On Tuesday a very unfavourable change took place. And wishing ,not only to set her house in order, but to have her mind free of all worldly cares, she expressed her wish with regard to the disposal of a few things, and particularly requesting that no unnecessary expense might attend her funeral. She appeared ready to depart, and be with Christ. The smile of serenity which added fresh lustre to the eye, which now seemed desirous of penetrating the gloomy veil of mortality, and see, in the chamber of sickness, the glory which awaited her, marked every feature. But what the eye of sense could not reach, the eye of faith did with that she 66 -read her title clear 66 with a freshness to my recollec- of the 11th, after having lain tion." some time, as I supposed, in sleep, but which she afterwards assured me was in silent prayer for a foretaste of heaven, she turned to me, and, stretching out her hand to take hold of mine, exclaimed in a most ecstatic manner, "Oh! my dear friend, I have not long to live! I am now going to die. Glorious exchange! I am going to heaven." Being asked whether there was any thing she would wish to have communicated to her parents, she replied, only tell them to seek the Lord." She again exclaimed, "Oh ! my beloved friend, I shall soon be singing Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah," which song of praise she continued for ten minutes, in a most harmonious tone of voice; then observed, "This is delightful dying: the sting of death is indeed taken away. And though I am a vile wretch, thou, my Saviour, art faithful to thy promise. O come and take me, blessed, blessed Jesus; come and take me. Though thou slay me, yet I will trust thee still. Yes, though thou slay me, I will trust thee still. Come, come! O come, my blessed Jesus, come and take me to thy blest abode." Then waiting, and lifting up her hands, she thus poured out to her dearest Saviour, the ardent desires of her soul: "I pray for my dear parents. I have prayed for them in health, and now I pray for them with my latest breath. I pray for my dear brothers and sisters. I pray, blessed Jesus, for all thy people. I pray for the whole world. I pray that thy kingdom may come, and that thy will may be done on earth as it is in heaven." Then, again taking my hand, and, with a countenance as if reflecting the placidity which only settles on a glorified spirit, she continued" And shall I forget to pray for you, my dearest friend? O no! To mansions in the skies; of She evidently grew worse daily; and about 5 o'clock on the morning You shall soon, very soon, be with me in heaven, joining hand in hand, singing Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" which she continued singing nearly ten minutes longer, without any interruption till the sounds gently expired upon her lips. Then, requesting that she might not be disturbed, she lay with her hands clasped, in silent, though apparently delightful, communion with her God, till her medical attendant arrived who had been previously sent for. After he was gone and she had taken a little nourishment, perceiving the tear which a long-established affection had drawn from my eye, she desired me not to weep; and, requesting me to recline upon the bed, she threw her arms around me, and, embracing me with indescribable warmth of affection, observed, "This is the delight of love we have sincerely loved each other on earth, and we shall love each other in heaven. O yes, we have indeed loved each other."-A few mornings after she observed-which will serve to shew the composure and tranquillity of her mind-" Every thing is so still and comfortable around me, and I feel it to be a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord :"-she hoped she was then going to depart and to be with Christ. But, upon my saying, "My dear, the doctor says your dissolution is not so near,' there was evidently perceivable a look of disappointment; and, in an accent which rather meant her feeling, said "Does he?" which made me ask the question, Are you disappointed? she replied, "O yes! how can I be otherwise? but I must not be impatient." When giving her some blanc-mange, which was her chief support, she said, "Don't feed the flesh-don't keep me here-let me be gone." Her Bible, together with her little Olney Hymn-book, was frequently before her; and as they had been her companions in life, so they were in death; and when unable to read herself, she would say, "Give me my Bible; do love my Bible;" and, after repeating the following verse "Precious Bible! what a treasure Does the word of God afford! All I want for life or pleasure, Food and med'cine, shield and sword." She would ask me to read. Upon one occasion I read the 23d Pṣalm, I which seemed to animate her whole soul; and she said, "That Psalm has been a great comfort to me; I learnt it the very day before I was taken ill." About a week previous to her departure, in her ejaculations, which were very frequent, with much loveliness and serenity of countenance, she whispered, "Oh, my blessed Saviour, let me not fear death-let me not fear death. I have cast all my care upon thee, for thou carest for me. Thou hast loved me, and wilt love me to the end. Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see what wicked way there be in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." A few days before her decease, she remarked, "I have just had such a spiritual struggle, that I almost fear whether I shall yet get to heaven." Observing to her that her fear was doubtless nothing more than one of the temptations of Satan, fresh vigour seemed to have been added to her faith; and her spirit mounting up as on the wings of an eagle, she exclaimed, with joy unspeakable beaming in her countenance, "Yes, yes, it is; for when I think of that time, (alluding to the raptures she felt on the morning of the 11th,) that blessed assurance and foretaste of heaven, every hope is brightened, and every fear is dispelled." "Come, Jesus, lover of my soul," the first two verses of which she then repeated, and, after a little while, continued, "I hope my blessed Saviour will pardon all my sins, for I have been a very miserable sinner." She then desired me to repeat to her Montgomery's hymn on Prayer, which, in faltering accents, she endeavoured to articulate after me; but in so solemn, impressive, and affecting a manner, which was peculiarly her own, that I was prevented proceeding further than the 4th verse; and here she presented a request to her heavenly Father, that prayer might be her "watchword" at the gates of death, that she might enter heaven with prayer, which was so earnest, and so pathetic, that none but those who are entering the very portal of the celestial regions could be able to utter or present. Having anticipated an earlier removal to the heavenly Jerusalem, where the inhabitant shall never say I am sick, she observed, "In the last sermon I ever heard, or ever shall hear, my dear minister remarked, that life was little other than a lingering execution; and surely mine is one. I feel no pain, but I feel worn out; Oh, my heavenly Father is dealing very graciously towards me; and now that I can render nothing unto him for all his benefits done unto me, He reveals himself as a God of mercy, who will have mercy, and not sacrifice; and they who seek him in health, by them he will be found in affliction." Her faith continued firm unto do the end; and, even in her delirium, when, supposing she had to be removed, she said, "What will you with me; or how will you take me? but, O dear, I need not trouble myself about that; I am the Lord's, and he will take care of me." The morning she quitted the house of this her earthly tabernacle for a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, she was deeply engaged in prayer; and almost the last words which she distinctly uttered were, "Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen." Thus, on the 25th February, 1825, was her special prayer answered; for it was indeed her watchword at the gates of death, and she entered heaven with prayer. Surely the path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. H. ON THE CHARACTER OF JUDAS. WITH great deference to the superior learning, fine reasonings, and noble criticisms of Dr. Clarke, I cannot submit to his favourable opinion respecting Judas, which he throws into notes on the first chapter of the Acts. Certainly Judas, after betraying his Lord and Master, "repented," and sadly repented, as the consequence proved; but his repentance does not appear to be a "broken heart and contrite spirit," godly sorrow which worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of." (2 Cor. vii. 10.) His repenting was only a horror, or rather 66 sorrow of the world which worketh death; "He went and hanged himself." (Mat. xxvii. 5.) If his repentance had been evangelical, he would not have committed suiNOV. 1825. not a " cide, which is "adding sin to sin," (Isaiah xxx. 1.) and not " abstaining from all appearance of evil," like a true penitent. I apprehend our Lord alludes to Judas, in his prayer to the Father, in the 17th chapter of John, wherein we find, at the 12th verse, these words: "I have kept them," meaning his apostles and other believers," and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition:" therefore the traitor must be classed among those who are lost in utter ruin and destruction; he must be related to that "beast,' of whom we read in Rev. xvii. 8, which "shall ascend from the bottomless pit, and go into perdition," and he must be of kindred with "the man of sin, the son of perdition," in 2 Thess. ii. 3. 3 H The Doctor intimates, that the Jews who crucified Christ were greater sinners than Judas, and yet were forgiven. I had rather see and feel an executioner adjusting a cord to my neck than to have a traitor, many ways, devising my death under the cloak of friendship; but, waving this, and allowing the murderers and crucifiers of Christ, were very great sinners, and apparently to us to have committed an unpardonable offence, if they were forgiven, their forgiveness could have proceeded from nothing but the love of Him whom they crucified, and in consequence of his prayer for them, "Father forgive them; for they know not what they do;" Luke xxiii. 34. It is evident, Judas was not among his crucifiers. Peter denied Christ in his presence, yet Peter was a "rock :" for Jesus told him, "I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not," Luke xxii. 32. All must acknowledge that Christ was righteous, and, while on earth, he was a righteous man; and we are told by St. James, "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much;" chap. v. 16; but St. John tells us, "There is a sin unto death; I do not say, he shall pray for it, 1 John v. 16. We find that our Lord prayed for his crucifiers and for St. Peter, and his prayer must be effectual, as he was and is, not only a righteous man, but also the only begotten Son of God; but we never heard that he uttered a word in the behalf of Judas. Who can entertain the least degree of doubt respecting the crime of the traitor, that it was not a sin unto death, when we find, that as soon as he saw Christ condemned he hanged himself? (Matt. xxvii.3-5.) It appears to me that the proverbial form of speech among the Jews, adduced by the Doctor to soften the declaration of our Lord, in Matt. xxvi. 24, can be nothing but a subterfuge; for he himself says, if it had not been for such proverbial saying (of which the Doctor gives few examples) he would be, led to apply the words of Christ in all their literal import to Judas; notwithstanding all this, we cannot reasonably suppose that our Lord, at such a time, after eating the passover, should pronounce such words as made the case of the traitor desperate only in appearance: "Woe unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! it had been good for that man, if he had not been born;" if he was not declaring the truth that it was desperate: for we perceive that Christ prefixed "Woe to that man," &c. to what the doctor looks upon as a proverbial saying. In writing this, I can freely say with St. Paul, "I could wish” (not I wish)" that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren,” all human beings, that they might be saved; and in this disposition, I could rejoice in meeting with any passage in holy writ, or any other clear proof, that no man has been, or ever will be, eternally lost; but as I learn from the Sacred Writings, that there is a hell for the impenitent ungodly hypocrites, I must be an infidel that Judas found mercy; for no glimpse of hope respecting him is given in any thing that I have yet seen. D. J. ROME and the ROMAN EMPIRE the Spiritual BABYLON and ASIA OF ALL THE PROPHETS. SIR, It is a fine observation in the preface to the Apocalypse in the Geneva Bible, to this purpose, that the last book of Scripture weaves into one web all the types of the Old and New Testament, in order to shew, that, however already they had been accomplished in specimen, they all remained, in the year of our Lord 97 or 98, when the Apocalypse was given, to be accomplished repeatedly quoad gradus, and lastly in perfection ad consum mationem. The student of prophecy, therefore, having selected any Old Testament history, to be traced in the Apocalypse, must previously make himself perfectly acquainted with that typical history, and then confine his whole attention to the discovery of the thread in the apocalyptical web which belongs to it, and must be strictly observant of the analogy throughout, Viewing, then, the Apocalypse as containing, among other retrospects, a history of the ancient Babylonian empire, leading the two tribes into captivity, and lording it over Asia, which is called in the Apocrypha the partaker of the hope of Babylon*; as also delivering the history of Babylon, the seat of that empire, the first and greatest queen of the earth; we should by all means inquire whether these indisputable data may not involve many more particulars relative to that empire and city, and to the tribes persecuted by them. Consistency may require that such further circumstances should appear; and if they do appear, they may be most useful in the application of the prophecy to Papal Rome: for the primary and minor intentions of prophecy, and the typical histories contained therein, supply no unimportant analogies for the explica* 2 Esd. xv. 46. tion of the more grand and final intentions. I propose, then, the inquiry, whether the following, among other passages in the Apocalypse, do or do not relate to ancient Babylon. Ch. i. 4. The seven Churches which are in Asia. Analogy seems to require, that, if Babylon signify Rome, Asia must signify the Roman empire. Ch. ii. 13. The seat or throne of Satan is the same seat or throne which he gives to his deputy the beast (ch. xiii. 2); which metropolis seat is literally Babylon (ch. xvii). By analogy, the true church spoken of ch. ii. 13, was then within the Latin empire, or in Italy, as it cer tainly was in the days of the Waldenses. Compare ch. ii. 12—17, with ch. xiii. Ch. iii. 7, 8; xi. 19; xiv. 15; xv. 5, seem to refer to the dedication of the second temple, after the Babylonish captivity; as the new Jerusalem also refers to the rebuilding of the city Jerusalem, after the said captivity. Ch. ix. 13-21. Dean Woodhouse observes, that in this description of the second woe there is an obvious reference to Sennacherib and the Assyrians; and it may be, I add, to Babylon also, for several of the ancient prophecies in a great degree apply to them both; as, for instance, Isaiah xiii. and xiv. of which circumstances commentators are not sufficiently aware. Ch. x. xi. xii. Ch. x. manifestly refers to the twelfth of Daniel, and also applies the sixth of Isaiah to the modern Ashur, or Asia (for they are originally the same word); including successively the desolations occasioned by ancient Nineveh and Babylon. Ch. xi. is a regular history of the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. The reed like unto a rod, refers to the pro |