This shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord"-(persons devoted judicially to the sword)" shall be at that day from one end of the earth, even unto the other end of the earth.* They shall not be lamented, neither gathered nor buried, they shall be dung upon the ground.”† prophecy, in consistency with several others. to the same purpose, before quoted, sets before us in a strong light, and in most terrific language, the high importance of the cause which God is thus pleading against the apostates from truth and righteousness; and the wide extent to which the calamities, occasioned by the final decision of the controversy, shall reach. The GREAT NATION, and the eldest son of the corrupt church, were first visited by the bearer of this infuriating cup; and were compelled to drink deeply of it, to prepare them *The whole habitable globe cannot be meant here, but the ROMAN CATHOLIC EMPIRE, or the prophetic and figurative earth, out of which the beast arose, † Jer. xxv, 15. for the appointed task of executing the divine wrath upon others. The tyranny of the gloomy, the murderous Robespierre and the Jacobins, was not undeservedly called THE REIGN OF TERROR: for it exhibited to the eyes of all mankind, nearly a literal fulfilment of these terrible prophecies against MYSTICAL BABYLON. At that dreadful time they might be said almost without an hyperhole, to have drank blood. It poured down upon them in perpetual torrents from the guillotine, and ran in the channels of the streets, as in the gutters of a slaughter house. After this sanguinary baptism in human gore, these excellent political reformers were sent out as missionaries of the revelation of the wrath of God, to preach in other nations the same doctrines of REVOLUTION AND ANARCHY, and to drop in the newly stirred soil, (unhappily but too well disposed to receive it,) the same seed which had yielded so rich an harvest to themselves. These indefatigable disciples of LIBERTY AND EQUALITY soon handed round to the nations, whose judg ment it was to drink it,--the same CUP of which they themselves had drank, and were mad.* Its pernicious ingredients were the new lights in philosophy, reason emancipated from all religious faith and moral restrictions, supreme contempt of law and government, and of the subordination necessary for its subsistence, liberty and equality, insurrection and a state of nature. The reign of cruelty and terror was also the triumph of infidelity. The grand and * A subordinate branch of the instructions given by the infernal club to their missionaries, was to aim at the overthrow of all kingdoms and thrones, by sap and mine, where it might be found that the harvest was not sufficiently advanced in ripeness for the sickle. Rev. xiv, 15. The foundations of religion were to be turned up by the revolutionary plough, and the seeds of vice and athe'sm sown in seminaries of education, and private families, by getting footing as tutors and governesses, &c. thus to poison the fountains of domestic virtue and confidence, and unloose the ties o patriotic attachments. To this origin the great decay of religious and moral principle, and the shameless abandonmemt of female delicacy so often disgustingly exhibited, and the greatly increased profligacy of the lower orders of society, since that melancholy period, are to be ascribed. See Sect. xxi. p, 64, much requested experiment was now brought fairly to the test, "whether society could subsist without religion, without moral obligation, or the apprehension of a future account, and the existence of a Providence!" The triumphant and infuriated atheists, became now in their turn zealous and bigotted persecutors of religion, and of whatever bore any affinity to it and as the divine Being himself was inaccessible to their rage, they could only hurl an empty defiance against high heaven, and thurst out the Creator from the government of his own works, by the impotent decrees of their governing authorities. They wreaked their disappointed hatred of God upon those whom they considered as his servants and priests, and the religious orders, (which had spared them, while they were shedding the blood of the saints,) became in their turn the objects of persecution. The wretched monks in vain attempted to fly from the death that pursued them, and to hide themselves in their hallowed cloisters from the rage of infernal assassins, and from the dagger commissioned of fate to drink their blood. They were hunted like noxious beasts, the dread and common aversion of mankind, around their once peaceful solitudes, incapable of affording them any longer either peace or protection, and they fell dead at the foot of their own altars. On reading the tragical records of the events of that horrible time, one might almost venture to say with the sacred writers, "this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee: sith thou hast not bated blood, even blood shall pursue thee."* "The shepherds shall have no way to flee, nor the principal of the flock to escape. A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and an bowling of the principal of the flock shall be heard: for the Lord hath spoiled their pasture. And the peaceable habitations are cut down, because of the fierce anger of the Lord." And Saint John introduces the angel of the waters, upon * Ezek. xxxv. 6, † Jer. xxv, 36 &c. |