allowed to be the subject of the two first woes: and are they more worthy of a place in prophecy, than the daring impieties, the unheard of miseries, and the vast change in the whole European commonwealth, which have flowed from the French Revolution? Since we are compelled to date a new order of things from this tremendous convulsion, is it improbable, that it should have been selected by THE SPIRIT OF GOD as one of the great Apocalyptic eras? Is it improbable to suppose that the third woe began to sound when the reign of Antichrist, of Anarchy, and of Atheism commenced?" Dissert. Vol. II. p. 108. Edit. 2. He dates the rise of the Revolution from the limitation of the monarchy, A.D. 1789, the sounding of the seventh trumpet from the anarchical reign of liberty and equality, Aug. 12, 1792, after Louis XVI. was deposed two days before. The effusion of the first vial from the public profession of atheism, when the National Convention formally denied the existence of a God in their decree of Aug. 26, 1792; a horrible day, unprecedented in the annals of the world, " a day," "indeed, of trouble, of rebuke, and of blasphemy." "The fool," or atheist, "hath said in his heart," or secretly, "There is no GOD," or no superintending PROVIDENCE; but never before did the accredited government of any country, ancient or modern, dare to be guilty of such gigantic impiety and open rebellion against THE MOST HIGHEST *. This impiety of the National Convention, Aug. 26, 1792, was followed up, after their downfal, by the present despot, Buonaparte, upon his landing in Egypt, to wrest it from the Turks, in profound peace, in his Mahometan Manifesto, dated July 1, 1799. "IN THE NAME OF GOD, GRACIOUS AND MERCIFUL. HE HAS NO SON, OR ASSOCIATE IN HIS KINGDOM. "Inhabitants of Egypt. "When the Beys tell you the French are come to destroy your religion, believe them not: It is an absolute falsehood. "The French adore THE SUPREME BEING, and honour the prophet (Mahomet) and his holy Koran. "The French are true Mussulmen: Not long since, they marched to Rome, and overthrew the throne of the Pope, who excited the Christians against the professors of Islamism. Afterwards, they directed their course to Malta, and drove out the believers (the Knights Templars), who imagined they were appointed by GOD to make war upon the Mussulmen," &c. This precious public document proves that the reign of the Atheistical Republic, which We here distinguish between the French government and the French people. God forbid that we should ascribe to the latter, indiscriminately, the frenzy of the former. The sense of the nation has since appeared in the restoration of religious worship, and abolition of heathenish institutions. This is but expired not long after, when Buonaparte turned out the Directory, and first assumed the rank of First Consul, and afterwards the imperial dignity, was succeeded by a gigantic Mahometan, or infidel power. For Buonaparte, and his officers, who then assumed the reins of military government, were "true Mussulmen," indeed, as evidently appears in their intercepted correspondence from Egypt, shewing them to be genuine disciples of Savary, so much in vogue from his Letters on Egypt, who translated the Koran into French; thence they adopted the Mahometan principles of Fatalism, or Predestination, &c. as stated in several extracts from their Letters, in the last article of my Irish Pursuits of Literature, 1799, termed the Monstrous Republic; in which many curious documents are collected respecting the French Revolution, from authentic records; particularly the following. The state of the public mind in France, during the first stages of the Revolution, fluctuating between religion and superstition, is well expressed by the traitor Stone, in his intercepted correspondence with his confidential friend, Dr. Priestly, in America. "Some Atheistical Tracts have been published here (in Paris), but they have been little attended to.. -And the mind is floating at present, not knowing on what ground to repose; unwilling to reject the CHRISTIAN RELIGION, and yet ignorant how to distinguish the wheat from the chaff." The national triumph, however, of religion, at length, over Atheism, most clearly appeared in the speech of the ruthless Robespierre, the evening before his downfal, made in the National Convention." Frenchmen! suffer not your enemies to debase your souls, and to enervate your virtues by their desolating doctrine.—No, Chaumette, no, DEATH IS BY NO MEANS AN ETERNAL SLEEP. Citizens! Efface from the tombs this maxim engraven by sacrilegious hands, casting a funeral crape over nature; which discourages oppressed innocence, and which insults death itself. Rather engrave there the following: DEATH IS THE COMMENCEMENT OF IMMORTALITY." This is a most curious and valuable testimony from such a monster of cruelty! What an immortality had he to expect?- This is admirably told by M. Naville, a respectable magistrate of Geneva, and an illustrious victim of the massacres perpetrated there by the emissaries of the Brissotine, Gironde, or Country Faction, in 1794; who were not long after overpowered themselves by the Robespierian, or Parisian Faction. When seized, and brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal;—He thus undauntedly and indignantly interrogated his judges; "Who are ye, that pretend to have a right of trying me?—I see none here but usurpers. “Do not imagine, that I mean to degrade myself so far as to wish to move your compassion. I know my death is decided on before hand; and ye know too, that I entertain too lively a hatred of injustice, not to merit the sad but honourable lot of the magistrates whom ye have already destroyed.liberty, which it never was in your power to rob me of, I have supported the slavery ye -Concentrating in my soul a kind of have imposed upon me, [since the destruction of the government of 1792] constrained to see without murmuring the triumphant impunity of crimes." And so powerfully did he defend himself, that one of his judges, in pronouncing his common justice to a "great nation," though a most unhappy: scourged most dreadfully themselves, while made the formidable instruments of scourging others *. Quicquid delirant Reges, plectuntur Achivi. But surely the French Revolution was not fully matured till the murder of Louis XVI. Jan. 21, 1793. This was the overt act that overthrew the old government, and cemented the new with the blood of their hapless king, who was better entitled to be sainted, than most of their calendar: "whom RELIGION ALONE enabled to support the greatest trials with the greatest dignity," as stated by a candid convert from philosophical infidelity, his intrepid advocate on his iniquitous trial, Malesherbes, who soon followed his master to the scaffold. This slight alteration of Mr. Faber's era, from 1792 to 1793, sentence, said to him, "I have two consciences,· -the one of them acquits you as innocent, the other, condemns you to save the Republic."-He coolly replied: "It will then lose in me a great Citizen." After the sanguinary tribunal had pronounced sentence of death; “And I too, cried he, will, in my turn, pronounce that, which awaits you, and all your accomplices. "When enriched by plunder, and become absolute masters of the state, expect not to enjoy in peace the fruit of your crimes. All the curbs that ye have broken through to arrive at despotism, will also be found broken through for you. New Factions will be engendered in the midst of your faction; ye will be engaged in a constant struggle to wrest the authority from each other. Like tygers, ye united to secure your prey; and like them, ye will spill each other's blood in disputing who shall devour it. Thus will ye yourselves avenge the manes of your victims. But they will have ended their days with the consolation of a pure conscience, which lifts the soul to its CREATOR; whereas, on your part, ye will die with hearts bursting with rage; your punishment will be preceded by the most rending thoughts; ye will be plunged in despair for having stained yourselves with the blood of the innocent; and ye will be tortured with the dread of falling into the abyss, which ye have hollowed with your hands; ye will die, without daring to lift up your eyes to heaven!" The whole of this inimitable speech, worthy of the Maccabees, is given by Sir Francis D'Ivernois, in his interesting account of the Revolution at Geneva. It was calculated, in cold blood, by some of the prime agents of the French Revolution, that "to carry it into execution would diminish the population of France, at least, TWO MILLIONS." The calculation has fallen short considerably. It amounted to near a million in the year 1795, (the fourth of the Monstrous Republic,) who were massacred in various ways, by cannonade, fusilade, noyade, or guillotine. These massacres have been followed up by the relentless military conscriptions of Buonaparte, which have desolated France of her youth, and drowned her in tears of parents. It is computed that half a million of French soldiers have perished during the three last years only of the war in the Peninsula of Spain. (1811.) adopted in the course of this work, appears to be justified by some further considerations. 1. The sagacious Fleming, in his Rise and Fall of Antichrist, or of the Papal power, first published in A.D. 1701, distinctly conjectured, that "whereas the present French king (Louis XIV.) takes the sun for his emblem, and this for his motto, Nec pluribus impar; he may at length, or rather his successors in the monarchy itself, at least, before the year 1794, be forced to acknowledge, that in respect to the neighbouring potentates, he is even singulis impar.- -And, perhaps, the French monarchy may be considerably humbled about that time," p. 30, 31, Dublin Edit. 1800. The clue that led to this happy conjecture, though rather fanciful in some respects, is so ingenious, that it deserves to be traced, especially as the author's account is very concise, and requires explanation. 1. The basis of his conjecture is the postulate, that the prophetic period of a time, times, and half a time, or three years and half, or 1260 prophetic days, corresponds to 1278 Julian years, which he thus proves, p. 7—10. Fleming next assumes, that this prophetic period of 1260 years, including the rise and fall of the Papal power, began A.D. 552. "In this year, I find the Pope got a new foundation of exaltation, when Justinian, upon his conquest of Italy, left it in a great measure to the Pope's management; being willing to eclipse his own authority to advance that of this haughty prelate. Now this year, 552, by the addition of the 1260 years, reaches down to the year 1811. [For A.D. 551 + 1260 = 1811.] Which, according to prophetic account, is the year 1794."-Or rather, 1793; if we subtract 18 years, according to the foregoing postulate, from the Julian A.D. 1811, to bring it to the prophetic year. He next tacitly assumes, that the French monarchy synchronized with the Papacy, and that as they rose together, they are doomed to fall together. Fleming's postulate for the reduction of Julian to prophetic years, is fanciful. Prophetic years of 360 days, were, of old, reduced, from time to time, to solar years, by occasional intercalations of the annual 5 supernumerary days; in order to regulate the true seasons of celebrating the grand Festivals of the Passover, Palilia, Nenruz, &c. among the Jews, Romans, Persians, &c. about the vernal equinox, &c. See the foregoing Vol. I. p. 36-43, and p. 49-57. His tacit assumption also is unfounded. For it is foretold, that the ten horns of the Roman beast, in its last stage of empire, "shall hate the Harlot, and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire *," Rev. xvii. 16. • By a sagacious conjecture more congenial with Scripture, Bishop Newton surmised, that "Rome will be finally destroyed by some of the princes who are reformed, or shall be reformed from Popery. And as the kings of France have contributed greatly to her advancement, it is not impossible nor improbable, that some time or other, they may also be the principal authors of her destruction. France hath already shewn some tendency towards a reformation, and therefore may appear more likely to effect such a revolution. Such a revolution may reasonably be expected, because the infatuation of Popish princes is permitted by Divine Providence only for a certain perod, until the oracles of GOD shall be fulfilled," Rev. xvii. 17,) Vol. III. p. 308. Little, however, did, or could the Bishop suspect the paradoxical nature of this revolution: not a reformation from the errors of Popery to pure religion, but a most deplorable degradation from superstition and idolatry to downright atheism and infidelity; and afterwards the restoration of Popery, as an instrument of spiritual tyranny, by Buonaparte. And this more dreadful infatuation, is likely to continue till the time of the end. The three frogs are still the Arms of France, (see Vol. II. p. 169, note ;) and as their croakings against religion and government, brought on the revolution, so are they likely to bring on her final destruction at Armageddon, Rev. xvi. 13, 16. "He that is unrighteous, let him be unrighteous still, And he that is filthy, let him be filthy still," Rev. xxii. 11. And how signally and minutely has this gigantic infidel power, and his vassals compelled by him, the nine horns on the continent, unwittingly fulfilled the prophecy! This modern Charlemagne, was fully invested with the imperial dignity of the Casars, on the compulsory but formal surrendry of the imperial crown and government of the Germanic body, by the Emperor of Austria, August 6th, 1806; and now wears the iron crown, and wields the iron sceptre of the Caesars, by unanimous election. He degraded the Pope to the rank of simple Bishop of Rome; stript the See of all its temporalities, and St. Peter's patrimony, confiscated its revenues of every kind, threw the late Pope, Pius VI. into a dungeon, where he languished and died; and has imprisoned the present Pius VII. in the fortress of Savona, where he will probably continue till his death, or abdication of the papacy in favour of Cardinal Feschi, the uncle of Buonaparte. In the true spirit of Henry VIII. he has completely abolished the Pope's supremacy, VOL. III. S S |