state then existing within its limits. The world, exhausted with the miseries of the symbolical harvest, and wearied with the wild struggles of licentious anarchy, should tamely submit to the lawless domination of an unrelenting despot. In pointing out the particular government intended by this scorching sun of the Latin or Papal firmament, the reader will doubtless have anticipated me. The present Popish states are France, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sardinia, and Etruria. Of these, I apprehend, no one will be inclined to deny, that France is by many degrees the most powerful; and consequently that its government must inevitably be esteemed the sun of the system. To observe then the accurate com

pletion

* Should the present usurper of the throne of France, who already cmulates the imperial rank of Austria, or should any successor of his at some future period, proclaim himself Emperor of the Romans, and thus transfer the crown of Charlemagne from Germany to France, as it was heretofore transferred from France to Germany: he would then, like Charlemagne, be the representative of the last head of the beast. Buonapartè is already in fact master of Italy, and appears to be upon the eve of reviving the ancient kingdom of Lombardy. 1804.

166

Since this note was written, the usurper of the throne of the Bourbons has formally proclaimed himself king of Italy, and has encircled his brows with the ancient iron crown of the Lombard sovereigns. Thus is one of the great maxims of German jurisprudence completely overturned; namely, that the "prince, who was elected Emperor in the German diet, ac"quired from that instant the subject kingdoms of Italy and "Rome" (See Gibbon's Hist. of Decline and Fall. vol. ix. p. 191.). May 1805.

1

pletion of the prophecy of the fourth vial, an which it is said that power was given to this sun to scorch men with fire, and that they were scorched with great, heat, we have only to cast our eyes over the continent. A system of tyranny, hitherto unknown in Europe éxcept in the worst periods of the Roman history, has been established, and is now acted upon by him who styles himself Emperor of the French: and the scorching rays of military despotism are, at this moment felt, more or less, throughout France, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and the west of Germany. A regular plan of making each man a spy upon his neigh bour destroys all the comfort and all the confidence of social life and France, with her degraded provinces, or, as they are termed with diplomatic mockery, allies, groans under the weight of end

3

I have now to add, that the disastrous termination of the campaign of 1805 has made the chief of the French govern ment the undoubted representative of Charlemagne, and consequently the last head of the beast. The house of Austria seems tacitly to have exchanged the title of Emperor of the Romans for that of Emperor of Austria; and, although Buonapartè has not yet formally, assumed it, it can add nothing to his power when he does, assume it, for he is already the uncontrouled emperor of the western continental Roman world. June 3. 1806.

Since this was written, a second disastrous campaign, that of 1806 and 1807, has completed and confirmed the overwhelming influence of France: the Germanic body has been dissolved: the empire of Germany has been transferred under a new title to France; and the head of the house of Austria has formally resigned the Carlovingian imperial dignity. Nov. 23. 1807.

less requisitions, levies, and extortions, at once tormented herself, and the savage tormentor of others *.

(i.) It is not unlikely, that the influence of this vial will extend to the very commencement of the vintaget. The violence of democratical and atheistical madness, that dreadful harvest of God's wrath, has now abated: but, since part of the business of the intermediate vials is first to prepare that popish and infidel confederacy which will be finally broken in the days of the vintage, and afterwards to collect the kings of the Latin earth to the great battle of the Lord at Armageddon; the sun of military tyranny will most probably glare

* Even before the era of the Revolution, and previous to the vast acquisition of power made by France, since that convulsion, the sovereigns of the Capetian dynasty were so conscious of their preponderating influence in Europe, that, with a kind of arrogant fatality, they assumed for their distinguishing badge the sun, with this motto, Nec pluribus impar, alone equal to many. This notion of superiority indeed was so familiar to Frenchmen, that the health of his sovereign is said to have been once proposed by a French Ambassador to Lord Stair, under the very name of the sun. With the same idea no doubt the largest ship in the French Upon this sun, or the government of France, we have now be held the fourth vial poured out, enabling it to scorch men with fire,

navy was called the royal sun.

+ Since this was written in the year 1804, the sphere of the influence of this scorching sun has been tremendously increased; and there is now scarcely any part of the western Roman empire unaffected by its intolerable blaze. June 3. 1806.

I need scarcely add, that this sphere has recently been yet more increased. Nov. 23, 1807,

with unabated violence to the very time of the end, and be the principal immediate instrument both of forming and of directing that confederacy *.

(2) The effect, produced both by these plagues and by the following ones, will only be blasphemy and hardness of heart, instead of a reformation of principles and practice. The earthquake, which overthrew the tenth part of the city, caused, as we have seen, the remnant of the seed of the woman to give glory unto the Lord: but the effusion of the vials upon God's enemies produces not the least tendency to repentance. We must not therefore look for any further reformation from Popery; for the vials are instruments of God's wrath, not of his mercy. France accordingly has nominally returned, like a dog to its vomit, to her old alliance with the blasphemous corruptions of Popery: but, according to every account of eyewitnesses, she still really and individually strengthens herself in the yet more blasphemous abominations of Antichrist.

(3.) Yet, although there will be no further reformation, it does not appear, that the inspired

Mr. Sharpe thinks, that the scorching of the Sun means unlimited monarchy in general,, operating in the keeping up of standing armies and martial law. But this extension of the symbol, from the figurative sun of the divided Roman empire tò every separate star of its firmament, seems to be unnatural and unwarrantable.

+ I have already stated other grounds, besides this, when treating of the ten-horned beast, for adopting such an opinion.

writers

writers give any intimations of some still more dreadful persecution of the witnesses, than that which they have already undergone from the two Latin beasts: on the contrary, Scripture seems to me at least rather to lead to a directly opposite -opinion. I mean not indeed to deny, that individual protestants, those for instance who reside in popish countries, may experience persecution; these will continue to prophesy in sackcloth to the very end of the 1260 days: I would only be understood to intimate, that I can discover no warrant for expecting that Protestantism in gcneral, as nationally professed, will ever be so far subdued by Popery, as to undergo throughout the whole world a grand universal persecution. The troubles, produced by incessant war with the ·atheistico-papal powers, will be the great means of purifying the Church; not, I think, any persecution resembling those of the pagan Emperors or the Roman pontiff's in the plenitude of their

power.

I am led to form this opinion by observing, that all the vials of the last woe-trumpet are represented as being poured out upon the Papal and Mohammedan Roman Empire*; upon those, that have the mark of the beast; upon those, that have shed

"Phiale omnes," says Mr. Mede, “in bestiam (scil. "Romanam) effunduntur" (Com. Apoc. in loc.). "Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth" (Rev. xvi. 1.). The earth throughout the Apocalypse denotes the Roman empire.

the