tile provinces wasted with fire and sword: and they will speak with horror of rapes, and murders, of pillage and extortion, of prisoners deliberately put to death in cold blood, and of wounded soldiers systematically poisoned by their apostate commander. But, while they present this dreadful scroll of human calamities to the sickening attention of posterity, they will not fail to attest, that these heavy judgments of the Lord have principally fallen upon the rivers and fountains of the papal Roman empire. Protestant states, that have in any measure preserved the faith of their ancestors, have in a manner been exempt. Self-defence and wanton provocations compelled England to enter into the contest. Her firmness, under Providence, blasted all the designs of her malicious enemy against herself; and drove him back to his own shores disgraced and vanquished, with his navy shattered and with his mariners disheartened. But her hapless allies, already devoted by the just judgment of God to drink in their turn torrents of blood, masmuch as they have heretofore profusely shed the blood of saints and prophets, it exceeded her power to save. The mighty arm of the Lord snatched her from impending destruction, and withered the boasted strength of her foe when directed against herself: but the angel of the waters, while she was preserved in the midst of wide-extending havock and desolation, sternly denounced the vengeance of heaven against her popish confederates. "They have

*Such was the rapacity of the republican tyrants, that "two years had been sufficient to place the countries conquered by France," the Netherlands, Holland, and the states situated between the Meuse and the Rhine, “ on a level with herself, and to reduce them to one common equality of death and misery-These countries, but a short time before so rich and so abundant, were exhausted" by bearing the whole burden of maintaining the French army; "their whole specie was absorbed by contributions, their manufactures were suspended, and their produce consumed." (Hist. of the Campaign of 1796. p. 4.) The same work contains a very full account of the various robberies systematically committed by the French in Germany and Italy. (See p. 44, 70, 241, 247, 249, 250, 254, 256, 364, 365, 366.) In short, the order given by the Directory to their generals was, that "they should maintain their troops by victory;" an order so faithfully obeyed by Buonapartè, that he "had no hesitation to say, in the proclamation which he made to his soldiers in entering into Carynthia, that all the expences of the army of Italy, during eleven months, had been paid by the conquered countries, and that he had besides sent 30 millions of livres to France." (Ibid. p. 5, 366.) These were some of the blessings of republican fraternity!

shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy."*

From what has been said it appears, that the three first vials relate to the French Revolution, describing at once the principles upon which it was founded, and the miseries both internal and external which it has produced. This tremendous revolution, which more or less has affected the whole Roman Empire, I conceive to be the first period of the third woe-trumpet, which St. John figuratively describes under the image of a harvest; a harvest not of mercy, but of God's wrath against the nations. After this figurative harvest has been gathered in, there is to be a sort of pause between it and the commencement of the vintage. The affairs of the world are in some measure to return to their old channel: yet they are not to roll on so smoothly, but that the interval between the harvest and the vintage will be marked by certain important events. These events are predicted under the three following vials.

SECTION II.

Concerning the three intermediate vials.

The reader must decide for himself how far it is probable, that three out of the seven vials have already been poured out at the commencement of the last woe-trumpet, constituting jointly that grand period of it, which by St. John is styled the harvest, and by which I understand the French Revolution." The concluding vial is reserved

* Mr. Galloway whimsically supposes, that the angel of the waters is the maritime sovereign of Great Britain. In the well-deserved encomiums, which he bestows upon our revered monarch, I heartily concur, though I cannot think that he is meant by the angel of the waters. This angel is manifestly no other than the angel, who had just poured out bis vial upon the waters of the rivers and fountains; whence he is naturally styled the angel of the waters, or the angel whose influence affected the waters. Mr. Galloway appears to me to have been by no means successful in his interpretation of any of the vials, excepting the sixth, which he rightly applies to Turkey. In his elucidation of the third he has been peculiarly unhappy. Entirely quitting the language of symbols, he fancies that the rivers and fountains mean Germany, for no other reason but because that country is well watered with abundance of large streams. In a sermon, which I published some years ago upon the pouring out of the vials, I was right in my general idea respecting them, but in more than one instance wrong in my particular application of them.

for the end of it, or the termination of the 1260 years; and comprehends the second grand period of the vintage. As for the fourth, fifth, and sixth, vials, I consider them as occupying the intermediate space between the harvest and the vintage; and am inclined to view the sixth vial in the light of a harbinger and prescursor of the last. Like a herald it prepares the way, and makes every thing ready for the final tremendous manifestation of God's righteous judgments upon his enemies.

"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues; and they repented not to give him glory."

In the language of symbols, the sun of a kingdom is the government of that kingdom; and the sun of an empire, if it be a divided empire, is the government of the most powerful state within that empire. When the political sun shines with a steady lustre, and yields a salutary warmth, it is a blessing to a people. But, when it glares with a fierce and unnatural heat, scorching all the productions of human industry with the intolerable blaze of a portentous tyranny, it is the heaviest curse which can befall a nation.

Since the whole prophecy of the Apocalypse relates to the Roman empire, the sun mentioned under this vial must be the sun of the Roman firmament: since the pouring out of all the vials takes place long posterior to the division of the empire, this sun must be the sun of the divided empire and since the three first vials have carried us to the end of the harvest or the unarchical horrors of the French Revolution, this sun must mean the govern ment of that state within the limits of the empire which at the present era is the most powerful. The prediction then of the fourth vial obviously intimates, that the frantic scenes of the harvest should be succeeded by a systematic military tyranny, which should be exercised over a considerable part of the Roman empire by the government of the most powerful state then existing within its limits. The world, exhausted with the miseries of the symbolical harvest, and wearied with the wild struggles of licentious

anarchy, should tamely submit to the lawless domination of an unrelenting despot. In pointing out the particular government intended by this scorching sun of the Latin or Papal firmament, the reader will doubtless have anticipated me. The present Popish states are France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sardinia, and Etruria. Of these, I apprehend, no one will be inclined to deny, that France is by many degrees the most powerful; and consequently that its government must inevitably be esteemed the sun of the system. To observe then the accurate completion of the prophecy of the fourth vial, in which it is said that power was given to this sun to scorch men with fire, and that they were scorched with great heat, we have only to cast our eyes over the continent. A system of tyranny, hitherto unknown in Europe except in the worst periods of the Roman history, has been established, and is now acted upon by him who styles himself Emperor of the French: and the scorching rays of military despotism are, at this moment felt, more or less, throughout France, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and the west of Germany. A regular plan of making each man a spy upon his neighbour destroys all the comfort and all the confidence of social life: and France, with her de

Should the present usurper of the throne of France, who already emulates the imperial rank of Austria, or should any successor of his at some future period, proclaim himself Emperor of the Romans, and thus transfer the crown of Charlemagne from Germany to France, as it was heretofore transferred from France to Germany: he would then, like Charlemagne, be the representative of the last bead of the beast. Buonapartè is already in fact master of Italy, and appears to be upon the eve of reviving the ancient kingdom of Lombardy.

Since this note was written, the usurper of the throne of the Bourbons has formally proclaimed himself king of Italy, and has encircled his brows with the ancient iron crown of the Lombard sovereigns. Thus is one of the great maxims of German jurisprudence completely overturned; namely," that the prince, who was elected Emperor in the German diet, acquired from that instant the subject kingdoms of Italy and Rome." (See Gibbon's Hist. of Decline and Fall, Vol. ix. p. 191.) May not the voice of ambition soon whisper in the ear of the new sovereign of Italy, that the right of electing a Roman Emperor belongs, not to the princes of Germany, but (as it was in the days of Charlemagne) to the senate and people of Rome? As for the Pope, he is ready to give his sanction to any new dignity which Buonapartè may think proper to assume. May, 1805.

I have now to add, that the disastrous termination of the campaign of 1805 has made the chief of the French government the undoubted representative of Charlemagne, and consequently the last bead of the beast. The house of Austria seems tacitly to have exchanged the title of Emperor of the Romans for that of Emperor of Austria : and, although Buonapartè has not yet formally assumed it, it can add nothing to his power when he does assume it, for he is already the uncontrolled emperor of the wesBern continental Roman world, June 3, 1836.

graded provinces, or, as they are termed with diplomatic mockery, allies, groans under the weight of endless requisitions, levies, and extortions, at once tormented herself, and the savage tormentor of others.*

It is not unlikely, that the influence of this vial will extend to the very commencement of the vintage. The violence of democratical and atheistical madness, that dreadful harvest of God's wrath, has now abated: but, since part of the business of the intermediate vials is first to prepare that popish and infidel confederacy which will be finally broken in the days of the vintage, and afterwards to collect the kings of the Latin earth to the great battle of the Lord at Armageddon; the sun of military tyranny will most probably glare with unabated violence to the very time of the end, and be the principal immediate instrument both of forming and of directing that confederacy.‡

The effect, produced both by these plagues and by the following ones, will only be blasphemy and hardness of heart, instead of a reformation of principles and practice. The earthquake, which overthrew the tenth part of the

*Even before the era of the Revolution, and previous to the vast acquisition of power made by France since that convulsion, the sovereigns of the Capetian dynasty were so conscious of their preponderating influence in Europe, that, with a kind of arrogant fatality, they assumed for their distinguishing badge the sun, with this motto, Nec pluribus impar, alone equal to many. This notion of superiority indeed was so familiar to Frenchmen, that the health of his sovereign is said to have been once proposed by a French Ambassador to Lord Stair, and the very name of the sun. With the same idea no doubt the largest ship in the French navy was called the royal sun. Upon this sun, or the government of France, we have now beheld the fourth vial poured out, enabling it to scorch men with fire.

Since this was written in the year 1804, the sphere of the influence of this scorching sun has been tremendously increased; and there is now scarcely any part of the western Roman Empire unaffected by its intolerable blaze. June 3, 1806.

Mr. Sharpe thinks, that the scorching of the Sun means unlimited monarchy in general, operating in the keeping up of standing armies and martial law; and he censures the government of England for preferring regular troops to militia. Independent of his unwarrantable extension of the symbol from the figurative sun of the European commonwealth to every separate star of its firmament, I cannot but think him a little unreasonable in his animadversions. It would certainly be a very happy thing for the country, if a standing army could be dispensed with; but, since it is our misfortune, not our fault, to live in the immediate neighbourhood of a horde of ferocious and well-trained banditti, we must, as we value our liberty and independence, be well prepared for their reception. A traveller finds it much more agreeable to pursue his journey without the incumbrance of arms, and without the fear of molestation: but, if his track lie through a country infested by robbers, he must either submit to the inconvenience of bearing weapons, or to the still greater inconvenience of being plundered. Were the nation defended by none but brave imperfectly disciplined troops, it would be ill able to cope with antagonists perhaps not less brave and with every advantage of discipline.