CHAP. VII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

In order fully to prove that the period of the 1260 years has been brought to a conclusion, it is not enough merely to adduce an exposition, however in itself plausible and satisfactory, of its probable commencement and termination; it will be necessary also to show, that the period which has elapsed since the alleged termination, has corresponded in its aspect and character, and in the general nature and tendency of its events, with the description which the prophecies give of the period in question. This period, it has been already stated, is "The Time of the End," the period during which the judgment will sit on the Little Horn, and the Vials of Wrath be poured out on the Beast and his kingdoms. The sounding of the Seventh Trumpet, while it terminates the period of 1260 years, introduces this of the Vials; and from the time of its introduction a series of events is to commence, which, after weakening, by desolating judgments, the Papal power and empire, will issue in their final extinction. The question, then, for our

present inquiry is this: Have the nature and

tendency of events since the year 1792, — the assumed date for the introduction of this new and momentous period, — been such as the alleged" case supposes them to have been? If they have not been such, it may be safely concluded that the assumption is erroneous, and that the period of the 1260 years is not yet terminated. But if from the year in question the aspect and character of the times have corresponded with those predicted, and the judgment has manifestly been sitting, then we may reasonably consider this circumstance as furnishing additional testimony to the statements in the preceding chapters, and strongly confirming the proposition under consideration.

But surely this is a question, to which it will not require any long time to reply. No one, who is acquainted with the progress and results of the French Revolution, can for an instant doubt of the destructive operation of that portentous event on the Papal power and empire. It is true, indeed, that most of the other nations of Europe were affected, more or less, by this tremendous visitation, and in part experienced its desolating fury; but yet it was on the Papal kingdoms that the violence and severity of the tempest chiefly fell, in full accordance with the commission given out of the

temple to the seven angels, saying, "Go your ways, and pour out the Vials of the Wrath of God upon the earth," the word used in the book of Revelation to designate collectively the Latin kingdoms; and therefore, in this place, pointing out the limits, within which the contents of these Vials would be principally, if not exclusively, expended. In the course of those long and sanguinary wars, which, for more than twenty years, desolated the nations of Europe, which of the Papal thrones was not overturned? Which of the Papal sovereigns was not deposed, expelled, or laid prostrate? Which of the Papal kingdoms was not again and again overrun with fire and sword? Can any one forget the devastations which, year after year, laid waste those wretched countries; the miseries endured from the unbridled excesses of licentious and victorious armies; from cities burnt and pillaged; from spoliation, from insult, from extortion; from the wanton waste of life, from the prodigal effusion of blood, with all the accompanying bereavements which visited every family, and interrupted the course of all domestic happiness? Can any one call to mind these complicated sufferings, protracted through so many years, and not discern in them the fulfilment of those predicted judgments, which the Vials of Wrath were to introduce?

On a more minute inspection, however, into these Vials and into the particular plagues, which they were respectively employed to inflict, their accomplishment in the events which have occurred since the year 1792, will be more clearly manifested; and consequently the present argument will derive from such an inspection additional strength and confirmation. It is said, "And the First Angel went and poured out his Vial upon the earth, and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image." By this noisome and grievous sore, which is here represented as falling upon the men which had the mark of the Beast and worshipped his image, may be understood that monstrous principle of Atheism and Anarchy, which on a sudden was publicly avowed in France on the sounding of the Seventh Trumpet, and rapidly diffused its pernicious consequences throughout the surrounding nations.* For a long time the humours, which produced this noisome sore, had been secretly working in the body politic; but at length, in August, 1792, the eruption took place, and

* The writer, in the following interpretation of the Vials, acknowledges himself indebted to Messrs. Faber and Cuninghame, whose views he has in general adopted, and whose language he has occasionally borrowed.

that spirit of Jacobinism, comprehending in itself every thing irreligious, unnatural, lawless, and abominable, openly broke forth into a loathsome and ulcerated wound; the pestilential effects of which soon filled the Papal kingdoms with misery and death; extended their baneful influence in a greater or a less degree into almost every Protestant nation; and to this day may still be traced in that disposition to resist lawful authority, that contempt of established usages, and that daring, offensive infidelity, which in this happy country too frequently even now obtrude themselves.*

"And the Second Angel poured out his Vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man, and every living soul died in the sea." This description strikingly depicts the dreadful and long-protracted massacres of revolutionary France, especially during the period which was emphatically called The Reign of Terror. These massacres, commencing in September, 1792, and extending from the metro

* It may be here remarked, that though the Vials are poured out in succession, yet it does not hence follow that the effects of one may be exhausted before the effusion of the next shall take place. Poured out consecutively, they may yet for a season continue their operations contemporaneously together; nor will the contents of some of them, it is probable, be totally expended till the final consummation shall arrive.