Every country is beginning to demand what is called nationalism. "Italy for the Italians;" "Germany for the Germans;" "France for the French." You will find some of the papers noticing the fact, that Europe seems dividing itself into three great family divisions; and if you will watch the signs of the times, you will find they confirm the statement. The outline of this division is already discernible. Austria, Prussia, and all minor and subordinate states of Germany, are to be consolidated into one grand Germanic empire. France and her dependencies seem already consolidated. Then in Italy, all its petty sovereignties are at this moment being fused and melted into one. Then Spain and Belgium, according to their respective polarities, will join one of these three. So that we have at this moment the outline of the tripartite division of Papal Europe visible upon the surface of society; and no one knows but that a day or a week may show the tripartition complete. Whether we are to be included in it I know not. Perhaps it depends on what Britain continues to be. I solemnly believe-and I think it right that every one should disburden his conscientious convictions, careless who applauds or who condemns. them; for the time is come when we must have done with deference to the judgment which others may pass upon us— -that if this country endow the Popish priesthood in Ireland, then Great Britain will rejoin the ten kingdoms; and the instant that we rejoin them we shall come under the tripartite division of the Papacy, and shall perish among the wreck of nations. I forgive all that is past, and I would forget it-may God bless us still!—but if we, by a direct act, countenance, endow, support, and patronize Antichrist and Antichrist's error, then I do conceive we shall have committed a national sin as great as that of France, because amid greater light; and that we shall instantly draw down upon our heads national judgments. But I hope and believe that this will not be our crime: there are many good men in power-men who have Christian hearts, and I hope that they will have the courage to speak out; that they will shake themselves loose from all trammels, and do what they feel to be their duty in the sight of God to their nation, careless of what party may fall, or what side may rise. All parties will soon be broken up except two-those who are with Christ, and those who are with Antichrist; they that are for God, and they that are against him. Then it is added-and this is the last point I shall notice tonight-"The cities of the nations fell." The "great city" is the politico-ccclesiastical corporation called Rome or the Popedom; and as Rome is the great politico-ecclesiastical city which embraces the ten kingdoms, "the cities of the nations" I believe are the politico-ecclesiastical institutions, or the established churches. I do not pronounce upon the principle that lies at their foundation; this is neither the time nor the place to discuss it: I am speaking only of historic facts and of the fulfilment of prophecy. In all Europe there is scarcely an established church left. In Prussia it is all but dissolved. In Austria, the stronghold of ecclesiastical despotism, it is all swept away, and the demand of the people is, "Equality for all modes of worship." Hungary, Bohemia, and Bavaria, are all moving in the same direction. In France the merest thread of an establishment exists, if indeed it can be called an establishment. Besides which, some sprinklings of that vial have lighted on our own land. The Church of Ireland is all but gone in the day when its duty should have been done, it criminally neglected it, and its patrons badly patronized it, though at this moment there are more devoted men in it than in any other church upon earth. I need not tell you that the Church of Scotland has been weakened, and is at this moment violently opposed by those who have seceded; and the Church of England is now literally burning and consuming at both ends. A pious and excellent man, Mr. Noel, with whose evangelical sentiments I can truly sympathize, has left the church on one side; and Mr. Newman, and a whole host, numbering some eighty or ninety clergymen, have seceded and gone into the Church of Rome on the other side. Here, therefore, we have this ancient establishment consuming at both ends. I fear Mr. Noel is only the first of a lengthened procession: I do not know what his principles are, or express an opinion upon them; I merely state the fact, that here are some of the Evangelical party going forth at one side, and the Popish party departing at the other; and thus the institution is suffering at both ends. I believe that all three establishments will ultimately be dragged down: the spirit of the age, be that spirit from above or from below, is insisting upon it, and those who were supposed to be their champions are leaving their championship. But while I state these ominous facts, let me not conceal from you that there are some bright points. God never sends us all darkness without some gleams of sunshine. In Germany the censorship of the press has been abolished, and you may publish there now what you please. Austria, which had the air of a dungeon, and whose custom-house rigidly excluded Bibles, tracts, and evangelical preaching, is now thrown open, and there is free circulation of the Bible. In Bohemia, the land of Huss-in Bavaria, the most bigoted-in France, in Italy, and in Rome itself, the word of God is circulated and the gospel may be preached. What is this? You may recollect that just before Great Babylon comes into judgment, there is heard a voice saying, "Come out of her, my people." These openings for the circulation of the Bible, and for the preaching of the gospel, are the echoes of this voice, "Come out of her, my people." Notice again the fact, to which I can only briefly allude, that the Jews are at this moment emancipated in almost every country of Europe. In Prussia the Jews were peculiarly oppressed; in Austria they were ground down to the very dust-in both they are free. In Rome they were treated like swine, and driven to the Ghetto; they are now emancipated, and may reside where they please. The great earthquake which has shaken the whole world, and rocked dynasties, churches, thrones, has broken the chains of the Jew, and set him free. And we can see also the signs of greater activity and energy among the visible churches. All are alive: every one seems to be stirred up. What is a more interesting fact than this, that just now, while all Europe is convulsed to its centre, and Popery, Infidelity, and Tractarianism are working together with all their might, the Church Missionary Society is celebrating its jubilee in a state of prosperity almost unprecedented; and our queen comes down with dignity from her throne and adds her contribution, not to the society of which Dr. Pusey and the Bishop of Exeter are the exponents, but to that society which is so distinguished for its evangelical Christianity, and on which the blessing of God has so signally rested. These are still, small, and musical voices amid the thunders, the voices, and the lightnings of the world. And now, my dear friends, let me ask, How stands it with you? Be not satisfied with beholding the panorama which I have endeavoured to explain, or with hearing the voices and witnessing the lightnings to which I have alluded. Are your feet upon the Rock of ages? Is your trust and confidence in the Lamb of God? Be not clever to utter the last new shibboleth, or to wear the favourite ecclesiastical face; but able to sing the song of Moses, of God, and of the Lamb. We are in the midst of judgments that are abroad upon the earth-let us learn wisdom while all is convulsed around us; let us remember there is one spot that cannot be shaken, and standing on which, like the harpers by the glassy sea, we may praise our God, and glorify him amid the fire-that spot is the Rock of ages. Are we upon the Lord's side? Whether we go to Christ, or Christ comes to us, is immaterial to our everlasting state: if we are prepared for the one, we are ready for the other; and if you are the Lord's, and if the Lord be yours, then what is death to you? A mere transfer from the scene of thunderings, and voices, and lightnings, and a great earthquake, to that bright sunshine, and to that sweet river whose streams make glad the city of God. "An heir of heaven," said Coleridge, very beautifully, in speaking of his own death "An heir of heaven, I fear not death; In Christ I live, in Christ I draw the breath 475 LECTURE XXXIV. THE CONSUMPTION OF BABYLON. "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."-Revelation xxii. 20. "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." Revelation xvi. 17. I HAVE been unfolding in successive lectures the various scenes that are to precede the advent of our blessed Lord: I have endeavoured also to prove that the Millennium, as far as the light of Scripture leads us to conclude, is not to precede but to succeed the advent of the Lord, and the manifestation of the sons of God. Last Lord's-day evening I showed you that one of the great premonitory signs of the near advent of that great epoch of which I have spoken so much, is the pouring out of the seventh vial. It is the last of the judgments in the hand of the angel. Before it, the warning cry is lifted up, "Behold I come as a thief." After it, great Babylon comes into remembrance, and the Bride makes herself ready. I endeavoured last Lord's-day evening to identify what I had preached as prophecy in 1847 with what I believe to be its performance in 1848. We saw it then in the prospect, not knowing that it was at our doors: we see it now, I believe, in its performance; and we are about to enter an epoch, I solemnly believe, the most testing, the most searching, the most startling that ever fell upon the experience of the Christian church, or of mankind at large. I gathered from the fact, that the seventh angel poured out his vial, i. e. the symbol of judgment, into the air-that, whatever was the nature of this judgment, it would be universal, in other words, spread over the ten kingdoms that constitute the empire constantly exhibited in the Apocalypse as that |