God," and to be called signifies the same as to be or exist, as Isaiah c. lvi. v. 7, My house shall be called the house of prayer," for which Luke has, c. xix. v. 4, My house is, (that is, shall be accounted,) the house of prayer." And Gen. c. xxi. v. 12, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called," that is, " shall be." See likewise the Septuagint Isa. c. xiv. v. 20. Ruth, c. iv. v. 11.

But examples of the figure which I have noticed are every where to be met with. For thus says Isaiah, c. vii. v. 14, " His name shall be called Emmanuel†;" that is, He shall be OɛávOpwоs, God-man; and c. ix. v. 6, "His name shall be called Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace;" that is, he shall be all these. Also Jerem. c. xxiii. v. 6, "And this is the name by which he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness;" and Zech. c. vi. v. 12, "Behold a man whose name is the Branch." follows, "For he shall grow up out of his place," &c. add Rev. c. xix. v. 13, "His name is called the Word of God." Akin to these examples are what we find in Jer. c. xx. v. 3, 4, "The Lord doth not call thy name Pashur, but Magor Mis

It

* That is, there is no word spoken by God in prophecy, but what shall surely come to pass.

†The Sept. has raλέoɛıç, you shall call.

sabib, (i. e. fear on every side). "For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself and all thy friends;" and Ezek. c. xxiii. v. 4, "Their names (i. e. the names of Samaria and Jerusalem) are Aholah and Aholibah." Add Isa. c. viii. Hosea, c. i. 6, 7. By a similar figure in every respect, is this fallen star called Wormwood; that is, according to the Hebrew notion, (by which abstracts are used for concretes,) Absinthites, or the prince of bitterness and troubles. Of this kind in truth, if ever there was one, was that Hesperian Cæsar, exercised with perpetual troubles from his first rise to his end; during whose possession of power the Roman empire was ready to fall; nay, in whose appointment was given an occasion of falling, because in the division of empire thus introduced, a way was opened for the barbarians, and the Roman commonwealth was exposed to the most dreadful calamities. Might not he be properly called Wormwood, on account of a fate so bitter to himself and others? According to that saying of Naomi, "Call me not Naomi, call me Marah; for the Almighty has afflicted me with bitterness," Ruth c. i. v. 20.

But before I quit this subject, something must be said of the state of the city and the Roman commonwealth, that the way may be prepared for the interpretation of the following trumpet.

The Cæsar of the West, then, being thus overthrown and extinct, in the mean time Odoacer, king of the Heruli, held Rome for sixteen years under the name of king, who, after two years restored, and from that time preserved, the consulate to Rome and the West, which in his anger he had at first taken away. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, succeeded him, and that, as Paul the Deacon relates, by Zeno, the emperor of the East, delivering Italy to him in a formal manner, and confirming it by the imposition of the second veil on his head. He, after Odoacer was conquered and slain, besides Dalmatia and Rhetia, which were provinces of Odoacer, added Sicily also to his kingdom, rebuilt the walls, and some of the edifices of the city of Rome, having collected a large sum of money for that purpose; so that nothing seemed to be wanted to its attainment of its former state, except the infamy of a city plundered and burned. He regulated the kingdom most wisely; he changed no Roman institution, but retained the senate and consuls, the patricians, prefects of the prætorium, prefect of the city, questor, commissary of the sacred largesses, offices of the privates, and of the military, masters of the foot and horse, and the other magistrates, who were then in the empire, and entrusted the offices only to Romans. Which regulations were for some time continued by his

successors also, Athalaric, Theodostratus, and Vitiges, Ostrogoth kings of Italy.-Vide Sigonius on the Western Empire, Lib. xv. Anno, 479, Lib. xvi. Annis, 493, 494, 500.

The Fourth Trumpet.

The fourth trumpet having advanced a little farther, proceeded to take away entirely the light of Roman majesty in the city of Rome, with which it had hitherto shone under the Ostrogoth kings, after the consulate of Rome had failed; namely, from the year 452, in that Ostrogothic war, waged first by Belisarius, and then by Narses, general of Justinian, for the purpose of recovering Italy: And then the city itself, having been repeatedly taken by Totila, burnt, and a third of it demolished, deprived, moreover, of all its inhabitants, (a memorable sport of fortune!) being recovered at length by Narses, after so many deaths and so much slaughter, was thrown down a short time after by a whirlwind and thunderbolts. Once the queen of cities, but now at length deprived of the consular power, of the authority of the senate, and of the other magistrates, with which, as stars, she had hitherto irradiated the globe, she fell from such splendour of glory into I know not what ignoble Duchy of Ravenna, over which she had formerly ruled, and was afterwards compelled (what obscurity!)

to be subject to the Exarchy, and to pay tribute.

And this was that percussion of “the third part of the sun, and of the moon, and of the stars," by which it came to pass that "a third part of the day did not shine, and likewise a third part of the night." Where the diurnal light, which is that of the sun, is called by the name of day, and the nocturnal light of the moon and stars, by that of night. Like that in Jerem. c. xxxi. v. 35, "Who giveth the sun for the light of the day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night."

The sun shone at Rome as long as the consular dignity and the kingdom was possessed of authority over other cities and provinces. The moon and the stars shone there, as long as the ancient power of the senate, and of the other magistrates, remained. But these being all taken away, (which was done by this trumpet,) what was there but darkness, and a universal failure of light, both diurnal and nocturnal? namely, what belonged to that city, to which a third part of the light of heaven was attributed.

The image of the sun, moon, and stars, in this sense, is very frequent with the prophets. As Isaiah, c. xiii. v. 10, also c. lx. v. 20, where, instead of "Thy sun shall no more set, and thy moon shall not be diminished," the Targum has,

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