know, by experience, what it is to be born of God. I recollect, that she told me, after recovery from a fit of sickness, several years ago, that she was affected, when she was so sick that she could not eat, and when she saw how the family seemed to relish their victuals, to think, they had no appetite for spiritual things. She then made use of her want of appetite for natural food, to illustrate to her family the impossibility of being happy in heaven without a new heart. She has often expressed the most earnest desires, that there might be a work of divine grace among this people. My dear friends, the Lord only knows how often her bowels have yearned over you; or how often she has, with strong cries, besought him to have mercy on your immortal souls. I am sure, you have lost one praying friend, and if you had a proper sense of the worth of the prayers of the righteous, your loss would appear greater to you than it probably now appears. This part of her religion is worthy of being imitated. The blessed God has manifested infinite compassion for souls, in giving his son to die for their redemption. And if the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, we shall surely not be destitute of such compassion. good manners to introduce pious discourse into our visiting companies? Could we all have our hearts under the same influence of love to our Creator, as our deceased friend, I am persuaded, that all the refinement of a French court would not banish God! from a place in the conversation of our social circles. 9. Mrs. Pixley has been an example of industry and careful attention to her domestic business. She looked well to the affairs of her household. She might commonly be found at home and employed in her own business. These things may be found where piety is wanting, but, with piety, they are an excellent ornament. She, nodoubt, loved the world and the things of the world too much; (for who is there that does not ;) but we have reason to hope, that she did not so love the world as to exclude the love of the Father. In the domestic relations, which she sustained, she appeared affectionate-If she erred at all, it was, perhaps, in too great indulgence. You, who have for many years been her neighbors, know better than I do her character as a neighbor. I have ever obtained the idea, that she has been esteemed as an excellent neighbor, and that the heart of the poor hath blessed her. There is one 8.Mrs.Pixley was a worthy ex- excellency, of which I think I ample for us to follow,in the fond- am a witness, in her character ness which she manifested for re- as a neighbor, which ought to igious and savoury discourse. be considered an excellency inThis appeared to be the conver-deed, it is this, that she was resation which was most pleasing to her. And is it not proof, my friends, of our dreadful alienation of heart from God, that it should be thought a breach of markably careful about speaking evil of others. The law of kindness was in her tongue. She was so tender of the character of others, that she did not com monly speak the evil she knew of them. This is an excellency, which, whenever it is found, is worthy of our most careful imitation: For there is scarcely any thing, which is so needless and so pernicious, as freely speaking on all occasions of the faults and failings of our neighbors. It spoils all the peace and comfort of society. worth thousands of worlds; and wanted others should know how much such a hope was worth at such a time. She told her friend, that she must go before her; but that it was no matter which went a little the first. You will observe, my friends, what made her sick of this world, and what made her long after heaven, was not outward troubles, so much as the body of death within her. She longed to be perfectly holy, and this she knew could not be in this world: therefore she desired to be absent from the body, that she might be present with the Lord. I shall add one more trait in her character. She appeared to be, in a good measure, weaned from earth, and to be panting for the upper world. Several years ago, she told me there were times when death appeared desirable. After recovery from sickness, she represented her May her family, may her concase by a traveller, who had to nections, may we all profit by turn about after he had gotten her life and profit by her death! some way on his journey. She Wherein she followed Christ, said, It seemed almost a pity to let us follow her. If we would go back again. She said, she have a peaceful death we must seemed to want to live, more have a pious life. Death appears because her family and friends to have lost his sting, when we wanted to have her, than to view the countenance of this gratify herself. Just after she amiable, this pious woman, now was attacked with the disease brought under the dominion of which has ended her days, she this king of terrors. How dif said, It seemed to her, that she ferently do we all feel from did not want to live without she what we should, if we were could live better than she had called to the funeral of one, who done. She told her daughter, had left us no evidence of havthat it appeared to her, she diding fallen asleep in Jesus. My not wish to live, if she must} friends, it is rare that we are continue to sin; and she knew called to attend such a funeral she should sin, if she lived in as the present. As the most apthis world; for none were per- pear to be living without God fect. In her last sickness, in the world, so the most appear while she could converse, she to die without leaving us evispoke with serenity about dying.dence that they are prepared for She asked me to come and at- a holy heaven. If you would tend her funeral, if she should die, with as much composure as she would, at another time, have solicited a friendly visit. In conversing with a Christian friend, she spoke of her hope as know the value of religion, come around the death bed. IIere nothing else appears to have any value. We are all coming to this solemn place. The time is not very far distant, when our turn will come to die. [ little book, the contemporary effects And let us ask, are we now of the two first woe-trumpets in living, as we shall wish we had the West, commanded him to" seal lived when we come to die? them up and write them not” I cannot close without ac-swearing solemnly by the Almighty, knowledging the grace of God, that "their time was not yet, but in forming the amiable charac-in the days of the voice of the seventh ter, which we have been ad- angel." Those days are now come. miring. Could she speak her- We have seen that the great earthself, she would say, Not unto quake, at the close of the second woe, me, not unto me, but unto God is the French Revolution, in the give all the glory! If she was year 1789; and that the third woe what we hope and believe, it was came quickly in the year 1792, the God of all mercy, who cal- when the reign of Gallic liberty and led her by his grace. He equality commenced. Consequentwrought all her work in her ly we may then expect that the -He kept her by his power-seven thunders would begin to roar, He guided her by his counsel through all the journey of life, and has, as we trust, now received her to glory. To Him be all the praise, world without end. Amen. and the seven vials begin to be poured out. It may be observed that the contents of one vial, are no where represented, as being fully poured out, before another begins to be emptied; and also that they comprehend the two grand periods of the harvest and the vintage, Abstract of Faber on the Pro- which, agreeably to the analogy of phecies. NO. VIIL (Concluded from p. 337.) Concerning the effects of the last woe-trumpet, the pouring out of the seven vials, and the restoration of the Jervs. THE the natural harvest and vintage, may be considered as separated by an intervening period. The Author supposes the first to represent the miseries inflicted on mankind by the tyranny of Antichrist, under the three first vials, and the lust to denote the final overthrow of God's enemies under the last vial. The effects of the first vial denoted by a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped the image, the Author supposes to denote the spirit of Atheism, which as the figure represents, had long been working in the body politic, till it pervaded Europe, or the whole Roman earth, and prepared the way for its eruption in the establishment of its an HE seven vials are evidently comprehended under the last wse-trumpet, because they are styled the seven last plagues. They are the same as the seven thunders, which St. John heard, when he had finished his account of the second woe-trumpet, as afflicting the East. Conceiving rightly that in point of time, they were next in order to the events which he had last detailed, he was about to write their his-archial principles. Dating the pourtory; but the angel having yet to ing out of the vial, not from the se reveal to him, in the chapters of the eret cogitations of the heart, known ers and fountains of the papal Roman empire. "They have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy." Such have been the vials of the harvest. The fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun, and power was given unto him to scorch men with only to the Almighty, but from some prominent display of those cogitations, reduced to practice and manifested to the eyes of the world, to what era shall we look, save the memorable 26th of August 1792, when the denial of a God was formally established by law, and the bold project of converting all the kingdoms of the carth into Atheistic-fire. The sun of a kingdom is the al republics, was triumphantly a- Government of that kingdom; and vowed by Infidel demagogues, and the sun of an empire, if it be a diloudly applauded by the populace vided empire, is the government of throughout the whole great Roman the most powerful state belonging to city? The second vial was poured that empire. The prediction deout upon the sea, and it became as notes that the most powerful state in the blood of a dead man ; and every the Roman empire, should exercise tiving soul died in the sea. The sea a systematic military tyranny over symbolizes a nation in a state of re- a considerable part of that empire. volution. The pouring out of this France is by many degrees the most vial, relates to the dreadful mas-powerful; and consequently its gorsacres of revolutionary France, erament, must inevitably be esteemwhich commenced early in the Sep-ed the sun of the system; and his tember of the year 1792, and con- scorching rays are, at this moment, verted that unhappy country into felt more or less throughout France, one great slaughter-house. The third Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, angel poured out his vial upon the and the west of Germany. This rivers and fountains of vaters, sun of military tyranny will probaand they became blood. Rivers and biy glow with unabated violence to fountains symbolize kingdoms and the very time of the end; but the their heads, existing in a state of prophet assures that the effect proregular and settled government.-duced by these plagues, will only be The regular and settled govern- blasphemy and hardness of heart. ments of the papal Latin empire, Those however who have "come were now to receive the due reward out" of the mystic Babylon, who of their former persecutions of the have ceased to be "partakers of her saints, by the inroads of a barbarous sins," and not suffered themselves republican enemy. By a long and to be a second time deluded by the bloody war, the whole Germanic body has been shaken to its centre wise not be partakers of her plagues. more gross lie of Atheism, will likepapal Italy has been overcome and All the vials of the last woe-trumpillaged; Spain reduced to vassalage; the United provinces have pet, are poured out upon the Papal been first duped into a revolution, and Mohammedan Roman Empire ; then plundered and harrassed by and though, under the seventh vial, their unrelenting tyrants; and the "there will be a time of trouble such Helvetic confederacy has been dis- as never was since there was a nasolved. Future historians will speak tion," yet it is a time of trouble ta of this unparalleled war with aston- none but the beast, the false proishment; but they will not fail to at-phet and the congregated kings of test that these heavy judgments the earth. haye fallen principally upon the riv- "And the fifth angel poured out East for whom a way is thus to be prepared, it is impossible for us now to determine. The most probable conjecture is that the Jews are alluded to. Though some great maritime power is undoubtedly to take the lead in restoring them, yet it is manifest that no maritime power can effect their complete restoration; and that a very large proportion of his vial upon the seat of the beast: a prelude of which we already beand his kingdom was full of dark-hold. Who are the kings of the ness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven, because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds." Whenever the beast is simply mentioned, by way of eminence as it were, it will be found that the ten horned or secular beast is meant, and not the two horned or ecclesiastical beast. Indeed the for-them, perhaps the greatest propormer only is said to have a seat, or throne, and this is given him by the dragon: and if we may argue from analogy, the pouring out of a vial upon his seat, so as to fill his whole kingdom with darkness, naturally denotes some grievous calamity which shall materially affect his power of persecution; since the giving him a seat or throne, evidently means the investing him with the same power of persecution, as he excrcised in his Pagan state. The beast here spoken of is the beast under his last head, which head is termed by the Apostle the beast himself, as has already been shewn; and should the present usurper of the throne of France, or any successor of his, 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. Under the sixth vial the waters of the river Euphrates, the mystic waters of the Ottoman Empire, are to be dried up. Its power is to be subverted by the slow consumption of its political strength, and the gradual wasting arvay of its people, *Since the Author wrote the above, the Carlovingian sovereignty of Italy has reverted to France. tion, is scattered in the East. While a way is preparing for the kings of the East, by the downfall of the Ottoman power, the diabolical influ ence of three unclean spirits will be actually, though imperceptibly, cmployed in gathering together the kings of the Earth, or papal Latin empire and the whole Roman world, to the battle of the great day of God Almighty. From the sources whence the impure spirits issue, it appears that the beast and the false prophet, will then be more closely leagued together than ever, and will jointly meditate an expedition against the woman and the remnant of her seed, which, as we shall see under the next vial, will end in their own confusion and utter destruction. The seventh vial synchronizes with the vintage, because both are declared to take place at the end of the 1260 years. The account given of it runs through, the 17, 18, and 19th chapters of the Apocalypse; though it is proper to remark that some things in the 17th chapter, mentioned by the way, have a firevious accomplishment. It is in short a kind of climax, concerning the scarlet whore, extending from the era of the reformation to her was first final destruction. She drawment of whole nations from |