of one great whole. The difference between them is sufficiently striking to justify this supposition. The war of the witnesses took place in only one particular street of the great city. The war of Michael was carried on in the Church general. The war of the witnesses was fought upon earth: whence we may conclude, that it was not only a spiritual one, as being fought by the witnesses; but also a literal one, like those of the Saracenic locusts and Turkish horsemen, as being fought upon earth, and with a material enemy, the last head of the beast. The war of Michael was fought in heaven; and the weapons of his soldiers were, not carnal, but spiritual ; for they overcame the dragon "by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto death." This second war therefore comprehends the spiritual, though not the literal, part of the former war of the witnesses. It was not, like the first, begun and ended within the space of a few years: but it was a long-continued struggle between the powers of light, and the powers of darkness. It commenced with the Apostacy itself: it raged with dreadful fury in the age of the Waldenses and Albigenses: it issued in a signal victory at the time of the reformation, the victory here celebrated by the prophet: but it will continue, with abated violence, even after Satan has chosen a different and more formidable station, to the very end of the 1260 years; for, throughout the whole of this period, are the saints to be given into the hand of the papal horn, and the witnesses to prophesy in sackcloth. At the era of the reformation then, the great victory of Michael over the dragon was achieved. Then it was, that "salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ," were manifested. Then it was, that "the accuser of our brethren was cast down, which accused them before our God, day and night," of the very same crimes which he had heretofore alledged against the primitive martyrs and confessors; promiscuous fornication, infanticide, and even bestiality. Then it was, that "the heavens, and they that dwell in them," were called upon to rejoice; heavens, because the boasted catholicism of the Roman heaven was now annihilated, VOL. II.

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and many reformed heavens or churches were established, differing indeed unhappily in ecclesiastical polity, but holding one head even Christ. And then it was, that a woe was proleptically denounced against "the inhabiters of the earth" or the papal Roman empire in general, and "of the sea" or a part of it which was shortly to be convulsed by revolution in particular; even that third woe, which was to be so much more tremendous than either of its two predecessors: " for the devil had come down unto them, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." He had many years reigned triumphant in the Church under the first and second woes, during the long period of the latter days, during the age of superstition and idolatry: but his final great attempt to destroy the woman under the third woe, during the period of the last days, during the age of atheism and profane mockery, is to be comparatively only a short time. He was cast indeed from heaven under the second woe; but his peculiar time, the short time alluded to by the Apostle, commenced with the sounding of the third woetrumpet. For this last great woe he had been diligently preparing, ever since his signal defeat by Michael and his angels but his scheme was not ripe for execution, till the blast of the seventh trumpet gave the signal for the open developement of infernal anarchy, and undisguised hostility to the God of heaven. The seventh trumpet, as we have seen, began to sound on the 12th of August in the year 1792, immediately after the last shock of the earthquake on the 10th of August, when the French revolution may be considered as accomplished. Now, supposing the Apostacy to have commenced in the year 606, it will be evident, that of the 1260 years only 74 remained unelapsed in the year 1792: consequently Satan had but a very short time for the accomplishment of his last plan, compared with the preceding centuries of his sway in the church of Rome.

In order the more fully to perceive the exact fulfilment of the prophecy now under consideration, it will be proper to trace the steps of the dragon, after he was cast out of heaven, and before the complete revelation of Antichrist took place under the third woe-trumpet.

At the revival of letters in Europe, the first discovery, that was made, was that of the multifarious absurdities maintained by the Church of Rome. These had long been held up to the world as the essentials of Christianity; and every impugner of them had been treated as a heretic. The consequence was, that the mummeries of Popery were charged upon the Gospel: and, because they were evidently ridiculous superstitions, it was thought to be ridiculous superstition likewise. Hence arose scepticism; which the subtle enemy of mankind soon matured into infidelity, and even into atheism.

The prophecy teaches us, that, when the dragon quitted heaven, he retired to the earth, and the sea: and history testifies, that it was not long, ere the fruits of his labours were abundantly evident in France, Germany, and Italy." It is certain," says Mosheim, "that in the sixteenth century there lay concealed in different parts of Europe several persons, who entertained a virulent enmity against religion' in general, and in a more especial manner against the religion of the Gospel; and who, both in their writings and in their private conversation, sowed the seeds of impiety and error, and instilled their odious principles into weak and credulous minds. It is even reported, that in certain provinces of France and Italy, schools were erected, whence these impious doctrines issued." These continental infidels may be considered as the real fathers of our English free-thinkers. Accordingly "the histories of those times bear witness, that our English youth, who travelled even so early as the reign of James the First, returned too often with the seeds of vice and infidelity, which they gathered with the knowledge and the manners of more polished countries and the court of Charles the second displays, in a very striking manner, the principles and habits, which the King and his Nobles had learned upon the continent.

It is probable, that from some one of these secret schools proceeded the famous pamphlet of the three impostors, meaning Moses, Christ, and Mohammed: if indeed there ever were such a pamphlet. Infidelity prevailed even among the Popes themselves; as if, disgusted with the absurdities of the very superstition which was so profitable to them, they had sought refuge in the bosom of atheism. The blasphemy of Leo the tenth is well known. "This fable of Jesus Christ," said he to Cardinal Bembo, "hath done us good service." According to the Romanists, every Pope is infallible: what sentiments will they entertain of Leo?

The general detestation of the hypocrisy and fanaticism of the Puritans tended to heighten their irreligion, and encouraged them to publish their opinions: but the kingdom at large was not infected by them; and the following reigns exhibit in every rank of people an attachment to religion, and a zeal in its cause, which the annals of no other nation can furnish."*

For a considerable length of time however, infidelity was confined to the higher and the literary orders; the humble and unambitious Christian was happily placed without the sphere of its influence. The project of the wily serpent was as yet in its infancy: and little did those nobles, who encouraged it, imagine, that they were unwarily helping to construct an engine destined for their own destruction. But, as the period of the third woetrumpet approached, Satan took at once both a wider and more systematic range. Infidelity was diffused in a manner unknown in any former age. No class of society was exempt from its poison. Publications, adapted to the comprehension of the lower orders, were zealously distributed throughout every country in Europe by the secret clubs of the illuminated and, as a mind unused to argument, can readily see an objection, without being able accurately to follow the train of reasoning which pervades the confutation of it, a captious doubt, once injected into the head of a poor and illiterate man, can scarcely ever be removed even by the clearest demonstration of the evidences of Christianity.† Impudent as

* Hist. the Inter. Vol. II. p. 135.

A learned and much revered friend of mine, (the Rev. R. Hudson, A. M. headmaster of the Grammar school at Hipperholme,) some time since put into my hands a small tract, which was industriously circulated in his neighbourhood. It was replete with a variety of quibbling questions, which the merest sciolist in theology would find little difficulty in answering, but which were perfectly well adapted to puzzle the intellect of a plain unsuspecting labourer. In order to avoid the neces sity of annexing the printer's name to a publication, it was ingeniously ante-dated. "It was by small tracts of this sort," says the present worthy Bishop of London, "disseminated among the lower orders in every part of France, that the great body of the people there was prepared for that most astonishing event (which, without such preparation, could never have been so suddenly and so generally brought about), the public renunciation of the Christian Faith. In order to produce the very same effects bere, and to pave the way for a general apostacy from the Gospel, by contaminating the principles and shaking the faith of the inferior classes of the people, the same arts have been employed, the same breviates of infidelity have, to my knowledge, been published and dispersed with great activity, and at a con

sertion now occupied the place of proof: and a conviction of false representation was little regarded by those, whose object was to disseminate error, and who had regularly calculated that an atheistical publication would be read by many that would probably never see the answer to it. Formerly infidelity was conveyed in the shape of a professed treatise; and they, who chose to peruse it, were at least aware of what they might expect. Hence a careful Christian parent knew how to secure his inexperienced offspring from the effects of its poison. But now, there is scarcely a book which he dares to trust in the hands of his children, without first thoroughly examining it himself: and, even after all his precautions, his son may accidentally take up a treatise on botany or geology, and rise from the perusal of it, if not an infidel, yet a sceptic. In short, the lurking poison of unbelief has of late years been "served up in every shape, that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile, the imagination; in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem ; in interspersed and broken hints; remote and oblique surmises; in books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history; in a word, in any form rather than that of a professed and regular disquisition."*

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The sure word of prophecy has taught us where to look for the real origin of these infernal productions. "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." It has done more. It has explicitly described to us the character of those abandoned men, those hardened scoffers, whom Satan was about to employ as his wretched tools in the last days.† The existence of such men we have witnessed with our own eyes but, till lately, we were not aware of their existence in any other than their mere individual capacity. We have at present however upon record the confession of an arch-atheist, that there has long been in Europe,

aiderable expence, among the middling and lower classes of men in this kingdom.” Charge 1794.

Paley's Moral Philosophy.

See the prophecies relative to the last times collected together in the third chapter of this Work.