of being suspicious persons. "In different parts of the country, many, who declined taking the oath, were killed at the doors of the churches: and in Brittany several priests are said to have been hunted through the forests; where, after enduring every extremity of hunger and fatigue, they perished miserably; and their mangled carcases were afterwards found torn by briars, and half devoured by beasts of prey." It was afterwards decreed, that all ecclesiastics, who had not taken the national oath should be transported, and that, if any commotion be stirred up in favour of fanaticism, all the clergy should be imprisoned. It was further resolved that, since the people of Paris acknowledge no other worship than that of Reason and Truth,‡ all the churches and temples of different religions and worship, which are known to be in Paris, shall be instantly shut; and that every person, requiring the opening of a church or temple, shall be put under arrest as a suspected person.§ In short, "the greatest hostility to the ministers of the church prevailed, to the service of the church, to all celebration of devotion, to any profession of Christianity, or even reverence of the name of the Supreme Being. The churches were plundered; the name of God was blasphemed; the clergy were declared to be capable of every crime, and made responsible for every tumult; and the will of those persons was ordered to be particularly respected, who renounced all worship except that of the republican virtues." || Not content with exercising this tyranny over her own inhabitants, France has bowed beneath the same iron yoke, Holland, Switzerland, Piedmont, and a considera * Soupçonnès d'etre suspects. + Hist. the Inter. Vol. ii. p. 229. The French republicans seem to use Reason and Truth much in the same sense as Liberty; meaning, I suppose, to insinuate that their Liberty was the natural offspring of Reason; of Reason, as it were, in the concrete. Hence we find it recommended in the Convention with much mock solemnity, that "the will of such sections should be respected, which have renounced all religious worship, except that of Reason, Liberty, and the republican Virtues ;" in other words, that of the strange god, and bis kindred Mabuzzim. § Hist. Interp. Vol. ii. p. 234, 239. Mr. Kett adduces these facts, to prove, that infidelity and revolutionary France are the apocalyptic two-horned beast and his image. Though I cannot think, that either the beast or bis image has the slightest connection with French atheism and republican tyranny; yet the facts are not on that account the less valuable, as facts. Hist, the Int. Vol. ii. p. 244. ble part of what once was Germany; perpetually changing, with worse than childish capriciousness, both their religious and their civil establishments: and, if she has failed in executing all the antisocial and antichristian projects of the illuminized conspiracy, it has rather been from want of power than of will. Thus has the king caused his tutelary deities and their upholders to rule over many; those deities, whom he himself has honoured instead of the God of heaven. 2. The king was moreover to honour his Mahuzzim, together with his foreign god, with gold, and silver, and precious stones, and desirable things-This part of the prophecy has been accomplished by Infidel France both indirectly and directly, both abroad and at home. When Italy was plundered of the finest specimens of the arts by the modern advocates of freedom, and when the decorations of her palaces were transported to France and declared to be the sole property of the sovereign people; Liberty was the deity thus honoured with desirable things, for Liberty was that which sanctioned every violation of private rights. When the ornaments of the churches were either confiscated, or rapaciously carried off by the infuriated mob; Liberty, Reason, and the Republican Virtues, were the Mahuzzim thus honoured with gold, and silver, and precious stones.* When the noble church of St. Genevieve, profusely decorated by all the skill of architecture, was desecrated, under the name of * " By an edict of the constituent assembly, there was a general sale of all ecclesiastical property; and every kind of property, connected with churches or charities, was confiscated." (Hist. the Inter. Vol. ii. p. 232, 233.) "In November, a deputation from the societies of Versailles was admitted to the bar, loaded with chalices, crosses, and other ornaments from their churches. The priest of the Roman church, said they, the Bishop of the department of Seine and Oise, is dead. Will you suffer a new one to be elected? Will you, who have overturned the throne, suffer the pontifical canopy to remain? Will you, who have broken crowns and sceptres, preserve their proud rivals, the mitre and the cross?-The citizen and the legislator ought to acknowledge no other worship than that of Liberty, no other altars than those of their country, no other priests than the magistrates. Do you, legislators, like that of the Hebrews, come down from the mountain, break in pieces the golden calf, and let the ark of the constitution be the only idol of the French." (Ibid. p. 239.) "The Sans culottes considered themselves as authorized to plunder every place of worship, public and private; and divided with the Convention large heaps of shrines, figures, and vessels, hitherto used in the offices of religion, while the commissioners from the Convention aided the sacrilegious pillage." (Ibid. p. 240, 241.) All these enormities have been expressly perpetrated in the name, and for the honour, of Liberty. the Pantheon, to the tutelary gods of Infidelity; the triumph of Liberty was complete, the foreign god and his kindred Mahuzzim had received the highest honours which the atheistical king had it in his power to bestow. 3. The king was likewise to divide the land for a price. He was to take it from its former possessors, and divide it among his adherents, the champions of his Mahuzzim, on the consideration of being paid by them a certain price for it-This peculiarity in his character at once shews that he cannot be either the Pope or the Constantinopolitan Empire, and points out with singular exactness the power which he was designed to prefigure. The conquerors of foreign nations have not unfrequently divided the lands of the conquered among their victorious troops: but such a division bears no resemblance to that which the infidel king should contrive. Successful invaders rarely sell the lands, which they have seized: but this kingdom or power was not merely to divide the land; it was to divide it for a price. It was first to declare the land exclusively its own property, and then to sell it for money to the champions of its Mahuzzim. Exactly such has been the conduct of the atheistical republic; nor will it be easy to point out any state, which ever adopted a similar line of conduct, certainly none since the era of the Reformation, when we are taught by Daniel to expect the appearance of the infidel king. The French Revolution has differed from all others, not only in producing a change of government, but likewise in effecting a complete change of landed property. By a deeplaid stroke of policy, and with a view to preclude for ever the possibility of a counter-revolution, the lands both of the crown, the church, and the nobility, were taken away from their lawful owners, and declared to be the sole property of the nation. This preparatory step having been taken, the lands were next, as it is well known, sold at a low price to the partizans of anarchy and atheism; by which master-stroke of Machiavelian villany an insurmountable barrier was raised against any future attempt to re-establish the Bourbons, for it was made the direct interest of every landholder throughout France to oppose their return. . Since it has been our fate to behold with our own eyes the rise of this wonderful power, it will not be uninteresting so inquire in what manner the way was prepared for its developement. As for the principles of Antichrist, they were working even in the apostolic age: but, would we learn the real cause of his ultimate success in propagating so widely his blasphemous opinions, we must turn our eyes to the corruptions of Popery. Daniel places the atheistical tyrant after the era of the Reformation, and consequently after the period of thick intellectual darkness which overspread the Roman world during the middle ages. Here then we are to look for the rise of the monster and history will abundantly point out to us the steps by which he did rise. "When the revival of letters enabled men to see the mass of absurdities, contradictions, and impieties, which were taught by the Church of Rome to be essential parts of Christianity, scepticism was the natural result of this discovery. Reason, just risen from her slumber, seized the truths presented to her view with all the eagerness which novelty could excite. Disgusted with surrounding bigotry and superstition, impatient of control, and dazzled with the light though glimmering which now broke through the darkness of the middle ages, she too seldom distinguished religion from the gross corruptions with which it had been loaded; and, usurping the seat of judgment, she often decided upon subjects not amenable to her tribunal."* As the period of the last days gradually drew nearer, they of the Apostacy, utterly ignorant of the genuine. Gospel of Christ, and having refused to embrace the blessed truths of the Reformation, were fully prepared to be carried about by every wind of doctrine, and to be deceived by those false teachers, who privily† brought in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them. Hence they became the easy dupes of Anti • Hist. the Interp. Vol. ii. P. 124. hand." No precept is so often repeated by Voltaire, as "Strike, but conceal your Secret societies were the main engine of the antichristian conspirators. By means of these the pupils of the Illuminati were almost imperceptibly led from one degree of wickedness to another, till at length they were plunged in all the horrors of undisguised atheism. See Kett's His. the Inter, of Proph. Vol. II. p. 152–194. christ; and were soon led from scepticism even into absolute atheism. In short, as it hath been most justly observed, "to Popery, to the errors and defects of Popery, we cannot but impute, in a great degree, the origin of that revolutionary spirit, which has gone so far towards the subversion of the ancient establishments of religion. and civil government. I should be sorry to give pain to any one of the unhappy victims of the French revo lution: I most truly sympathize with their sufferings; but we must not allow our charity to injure our princi. ples, or to pervert our judgment. The heavy blow, which has been struck at the very existence of Christianity, must be charged, as I said, in a great degree, to many erroneous opinions, and some pernicious institutions of that form of religion, from which the wisdom of our ancestors separated our national church. The maintenance of opinions, unfounded on the authority of the Gospel, and inconsistent with its purity, has given occasion to minds, perhaps naturally averse to religion, to reject the most valuable evidences of Christianity. By the abuses of religion, such minds have been led into all the extravagances of deism and atheism, of revolution and anarchy. They had not the discernment, or the candour, to distinguish between Christianity, and its corruptions. The conspiracy against the religion of Christ, which originated in these delusions, burst on the devoted monarchy of France; and involved that unhappy country in such scenes of blood, rapine, and ungovernable excess, as revolt every principle of justice, every feeling of humanity."* What may in some sense be called the abortive offspring of Popery has been made an instrument in the hands of God to visit the iniquities of its parent. The blood of those, who repented not of the works of their hands, their idolatry, their murders, their sorceries, their spiritual fornication, their pious or rather impious frauds, "has been prodigally shed and it is very remarkable, that the French anarchists have introduced the horrors of war principally into popish countries; as if those na * Bp. of Durham's Charge, 1801. p. 2, 5. |