Jacobins from the name of a convent where they held their meetings. They then counted three hundred thousand adepts, and were supported by two millions of men scattered through France, armed with torches and pikes, and all the necessary implements of revolution. Till the 12th of August 1792, the French Jacobins had only dated the annals of their revolution by the years of their pretended liberty. On that day, when the king was carried prisoner to the temple, after having been declared to have forfeited his right to the crown, the rebel assembly decreed, that to the date of liberty the date of equality should be added in future in all public acts; and the decree itself was dated the fourth year of liberty, the first year and day of equality?

"

On this memorable day then, about three years after the commencement of the earthquake which threw down the French tenth part of the great Roman city, and only two days after the last dreadful shock of that earthquake, I conceive the third woe-trumpet to have begun its tremendous blast. "The second woe was past; and behold the third woe came quickly." Antichrist now stood revealed in all his horrors and the long continued efforts of Popery and Mohammedism were constrained to hide their diminished heads in the presence of a gigantic monster, who alike trampled upon the laws of man, and defied the majesty of heaven.

On the 12th of August 1792, the infidel king exalted himself above all law on the 26th of the very same month, he exalted himself above all religion. As the first of these days witnessed the abolition of all the distinctions of civil society, so the second beheld the establishment of atheism by law. A decree was then past, ordering the clergy to leave the kingdom within a fortnight after its date: but, instead of allowing them the time specified even by their own decree, the Jacobin rants of France employed the whole of that period in seizing, imprisoning, and putting them to the most cruel deaths. The conduct of these unfortunate men, during this dreadful season of trial, certainly deserves the commendation of the Christian world. In spite of the various corruptions, with which they had debased the pu

ty

rity of the Gospel, they still shewed (to use an apostolical phrase) that they "had a little strength :" and I doubt not that many of them "slept in the Lord," though I cannot concede to Mr. Galloway and Mr. Kett, that they are the saints whom the little horn of the fourth beast was destined to wear out. The ministers of religion were now no more; and no traces of Christianity could be found in the reprobate metropolis of the atheistical republic. One of the churches was converted into a heathen temple, the den of the foreign god and his kindred Mahuzzim and the rest were used as places of public festivity and amusement. There the abandoned citizens of Paris flocked in crouds, no longer as formerly to worship their Maker; but to hear his name blasphemed, his existence denied, and his eternal Son ridiculed as an impostor.*

On the 27th of the same month, one of the Jacobinical miscreants caused an oath to be taken by all the members of the national assembly, that every exertion should be used to purge the earth of royalty: and it was decreed, that the convention should be what they were pleased to term a committee of insurrection against all the kings in the universe. Claiming a diabolical preeminence above mere private assassins, the pretended representatives of a whole nation enjoyed the unheard of honour of being the first body of men, that openly and systematically proposed to institute a band of patriots; who, either by sword, pistol, or poison, should attempt to murder the sovereigns of all nations. The proposal indeed was not carried into effect: but this was owing to fear, not to principle. The prudence only of the measure was called in question, because they themselves might expect reprisals. As far however as they durst, they acted. On the 19th of the following November, a decree of fra

"On the 6th of November 1792, a discourse upon atheism was pronounced by Dupont, and applauded by the convention: and, in November 1793, the hopeful pupils of the new republican school appeared at its bar, when one of them set forth, that all religious worship had been suppressed in his section, even to the very idea of religion. He added, that he and his school-fellows detested God; and that, instead of learning Scripture, they learned the declaration of rights. The convention, delighted with the progress made by these young atheists, ordered, with the most enthusiastic applause, that they should be admitted to the honours of the sitting.

ternity and assistance to their brethren in rebellion throughout Europe was passed and, on the 21st, the president ordered it to be translated into all languages. as the manifesto of all nations against kings: a rare instance of French vanity and presumption; the convention had decreed it, therefore it was the manifesto of all nations. On the 15th of December, another decree was past by these friends of liberty for extending the French system, per fas atque nefas, to all countries occupied by their armies: and, on the 19th, Marat, the delicia of the people, asserted in the Jacobin club, that in order to cement liberty two hundred thousand heads ought to be struck off. Meanwhile the streets of Paris were deluged with torrents of gore: the massacres of August and September will never be erased from the blood-stained annals of France and the whole republic was converted by this "liberty of hell" into "one great slaughter-house.'

On the 21st of January 1793, the king, after suffering every species of indignity from his mockery of a trial down to the ribaldry even of a Parisian mob, was publicly murdered upon a scaffold. On the 16th of October in the same year, the queen shared the fate of her husband. And, on the 12th of May 1794, the princess Elizabeth, with a refinement of cruelty peculiar to the French, was executed the last of twenty-six persons.

On the 17th of October 1793, all external signs of religion were abolished: and, with a view to encourage the most unrestrained profligacy, it was enacted, that an inscription should be set up in the public burying grounds, purporting that "Death is only an eternal sleep." On the 25th, in order that no trace might remain of the Christian sabbath, a new calendar was adopted by the Convention; in which time was computed, not by weeks, but by periods of ten days each: and, instead of the ancient commemorations of the saints, festivals, similar to those of the idolatrous Romans, were instituted to the national Mahuzzim, the Virtues, Genius, Labour, Opinion

* After the massacres of August and September, the revolutionary tribunal, established March the 5th 1793, authorised the incessant exercise of the guillotine; and, in many towns which had the misfortune to be suspected of Anti-jacobinical principles, decreed it to be permanent.

and Rewards. On the 7th of November, Gobet, the republican bishop of Paris, with his grand vicars, and others of his clergy, entered the hall of the national convention, solemnly resigned his functions, and abjured Christianity and, that the truth of the prophecy might be evinced that some of those were also allured who had clean escaped from them that live in error, several protestant ecclesiastics abjured their religion at the same time. Finally, on June the 6th 1794, fornication was established by law, as anarchy and atheism had already been the convention decreed, that there is nothing criminal in the promiscuous commerce of the sexes.

Such have been the tremendous effects already produced by the third woe-trumpet; a trumpet, which, considering the very short period of time that has elapsed since it began to sound, has far exceeded its two predecessors in scenes of horror and confusion. "The massacre of St. Bartholomew, an event that filled all Europe with consternation, the infamy and horrors of which have been dwelt upon by so many eloquent writers of all religions, and that has held Charles IX. up to the execration of ages, dwindles into child's play, when compared to the present murderous revolution, which a late writer in France emphatically calls a St. Bartholomew of five years. According to Mr. Bossuet, there were about 30,000 persons murdered in all France on that day: there have been more than that number murdered in the single city of Lyons and its neighbourhood; at Nantz there have been 27,000; at Paris 150,000; in la Vendée 300,000. In short, it appears, that there have been two millions of persons murdered in France, since it has called itself a republic; among whom are reckoned 250,000 women, 230,000 children (besides those murdered in the womb,) and 24,000 Christian priests."* If such has been the effusion of blood in France alone, how will the dreadful catalogue of the miseries produced under the third woe be swelled, when all the wars,† which the

* Gifford's Preface to Banditti unmasked.

These wars, as we shall hereafter see, are predicted under the third vial, as the massacres and proscriptions of revolutionary France are under the second. These matters will be discussed hereafter.

revolution has kindled, are likewise taken into the account? how will it be yet incalculably swelled, ere the terrific blast of this trumpet has ceased, by the time of trouble predicted by Daniel at the close of the 1260 years; a time, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time?* We have already beheld the effects of the first and second woes: do we need any further proof to convince us, that the third woe has begun to sound!

Having thus discussed the prophecy at large, I shall conclude with drawing my arguments to a point.

The witnesses then are to be slain, not when they have finished their testimony, but when they are drawing near to finish it. This translation is at once required, both by the Greek idiom, and by the harmony of the prediction itself. The witnesses are to prophesy in sackcloth only 1260 years: and, at the end of that same period, the power of the beast and the little horn is to begin to be broken. Hence it is manifest, that the slaughter must take place during the period, not subsequent to it for how can the witnesses be slain at the very time when their calamities are finished; and how can they be slain by the beast, when the judgments of God are gone forth to avenge his Church, and to slay the beast himself?

Let us next note the era of the slaughter. It is placed under the second woe, previous to the fall of a tenth part of the Roman city and the sounding of the third woe. But the 1260 days must necessarily extend to the commencement of the last period of the third woe, because the beast is overthrown under the seventh vial: therefore they cannot expire at the slaughter of the witnesses, which takes place under the second woe, and before even the earliest blast of the third woe.

Still it may be doubted, whether the witnesses be yet slain or not, because it may be doubted whether the third woe has begun to sound. Let us for a moment lay prophecy aside, and attend only to history. The

As yet we have only been spectators of the harvest of God's wrath, or the first grand period of the third woe-trumpet: the more dreadful period of the vintage is yet future. (See Rev. xiv. 14-20.) The two periods of the harvest and the vintage, by the former of which I understand the French revolution considered in all the effects which it has produced, will be discussed hereafter.