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The First Six Trumpets Footnotes

1 Somewhat similarly the ancient expositor Tichonius makes it signify the commencement of the saints' eternal rest; and Bede, the peace of the Church, in some brief interval between Antichrist's destruction and Christ's second coming.

2 Somewhat similarly Chytraeus, Aretius, and Bullinger explain it, (so Foxe says in his Eicasmi,) to be a mark of transition from the Seals to the Trumpets.

3 As to Daubuz's peculiar notion that this silence signified the peace of the worshipping Church after Constantine's establishment of Christianity' the same inconsistency attaches to it as to the millennial explanation before noted. For there would be then a repetition, under this new emblem, of what Mr. D. himself considers as the subject also of the palm-bearing vision, just preceding. A strange idea!

Heinrich's, let me add, makes it the heavenly company's silence of astonishment and fear at what was to happen: M. Stuart that of " deep and fearful sympathy with the expected sequel." But, were this all, why so only here?

4 So in the Old Testament, Gen. I:7, 8; " And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And God called the firmament heaven." So again in the New Testament, Matt. vi. 26, " the fowls of heaven: " ib. xvi. 2, " The sky (or heaven) is red-." James 5:18, "the heaven gave rain : " &c.

5 Hamlet, Act ii. Sc. 2

6 A half-hour on the year-day scale equals 7 1/2 days, if we allow 24 hours to the day. But as Christ says, " Are there not twelve hours to the day," it has been suggested by some that a prophetic hour might more fitly be regarded as the 12th part of a prophetic day; and consequently half-an-hour as answering to a fortnight.

7 Compare what is here said of the incense ascending up out of the Angeles hand with the description of the Angel of the Covenant ascending in the flame of Manoah's sacrifice; Judges 13: 20.

8 "On other days it was the custom of the priest to take fire from the great altar, in a silver censer. But on the day of expiation the High Priest took the fire from great altar in a golden censer." Sir Isaac is referring this to the high priest's ministration on the great day of expiation only. But as no mention is made of the angel priest going further than the altar of incense, entering the Holy of Holies, or performing other of the rites peculiar to that day, we do not seem warranted in using the statement of the Jewish Rabbis further than I have done.

9 From comparing Ezek. 9:6, " Come not near any man upon whom is my mark," with Ezek. 21:3, " I will cut off from thee (the land of Israel) the righteous and the wicked," I infer that in this case, as in Rev 7, the guaranteed salvation of the sealed ones was from spiritual and real evil.

10 I the rather beg attention to this important parallelism, as confirmatory evidence of the incense-receiving Angel being the Angel of the Covenant, because Professor M. Stuart and others of the German school explain him to have been a created angel. Added to that of the function and office being one so distinctly ascribed to Christ in Scripture, both elsewhere and in the Apocalypse itself, it seems to me to make out a strong case of evidence in favor of the view here given by me, in common with so many other expositors.

I should add that Professor Stuart accompanies his explanation with a statement that this view of the incense-bearing angel as a created angel does not at all justify the Papal doctrine of worshipping angels; a direct prohibition of this (and by implication of saint-worship, also) being given Rev:19:10, 22:9.

11 Tertullian (Apol. 42) declared that even trading in incense was sinful: because it was a thing burnt on heathen altars.

12 Saints' relics were so in demand that battles were fought for them, (Theodoret Vit. Jacob 21,) and monks hawked them for gain. August. Oper. Monach. 36. Hence the Saint-worshippers were called cinerarii by Vigilantius and others. Of course what were saints' bones, what those of persons less holy, was often doubtful. In one case Martin extorted, it is said, a confession from the demon that the bones adored were those of an executed malefactor, not a saint. Pictures of saints too were now introduced. Paulinus introduced them at Nola; Sulpitius at Primuliac; these latter being pictures of St. Martin and Paulinus. Gilly 52, 86.-A picture of Christ was destroyed on the hanging wall before a church-door by their cotemporary Epiphanius; as tending to idolatry.

13 See Gilly, p. 187, for specimens of the reported miracles of St. Felix : also p. 443. See too, p. 62, Paulinus' account of the manner in which, among the three crosses found buried in the earth of Mount Calvary, the true one was discovered to Helena, by the miracle of its raising a dead man to life.

14 In the year 395, the year when Vigilantius visited Paulinus at Nola, there was a grand feast in honor of St. Felix. " The people," says Paulinus, " assembled in such crowds that there was no counting them. It was a dense multitude, urged on by one vow and object. Lucania, Apulia, Calabria. Campania, Latium, poured in their population - worshippers came from Capua, Naples, and even Rome. You might suppose it was Rome itself rising before you, not Nota." Then, on the manner of keeping the feast; " Oh that they would offer up their vows of joy with more sobriety; that they would not be quaffing wine within the sacred precincts. Yet some allowance must be made. Simple piety fancies that the saints will be pleased with the offerings of fragrant wine poured on their tombs," &c. Gilly, p. 216.-See too Augustine's Ep. 22, 29, written A.D. 392, 395, describing and denouncing the excesses.

I add an earlier example from Gregory Nyssen's life of Gregory celebrated bishop of the middle of the third century. " When Gregory perceived that the ignorant multitude persisted in their idolatry on account of the pleasures and sensual gratifications which they enjoyed it the Pagan festivals, he granted them permission to indulge themselves in the like pleasures, in celebrating the memory of the holy martyrs; hoping that in process of time they would return of their own accord to a more virtuous and regular course A life." I quote from a Note in Mosheim Eccl. History, ii. 2. 4. 2; who adds that by this permission, Gregory allowed the Christians to dance, sport, and feast it the tombs of martyrs; and to do every thing at their festivals which the Pagans were accustomed to do in their temples, during the festivals in honor of their gods. The same policy was pursued afterwards by Pope Gregory I; and it is to be traced n the missions of the Romish church in Japan, China, India, &c, even to the present :ime. See of late years the Alibi Dubois' work on the Indian Mission.

15 In A.D. 352 a letter from Gallus Casar to his brother Julian says, "I am assured you can hardly be removed from the tombs of the martyrs, and are altogether attached to our religion." When emperor, Julian thus expressed himself against he Christian superstitions: " At what you have done in adding new dead to your first dead man, who can express sufficient disgust ? You have tilled every place with sepulchers and monuments."

16 Abridged from Gardner, viii. 66. The year 396 is his date of Eunapius' Lives of the Sophists, whence the extract is borrowed-Simarly wrote Maximus the Grammarian of the saint-worship prevalent, A.D. 390.

17 Both Jerome's Letter and Treatise against Vigilantius the one of the date A.D. 404, the other 406, am given in full by Dr. Gilly in chapters xvii and xviii.

18 I pray the reader to mark this. The contrast with Augustine, when speaking on the same subject, as will soon appear, is most striking.

19 Do you put them in bonds?" says he to Vigilantius, in reply to his assertion that they had a fixed place appointed them. " Are they not with the Lord, of whom it is written, They follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth ? If the Lamb is everywhere they who am with the Lamb must be believed to be everywhere. And since the devil and his angels wander over the whole world, .. shall martyrs he cooped up under the altar? " Gilly, p. 398. -Omniscience too was of course another of the martyrs attributes.

20 Moses, he argues, obtained pardon for 600,000 men, while alive; and Stephen besought forgiveness for his persecutors. After being with the Lord, shall they less prevail ! Gilly 399

21 answer me this, How is there such efficacy of signs and miracles in this most worthless dust and ashes? " &c. Gilly. p. 408.

22 The unclean spirit which compels you to write these things. has often been racked by this trashy dust. I give you my advice -. enter the churches of the martyrs:.. and you will then he burnt with invisible flames, and confess what you now deny." Ib. 409.

23 See, for in example of the perversions of Scripture by Jerome, that which his been already noted, of the Apocalyptic passage about the 144,000 that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. In its true meaning we shall hereafter see, I doubt not, that it has no reference whatsoever to dead saints after death, but to saints while still living. But Jerome held the falsitas dispeiasativa, spoken of p. 275 supri. See for specimens Gilly, 199, 267.

24 Jerome urges this: "Was the emperor Constantine guilty, and the emperor Arcadius, and all the bishops sacrilegious and fools, who carried the ashes in silk and in a golden vessel?

25 This consideration hampered even Augustine.

26 , Act 8:2 ; " And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him."-As yet nothing more. But even as early as Ignatius' martyrdom we see the tendency in Christians to an undue estimate of the value of the martyrs relics. " Parts of his holy remains," it is said in the Acts of his Martyrdom, ch. 6 ad fin. " were taken to Antioch, and laid up in linen, a treasure past price to the Church. 27 It was not the gospel-doctrine and church that was to be a thing of gradual development some would now have it in Rome and at Oxford; but the apostasy.

28 Tim. 4:1, " Doctrines of demons: " Apoc. 9:20; " They repented not of worshipping demons.

29 It will be observed, in regard of the angel-worship forbidden in the Laodicean Council, that Christians left the church for it.

30 Not only above ground were churches built over martyrs' tombs, so an to be martyria, but even in the catacombs the altars of the chapelries seem often to have been so built. See Dr. Maitland's Catacombs, p. 216

>31So Paulinus called his monastic associates, "fraternitatem electorum Doi." And Jerome, comparing his own monastica at Bethlehem, and their poverty, fasts, and self-mortifying austerities, intimates even to Paulinus that these only, and such as these, were the elect; saying, " Many are called, but few chosen." Gilly 175, 248.

Compare God's definition of the elect, as the chosen, quickened, illuminated by divine grace. See p. 259, U, supri. Also observe how at the end of the fourth century these very doctors, however otherwise erring, did thus confess that the evidence of being made holy, elect, and faithful, simply through the baptismal rite, was insufficient and untrue.

32 The Emperor Theodosius II, when excommunicated by a monk, for refusing him a favor, dared not taste a morsel till the excommunication was removed. Milner, Cent. v, Ch. 12.

33 Gilly (p. 23). in his sketch of Martin of Tours, mentions how, in presence of the emperor Maximus, he passed his drinking cup to a Presbyter, before handing it to the emperor : so marking that church officers ought to take precedence of all secular dignitaries. So the Romish Editor of Sulpicius' Life of the Saint; "Dignita sacerdatalis regid dignior."-See too in Sulpicius' Dialogue i. 14, a lively sketch in detail of the foolish vanity and pride of the Gallic clergy generally:-a sketch that might perhaps apply to other and later ages also.

34 I of course suppose this vision of Christ as High Priest to have been seen by St. John in his representative character; and so as impersonating in the present case the faithful ones of the Augustinian era.

35 Observe Augustine's view of the intent of the Levitical altar, sacrifices, priest, and ritual; the precise symbols in the Apocalyptic vision.

36 Cyril gives us the prayer then offered after consecration of the holy communion "We offer these sacrifices in memory of them that have fallen asleep, that God by their prayers and intercessions may receive our supplications."

37 Cyprian, writing in 251, allows the possible efficacy of martyr intercession, but in a guarded manner. " We are as willing as any can be to make all fit allowance to the merits of the martyrs, and to their interest with our righteous Judge: but not till the day of judgment." Till then the answer to such prayers of the martyrs, as well as to other of their prayers, was deferred; as stated in the Apocalyptic vision of the souls und r the altar. Moreover he would have none to presume on the martyrs, prayer, lest the unhappy sinner should have added to his other misfortunes that of the curse denounced by God on such as trust in man." De Lapsis p. lb7.

38 Fausturn, In his Epistle to Januarius he says I cannot approve the new practices; neither dare I censure them too freely, lest I should give offence. But it grieves me that so many salutary precepts of Scripture should be held cheap, while our religion abounds with commandments of men. Therefore as to all those customs which are not contained in Scripture, ordained by Councils, or sanctioned by the tradition of the church, they ought to be laid aside.

They burden religion with servile usages, which God intended to be free. However, the church, surrounded as she is with chaff and tares, may endure many things ; though not what is contrary to Christian faith and practice." He adds that the votaries of superstition silenced and neutralized the efforts of true reformers. Ep. 55. 35.

The same spirit and views appear in his earliest Treatise, that written in 388, De MorCath. Eccl. i. 34. " Follow not the crowds of the unwary; who in their very religion are superstitious,.. so as to forget what they have promised to God. For I know that there are many adorers (adoratores) of sepulchers and pictures of saints."

39 So Tom. xii. p. 93, on I John ii. 1, (" We have an advocate with the Father, &c,") he says; " If John had said, ' If any man sin I will pray for him' (as Parmenianus in one place makes the Bishop the mediator between the people and God) who would tolerate it of faithful Christians? Who not view him rather as Anti-Christ than an apostle?"

40 Vigilantius was so remarkably the Protestant of the times when he wrote, that it would be wrong not to quote what is recorded by a bitter enemy concerning his protestation.

In his Letter then to Riparius, Jerome says that Vigilantius called those who received the martyrs' relics cinder-gatherers and idolaters (cinerarios et idolatras) : also that Vigilantius abominated the vigils, or night watchings, kept by pilgrims at the shrines of the saints on their festivals.

In his Book against Vigilantius, written after receiving copies of his writings, he again states him to have denied that the sepulchers of the martyrs were to be venerated, and to have condemned the vigils. Also he quotes him as having written thus: " What need is there for you with so much respect not only to honor, but even to adore, and in your adoration to kiss, dust folded up in a linen cloth? Under the pretext of religion we see a custom introduced into the churches which approximates to the rites of the Gentiles; viz. the lighting of multitudes of tapers, even when the sun is yet shining. And every where men kiss in their adoration a small quantity of dust folded up in a little cloth, and deposited in a little vessel. Men of this stamp give great honor forsooth to the most blessed martyrs: thinking with a few insignificant wax-tapers to glorify those whom the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, enlightens with all the brightness of his majesty."

Again; " The souls of the apostles and martyrs have settled themselves either in Abraham's bosom, or in a place of refreshment, or under the altar of God; and they cannot escape from their tombs, and present themselves where they please.- And; " So long as we are alive we can mutually pray for each other: but after we are dead the prayer of none for another can be heard -. especially since the martyrs pray ineffectually to obtain vengeance for the shedding of their blood." Again; "Do the souls of martyrs love their ashes, and hover round them, and be always present; lest, if any suppliant should perchance happen to draw near, they might not hear him in consequence of their absence? " Finally. it was his saying, " that the miracles said to be done in the churches of the martyrs were profitable for the misbelievers, not for the faithful" *

Besides which Vigilantius protested against the system of celibacy and monachism against the former by asserting that it led to incontinence; against the latter by saying, "If all should shut themselves up, and live in solitude, who will serve the churches? Who will win the men of the world? Who will exhort sinners to virtue?" Further, he deprecated sending money to the monks at Jerusalem, &c deeming it better to attend to the poor of his own neighborhood.

*Dr. Gilly thinks Vigilantius' meaning in this to be, that when true faith was in the heart, the internal evidences of the truth were sufficiently convincing, and there was no need of a show of miracles (p. 443) . But might he not rather mean that it furnished occasion to the heathens against Christianity, seeing that they could not but see the falsehood? Just such was the case of Eunapius, the Pagan sophist quoted p. 312 suprik.