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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
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