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"under the weight of the victims, with which they are encumbered; the crape of death worn by "every family; the threshold of every door ftained "with gore; and, as the height of infult, the word Humanity engraven on every tomb, and affo"ciated with death! Such was the lamentable afpect which France prefented! On every frontif piece were to be feen the contradictory words, Liberty! Fraternity! or DEATH! Alas! the laft was the only one that was realized!"

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I could have added the faithful teftimony of other hiftorians at large, to confirm the events alJuded to in this vial; who tell us of civil wars the moft barbarous; of cities burnt; palaces, archives, forefts, and private manfions proftrated and defiroyed, and of univerfal plunder; of men, women, and children, without notice, and without trial, maffacred; and who further reprefent the rivers of this devoted country as groaning under loads of human carcaffes, and flowing with human blood; but furely the mind of every reader of fenfibility and humanity must be already appalled, and fhrink back from the hideous picture; and furely enough has been faid to convince him, that correfpondent with the figurative fenfe of the text, the people of France have been "fcorched with "fire," and with "great heat," and that the prophecy in this refpect has literally been fulfilled.

Such were the woes poured down by a juftly offended God, upon a blafphemous and atheistical nation. It seems to have been the divine will, that they fhould rage with unremitting violence and fury, during the long period of eighteen months, from the death of the king inclufive, on the 21ft of January 1793, to the death of those monfters of cruelty Roberfpierre and his faction, on the 8th of July 1794. Thefe wretches were betrayed by their own

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colleagues, tried and condemned by that very Convention, which they were upon the point of deftroying, and fuffered death under the fame guillotine, and on the fpot where they had murdered their lawful chief magiftrate, and many hundreds of their fellow citizens. And thus, it feems to have pleafed God to abate the fury of his wrath, at least for a time, to give the French nation an opportunity of returning to that truth which they had fo wantonly, fo publicly, and fo blafphemously denied.

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But the events foretold in this verfe are not yet finifhed: there was another remarkable fact to come to pass; viz. that, notwithstanding the just deverity of thofe plagues, the people upon whom they were to fall fhould " blafpheme the name of "God, who had power over these plagues, and "repent not to give him the glory." This divifion of the verse may refer either to that part of the nation, who miferably perifhed under the plagues of this vial, or to that which has furvived them. In respect to the firft, we know, that thofe who had rejected the cup of atheism, and who retained their faith in God, and the gospel of his bleffed Son, had been moft violently perfecuted, and had either fled or been banished or maffacred; fo that there remained only a nation of hardened, luftful, and atheistical revolutionary anarchifts and republicans, upon whom this vial could be poured and fuch was the rapidity of the plagues, that it is not reafonable to believe they on whom they fell could have had time, even had they been difpofed, to "repent,' in fincerity and truth, of their fins, and to have "given the glory to that God who had power

over thefe plagues," and before whofe awful and immaculate, prefence they were foon to appear, covered, loaded, polluted with the blackeft atheism. In regard to those who yet live, it is equally notorious

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torious, that, after seven years mercy, there is no profpect that the French nation will defert the prin ciples of atheism. Their God Reafon, or Liberty, their demons, or impious atheifts deified, yet re'main in the church of St. Genevieve, late the houfe of God, but now their atheistical pantheon, a houfe of blafphemy! Their (I will not prophane the name of Religion) their fyftem of atheifm and its priefis are encouraged, fupported, and honoured; their contempt for the God of Heaven and his bleffed Son rides yet paramount over all religion, all virtue and principle; nor has their pride, their am'bition, their diffipation, and the gratification of every luft, diminished. And thus, as the prophet fays they would, they continue to "blafpheme the "name of God who had power over thefe plagues, "and repent not to give him the glory."

Vial 5-Ver. 10." And the fifth angel "poured out his vial upon the feat of the "beast, and his kingdom was full of darknefs, and they gnawed their tongues for "pain."

Ver. 11 And blafphemed the God of "Heaven because of their pains and their fores, "and repented not of their deeds."

We have feen that the first four vials, bring down the events to the prefent times. The events of this, and the two which follow it, are yet to come. Aware of the impoffibility of foreseeing the time when, the manner how, and the means by which, they are to be fulfilled, I fhall not attempt an explanation of them, farther than by making fuch general obfervations as naturally arife out of the texts, and are countenanced by other parts of Scripture; and this only to give the reader a general view of the objects upon which they are to

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be poured out, and to show that the chain of prophetic events, foretold in the first century, and which has been brought down to the prefent times, is continued by the prophet to, the end of time!

I have often had occafion to mention, that the prophet has defcribed the French republic by the fymbol of a beaft; as, "the beaft afcending "out of the bottomlefs pit;"" the beast coming up "out of the earth;" and often emphatically, with the article the before it, as "the beaft," to point out its confummate wickedness. We may therefore fafely conclude, that he here refers to the fame monfirous power. But he gives us another fign, which can be applied with propriety to no other; for he adds, as a reafon for pouring out this vial upon the beaft," that his kingdom was "full of darkness;" that is, deftitute of all fenfe of religion and morality, and full of blafphemy and atheism, the very state in which France now is, and in which, in all probability, she will remain.

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When this is to take place it is impoffible to fay. Future events are mercifully concealed from human forefight; and yet, when we confider the rapid completion of the events foretold under the four firft vials, it is not an improbable conjecture, that the period between the completion of the fourth and the fifth will not be a long one; more ef pecially when we review the innumerable deceptions, frauds, and fair promifes with which the people have been wretchedly amufed and cheated; dreadful and unceasing calamities they have suffered during the courfe of ten years, in confequence of the moft flagrant breaches of thofe promifes; the recollection of their former peace and happiness; the inftability and anarchy of their minds; the natural, indeed the neceffary effects of that atheism, of

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which they have drunk fuch plentiful draughts; the want of principle, both in religion and morality, to controul their pride and ambition, and to cool their paffions; added to the oppreffive, continued, and unbounded defpotifm of their tyrants: I fay, when we confider all this, it is fcarcely to be fuppofed that "a great and enlightened nation," as they are called by their own hiftorian, fhould, under fuch circumftances, long remain paffive and peaceable. But this is conjecture only.

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But to attend to the dreadful confequences of this vial: I find no inftance in the prophecies where a prophet has foretold the rife of a wicked power, and enemy to the word of God, and omitted its fall. Daniel having foretold the rife of the four great empires, predicts alfo their deftruction. St. John foretels the fall as well as the rife of

Mohammed and the Pope. So here, having foretold the rife of the French Republic, he predicts its deftruction too; and this deftruction is not mentioned generally as a plague, in which cafe it might mean famine, peftilence, war, and conqueft; but this vial of the wrath of God it is particularly faid, is to be "poured out on the feat of the beaft," that is, upon his public authority, his throne, and his government. In this fenfe the word "feat" is often ufed in Scripture§, and

there is no reafon to doubt but it means the fame here and as the wrath of God deftroys whatever it is poured out upon, it muft overturn the government of the beaft, and annihilate his authority. To this great event the prophet has before briefly referred ; and I have already commented upon it: and yet, that we may have all

+ Rev. xvi. 12. Rev. xiii. 10. § Efher iii. 1. Ezek. xxviii. 2. Luke i. 52.

* Dan. vii. 11, 12. Ibid. xvi.

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| Rev. xi. 13.

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