the same
angel took his censer and filled it with fire from off the altar and
cast it (the fire) upon the earth--a token of God's avenging
judgments--"and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and
an earthquake." These, of course, were on earth, and symbolized the
revolutions and convulsions now about to take place in the empire.

6. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared
themselves to sound.

7. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire
mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the
third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt
up.

We here enter upon a series of prophecies developing fully the
successive steps in the decline of the Western Roman empire, by which it
finally tottered to its fall. It was necessary that this persecuting,
tyrannical government should be subverted in order to give opportunity
for the establishment of apostate Christianity in the form of the
Papacy, as it constituted the "let" or hindrance to the full development
of the "man of sin" mentioned by the apostle in 2 Thes. 2. That
persecuting, Pagan Rome was a serious obstacle confronting the
development of apostasy was recognized even by the early Christians.
Thus, Tertullian, in his notable Apology, chapter 32, says: "Christians
are under a particular necessity of praying for the emperors, and for
the continued state of the empire; because we know that dreadful power
which hangs over the world, and _the conclusion of the age, which
threatens the most horrible evils, is restrained by the continuance of
the time appointed for the Roman empire_. This is what we would not
experience; and while we pray that it may be deferred, we hereby show
our good-will to the perpetuity of the Roman state." In a subsequent
chapter it will be seen that Pagan Rome, broken up into minor divisions
and no longer able to maintain her position in the political world,
resigns her power and authority into the hands of the rising Papacy.
Therefore it is not surprising that the means by which this great change
is effected should be made the subject of prophetic revelation. Besides,
we have other things to guide us in the interpretation. We can readily
identify the symbols under the fifth trumpet with the curse of
Mohammedanism in the Eastern empire, and we would naturally suppose that
the first four precede those. Again, the symbols are all drawn from the
natural