with the holy angels."* Remember that the condemnation will be, that a glorious light has come into the world, but that men have preferred darkness before the light, and the awful reason assigned as actuating them to this conduct, is, because their deeds are evil.

I well know, from long experience, that the pretended philosophy of the day, laughs at all these doctrines, as the effect of enthusiasm and want of an enlarged mind. St. Peter hath not left us without a solemn admonition in a prophetic view of these times. "Knowing," says. he, "that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of his coming, for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation-But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night."

May a Holy God continue our happy country a blessed asylum for all the oppressed of the nations of Europe, "when God shall arise, terribly to shake the earth." And notwithstanding the discouraging appearance that arises from the infidelity prevailing in the world, may the mourning servants of God be comforted by the blessed scene held up to view by the beloved disciple St. John, after he had described the awful events we have been contemplating--“I beheld and lo! a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds, and people and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, cloathed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation unto our God, who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb:"t

*

Mark, 8. ch. 38. v.

Rev. 7th ch. 9–10 v.

May we not now ask, as the sum of this whole matter, does not this great question, relative to the second advent of the glorified Saviour, (as applicable to America as Europe) from the signs of the times, herein before described and held up to view, appear to be fully established, by its having been shewn that this all important event is drawing nigh, if not at the very door? And do not the facts that have been developed in this work, call upon all the servants of Jesus Christ, by whatever name distinguished, to be found ready for the marriage supper of the Lamb?

I know that this is not a singular opinion of mine: it is the voice of reason, founded on revelation. The learn, ed and pious Porteus, bishop of London, in his charge to the Clergy of his Diocess, in 1794, says" The present times and the present scene of things in almost every part of the civilized world, are the most interesting and the most awful that were ever before presented to the inhabitants of the earth, and such as must necessarily excite the most serious reflections in every thinking mind; perhaps all those singular events, to which we have been witnesses, unparalleled, as they undoubtedly are, in the page of history, may be only the beginning of things;— the first leading steps to a train of events still more extraordinary ;-to the accomplishment, possibly of some new and unexpected, and, at present, unfathomable designs, hitherto reserved and hid in the councils of the Almighty. Some we know there are, who think that certain prophesies, both in the New Testament and the Old, are now fulfilling; that the signs of the times are portentous and alarming, and that the sudden extinction of a great monarchy, and of all the splendid ranks and orders of men that supported it, is only the completion,

in part, of that prediction in the Gospel, that the Sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from Heaven, before the second appearance of the Messiah to judge the earth; all which expressions are well known to be only figurative emblems of the great powers and rulers of the world, whose destruction, it is said, is to precede that great event."

We trust, that we have not been misapprehended, or that from any thing herein before stated, an idea has not been given, as if pretending to determine, with precision, the time of the completion of this great object of all human hope. What appears to be certain is, that the great catastrophe will take place by the year 6000, at farthest, although we confess, from an apprehension that we are faulty in our chronology, we should not be disappointed if it should happen in the nineteenth century.-From the circumstance of the original Sabbath being on the seventh day after six days of labour, together with the remarkable respect paid to the number seven in Scripture and history, and the tradition from the earliest ages among the Jews, we are of opinion that the seven thousandth year will begin the millenium, happen when it will. The Jews were as much divided about the first coming of the Messiah, as we are about the secondThey thought it as impossible that the Christ should come out of Nazareth-that he should not be a great conqueror, and that the Jewish nation, at his coming, should not be advanced to the pinnacle of glory, as our warmest zealots against his personal appearance, think it impossible that "the Lord himself should descend from Heaven with a shout and the voice of the archangel, &c." So hard is it for men to believe in the word of the living God. However, this will be the great period for aven

ging the blood of the Saints, for "in her was found the blood of Prophets and of Saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth."

We pretend not to know, and it is here repeated with emphasis, more than the Scriptures have clearly revealed. It is not known what grand preparations are determined, to take place before the approach of that dreadful and glorious day; nor what length of time is necessary for their consummation;-the Scriptures, by the figure of a millstone falling from Heaven into the Sea; and the coming of a thief in the night, undoubtedly mean to show, that in comparison with the past events of prophesy, the issue will be sudden and unexpected.

But this may be asserted with confidence, that sufficient has already appeared to assure us that many of the preliminary steps have taken place-that the scene is opening;-the curtain is rising;—the harbinger seems ready for his approach ;-nay the kingdom of God is undoubtedly nigh at hand-We mean not to determine years, or months, or days. The fourth kingdom of Daniel, at the end of which the great catastrophe is to begin, is fast hastening to its last period.-It is tottering on its base being the feet and toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image, when it falls, the whole image falls with it.

Commentators, from St. Jerome to bishop Newton, with whom all more ancient writers, Jewish and Christian, accord, have generally agreed that the Roman government is this fourth kingdom. St. Jerome, about the year 370, though then living under that kingdom in the plenitude of its power, and, of course, such a construction must have been very unpopular, says, "the fourth kingdom, which plainly belongs to the Romans, is the iron that breaketh and subdueth all things." This Aaaa

brought him, as might be expected, into trouble; and he excuses himself thus: "If in explaining this statue, and the difference of his feet and toes, I have interpreted the iron and clay of the Roman kingdom, let them not impute it to me, but to the prophet."

This has indeed been cavilled at, by infidel writers, from Porphyry to Collins, who copied his objections, but could not support them by any authority either from Scripture or history. The excellent Mr. Mede already often quoted, and who bishop Newton says, was as able and consummate a judge as any, in these matters, by the most conclusive arguments has, in my opinion, put this question out of doubt.

We now see this government of Rome, receiving its death wound, both in its civil and ecclesiastical polity, and that by means of one of the ten kingdoms, as foretold by the prophet.* We see the little horn drawing to its

* The following extract from Sharpe's Essays, of a modern date, is applicable to this part of the subject.-The Scriptures foretell that the royal horns of the beast (however for a long time they may have supported her) shall at last "hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh," &c. "This judgment," says Mr. Grenville Sharpe," was first began by our English horn, king Henry VIII. whom she entitled defender of the faith, against the persecuted saints, yet he set the first example of eating her flesh, by the sequestration of ecclesiastical estates and revenues to the royal exchequer-The precedent for fulfilling the prediction was not followed by the other popish horns of the beast, until the dissolution of the order of the Jesuits in our own times, about 1765, when all the other popish kings of the Roman empire, France, Spain, Portugal, Sardinia, Naples, the emperor and king Joseph II. &c. &c. followed the example-And lastly, since the treaty of Amiens, the remainder of her flesh seems to have occasioned a notable royal scramble among the remaining

Rev. ch. 17. v. 16.