are compelled to drink of her cup. Divisions of the most inveterate nature and fatal consequence arise amongst the bigotted adherents of the PAPACY, and the cities in catholic obedience to the spiritual empire now without a head, are chastised by some calamitous events proportionate to the sins against christian faith and charity, with which they have wearied the patience of heaven. POPERY now becomes not only the execration of all that are without her communion, but by divine frenzy turns the point of the avenging dagger, prepared for her enemies, inward upon her own bowels.

These times of inconceivable distress and calamity to that devoted people, (which still will not see their errors and repent, but like the unbelieving jews, abandoned of grace, persevere obstinately in a desperate and fruitless resistance, even after their bond of union is broken,) remind us of those prophecies which speak of the desolation occasioned by these civil and anarchical wars, by which the ruin of popery will have been for several years

perhaps carrying on.

"And at that time

;

shall MICHAEL stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people; and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time and AT THAT TIME THY PEOPLE SHALL BE DELIVERED,* every one that shall be found written in the book.† "And in that day, seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, we will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach. In that day shall THE BRANCH of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely, for them that are escaped of Israel"—(the faithful witnesses that have survived the preceding troubles).-"And

1

* It is the constant voice of prophecy, that the restoration of the jews shall be a time of great trouble, and will be intimately connected with the scourging and overthrow of the papal apostacy, The great prince MICHAEL, the patron, and protector, and redeemer of the church, sustains here the same character as in Revelations xix. 11.

+ Daniel xii, 1.

it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called boly, every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning."

"And every Island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And there fell

*Isai, iv. 1. I consider the design of the prophet's words in the first verse, to be a strong intimation of the destruction of the human species, and of the scarcity of men at this time, occasioned by the preceding wars and plagues; and that it is here expressed agreeably to the ideas and customs of the jews, and of their law then subsisting, is naturally to be expected. It would have been very awkward had it been otherwise. But that the prophecy relates not to the BABYLONISH captivity but the ROMAN, and to the time of its termination and of the restoration of Israel, is evident from the words themselves.

The BRANCH is one of the appropriate names of Christ. (Zech iii, 8; vi 12.) The time of his glorious kingdom and chief beauty is yet future ;--and "the escaped of Israel" are one day here promised a portion therein.-Their zeal and penitence, and the purity and holiness of this period that is to ensue, upon the fall of their great enemy, is the subject of many corresponding prophecies. See Sect. v.

upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent, and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, for the plague thereof was exceeding great." The disappearance of the islands and mountains in the late papal empire, may signify the abolition of the great church dig nities, or lesser popedoms, in that corrupt communion; and together with the continued dissolution of the monasteries and convents, and the whole system of monkery, answer to verse 21, of the nineteenth chapter, where it is said "all the fowls were filled with their flesh." The same is also intimated by the prophet Zechariah (xiv. 12).—" And this shall be the plague wherewith the Lord shall smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem"(the emblem of the true church of Christ). "Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet;—and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,

*The spoils of the church, obtained by pious frauds, and Bow seized by licenced robberies.

+ EYES allude to the EPISCOPAL PRINCIPALITIES and DIGNITIES. (See Sect. xxii. p. 93, and Sect. xxxii.)

-and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the Lord" (sent as a scourge of God,) "shall be among them, and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour." In Isaiah xix. 2, there is a prophecy of civil dissention, "city against city, and kingdom against kingdom," to be sent in judgment upon the MYSTICAL EGYPT, which may perhaps synchronize with this time. These calamities may be the meaning of the " great bail" which fell upon them out of heaven, which intimates that it shall be some very afflictive calamity, and shall grow up out of

*The TONGUE expresses their fulminating excommunications and bulls, now falling into contempt, and the decline of the LATIN TONGUE, used in their church service, which was one remarkable characteristic of the ROMAN BEAST. The HEAD OF THE CHURCH being now no more, and the sinews of its strength cut asunder, its decay will be rapid, while apparently it still “stands upon its feet.”

HAIL is the common prophetic emblem of popular commotions, and the uncommon size of this, and great the torment and destruction they suffer from it, express the severity of their