and their sores, and repented not of their deeds." -This resembles the ninth plague of Egypt, which was "smitten with darkness, even darkness that might be felt."* These judgments, in every step, have made nearer and nearer approaches to the THRONE and PERSON of the arch-apostate himself. His own kingiom is now filled with real darkness, by a judgment sent upon his very SEAT; in just retribution of that artificial darkness which he had wickedly spread over the christian world, by covering up the light of its SUN,-withdrawing the holy scriptures from the use, and even from the knowledge of the people, and trampling them under his feet; reviling them with opprobrious names, and committing them to the fire as a common nuisance, and the pestilent disturbers of the church's peace.†

* Exodus x. 22; Psalm cv, 28,

"When they shall say unto you, seck unto them that have familiar spirits; and unto wizzards, that peep and that mutter:"(to popish priests and lying monks, the writers of fabulous legends of the saints, which are dealt out to the people instead of lessons of Holy Scripture.)" Should not a people seek unto their God,"-(should they apply)-" for the living to the DEAD?-To the law and to the testimony,"-(the

The man of sin had consigned himself to a
voluntary DARKNESS, and lo! DARKNESS is
sent upon him against his will: such a dark-
ness as the prince of darkness loveth not. For
although spiritual darkness is comfortable to
error and wickedness, political darkness is an
intolerable pain. "Let their way be dark
and slippery," said David,* " and let the angel
of the Lord persecute them ;"-which seems to
allude to this vial of God's wrath in the hands
of the fifth angel. "Sit thou silent and get
thee into darkness, O daughter of the chaldeans,
for thou shalt no more be called the lady of

Bible and the Testament,)-" if they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them." Isa. viii. 19, 20.
Their darkness is first wilful, before it become judicial.
They prohibit the scriptures, or else give them out spiced, as
men do medicated feeds to their cattle. They shut out all the
books of the reformers, and even books of their own authors
in which the reformed doctrines are only recited in order to be
confuted. They purge, interpolate, and amend the writings
of the fathers, and other authorities unfavorable to holy church.

-Their PIOUS FRAUDS must not be brought to light, Even
their INDEX EXPURGATORIUS is not now to be seen out of safe
hands. Thus they say unto you" Seek only unto wizzards,
that peep and that mutter," &c,

* Psalm xxxv. 6.

kingdoms.*"And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens thereof."† "They shall pass through it hardly bestead and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward"-(for relief which shall not come.)" And they shall look unto the earth; and behold, trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness."§

* Isaiah xlvii. 5,

+ Isaiah v. 30.

The EARTH seems to be the emblem which, in all the prophecies on this subject, is put for the PECULIUM, or PATRIMONY OF THE CHURCH, and the temporal power of the papacy, out of which he rises, (Rev. xiii. 11,) after the firm establishment of the first beast, or christian roman empire, which rose out of the SEA, or nations of the world. In this state of persécution, when the apostate church looketh to its once omnipotent head for protection against the scorching sun, it sees the sun of the church setting in total darkness; and all his satellites "driven to darkness."

Isaiah viii. 21, 22.

These pertinent passages of the holy prophets of God, from whom this vial of dark. ness is sent upon the kingdom of the BEAST, shew plainly what kind of darkness it will be; political darkness, more grievous to them than either moral or religious darkness:* for in these they have willingly sat, and here have laid the foundations of their throne. Jesus Christ is the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, but antichrist is darkness personified. "He that hath my word," says God, "let him speak my word faithfully, what is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?" "If they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings, but they commit adultery and

* Ezekiel xxxii, 7; Amos v. 18.

+ Our blessed Lord compares the saving doctrines of his gospel to good seed, and those of antichrist (which is a collection of the worst heresies that have at sundry periods appeared in the church) to bad seed, sown by an enemy, in the silence and darkness of night, while the husbandmen slept. Matt. xiii. 24. Jer. xxiii. 28.

walk in lies; they strengthen also the hands of evil doers, that none doth return from his wickedness," (absolutions can be purchased with money, without repentance.)—“ They are all of them unto me as SODOM, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah."*

From the general import of these prophecies, I think it may be concluded that the darkness thrown over the spiritual empire of antichrist by the vial of the fifth angel, will be the extinction of the sun of their empire, or the putting down of the temporal and political power and greatness of the papacy; insomuch, that though the popedom still subsists, yet it is in a state of darkness and eclipse, and shines not with the heat or splendour of a sun in the political heavens as formerly.

fi

This great change is not expressed here in the usual manner, and by the customary gures of the sun turned into darkness, and the stars falling from their orbits, &c. because

* Jer, xxiii, 14.