Vs. 10, 11.—­The object of the third trumpet is the waters as before,—­the population of the empire, but not in collective form as a sea; rather in a state of separation or disconnected, as “rivers and fountains.”  Some apply this symbol of a “falling star” to Genseric, but this is incongruous.  On the contrary, he was a victorious prince,—­a rising star.  It is more consonant to the truth of history and the chronological series of prophecy, to apply this symbol to the downfall of Momyllus the last of the Roman emperors, who was deposed by Odoacer king of the Heruli, called in derision Augustulus,—­the diminutive Augustus.  Doubtless the allusion here is to the king of Babylon:—­“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, (day-star,) son of the morning!  How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” (Isa. xiv. 12.) A star may indeed signify either a civil or ecclesiastical officer, but the scope and context determine all these judgments to the enemies of the church, and those of her illustrious Head.  It is the “vengeance of his temple.”  We have already found a star the emblem of a gospel minister, and we shall hereafter find it employed in that sense; but it does not seem to refer in the present connexion to any apostate.  The name of this star,—­“Wormwood,” embittering the waters, is a lively emblem of the miseries experienced by the people, in the use of the remaining temporal comforts which the preceding calamities had left.

12.  And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

V. 12.—­The design of all the trumpets is to point out the utter destruction of the Roman empire,—­Daniel’s “kingdom of iron.” (Dan. ii. 40.) For although from the time of Constantine it assumed the Christian name, it nevertheless continued to be a beast.  Of this we shall have cumulative evidence as we progress.  The first trumpet began to demolish the fabric of antichristian power; and by the fourth the western division was overthrown.  For although the northern barbarians under the first, the southern Vandals under the second, and the successors of both, prevailed to bring down the last of the Caesars, yet the ancient frame of government still subsisted.  The political heaven, though shaken, was not yet wholly removed, while the Senate, Consuls and other official dignitaries continued to shine as political luminaries in the firmament of power.  But as the last of the Caesars fell from power in the year 476, so the last vestige of imperial dominion in the west was removed in 566, when Rome, the queen of the nations, was by the emperor of the east reduced to the humble condition of a tributary dukedom.  Most of the saints had their residence at this time in the nations of western Europe and northern Africa, where they