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applies to the Mahometan armies. The Caliph Abubekerk, who fucceeded Mahomet in the year 632, gave express orders to Yefid the General of his forces, not to destroy any palm-trees, nor burn any fields of corn, nor cut down any fruit-trees.

The fury and deftructive ravages of the Arabs and Saracens were directed against the degenerate Chriftians, and they were raised up as the terrible inftruments of the divine difpleasure, to hurt thofe men who had not the feal of God in their foreheads1. Here is a defcription, concise indeed, but fufficiently characteristic of the Christians at the commencement of the feventh century, when Mahomet began to propagate his faith. They had not the feal of God in their foreheads-they were not distinguished by the proper marks of their Chriftian profeffion. Such was the fact as we collect it from all the hiftorians of those times, and more particularly from Gibbon, who in his fortieth, forty-firft, forty-third, and fortyfifth Chapters, has drawn, with a malignant pleasure, the dark picture of their

*Lowman, p. 123.

1 Rev. ix. 4.

en

enmities, their corruptions, and their vices. Of their fuperftition and idolatrous tendency, which appear evidently from the concluding part of the Prophecy, to be particular objects of the divine punishment, he thus fpeaks-" The Chriftians of the feventh century had infenfibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism: their public and private vows were addreffed to the relics and images that difgraced the temples of the Eaft: the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and faints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian Heretics, who flourished in the fruitful foil of Arabia, invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honours of a goddess." The parts of the world which remained moft free from these corruptions, were Savoy, Piedmont, and the fouthern parts of France (which were afterwards the nurferies and habitations of the Albigenfes and Waldenfes), and on this account they escaped the calamities of the times. For it ought to be particularly noticed, that when the Saracens approached these countries in the

Newton, vol. iii. p. 101.

m

year

year 732, they were defeated with great flaughter in several engagements, by the renowned Charles Martel, King of France".

To them it was given that they should

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not kill them, but that they should be tormented. In the course of the fuccessful inroads made by the Saracens, no government, state, or empire, was killed, or deftroyed. They greatly haraffed and tormented both the Greek and the Latin Churches; but they did not utterly extirpate the one or the other. They befieged Conftantinople, and even plundered Rome; but they could not make themselves masters of either of those capital cities. The Greek Empire fuffered most from them, as it was nearest to their own territories. They difmembered it of Syria, and of Egypt, and fome others of its beft and richest provinces; but they were never able to fubdue and conquer the whole. often as they befieged Conftantinople, they were repulfed and defeated. They attempted it in the reign of Conftantine Pogonatus, A. D. 672; but their men and ships were destroyed by the fea-fire in

Gibbon, c. 53.

As

• Rev. ix. 5.

vented by Callinicus; and, after seven years ineffectual pains, they were compelled to raise the fiege and conclude a peace. They attempted it again in the reign of Leo Ifauricus, A. D. 718; but they were forced to defift by famine, and peftilence, and loffes of various kinds. In this attempt they exceeded their commiffion; and therefore they were not crowned with their ufual fuccefs P." Although the followers of Mahomet did not fubvert the government of the countries which they invaded, yet their military laws adjudged fo many people to captivity, and the condition of the women in particular was fo deplorable, being fo much in the power of perfons who fet no bounds to their pasfions, that in thofe days men fought death, and could not find it, and they defired to die, and death was far from them. They preferred death to the hard conditions of flavery and oppreffion to which they were reduced, and earnestly wished to close the fcene of their miferies and their lives together.

The vaft armies which followed the

Newton, vol. iii. p. 101.

9 Lowman, p. 123.

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. Rev. ix. 6.

ftandard

standard of Mahomet were composed of cavalry-they were like unto horfes prepared unto battle.-The Arabs were always celebrated for the excellent breed of their horfes, their expertnefs in all equestrian exercises, and the great advantages they derived from their swift and well appointed cavalry in their various wars and incurfions. On their heads were as it were crowns like gold-The turban was the peculiar drefs of the Arabian chiefs, adorned with plates or bands of gold. And as the crown is an emblem of fovereignty, the prophetical allufion may refer to the numerous kingdoms which they overran. For as Mr. Mede excellently obferves", "No nation had ever fo wide a command, nor ever were so many kingdoms, fo many regions fubjugated in fo fhort a fpace of time. It founds incredible, yet most true it is, that in the fpace of eighty or not many more years, they fubdued and acquired to the diabolical kingdom of Mohammed, Palestine, Syria, both Armenias, almost all Asia Minor, Perfia, India, Egypt, Numidia, all Barbary, even to the river

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