crude schemes of regeneration, whereby our modern political fanatics promise to correct the moral disorders of the world, and to bring in the millennium of philosophy, but which, if their execution be seriously attempted, as it possibly may be at the last great catastrophe, shall be found to have introduced the most awful disorder, and shall deluge the world with blood.

*

Bishop Horsley in his notes on Psalm xlvi, observes that the restoration of the Jews will be one of the first things at the season of the second advent. He supposes that the river and its streams which make glad the city of God, may symbolize the regular government then established amongst the Jews, and that the removing of the earth, and the casting the mountains into the sea, denote the breaking in pieces civil government and the dissolution of monarchies in democracy, so that at the very same period when the Jews enjoy the blessings of a settled state, the rest of the world shall be plunged in frightful anarchy. The reader will see a

of the celebrated writers of the infidel school, who have perverted their faculties to the ruin of thousands, to be dragged forth before an assembled universe, and exposed to shame and confusion of face, as mere drivellers in all sound reasoning. True knowledge, on the other hand, is the inseparable associate of religion, it leads to God and to the cross of Christ, in which centre the full radiance of his moral perfections.

* I conceive that this river rather denotes the abundant effusion of the Spirit which shall then be enjoyed by the Church. But I completely agree with Bishop Horsley in applying the Psalm itself to the events of the last time.

striking analogy between these views of that eminently learned divine, and what I have advanced on the subject.

How near the last scene of desolation, and the great day of the Lord may be, it is impossible to say. Notwithstanding the present pause in the operation of some of the vials, there are many indications which, to observing minds, unite in testifying that the last times are rapidly hastening on. "The fourth kingdom is perishing as monarchy never before perished. By disorganization, religious, political, and social, that empire seems ready to explode and vanish for ever."* And though I have endeavoured to show, that the restoration of the Jews must precede the great day of Armageddon, yet I may be entirely mistaken in my inferences about the order in which the different events shall happen. Our Lord himself has emphatically assured us. "Behold I come as a

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"thief, blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his "shame;" and from these words we may certainly conclude, that he will come at a time, when few even of his own people expect it. In the mean while it becomes us to "gird up the loins of our "minds," and to prepare for that "time of trouble "such as there never was since there was a nation,”‡ which shall usher in the redemption of the Church, and be introductory to those scenes of peace, and glory, and righteousness, for which the servants of

* Butt on the Seventy Weeks, Appendix, p. 29. + Dan xii. 1.

+1 Peter i. 13.

God have prayed, and laboured, and fainted in every age. No human power or wisdom can avert the terrific events which are approaching. But if, through faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, we wash our robes, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb, then we shall individually be numbered with that great multitude, who shall come out of the great tribulation, and with palms in their hands shall stand before the throne, crying with a loud voice, "Salvation to our God which "sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb."

* Rev. vii. 9—17.

ON

CHAPTER XIX.

CONNECTED WITH THE

THE ORDER OF THE EVENTS SECOND ADVENT OF OUR LORD, AND THE WAR OF ARMAGEDDON.

In the last part of the foregoing chapter, which was composed in the year 1816, for the second edition of this Work, it will have been seen that I anticipated. the probability of my being mistaken as to the order in which the different events shall happen, which are to precede the day of Armageddon. As I now believe myself to have actually erred in this respect; but by no means as to the reality of any of the events themselves, I shall endeavour as succinctly as possible, to lay before the reader, what are my present and more matured views, both of the progress and the order of the events connected with the advent of our Lord, and the great day of the treading of the wine-press of the wrath of Almighty God.

The key to the present state of the world, and the position of the Church of God appears to be the vision of the holding of the four winds in the sixth seal; and the command not to hurt the earth, i.e. not to loose the winds, till the servants of God were sealed. The 144,000 mystic, Israelites, who are sealed, represent as we have already seen, that eminently faithful portion of the Church of God, who are counted worthy of escaping the things

which shall come to pass, and standing before the Son of Man, being caught up into the air, with the saints of the first resurrection, to meet him at his advent.

As the winds are only held, till the sealing of the mystic Israelites is completed, it follows that when they are all sealed, the winds are forthwith loosed, and that torrent of judgment rushes down upon the Roman earth, which is to destroy it utterly.*

* It is very striking to observe how entirely the anticipations of secular writers, confirm our conclusions from prophecy. There is an Article in the Edinburgh Review, for May, 1830, p. 403, from which I shall here give a short extract.

"It is impossible to look to the state of the Old World, without seeing, or rather feeling that there is a greater and more momentous contest impending than ever before agitated human society. In Germany, in Spain, in France, in Italy; the principles of Reform and Liberty, are visibly arraying themselves for a final struggle with the principles of established abuse, legitimacy, or tyranny, or whatever else it is called by its friends or enemies. Even in England, the more modified elements of the same principles, are striving and heaving around, above, and beneath us, with unprecedented agitation, and terror; and every thing betokens an approaching crisis in the great European commonwealth, by the result of which the future character of its government, and the structure and condition of its society, will in all probability be determined."

The following remarkable passage, is to be found in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, for April, 1832, from an Article on the Prospects of Britain.

"Yes! panic has struck root amongst the thoughtful; never more to be extirpated. Let us imagine to ourselves the condition of the public feeling in Rome, during those years of decay and dishonour, when the northern barbarians might be pictured as virtually enthroned upon the Alps, and looking