But when Mr. Faber applies all this to the allegorical deities, whose adoration was decreed by the infidel convention of France, in a moment of revolutionary frenzy, Liberty, Equality, the Country, the Constitution, the Virtues-it cannot but occur, that amidst all their fantastic fooleries about these deities, they took special care to bestow very little gold, or silver, or precious stones, to their honour. No; this prophecy clearly belongs to the more sincere superstition of the Roman Catholic devotee — a superstition that during a length of ages covered so many shrines and altars with these precious materials, enriched so many religious foundations, and raised so many magnificent palaces all over Europe.

39." Thus shall he do in the most strong holds with a strange God, whom he shall acknowledge and increase with glory; and he shall cause them to rule over many, and shall divide the land for gain."

It is in this verse, if I mistake not, the decline of the papacy and of the reign of superstition is marked: but the language of the prophecy will demand our attentive consideration. The phrase which we render "most strong holds" contains in the original two distinct terms; the latter is the MAHUZZIM of the last verse: in a state of construction with which is another term that signifies a fortress or strong hold, a fenced city or castle; so that it may be literally rendered "the fortresses," "strong holds," or "castles of Mahuzzim."1 And again, for "thus he shall do in," we may render, " And he shall act against;" or more literally, "And he shall go to work upon," in a hostile sense, so as to appropriate them to

1

,"Fortresses of Mahuzzim.”- WINTLE,

.

himself. 1 "And he shall act against the fortresses of Mahuzzim, together with the strange god which he acknowledged, and to which he had multiplied honour, and had caused them to rule over many, and he shall divide the land for gain," or "portion it out at a price." That is to say, He, the symbolical king, shall begin at a certain period to act against the former objects of his devotion, his canonized saints and the idolized host, which he had formerly honoured with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and had so magnificently lodged in the high places of the earth; and shall portion out their lands to others.

This, I conceive, is fulfilled in that confiscation and secularizing of ecclesiastical property which has, in our day, become so much the practice among the Roman Catholic princes and states, to the great debasement of the papal superstition, and which, to anticipate the language of a future prophecy, will still go on till the "ten horns upon the beast shall make the whore desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire." I think, with Mr. Faber, there is something in the language of prophecy," he shall divide the land for a price," to be particularly observed. It distinctly marks the dividing the land into certain portions, and the selling of these portions at a certain price,― not the giving them away. We may say, it points out, not such a

ויעש העם אל שלל

"And he shall do according to his will to the fortresses of Mahuzzim, and with or against the strange god." Dimock translates the last clause, " He shall magnify his glory, and shall rule over them with his mighty ones."

1 Compare 1 Sam. xiv. 32. 36. and the people fled upon the spoil." As Simon explains, "Incubuit populus direptioni," ut Arab. notat irruere. Dimock gives much the same sense to the passage, by supplying the word after wy, as in verse

bestowal of the lands, dedicated to superstitious usages, as our eighth Henry made, when he lavished the undivided abbey lands upon his courtiers: but, with wonderful precision, the language of the prophecy points out the method used in disposing of the lands of the church, and other forfeited property, in the French revolution, that revolution, which, there are strong grounds to believe, has marked the commencement of a great prophetical era, and has began to develop the characters and actors of the last times. The confiscated property in France, of which the lands of the church made a very great portion, was not simply conveyed to other possessors, or generously bestowed upon friends and partizans; but those lands were all publicly sold at a price, and artfully divided, and subdivided, for the convenience of small purchasers.

This deep-laid stroke of policy, as Mr. Faber remarks, has made a complete change of landed property in France, and has made it the direct interest of every landholder throughout the kingdom to uphold revolutionary principles; and though, since Mr. Faber wrote, the leaders of the revolution have been put down by foreign violence, the house of Bourbon restored, and the papal superstition re-established, yet it is plain, from the transactions of the day, that the march of revolutionary principles in Europe is not at an end, nor can her old princes restore the former times in France; but, if they reign at all, must reign as revolutionary princes. This sale of lands, it is obvious, can never be resumed; and is at this hour, as far as relates to the immense possessions of the papal church, in full force as an example to Spain and Portugal, and probably not destined there to stop.

And what should strike us as still more important is,

the very great probability that this particular device of the French rulers, of the sale and division of lands, has, in another point of view, given a new character to society, both political and domestic, in France; and in Europe, as far as Europe shall follow the example. An eminent writer of the present day has in a remarkable manner pointed out, in the present situation of the French nation, in consequence of this selling of the land for a price, and of the laws of the succession of property established in the Revolution, the very lineaments of such a monster as we expect to stand up against Christ and his saints, in the last conflict of the nations: and we must be aware, that France is such a leading and principal kingdom among the divided sovereignties of the Roman empire, that she is likely to stamp her character on all the rest, and sooner or later draw them into the vortex of her example.

I shall need no apology for the following quotation from Mr. Malthus: "On the effects of a great subdivision of property, a fearful experiment is now making in France;"-" should this continue unimpeded, there is every reason to believe that the country, at the end of a century, will be quite as remarkable for its extraordinary poverty and distress, as for its unusual equality of property. The owners of minute divisions of landed property will be, as they always are, peculiarly without resource, and must perish in great numbers in every scarcity. rich, but those who receive

Scarcely any man can be salaries from government. In this state of things, with little or none of the natural influence of property to check at once the power of the crown, and the violence of the people, it is not possible to conceive that such a mixed government, as France has now established, can be main

tained. Nor can I think that a state of things, in which there would be so much poverty, could be favourable to the existence and duration of a republic: and when, in addition to this, we consider how extremely difficult it is, under any circumstances, to establish a well conducted republic, and how dreadful the chances are against its continuance, as the experience of all history shows; it is not too much to say, that no well grounded hope could be entertained of the permanent prevalence of such a form of government. But the state of property above described, would be the very soil for a military despotism.

"If the government did not adopt the eastern mode of considering itself the territorial proprietor, it might at least take a hint from the economists, and declare itself co-proprietor with the landlords; and from this source (which might still be a fertile one, though the landlords, on account of their numbers, might be poor) together with a few other taxes, the army might easily be made the richest part of the society; and it would possess an overwhelming influence, which, in such a state of things, nothing could oppose. The despot might now and then be changed, as under the Roman emperors, by the pretorian guards; but the despotism would certainly rest upon very solid foundations."*

All this may serve to confirm our suspicions, that the era of the French Revolution was, indeed, the era of the rise of that great antichristian polity that shall arm the Roman world against Christ and his people in the last days, and produce that mighty combination of chiefs and armies that are to fall in the great day, hereafter to be described. Expositors have evidently been too rash in

MALTHUS'S Political Economy, p. 433.