unbelief, when you see the faith, boldness, and honesty of this French Protestant, who lived in the days of persecution when the world wondered after the Least? Oh Lord God! what will become of our stallfed, indolent, unbelieving, hypocritical, and proud clergy of the present day? Do they believe any scripture is fulfilling at the present day? No. They are blind and cannot see afar off; they love to slumLer, they will not bark. And if any of thy servants do lift up their voices, these will only murmur in their nests, and dream on, I fear, into eternity. Oh God! awaken us to a sense of our awful danger.

Again, he says, "Seeing that the tenth part of the city that must fall is France, this gives me some Lopes that the death of the two witnesses' hath a particular relation to this kingdom. It is the street or place of this city, that is, the most fair and eminent part of it. The witnesses must remain dead upon this street, and upon it they must be raised again. And, as the death of the witnesses and their resurrection have a relation to the kingdom of France, it may well fall out that we are not far distant from the time." On page 50, speaking of the time, he says "that it will fall on the year 1785." On page 279, he says, "If I should be mistaken nine or ten years, I do not think that any could justly treat me as a false prophet, and accuse me of rashness." In another place, he says, "And in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand; in the Greek it is names of men, not seven thousand men. I confess that this seems somewhat mysterious: in other places we find not this phrase, names of men, put simply for men. Perhaps there is here a figure of grammar called hypallage casus, so that names of men are put for men of name, that is, of raised or considerable quality, be it on account of riches, dignity, or of learning. But I am more inclined to say, that here these words, names of men, are put for men of name, and must be taken in their na'ural signification, and do intimate that the total reformation of France shall not be made with blood

shed; nothing shall be destroyed but NAMES, such as the names of Monks, Carmalites, Augustines, Dominicans, Jacobins, Franciscans, Capuchins, Jesuites, Minimes, and an infinite company of others, whose number it is not easy to define, and which the Holy Ghost denotes by the number seven, which is the number of perfection, to signify that the order of monks and nuns shall perish forever. This is an institution so degenerated from its first original, that it is become the arm of Antichrist. These orders cannot perish one with another. These great events deserve to be distinguished from all others, for they will change THE WHOLE FACE OF THE WORLD."

What can we think, when we compare this prophecy, if you please to call it such, with the history of the French revolution, but that God in the fulfilment has given us indubitable proof that these servants of his, in their exposition of this passage, gathered the true and simple meaning of the Holy Spirit? They could not have written to support any particular theory, for neither do any of them appear to have any on this point. They wrote while it was yet a prophecy. They could have no national prejudice, for they were from different nations. Surely, we must admire their harmony, and the power and goodness of God, in thus giving them knowledge of these events spoken of in this prophecy, so as to tell the manner, place, and time when these things should be fulfilled."

Let me quote to you from Rev. John Willison, minister of Dundee, who published a number of sermons under the title of "The Balm of Gilead." In one of these, he says, "Before Antichrist's fall, one of the ten kingdoms which supported the beast shall undergo a marvellous revolution. Rev. xi. 13:

And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven; by which tenth part is to be understood one of the ten kingdoms into which the great city,

Romish Babylon, was divided. This many take to be the kingdom of France, it being the tenth and last of the kingdoms, according to the rise, and that which gave Rome the denomination of the beast with ten horns, and also it being the only one of the ten that was never conquered since its rise. However unlikely this, and other prophesied events, may appear at the time, yet the almighty hand of the only wise God can soon bring them about when least expected." These sermons were published in A. D. 1742, more than fifty years before the fulfilment of the prediction.

Many other authors of great celebrity, who wrote many years before the French revolution, might he quoted, who all believed that the two witnesses would be slain in France, that the earthquake would be in that kingdom, and that there the names, titles, or orders of men would be abolished. And nearly all of them fixed the time between the years 1785 and 1795. I will give one more extract on this point, from DR. GILL, taken from a sermon on the answer to the question, "Watchman, what of the night?" published in A. D. 1748, almost one hundred years since. He says, "If it should be asked, What time it is with us now? whereabout we are? and what is yet to come of this night? as a faithful watchman, I will give you the best account I can. I take it, we are in the Sardian church state, in the last part of it, which brought on the Reformation, and represents that. We are in the decline of that state, and there are many things said of that church which agree with us, as that we have a name that we live, and are dead, &c. It is a sort of twilight with us, between clear and dark, between day and night. -As to what of the night is yet to come, or what will befal the churches, and will bring on the dismal night before us;-they are the slaying of the witnesses, and the universal spread of Popery all over Christendom; and the latter is the unavoidable consequence of the former. The slaying of the witnesses, which I understand not so much in a literal sense, or of a corporal death, though there may be

many slain in this sense when it will be, hut in ́ civil sense, with respect to their ministry being silenced by their enemies, and neglected by their friends; this is an affair that is not yet over: the witnesses have not yet finished their testimony; they are still prophesying, though in sackcloth or under some discouragements; whereas it will be, when they have finished their testimony, and at the close of the 1260 days or years of Antichrist's reign, that they will be killed. The ruin of Antichrist will immediately follow the rising and ascension of these witnesses; for at the same hour that they shall ascend, will be a great earthquake, or a revolution in the papal state; and the tenth part of the city, or of the Romish jurisdiction, shall fall; that is, one of its ten horns, kings or kingdoms belonging to it, and perhaps the kingdom of FRANCE is meant, and seven thousand men of name will be slain, and the rest be affrighted, and give glory to God; nothing of which has yet been done. From all of which it may be concluded, that the slaying of witnesses is yet to come, and will make the dismal part of that night we are entering into, and which will be accompanied with a universal spread of Popery: but her 'plagues shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burnt with fire. Before the utter destruction of Antichrist, he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many; yea, he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain, or the mountain of delight, of holiness; and what place is there, in all the globe, to which this description so well answers as Great Britain? (I answer, Italy.) This will be done before, and but a little before, his ruin; for it follows, yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.""

If these doctors had lived in this day, with the same spirit in which they then wrote, they would not have called my views "moonshine," for they harmonize to a charm; or if our D. D.s had a little

more of their Bible knowledge, some of their modesty and less of their own sufficiency, they would not bluster in "resolutions," nor be blinded in "lunar rays," but, like our author above quoted, they would be able to give the time of night, that the people might be prepared for the morning.

These writers which I have quoted, and a number inore which might be given with equal propriety, predicted, on the authority of the Bible, a grand and very important revolution in France, a change of ecclesiastical and civil polity, the introduction of a new system, fatal to Popery and tyranny, but friendly to the liberty, peace, and happiness of man. They foretold that this revolution should be efected, not in the ordinary course of things, nor by the ministry of the gospel, but by a peculiar dispensation of God; by a sudden convulsion, like an earthquake, attended with the destruction of names, titles, dignities, orders, and the humiliation of the French monarchy, falling from the support of Papacy. They foretold her subsequent exaltation, liberty of the nations, spread of the gospel, and the death and resurrection of the witnesses. They fixed the time between 1785 and 1795. Love, who wrote in 1651, prophesied that Babylon should begin to fall in 1799. Rev. Robert Fleming, minister of the Scotts church in London, in a discourse on the rise and fall of Papicy, published in 1701, says, "The French monarchy will begin to be humbled as soon as 1794."

What can all this mean? Can you not see the signs of the times in all this? If not, your eyes are in leed closed that you cannot see, and your ears stopped that you will not hear; and in such an hour tas ye think not, it will come upon you. scoffers, and scorners of the cry, "Behold, the Bride. giom cometh!"-what will you do?

Oh! you