Page images
PDF
EPUB

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 thẻ 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 fraternity 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 mani

festo

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.

festo 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 bloodstained annals of France: and the whole republic was converted by this "liberty of hell" into "one great slaughter-house*."

[ocr errors]

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 publickly 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

* 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.

of

[ocr errors]

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, 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.

f

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

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

66

[ocr errors]

and confusion. "The massacre of St. Bartholo"mew, 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

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

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 revolution has kindled, are likewise taken into the account? how will it be yet incalculably

* 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.

swelled,

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

* 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 cousidered in all the effects which it has produced, will be discussed hereafter.

of

« PreviousContinue »