willing to rise in rebellion against their lawful governments, was passed by the French Convention: and this decree was ordered to be translated into every language, as the manifesto of all nations against kings. It was soon after followed, on the 15th of December, by another decree; which ordained, that, without the slightest regard to the wishes of the conquered, the French political system should be extended to every country occupied by their armies. Hitherto, France was only partially and vulgarly at war with one or two Powers: but edicts of such a nature, which wantonly attacked every existing government whether pacific or hostile, were in fact a declaration of war against the whole civilised world. Hence they may justly be viewed, as marking the commencement of a new and extraordinary period of military violence; a period, altogether dissimilar to any preceding period of common warfare, both in character and principle and political results. France had set her hand against every man: and, therefore, every man's hand was speedily raised against France. The war, which now commenced, unlike the comparative tameness of those struggles which had heretofore agitated Europe, was, strictly and emphatically, a war of principles and opinions.

On such grounds, then, I suppose the third vial to have begun to flow on the 19th of November in the year 1792 and the effects of its baleful stream were soon visible. From that epoch down to the

18th of June in the year 1815, a period of almost twenty three years, a war raged throughout the Roman Empire, unexampled in fury and bloodshed and desolation and extent. The whole European Commonwealth received a shock: ancient landmarks, which had stood for ages, were removed: and a horde of infuriated military barbarians, eager to ravage and plunder and desolate and tyrannise, was let loose upon the fairest provinces of the Roman earth. In consequence of this long-protracted and widely-extended scene of warfare, all the rivers of the Roman territorial platform were changed into blood and many other allegorical streams, which had never been comprehended within its limits, felt likewise the baneful effects of the third vial. Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Savoy, Spain, Portugal, and Turkey in her Roman provinces of Syria and Egypt, may all, in the strong language of prophecy, be said to have successively become a mass of gore, by becoming successively the seats of perhaps the most bloody and destructive war that ever raged. These are the countries, specially intended by the figurative rivers and fountains; because they are all, more or less perfectly, included within the limits. of the Roman Empire: but, out of that Empire, the pest additionally spread itself over all Germany and Prussia and Poland, penetrating even into the remote monarchy of Russia. In short, we may affirm, that almost every part of the Roman platform, with the exception of protestant and maritime.

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England, has been made the seat of war, and has thence been drenched with the blood of its inhabitants.

The latter part of the present oracle declares, that the whole of the dreadful carnage, produced both by the second and by the third vial, is to be esteemed judicial. This circumstance both definitely fixes the septenary of the vials to the period of the third woe-trumpet, on that principle of synchronisation which ought never to be forgotten': and likewise, as I have already observed, explains to us the nature of the third woe itself. God has now taken to himself the penal sovereignty of the Roman world and, since nations can only be nationally punished in the present state of existence, he has begun, judicially to destroy the destroyers of the earth, and to punish the murderous guilt both of Papists and of Mohammedans in their shedding the blood of the saints like water. In this guilt, however, the Papists have been preëminent: retaliation, therefore, has dogged them more distinctly and more conspicuously. The angel of the waters, like the fabled Tomyris, has compelled them, in their turn, to drink deep of blood: for truly they are worthy. Long has the mystic harlot

The characteristic of the third woe is, that the spiritually dead should be judged: the characteristic of the third vial is, that the Lord has judged the persecutors of his saints. Compare Rev. xi. 18. xvi. 5. Therefore, the action being identical, the times of the third vial must coincide with and be included within the times of the third woe.

been even drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: but the time has now arrived, though the hour of vengeance may seem to have tarried, when her apostate secular adherents, those tools and engines of her protracted tyranny and persecution, have again been made drunken with their own blood, as they were heretofore drunken with the blood of Christ's faithful witnesses. The key to the whole mystery, which, during the effusion of the third vial, baffled the hopes and calculations of the most experienced statesmen and warriors, is unreservedly afforded to us in a single sentence of Holy Writ: They have shed the blood of saints and of prophets: and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.

IV. Thus, unless I be wholly mistaken, the three first vials respectively began to flow, on the 26th of August, the 2d of September, and the 19th of November, in the year 1792. Whence it will fol→ low, that, although they commenced successively; yet, the period of the one not having expired before the period of the other began, they were all three flowing at the same time with portentous rapidity and effect.

With this circumstance, matter of fact perfectly accords for, during one and the same season of unexampled misery, atheism and infidelity boldly displayed themselves in every part of Europe, France was changed into a vast slaughter-house by the frantic and murderous rage of intestine violence,

and the several kingdoms of the divided Roman Empire became the seat of a war characterised at once by the most ferocious carnage and by the most disorganising principles.

1. As for the termination of these three vials, I believe, that the first has not even yet emptied itself: for I apprehend, that it is still flowing, and will continue to flow, with a current more or less strong, to the very end of the third woe-trumpet.

The spirit or principle of the third woe is Infidelity, as the spirit or principle of the two former woes was Mohammedism. Consequently, since the first vial openly developes the principle of Infidelity, and since that principle extends through the entire period of the third woe; it seems natural to conclude, that the first vial will continue to flow even down to the very time, when the antichristian faction will be finally destroyed, and when the spirit of Antichrist (as St. John denominates the principle of Infidelity) will at length evaporate. At present, the first vial is flowing with a more scanty and penurious stream; for the infidel principle has doubtless received a very considerable check: but still it does flow; and, in more than a single case of recent notoriety even in this favoured country, we may distinctly mark its current. There seems, in fact, even now to be carrying on a very extraordinary struggle between the powers of light and the powers of darkness. On the one side, we behold a strenuous attempt to diffuse the knowledge of Christianity through every part of the globe and