and thus it behoved (edu) Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day.' Accordingly it will be found to hold good as a general remark, that wherever the New Testament writers speak of any event as necessary to be accomplished, this necessity is bassed not upon the secret, but upon the revealed will of the Most High, as disclosed by his ancient servants the prophets. On the ground, therefore, of long previous annunciation, it was necessary that Satan should be ‘loosed out of his prison, and should go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle.'

But here it may be asked, how the expression' deceive' (haviou) if it bear the sense already ascribed to it of seducing by means of religious imposture, can properly be applied to these heathen nations, seeing that they were already deceived from the very fact of their being under the jurisdiction of the Dragon prior to their issuing forth upon this fatal expedition? We answer, that the specific end of his 'deception' on this occasion is expressly defined by the words of the prophet. Εξελεύσεται πλανῆσαι-συναγαγεῖν αὐτοὺς εἰς πόλεμον—He shall go forth to deceive them— to gather them together to battle. This was then the drift of his deluding subtleties, to infatuate their minds with the project of a grand and glorious conquest to be achieved over Christendom, in consequence of which they should muster an immense armament, and go forth buoyant with hope, and blustering with bravado, to the momentous conflict. "The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw the sword, my hand shall destroy them." This was the precise nature of the 'deception' to be practised upon the belligerent legions of Gog and Magog. They were to be urged on by the delusive prospect of success in their undertaking, while ultimate, remediless ruin awaited

them. The term 'deceive,' therefore, in this connection must, by the exigentia loci, be interpreted in a sense somewhat different from that assigned to it above.

The only point which now remains to be considered is that of dates; and this is a point requiring a very close examination. If the Dragon were not to be released from his confinement in the mystic abyss till the full expiration of the thousand years, and if this thousand years be dated from the reign of Theodosius or shortly after, that is, from some point between A. D. 395 and A. D. 450, it may be objected, that this determination of periods will by no means tally with the grand epochs of the Turkish history. For nothing is more certain than that their first inroads upon the territories of Christendom were at least two or three centuries prior to the date to which this calculation would assign them. “The lords of a great part of Asia, which lies between the Indus and the Bosphorus, proceeded originally from' the nation which dwells in the Khozzer or Khozzez plains, at the north-east of the Caspian sea. They were called Turks or Turkmans: and their first important imigration took place in the tenth century. These Tartars, like most others of their nation in their imigrations to the south, embraced the Mohammedan religion."* This expedition was headed by Seljuk, grandfather of TogrolBec, who between the years 1038 and 1063 defeated the Gaznevides, subjugated Persia, and was solemnly recognized by the Caliph of Bagdad as the master of all the Mohammedan states, and as the vicegerent of the Moslem world. His nephew Alp Arslan succeeded him in the year 1063 and at the close of a prosperous reign, "the fairest parts of Asia were subject to his laws, twelve hundred kings or chiefs stood before his throne, and two hundred thousand soldiers marched under his banners." He was suc

* Mills' Hist. of Mohamm. p. 233.

ceeded by his son Malek-Shah, who reigned from 1072 to the year 1092, and who was the greatest prince of his age. "Persia was his; the emirs of Syria paid their submission of tribute and respect; and daily prayers were offered for his health in Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, Bagdad, Rhei, Ispahan, Samarcand, Bokhara, and Kashgar. But the greatness and unity of the Turkish empire expired in the person of Malek-Shah. On his death in the year 1092, the vast fabric fell to the ground; and after a series of civil wars, four dynasties, contemporary and not successive, were formed: namely, that of Persia at large; that of Kerman, a province of Persia; that of a large portion of Syria, including Aleppo and Damascus; and that of Rhoum, or Asia Minor."

In the year 1240, the Ottoman Turks, who dwelt originally at the north of the Caspian sea, on the plains of Kipjack or Cumania, made their appearance in Armenia, Syria, and Asia Minor. "Some of them engaged in the service of Aladdin, the Seljuk sultan of Iconium or Rhoum: and it was not beneath the dignity of their leader Ortugrul to become the subject and soldier of that prince. The Seljuks of Iconium and the Korasmian Tartars became one people in history they were known by the common name of Ottoman Turks: and the sword and sceptre of power were transferred from the sluggard Seljukian princes to their ambitious and enterprising generals.'

'

The narrative thus briefly recited stands almost self-applied to the events announced under the sixth trumpet, which, according to our interpretation, brings the Gog and Magog power upon the prophetic platform. The four angels described as bound in the regions bordering on the river Euphrates, are the four contemporary sultanies, or dynasties, into which the empire of the Seljukian Turks was divided towards the close of the eleventh century:

* Mills' Hist. of Mohamm. p. 133–261.

"These were long

Persia, Kerman, Syria, and Rhoum. restrained from extending their conquests beyond what may be geographically termed the Euphratèan regions, partly by the quadruple division of their once united empire, partly by the revolutions of Asia, and partly by the instrumentality of the crusades. But towards the close of the thirteenth century, the four angels on the river Euphrates were forthwith loosed in the persons of their existing representatives, the united Ottoman and Seljukian Turks."*

Now as the thousand years of the Apocalypse were not completed at the close of the thirteenth century, the question arises, With what propriety, consistently with the sacred text, can Satan, in the person of the Ottoman or Seljukian Turks, be said to have been loosed at that time? This question deserves a well-considered reply. In offering a solution of the problem, let us weigh the genuine import of the original :—Καὶ ὅταν τελεσθῆ τὰ χίλια ἔτη. Of these words the common translation is, ' And when the thousand years are expired;' understanding the term of years to be fully completed. But a more correct rendering we apprehend to be,' And when the thousand years are expiring, or drawing towards a close.' The grammatical structure of the passage does not, as we conceive, imperiously require us to understand the period as having fully elapsed. The subjunctive mode in Greek having no future tense, but being obliged for that purpose to employ the aorists, or indefinite tenses, is often used in connection with the adverb orav, to denote time current instead of time complete. The following cases of a strictly parallel phraseology will redeem our proposed version from the charge of being arbitrarily adopted, merely to serve a turn. A remarkably apposite instance is afforded in a former part of

* Fabers' Sac. Calend. of Proph, vol. ii. p. 415.

the Revelation, ch. 11:7, where the war or prolonged hostility of the Beast against the Witnesses is mentioned. 'And when they shall have finished their testimony (Gr. ὅταν τελέσωσι τὴν μαρτυρίαν αὑτῶν), the Beast, that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, shall make war against them, and overcome them.' Grotius, Mede, Whiston, More, Daubuz, Lowman, and Newton unanimously agree that the true rendering in this place is, When they shall be finishing, or about to finish, their testimony. The reason of it is plain; for the Beast was not to defer his persecution till after they had completed their testimony, but was to make war against them during the time that they were actually engaged in it. The sense therefore is plainly, While they shall be finishing, or executing their testimony. .* Again, Matt. 5: 11, 'Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you,' etc. (Gr. ötav ovɛidiowor vμãs xaì diwśwσi); i. e. not when men shall have reviled and persecuted you, but even while they are doing it. Matt. 10: 19, 'But when they deliver you up (Gr. öτav лαçadıdãσiv vμãs) take no thought,' etc.; i. e. when they are delivering you up. So also 1 Thess. 5: 3, 'For when they shall say (ötav yag hέywoi), peace and safety; then sud

* Daubuz, after rendering the original:—' And whilst they shall perform their testimony,'-remarks: "This is the right meaning of these words, as Grotius, More, and others, even Mede himself, own. For the word the may signify the doing any thing in order to its perfection, as well as the actual finishing of it. So εnitelé, in Heb. 9: 6, signifies simply to accomplish, without any respect to the end, any more than to the whole service; and the particle orav, whilst, suits exactly with this sense, Matt. 5: 11. 10: 19. Now the sense of the whole requires it absolutely; for the power of the Beast is to make war against them during all the time of their testimony, and that power in ch. 13: 5, is said to be forty-two months, which are equal to the 1260 days of these witnesses' prophesying. Therefore the Beast makes war upon them all the time whilst they perform their testimony.”—Daubuz Perpet. Comment. p. 514.