Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her" (Rev. xviii. 11-20).

This language is very similar to that which was employed by the ancient Prophets in foretelling the overthrow of Tyre, which was in its time, what England now is, the greatest mari time state in the world, and the mart of nations. (See Isaiah xxviii. and Ezekiel xxvi., xxvii., xxviii.) And on the supposition that England is to be excepted in the coming judgments on Popery, its significancy appears to be utterly lost; for whilst her flag continues to float triumphantly, it seems impossible to imagine that such wailing and such lamentation can ever take place as that which is here expressed.

3d. The present political aspect of England being in exact accordance with the nature and order of the predicted and anticipated judgments on the ten Papal nations which is that of revolution (see Rev. xi. 13, 19; xvi. 8)-furnishes another argument against its probable preservation.

Present appearances are dark in the extreme. They lower with solemn gloom upon all that is valuable in the political, social, and religious interests of the country; and but too assuredly portend, that if an earthquake is to mark the predicted consummation to which the word of God directs our views, nothing but a miracle can prevent this country from participating in so great a calamity. It is confessed on all hands-it is palpably before our eyes-that the elements of revolution are teeming with awful activity into life on all sides of us, threatening the overthrow of every existing institution: and we are not, in the present day, so little in the transit of such a state of things as only to be left, like the illustrious Burke when he wrote his celebrated Reflections on the French Revolution, to conjecture what may be the final issue of the great popular movements of Liberalism. His work was written in the year 1790, only one year after the breaking out of this "grievous sore; " and yet, in this early period of its history, the author gave it as his opinion that the spoliation of church property, the confounding of the different ranks of society, and the contempt of existing laws, which were then going forward, would end, in the first place, in anarchy and confusion, and be succeeded, in all probability, by a military despotism. Experience

2 F

has proved that the sober and solid reasoning of his "master mind" was correct; and a careful perusal of his work is calculated to produce the alarming conviction, that the operation of the same principles of insubordination, restlessness, and change, which on so many occasions shew themselves among us, bid fair to be ultimately attended with similar fatal results. Both in the late important changes in our own country, as well as in all the changes occasioned in France during the progress of the Revolution, we have decided proof, that in no one instance do they ever stop, or perhaps in most cases were ever intended to stop, at the point proposed. Indeed, Sir Walter Scott justly says, in his Life of Napoleon, that "it is observed in the history of Revolution, that the indirect and unforeseen consequences of every great change of an existing system are more numerous and extensive than those which had been foreseen and calculated upon, whether by those who advocated or those who opposed the alteration." (Vol. i. p. 129.) What, then, is the prospect before us? At what point is it probable that a stop will be put to innovation and change? Who can say whether it is to be when the Established Church, the House of Lords, or the Monarchy, is overthrown, burying in their ruins every valuable institution and every reli

gious privilege? It appears no longer possible to stand still. "The alternative," says the Globe of May 28 last, "is THE INCLINED PLANE, OR THE PRECIPICE."

4th. Another argument that looks with a lowering aspect on England is, that, with such an awful state of things in prospect, a great part of the UN ESTABLISHED professing church should range themselves on the side of Infidels, Heretics, and Papists, for the overthrow of the ESTABLISHED Church.

Whatever great and lamentable abuses may exist in the Church of England as an hierarchy, there are assuredly found very many within its pale who are the Lord's true witnesses; many watchmen who stand upon the walls of Zion, crying and sighing for the abomination of the land; who " cry aloud, and spare not; " who "lift up their voice as a trumpet, and shew the people their transgression, and the house of Israel their sins" (Isa. lviii. I): many, of whom it may most truly be said, "He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye: " and their number appears rapidly to be increasing. For their sakes, and because the Articles, the Liturgy, and the Homilies are in accordance with the word of God, surely every believer ought to give them the right hand of fellowship, and to say, "Peace be within thy walls, and pros

perity within thy palaces. For my brethren and compamons' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee " (Psal. cxxii. 7, 8).

Mr. Burke's standard of a statesman, as given in the work above noticed--and the correctness of which is confirmed by the voice of experience -should characterize the conduct of the Lord's people towards each other in the present critical situation of affairs. He says: "A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Every thing else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution." And a greater than Burke hath said: "Let the tares and the wheat grow together until the harvest, lest while gather up the tares ye root up the wheat also." And why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

""

ye

Such conduct appears to me intolerant, and contrary to every declared principle of this body; for in its success it must amount to positive persecution, subjecting many faithful ministers to the loss of all their earthly comforts, and driving them from spheres of eminent usefulness. But however this may be, it is positively sinful; and such an union as we now see on so many occasions with Infidels, Heretics, and Papists, is so contrary to every feeling we can form of primitive Christianity; so con

« AnteriorContinuar »