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rarchy, were abolished. They made rapid and astonishing progress, through all the Roman Catholic countries, till they were suppressed in 1773." In the same century, this powerful order was expelled also from China, where they had gained great footing; being accused of things "the most grievous and disgraceful to the Christian name." We have thus the events which fulfilled the fourth vial. Things so great, and so fatal to popery, as the parts which the civil governments of Europe thus acted, in throwing off their veneration for the papal see, must be viewed as having a place among the predictions of the steps taken by divine Providence for the overthrow of the papal apostasy.

What was predicted to follow the judgment of this vial, has taken full effect, and it adds its weight of testimony to the correctness of the views given;—" And men blasphemed God who had power over the plagues; and they repented not to give him glory." Most clearly did this sign of the times follow the events given as fulfilling this vial. The blasphemous system of Voltaire was, at this very time, conceived and brought into effect. And so far were those papal regions from repenting, that they en masse went off to the most open and finished blasphemy. We read nothing of men there blaspheming God, under any of the antecedent vials; but at the close of the fourth, they pour out their blasphemies; as was the case in fact. The crushed egg of Jesuitism now broke out into a viper ; and its fruit was indeed a fiery flying serpent.

Let the saints ever trust in the Lord for deliverance from all their foes,-of gross or covert infidelity; of Jesuitism; of all false religion; and of every species of licentiousness. These have combined against their peace, and for their ruin. God has thus far confounded them; and he will finally and utterly confound them: but not till they have tried the people of God; and God only knows to how great a degree. Jesuits have not yet done all they are to do. That horrid system of infidelity has not yet done all that it is to do: nor have the systems of false religion, and of licentiousness. God will search Jerusalem with candles; and will shake not the earth only, but the heavens, the church. Be strong in the Lord then, and in the power of his might.

LECTURE XXVI.

Vial V.

REVELATION XVI.

Ver. 10. And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain,

11. And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds.

The last capital event in fulfilment of the fourth vial,— the suppression of the influence of the Jesuits in old papal lands, took place 1773. The event of the fifth vial then, might soon be expected to follow. And in 1789 an event burst upon the papal world, which has every claim to being viewed as the opening of it. The four antecedent vials had, for more than a century and a half, been discharging their contents on the Man of Sin. The fifth was now discharged on his seat (throne), and filled his kingdom with darkness. This was commenced in the bursting forth of that system of infidelity, which was forged in the furnace of papal corruptions, formed by Voltaire, and his group of infidel philosophers; which system gloried in setting aside the Bible, and the God of the Bible, and which managed and gloried in the revolution in France, and for 25 years filled Europe with blood and terror. The chronology of that event; its accordance with the figure in our text; and its accordance with the synchronical predictions of the same event;-go to evince, with unusual certainty, that it was in accomplishment of the fifth vial. Most fully does agree with the figure of this vial;-with the descent of Jesus Christ in Rev. x.; with his descent in chap. xviii., (both of which give the same event in different general divisions of the prophetic part of the book); with the dra

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gon casting his floods from his mouth, to cause the church to be carried away; and with a prediction which we find in Zeph. iii. of the same event,-a cutting off of the nations, which was to take place just antecedent to, and distinct from the battle of the great day of God which opens the Millennium, as there follows. This bursting of the system of atheism upon France and the world, at that time, opened indeed a new era in the affairs of man, as the little open book in the hands of the Angel of the covenant, in Rev. x. testifies; and as the description of the same, in Dan. xi. 36, to the end; and the rising of the beast from the bottomless, Rev. xvii. testify.

The pope had ever hoped to restore and heal his wounded system, till that revolution in France: but his hopes were then dashed out in the blackest night. "And his kingdom was full of darkness," says our text; "and they gnawed their tongues for pain." Until that period, the pope had a kingdom; after that he had none. His dominions in Italy were alienated and overturned. His authority was annihilated; and the Christian religion, in all his dominions, impiously abolished; the person of the pope seized,-exiled from his royal city; and he restricted to a pension which was given him from the iron hand of a military despotism. What could amount, if this did not, to the event in our text, the pouring of a vial of wrath on his throne, and filling his kingdom with darkness? Contemplate his throne in past times; and compare it with what it then became; and you cannot have a rational doubt but the event of this vial of wrath on his throne was then fulfilled. How very* great was the contrast between the power of

* To aid you in making this comparison, glance your eye over the insolent claims of the pope, in the dark ages. The annals of many centuries assure us of the more than royal magnificence claimed by the Man of Sin, and given him by the nations. Take the following. In the ninth century, Pope John VIII. denounced excommunication to all kings, who should not submit to his power. Leo IX. declared it "exceedingly base that those whom God had set over the heavenly empire, should be subject to any earthly one." Gregory VII. excommunicated Henry IV., taking from him the imperial crown of Germany and Italy, and giving it to a favourite. A pope, in 1080, reasoned before a council in Rome thus, "He that could bind and loose in heaven, can on earth give and take away kingdoms and empires, and whatever mortals have." In the excommunication of an emperor, the pope said, "In the name of the

the pope in past ages; and his state after the French revo lution. Detailed accounts of that revolution cannot here be given. Some sketches of it have been given in Lecture xvi.; and may also be found in chap. xvii. giving the beast from the bottomless pit. The tremendous event, to which allusion is here made, must have been one of the vials of the last plagues. Of this there is so great a moral certainty, that I shall take it as granted. Any person who would dispute it, would dispute any event of the Revelation, or of prophecy: and with such a character I never wish to contend. The question then is, which of the vials there received its fulfilment? Could it have been the first? This has been found in another and antecedent event; and the first could not have been so late an event among the steps of the downfal of popery. The second too, and the third, and fourth, have been found in antecedent events. Could it have been the sixth? This is manifestly pouring on another power, and is bringing down the Turks. Could it have been the seventh? This is to be an event subsequent to the restoration of the Jews; and is now manifestly future. It must then have been the fifth. And with the time and description of this, it most clearly accords.

One more argument shall be adduced to evince that it is the fifth vial. This is found in the analogies between the trumpets and the vials, though they belong to the two

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I depose thee from imperial and royal administration." And his form of excommunication absolved all Christian subjects of the emperor from every oath of allegiance to their king. Gregory VII. declared that he was the "rightful sovereign of the universe; as well civil, as ecclesiastical." The popes claimed the right of conferring the imperial crown. Innocent, in the 13th century, taught that the difference between popes and kings was like that between the sun and moon. He seated on their thrones the kings of Bohemia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Arragon,lin one century. He crowned the emperor Otho IV., and then deposed him to make way for Frederic II. In Britain the same papal prerogative was for some time maintained. Boniface VIII. declared himself to be "king of kings, monarch of monarchs, and sole lord both in spiritual and in temporal things." I might fill pages with such claims of the pope, to be the maker and unmaker of emperors and kings!-claiming to be styled, "our lord god the pope !"—" other god upon earth." He has literally kicked the crown from the king's head; and treated kings with the greatest contempt, merely to evince his vast superiority to them.

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different great divisions of this book. The first trumpet opens a new series of judgments on the Roman "earth;" and upon the same "earth" is discharged the last vial. The second trumpet affects the Roman "sca ;" and the second vial is poured upon the Roman " sea. The third trumpet affects the "rivers and fountains of water,” and the third vial is poured upon the "rivers and fountains of water." The fourth trumpet affects the "sun" on the Roman earth: and thus does the fourth vial. Pass for the present the fifth of each series. The sixth trumpet affects the "river Euphrates," and the sixth vial has its commission on the same river. And the seventh trumpet and vial meet in the same event, as has been shown, and will further appear. Examine, then, the fifth trumpet and vial, and see whether any analogy is here found, viewing the revolution of 1789 as the opening of the fifth vial. The imagery of the fifth trumpet is a darkening of the world with the smoke of Mohammedism. And the imagery of the fifth vial is a darkening of the papal world with a calamity no less fatal. The smoke of the fifth trumpet is from the bottomless pit: and the darkness of the fifth vial is the atheism of the blasphemous beast from the bottomless pit. From that smoke of the trumpet came swarms of horrid locusts, who had a king or leader, Apollyon, a destroyer, who revolutionized and destroyed many millions of the human family, in defiance of all law human or divine. And those locusts, upon entering France with an army of 400,000 men (thus exceeding their providential commission), were met by Charles Martel, and driven from that nation with the loss of seven-eighths of that vast army. And the fifth vial, after unlocking the bottomless pit, and letting out the world of darkening atheism, and blasphemy, furnished its armies to spread its terrors, no less than did the smoke of the fifth trumpet its armies of locusts. By this smoke from the bottomless pit, the sun of civil governments on the papal earth was turned to darkness indeed, as was long predicted, Joel ii. 31. And the civilized world was darkened with this infernal smoke of atheism. The fifth trumpet had its delusion propagated with fire and sword. And the fifth vial presented no less terrible armies for a similar purpose. And the latter had a leader who was likewise a destroyer. Napoleon was indeed a destroyer, as well as the Apollyon Dd

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