There has been, and ftill is left, a place in the holy city, where thofe who with to do fo may render their homage to Chrift, though the reft be in poffeffion of his adverfaries; the holy city and the outward court of the temple being given to the Gentiles, while fome worship them in the temple, and about the very altar on which the great facrifice for the fins of the whole world was offered, even Mount Calvary. Under the dominion of the Mahometans, the profeffors of the Gospel teftily their faith indeed in mourning; and the prophecy is exprefs, that fo they fhall continue to do, though perhaps not under the fame oppreflors, until the 1260 years be accomplished." (pp. 185-191.)

Mr. W. explains the child preferved from the great red dragon (chap. xi. ver. 2-6) of Conftantine preferved from the attempts of Galerius, and the overthrow of Paganifm by him after his acceffion to the throne by the war between Michael and the dragon: hut its final removal from all authority was not effected till the reign of Theodofius; and even into the Chriftian Church various herefies and idolatries crept, and gained footing. (pp. 192— 204.)

"The prophetic history is now brought down to the fettlement of the barbarians, who overran the Roman empire in its different provinces, by the emblem of a body politic rifing out of the fea, authoritatively explained to be the proper Roman empire, which had been overwhelmed with woes and troubles, and was afcending again to notice and power under the figure of a fearlet-coloured beast with feven heads, one of them wounded and healed, expreffing the dictatorial and pontifical government of Rome in one perfon, which had been feparated by the affaffination of Julius Caefar, when the Senate pafled a decree that the office of dictator fhould never be revived. The tyranny of this power. in authority was accurately forefhewn; its capital accurately fpecified to be the city of Rome on feven hills. To this delcription is added a particular warning to all capable of attending to it, with an affurance that the Divine ven

*This new exptan tion is justified in pp. 213-216. Mr. W. even finds a refemblance for the image of the heat, xiii. 14, to that made of Cæfar with all his wounds, p. 217.

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geance will, in the end, overtake the guilty power, though its duration will form a trial of the faith and patience of true believers. If its appearance has been fuch as to attract general notice, the prediction has been fulfilled, and the characteristicks are fuch as can meet in one power alone, because the time, the place, and the fupremacy, are all particularly defigned. A fecond power is prefigured to rife up out of the earth, and exercife, in the moft oppreffive manner, all the authority of the first power under his eye, and make the earth and its inhabitants bow down to that power. We find the two titles which were borne by the head wounded to death by the word applied, by his own partizans, to the Pope, as juftly due to him." (p. 281.) The unchangeable character of the Papal power is vifible, not only in yet granting indulgences, but in producing forged miracles; of which it is fufficient to mention the feeble one pretended to be wrought before the French made themselves mafters of Rome, and oftentatioufly held up in this country as having made a convert. The ambitious ufurpation of univerfal dominion, and the fanguine spirit of perfecution, are other characters of the рарасу.

As the emblem of the dragon is ufed to fignify both the great enemy of mankind and the idolatrous fovereigns of Rome, when the fucceffors of thefe laft had again relapfed into idolatry, they naturally became anti-types to this figure; and confequently the completion of the prediction, even in this fenfe, of the pope's receiving his power, his feat, and great authority, from the dragon, when the Emperor Phocas granted the title of universal bishop to Boniface IV. a tyrant whom we may eafily prefume well calculated to be the infirument and vifible agent, and even the reprefentative of Satan, by the defcription of him given by Mr. Gibbon, fhould not be paffed over unnoticed." (p. 253, 254.) Add to this the profane affumption of titles fuperior to thofe of God and Chritt, and a furplus of merits fupplementary to thofe of the latter; perverfion and concealment of the Scripture, over which tradition is fet up, and on its authority transubftantiation, the denial of the cup to the laity, worthip of faints and angels defended and obftinately perfifted in: and, against the authority of our Lord

himself,

Among other inftances of blafphehimfelf, Bellarmine teaches, that "temmous idolatry, the worship of the poral profperity is a note of the true church," and that "certain fins, venial Virgin Mary is infifted on; and a in their own nature, if they were all publication by a Catholic prieft in together all in the world conjoined, this country fo lately as 1798, fhews how earneft the profeffors of Popery would not equal one mortal fin, nor are in inculcating it. Well then, ia deftroy charity, nor put us from the the Office of the Eleffed Virgin, primfavour of God, fuch for which no man can perish, cliamfi nullum pactum effet ed at Antwerp, 1703, is the fecond de remiffione, though God's inerciful Commandment left out of the Decacovenant of pardon did not intervene." logue, and the tenth divided into two to make up the number. (pp. 315-343.) "As what has now been (p. 203.) "If this dreadful blafphemy affects faid denotes the Pope to be antichriftian in the fenfe of oppofing Chrift, fo the reader as much in the perufal of it as it hath me in the tranfcribing, heavy in the other fenfe in which the word may be taken, that of acting inftead of as are the judgments which have alChrift, it belongs to him without a ri- ready fallen on Rome, and those who val, fince he alone claims the title and have partaken in her abominations, he authority of vicegerent of Chrift. This will be firicken with admiration at the fact, that, while in one fenfe the name divine forbearance, that they have not / is efpecially applicable to him, it has been tenfold greater, and look with alfo another in which it is applicable unfeigned horror at any increafe of to none but him, places the accom- probability, that thefe truly antichrif plishment of this portion of the pro- tian and diabolical doctrines fhould phecy in a light fo ftrong, that it should meet with connivance from the govern feem muft penetrate any but utter ment, or a favourable reception among darknefs." (p. 269.) The general obe- the people of our own country." (p. dience and fubmiflion to the papal 343.) To the idolatrous doctrines of power, by all people and potentates, the Church of Rome are to be fureven to deification, is next noticed ther added, "her impurities, the loofe (pp. 272-274.); the manner in which doctrines her minillers have taught, the fovereigns of Europe have given and the many devices they have made them power and ftrength by their ufe of to render hopes of falvation and wealth in taxes and impolis, by their the practice of vice compatible, having forces in crufades and hoftilities, by encouraged the growth of the groffeft excommunication, abfolving from af- licentioufnefs; and the centre of her legiance, and depofal. As to the re- empire, Italy, has, I believe, inconligious worship of the dragon by the trovertibly been for centuries the very fubjects of the beat, it appears in the focus of vice." (p. 344.) "The cafuifts abfolute conformity and fubftitution of abound with inftructions that can teach a man more abominations than are. the prefent Roman worship to the antient pagan; various fpecimens of the known by practice in the most infablafphemous language held by decre- mous place of debauchery. After this tals, councils, bulls and inferiptions, you must read the decifions of their cadifpenfations and indulgences, refpect- fuifts upon the cafes of confcience, and concerning the nature of mortal and ing the fupremacy of the Pope*. venial fins; and you will foon perceive that there are no crimes which they do not excufe, tolerate, and make light of." (p. 347) "The Popes in the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries, a fucceffion of 50 bishops, were notorious for every fpecies of vice." Mr. W. has felected from Jurien a picture of the horrid corruptions of the Popes, which he would not trouble the reader with on

When we confider the impious deception of indulgences, permitting a continuance in fin, and promifing relief from punishment, for barely muttering a few prayers, and those probably in a language unknown to the party offering them up; what difference can we perceive between this doctrice of popery and that of our modern evangelical preachers, as they affect to call themselves, that "the more a perfon fins, the greater his recovery?" or which of the two doctrines is the most repugnant to good life here, and eternal happiness hereafter? And yet fuch are the deJufions of our modern fanaticks, whom it is deemed uncandid to clafs with immoral teachers. For, do they not hold out, by

general unconditional pardon, encouragement to the worlt of crimes? And, like their predeceffors in the Church of Rome, the Methodist meeting-house abfolves the vileft of men, not only in articulo mortis, but in the whole courfe of life. EDIT..

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account of the filthy crimes practifed in it, and its length; but he feels it his duty not to omit any thing which may be at all likely to prevail on a fingle individual to dread, and exert himself againft, the progrefs which the Romans are now making towards drawing the inhabitants of this ifland back into the toils of their blafphemous and idolatrous tenets; a progrefs encouraged by the impious indifference of fome to all religion, by the guilty fupineness of others, and in many, poflibly, by a judicial infatuation, that they fhould believe a lie becaufe they had not at tended to the truth, bufad pleasure in unrighteoufnels." (p. 351.)

"Such are the extracts I thought it right to lay before the reader from M. Jurieu, both on account of the very powerful teftimony they contain of the accomplishment of this prrticular of the prophecy, and becaufe they will, I think, to every man who is not infatuated, ferve as good reafons for oppofing the continuance of thofe monaftic eftablishments in this kingdom, which the charity of the nation permitted to be made when perfecution was raging on the Continent." (p. $73.) The return of peace has furely taken away all pretence for thefe eftablishments remaining in a Proteftant country; and their removal could never be conftrued into the fmallest degree of perfecution.

Our author is entitled to every praife for his zeal again the corruptions of the Church of Rome in principle and practice; and we do not with in the finallett degree to blunt the edge of that zeal; on the contrary, as far as our obfervation extends, if we allow the Emigrant Clergy the fullest merit of fobriety, temperance, chafiity, moderation, and every moral virtue, how very few have they produced among the regular or fecular clergy above the rank of religious drones immerged in devotion, unfit for fociety, undiftinguished by literary talents! In fhort, what talents did any of them exert towards rendering themselves ufeful in the country that received them with open arms under its protection, or of earning a lender, livelihood in it? Can this be faid of the PROTESTANT Clergy? The beat with two horns, xiii. 11, is explained by the monallic focieties from the Eaft, in a feafon of profperity and peace; with horns like a lamb, rows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; but fpeaking like a dragon with

denunciations of the wrath of heaven, excommunications and anathemas, and defpotic dominion exercifed in the name of the Pope. "The Mendicants difcovered the moft audacious arrogance, had the prefumption to declare publicly that they had a divine impulfe and commiffion to illuftrate and maintain the religion of Jefus; they treated with the utmost infolence and contempt all the different orders of the priesthood; they affirmed, without a bluth, that the true method of obtaining falvation was revealed to them alone; proclaimed with oftentation the fuperior efficacy and virtue of their indulgences, and vaunted beyond meafure their interefts at the court of heaven. By thele impious wiles they fo deluded and captivated the miferable and blinded multitude, that they would not truft any other but the Mendicants with the care of their fouls, their spiritual and eternal concerns." (p. 387.) May we not find an exact parallel in the itinerant preachers and missionaries of the prefent day?

The monaftic orders were fuch a fupport to the Pope, and revival of his authority, that the type of them is very aptly reprefented by healing his wound when the papal dominion was in fact but a fhadow of itfelf; but when they had perfected it, there was found the very image of the beaft, before which fmall and great, rich and poor, bond and free, fell down and worshiped. (p. 402.) But the frongeft proof of their influence and efficacy in this fupport will be difcerned in the concluding claufe of the oath, which all bifhops at their confecration, and all metropolitans at their inftalment, are required to take; which, in the Roman Pontifical fet out by order of Pope Clement VIII. runs in thefe terms: "Ileretics, fchifmatics, and rebels to our faid lord the Pope, I will to my power perfecute and oppofe." (pp. 407, 409.) The Mendicant friars, by their influence over the people, kept the bishops from effectually oppofing the Pope's authority which he allumed over them. The murders committed under that nefarious eliablishment the Inquifitiou are in fact perpetrated in fupport of the worship of this image; and excommunications and anathemas, like heathen perfecutions, interrupt, focial communication, and ftarve men into acquiefcence. "For the number of the beat, as it is declared that it should be