into thy chambers, and shut the doors about thee: hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast."*

# Isaiah xxvi. 20, 21.

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CHAP. XXIV.

INQUIRY INTO THE PROBABLE DESTINY OF ENGLAND DURING THE APPROACHING PERIOD OF UNPRECEDENTED TROUBle.

THE writer having thus detailed, according to his view of the indications of prophecy, as explained by the events of the times, the Prospects and Duties of the Christian Church at the present périod, proceeds to enter on an inquiry, which, though not of equal importance to the Church at large with the investigation pursued in the preceding pages, cannot fail of presenting to his readers a subject for very serious and highly interesting meditation. In order to bring before them, in the most impressive manner, the Inquiry of which he speaks, he will briefly recapitulate the particulars of that

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aweful Crisis, respecting which it has been the object of the foregoing discussion to prove that it is now arrived.

In conformity, then, to the conclusion in which this discussion has terminated, the Christian Church is now waiting in anxious expectation for the coming of her Lord, looking forward in hope and trembling to that season of unprecedented trouble; which, in fulfilment of the sure word of prophecy, at the appointed hour, will suddenly put an end to the state of apparent calm and tranquillity which the nations of Christendom are at this moment enjoying. The precise hour, indeed, in which this season will commence, is not revealed: but the "Signs of the times" concur with the predictions of Scripture, in indicating that it is at no great distance. Preparations are, obvi ously, going forward among the Papal kingdoms, which threaten some porten. tious explosion; and when the day of vengeance is come, then will the judg

ments, which have already begun at the house of God, be awefully renewed, and will recommence, with redoubled fury, their work of desolation. When these kingdoms by their continued impenitence, and resistance to the King of kings; by their wilful rejection of evangelical light, which is now so rapidly increasing around them; and probably by some overt acts of opposition, by which their enmity to this light will be still more clearly developed, shall have filled up the measure of their sins, then will that great voice come out of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, “It is done;" then will that "great earthquake such as was not since men were upon. the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great," begin its operations; in the process of which," the great city will be divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations will fall; and great Babylon will come in rememberance before God, to give unto her the

cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath; and every island shall flee away, and the mountains shall not be found; and there shall fall upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent; and men will blaspheme God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof will be exceeding great." Without staying minutely to enquire into the meaning of every part of this figurative language, it will be sufficient for our present purpose to observe that it comprehends a prediction of most tremendous judgments to be inflicted on the kingdoms of the Beast; of political convulsions and revolutions; of sanguinary and desolating wars, aggravated, it is probable, by intestine commotions, and religious animosities, and terminating in the utter extinction, by some providential dispensations unusually aweful, of the Papal church and kingdoms, and of all their adherents and supporters.