variance by reason of the atheistical principles adopted by the former, will then be more closely leagued together than ever; and that they will jointly meditate some grand expedition against the woman and the remnant of her seed, which the very time when we had reason to suppose it would appear; namely, when the exhaustion of the Euphratèan waters seemed to be at no very great distance? 'Is there any answer necessary to these questions? If there be, view the modern Charlemagne first leaguing himself with the Papacy, and then creating at pleasure a host of vassal kings. View him extending his dominion over the greatest part of Germany, over Holland, over Italy, over Spain. View him surrounding himself with regal slaves, who depend upon his nod, and exist only by his will. Lastly hear him, as if unconsciously impelled to bear his testimony to the truth of prophecy; hear him unreervedly avow himself to be the federal head of his creatures, hear him proclaim to all Europe that their mock sovereignties are mere federal estates of France, hear the political system of which he is the author expressly styled in his degraded senate a confederacy and a pious league. What other idea can we form of the coalition described by St. John? In every particular, local and chronological, this new coalition, unheard of, unthought of, but the other day, exactly answers to it. Even now rumours are afloat, that the seat of the fulse prophet is to be removed from Rome, and that the new empire is to be inau gurated by another imperial coronation in the seven-hilled city. If so, what title will be chosen but that of Emperor of the Romans? And for what purpose would that title be chosen, but as authorizing all the ancient claims of the Augustan emperors? The demands made upon Turkey by the sovereign of Venice will be as nothing, if we may judge from the inordinate ambition of the man, when compared with the demands made upon the whole world by the Emperor of the Franco-Romans, June 4, 1806. however, however, as we shall presently see under the succeeding vial, will end only in their own confusion and utter destruction *. SECTION III. Concerning the vial of the vintage. We are now arrived at the vial of consummation, which Mr. Mede very justly supposes to synchronize with the vintage. The reason is manifest: the vintage is the last event predicted in the little book, which extends, as itself repeatedly declares, through the whole 1260 years; and the last vial is poured out at the expiration of that period: consequently the last vial can only contain an enlarged * Since these three unclean spirits are said to work miracles, the great boast of the apostate man of sin, it is not improbable that the visible agents, whom they will employ on this occasion, will be certain popish emissaries, who partly at least by false miracles will induce the infatuated adherents of the Church of Rome to embark in the expedition. "Pugnare se putant pro "Christi vicario, pro gloria Dei, et pro ecclesia: revera autèm "pugnabunt cum Deo" (Pol. Synop. in loc.). Mr. Mann of the Charter House conjectured some years since, that the three unclean spirits were the Dominicans, the Franciscans, and the Jesuits (See Bp. Newton's Dissert. on Rev. xvi.). I should rather have said, that these, or some other orders of monks, may hereafter be the tools of the three unclean spirits. account account of the vintage: for, as Mr. Mede naturally observes, there cannot be two different catastrophes of the same drama *. "And the seventh angel poured out his vial into "the air: and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It "is done. And there were voices, and thunders, "and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great. "And the great city was divided into three parts; "and the cities of the nations fell: and great Ba હૈદ bylon came in remembrance before God, to give "unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of "his wrath. And every island fled away, and the "mountains were not found. And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about "the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God "because of the plague of the hail: for the plague thereof was exceeding great. I. Bp. Newton very justly observes, that, "as the "seventh seal, and the seventh trumpet, contained many more particulars, than any of the former seals, and former trumpets: so the seventh vial contains more than any of the former cials.' It is the vial of the vintage; the conclusion of the grand drama of 1260 years; the time of the end. When it shall be poured out, the great controversy of God with the nations will commence; his * See Mede's Comment, Apoc. in Vindemiam. ગ ancient ancient people will begin to be restored; and the sentence of destruction will go forth against the beast and the false prophet, even while they are in the very midst of their temporary success, and while they are vainly flattering themselves with the hope of a complete victory over the Church of God. Such being its contents, it is said to be poured out into the air, in allusion to the dreadful storms of political thunder and lightning which it will produce *. Four important events are comprehended under it: the earthquake, by which the great city is divided into three parts; the symbolical storm of hail; the overthrow of Babylon; and the battle of Armageddon, to which the kings of the earth had begun to gather themselves together under the preceding vial. Here it may be proper to remind the reader, that the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth, chapters of the Apocalypse, all belong to the last vial; and are in fact only a more enlarged account of some of the most prominent events contained by itt-The seventeenth chapter opens with a description of the great scarlet whore, who had long tyrannized over the faithful, and who was now about to be destroyed for ever. It fully sets forth the mystery of her union with her beast, of her name Babylon, of the three-fold state of her beast, of the * See Chap. ii. § II. 1. rise rise of the beast's last head, and of the flourishing condition of the woman while the ten kings gave their power to the beast and made war upon the Lamb by persecuting his disciples. And it intimates that a great change should nevertheless take place in the sentiments of those kings, so that they should afterwards hate the whore, and make her naked, and eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. This intimation seems to be given as it were by the way, and must not therefore be confined merely to the days of the last vial. It is in fact. a sort of climax, extending from the era of the Reformation down to the final destruction of the whore. She was first made naked and desolate by the alienation of the Abbey lands in protestant countries, and by the withdrawing of whole nations. from her communion. Her very flesh was next eaten by the sale of the Church lands in revolutionary France, and by the secularization of the German ecclesiastical electorates and monastic principalities. But she will not be utterly burnt with fire till the time of the end, till the fatal day of Armageddon *. The ten kings however, as Bp. Newton * In the same battle with the little horn or the harlot the Roman beast under his last head will perish. "I beheld then "because of the voice of the great words which the horn "spake: I beheld, even till the beast was slain, and his body "destroyed, and given to the burning flame" (Dan. vii. 11.). I apprehend, that the explanatory words of the angel addressed to Daniel mean precisely the same as the particular passage in the |