of spreading desolation was connected with the tails of the horses. Anyone looking on a body of cavalry with such banners, or ensigns, would be struck with this unusual or remarkable appearance, and would speak of their banners as concentrating and directing their power.

This supremacy of the Mohammedans over the Greeks was to continue, as already noticed, three hundred and ninety-one years and fifteen days. "Commencing when the one hundred and fifty years ended in 1449, the period would end August 11, 1840. Judging from the manner of the commencement of the Ottoman supremacy, that it was by a voluntary acknowledgment on the part of the Greek emperor that he only reigned by permission of the Turkish sultan, we should naturally conclude that the fall or departure of the Ottoman independence would be brought about the same say; that at the end of the specified period [that is, on the 11th of August, 1840] the sultan would voluntarily surrender his independence into the hands of the Christian powers," [34] just as he had, three hundred ninety-one years and fifteen days before, received it from the hands of the Christian emperor, Constantine XIII.


This conclusion was reached, and this application of the prophecy was made by Josiah Litch in 1838, two years before the expected event was to occur. In that year he predicted that the Turkish power would be overthrown "in A.D. 1840, sometime in the month of August;" [35] but a few days before the fulfillment of the prophecy he concluded more definitely from his study that the period allotted to the Turks would come to an end on August 11, 1840. It was then purely a matter of calculation on the prophetic periods of Scripture. It is proper to inquire whether such events did take place according to the calculation. The matter sums itself up in the following inquiry:


When Did Mohammedan Independence in Constantinople End?--For several years previous to 1840, the sultan had been embroiled in war with Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt. "In 1838 there was a threatening of war between the sultan and his Egyptian vassal had he not been restrained by the influence of the foreign ambassadors. . . . In 1839 hostilities were again commenced, and were prosecuted until, in a general battle between the armies of the sultan and Mehemet, the sultan's army was entirely cut up and destroyed, and his fleet taken by Mehemet and carried into Egypt. So completely had the sultan's fleet been reduced, that, when hostilities commenced in August, he had only two first-rates and three frigates as the sad remains of the once powerful Turkish flee. This fleet Mehemet positively refused to give up and return to the sultan, and declared if the powers attempted to take it from him, he would burn it. In this posture affairs stood, when, in 1840, England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia interposed, and determined on a settlement of the difficulty; for it was evident, if let alone, Mehemet would soon become master of the sultan's throne." [36]


The sultan accepted this intervention of the great powers, and thus made a voluntary surrender of the question into their hands. A conference of these powers was held in London, the Sheik Effendi Bey Likgis being present as Ottoman plenipotentiary. An agreement was drawn up to be presented to the pasha of Egypt, whereby the sultan was to offer him the hereditary government of Egypt, and all that part of Syria extending from the Gulf of Suez to the Lake of Tiberias, together with the province of Acre, for life; he on his part to evacuate all other parts of the sultan's dominions then occupied by him, and to return the Ottoman fleet. In case he refused this offer from the sultan, the four powers were to take matters into their own hands, and use such other means to bring him to terms as they should see fit.


It is obvious that as soon as this ultimatum should be placed under the jurisdiction of Mehemet Ali, pasha of Egypt, the matter would be forever beyond the control of the Sultan, and the disposal of his affairs would, from that moment, be in the hands of foreign powers. The sultan dispatched Rifat Bey on a government steamer to Alexandria, to communicate the ultimatum to Mehemet Ali. The ultimatum was placed as his disposal on the eleventh day of August, 1840! On the same day, in Constantinople, a note was addressed by the sultan to the ambassadors of the four powers, inquiring what plan was to be adopted in case the pasha should refuse to comply with the terms of the ultimatum, to which they made answer that provision had been made, and there was no necessity of his alarming himself about any contingency that might arise.


The facts are substantiated by the following quotations:


"By the French steamer of the 24th, we have advices from Egypt to the 16th. They show no alteration in the resolution of the Pacha. Confiding in the valor of his Arab army, and in the strength of the fortifications which defend his capital, he seems determined to abide by the last alternative; and as recourse to this, therefore, is now inevitable, all hope may be considered as at an end of a termination of the affair without bloodshed. Immediately on the arrival of the Cyclops steamer with the news of the convention of the four powers, Mehemet Ali, it is stated, had quitted Alexandria, to make a short tour through Lower Egypt. The object of his absenting himself at such a moment being partly to avoid conferences with the European consuls, but principally to endeavor, by his own presence, to arouse the fanaticism of the Bedouin tribes, and facilitate the raising of his new levies. During the interval of this absence, the Turkish government steamer, which had reached Alexandria on the 11th, with the envoy Rifat Bey on board, had been by his orders placed in quarantine, and she was not released from it till the 16th. Previous, however, to the poet's [*] [boat's] leaving, and on the very day on which he [she] had been admitted to pratique, the above- named functionary had an audience of the Pacha, and had communicated to him the command of the Sultan, with respect to the evacuation of the Syrian provinces, appointing another audience for the next day, when, in the presence of the consuls of the European powers, he would receive from him his definite answer, and inform him of the alternative of his refusing to obey; giving him ten days which have been allotted him by the convention to decide the course he should think fit to adopt." [37]


The correspondent of the London Morning Chronicle, in a communication dated "Constantinople, August 12, 1840," says:


"I can add but little to my last letter on the subject of the plans of the Four Powers; and I believe that the details I then gave you compose everything that is yet decided on. The portion of the Pacha, as I then stated, is not to extend beyond the line of Acre, and does not include either Arabia or Candia. Egypt alone is to be hereditary in his family, and the province of Acre to be considered as a pachalik, to be governed by his son during his lifetime, but afterwards to depend on the will of the Porte; and even this latter is only to be granted to him on the condition of his accepting these terms and delivering up the Ottoman fleet within the period of ten days. In the event of his not doing so, this pachalik is to be cut off. Egypt alone is then to be offered, with another ten days for him to deliberate on it before actual force be employed against him. The manner, however, of applying the force, should he refuse to comply with these terms--whether a simple blockade is to be established on the coast, or whether his capital is to be bombarded and his armies attacked in the Syrians provinces--is the point which still remains to be learned; nor does a note delivered yesterday by the four ambassadors, in answer to a question put to them by the Porte, as to the plan to be adopted in such an event, throw the least light on this subject. It simply states that provision had been made, and there was no necessity for the Divan alarming itself about any contingency that might afterward arise." [38]


Let us analyze the foregoing quotations:


First.--The ultimatum reached Alexandria on August 11, 1840.


Second.--The letter of the correspondent of the London Morning Chronicle is dated August 12, 1840.


Third.--The correspondent states that the question of the Sublime Porte was put to the representatives of the four great powers, and the answer received "yesterday." So in his own capital, "yesterday" the Sublime Porte applied to the ambassadors of the four Christian powers of Europe as to what measures had been taken in reference to a circumstance vitally affecting his empire; and was told that "provision had been made," but he could not know what it was; and that he need not give himself any alarm "about any contingency which might arise"! From that day, "yesterday," which was August 11, 1840--they, the four Christian powers of Europe, and not he, would manage that.


On August 11, 1840, the period of three hundred ninety-one years and fifteen days, allotted to the continuance of the Ottoman power, ended; and where was the sultan's independence?--GONE! Who had the supremacy of the Ottoman empire in their hands?--The four great powers; and that empire has existed ever since only by the sufferance of these Christian powers. Thus was the prophecy fulfilled to the very letter.


From the first publication of the calculation of this matter in 1838, before referred to, the time set for the fulfillment of the prophecy was watched by thousands with intense interest. The exact accomplishment of the event predicted, showing, as it did, the right application of the prophecy, gave a mighty impetus to the great advent movement then beginning to attract the attention of the world.


Verse 20 And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk: 21 Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.


God designs that men shall make a note of His judgments, and receive the lessons He thereby designs to convey. But how slow they are to learn, and how blind to the indications of providence! The events that occurred under the sixth trumpet constituted the second woe, yet these judgments led to no improvement in the manners and morals of men. Those who escaped them learned nothing by their manifestation in the earth.


The hordes of Saracens and Turks were let loose as a scourge and punishment upon apostate Christendom. Men suffered the punishment, but learned no lesson from it.