that purpose. The angel Michael,* and Armageddon,t are alluded to without translation. But St. John is "in the Spirit;" a passive receiver of the dictates of Heaven, and he writes what he is commanded. The twofold name must have been given with a purpose beyond its mere intelligibility to the Greeks; to whom the whole prophecy was a sealed book. But, to our generation, who know that by so slight an addition as a single letter, it would bear the pronunciation of the most remarkable name of the Revolution, even of that man who, commencing his career its servant, became its champion, and from its champion, its sovereign, and that name too superseding his early appellative, and peculiarly combined with his crown; it may be, not unfairly, allowed to conceive that the same inspiration which, seventeen hundred years ago, revealed the empire of Napoleon, might have willed to intimate the name by which he wielded the sceptre

The prophecy of the fifth Vial, relative to the sufferings inflicted on Rome and the papal states during the Revolution, was closely fulfilled.

In 1797, the second year of his Italian campaigns, Bonaparte advanced towards Rome, and was prevented from the seizure of the papal throne only by the treaty of Tolentino, concluded in February, 1797, which the Pope purchased at the bitter price of three of his legations, Ferrara, Bologna, and Romagna; money to the amount of a million and a half sterling, and the plunder of the chefs-d'œuvre of the Vatican.

Yet this was but a respite. On the 10th of February, 1798, the French army under Berthier entered Rome; took possession of the city, and made the Pope and the cardinals prisoners. Within a week Pius VI. was deposed; Rome was declared a Republic; the tree +Ibid. xvi. 16.

Apoc. xii. 7.

of liberty was planted; and the city and the states were delivered up to a long series of the deepest insults, requisitions, military murders, and the general injury and degradation of the feelings and property of all classes of the people. Pius VI. died in captivity. Pius VII. was dragged across the Alps to crown Napoleon, was held in duress, and was finally restored only on the fall of the French Empire. The papal indepen dence was abolished by France, and the son of Napoleon was declared King of Rome.

1812. The capture of Moscow closed the triumphs of Napoleon. The hand of the storm, and of Him who guides the storm, smote him; and he was thenceforth to be undone.

-1813. A league of the four great European pow ers, England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, was for the first time practically combined against the French Empire. s

It is among the most remarkable circumstances of an extraordinary period, that this measure had defied all efforts for its accomplishment before. All the pow ers had been successively at war with France; but it was by duple or triple alliances. The whole labour of diplomacy, in the full consciousness that the hope of Europe depended on an alliance of the four, had continually failed. Some strange impediment had always started up to forbid a coalition which yet each and all felt essential to their common safety.

The mysterious and invincible restraint was now removed. The prophecy pronounces that it was removed by the COMMAND OF HEAVEN! By the same command the four Allies were summoned to consummate the overthrow of the Empire of blood and Athe

ism.

On the 17th of August, the Grand Alliance declared hostilities. It had been reserved by Providence for this crisis," for the hour and day and month and year." Its objects were not less remarkable than its

construction. Unlike all others, the Alliance was formed not for possession of terrritory, nor for per manent continuance, nor even against the enemy as a nation. Its declared and single purpose was the extinction of Napoleon, and with him of his system.

A host, of a number that throws even the military multitudes of Napoleon into the shade, a million of men with another million in their track, now rushed into France. England had the glory of leading the way. In September, 1813, the British troops invaded the South. In January, 1814, the Allies crossed the Rhine; they fought their road through all the obstacles of valour and despair up to the gates of Paris, and after twice capturing the capital, England giving the last blow, as she had given the first, they extinguished Napoleon and his guilty, abhorred, and godless Empire.

Thus was accomplished the second woɛ. The first had smitten the Continent through France. The punishment had been at length inflicted on the Revolutionary throne. The loss of human life was immense. The slain of France, from the battle of Leipsic to the carnage of Waterloo, defy all calculation!

In the text the times of the first and second States were predicted to be equal. This was exactly fulfillled. Each lasted eleven years! The Republic continuing from 1793 till 1804, and the Empire from 1804 till 1815.

The prophecy concluded by declaring that this mighty lesson would be utterly lost to the Popedom and Popery. The fact has exactly followed the prediction. No reform of doctrine, nor additional tendency to the purification of the Romish Church, or of the morality of Popish countries, has arisen from their condign punishment. Yet, it is the natural operation of adversity to reform the grossnesses into which men and nations fall through long impunity. And this result has, in England and some other Pro

testant nations, unquestionably followed the French Revolution. The Freethinking, which the brilliant celebrity of France had made almost a fashion in England fifty years ago, has hid its head. It is no longer the boast of men ambitious of fame, that they are unbelievers. No man of character now dares to insult the common feeling of society by a caricature of religion. The name of Atheist now implies not a lofty superiority to prejudice, but a melancholy and frightful abandonment of understanding; not genius, but insanity. Voltaire is no more the lord alike of wit and wisdom, but a pitiable evidence of the utter worthlessness of talent without principle. The bustling tribe of his imitators are sunk into contemptuous oblivion; or remembered only with horror, as the realisers of his dreams of evil, the actors in the Pagan abominations, the remorseless murders, the mad and blind blasphemers of the Revolution.

But, in the Papal countries, no change of the old bigotry, or of the old impurity, is yet discoverable. The decay of the ancient nobles may have rendered vice less glittering, but it is not less popular. The actual misery and beggary of the multitudes pressed to the dust by vicissitude and war, may have retarded for a while the direct licentiousness, which was once the grand business of Continental life. But with public leisure the temptation is returning in full flood. Voltaire, Rousseau, and their whole crowd of subordinate corruption again form the reading of Papal Europe. The copies of Voltaire circulated through the Continent since the peace are reckoned by hundred thousands.

The court of Rome has started into sudden life. The old somnolent tranquillity of the Braschis has passed away for the vigour of Sixtus the Fifth. The monastic orders have been raised into new opulence and activity. Jesuitism, the crushed conspirator, the fiercest and subtlest shape of superstition, the last

compound of the wiliness and venom of the Serpent, has been rewarmed in the bosom of idolatry, and sent out to wind its way through Europe. New anathe mas have been issued against the propagation of the Scriptures. New Romish correspondences, new mis. sions, new alliances, have been planted through the world; and at this moment the Popedom, shaking off the sackcloth and dust of the Revolution, is rising into a haughty stature and strength, ominous of the persecution that it shall yet inflict, and in the midst of which it shall be extinguished by the lightnings.

Ver. 1. And I saw another mighty angel come down from hea ven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire:2003 2. And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth,

3. And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices.

34. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.

25. And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven,

6. And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:

7. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

INTERPRETATION.

This passage is but introductory; yet, by the majesty of the speakers, it clearly contemplates some