world, we have of late beheld novelties not much less strange, and out of the course of probability than this. Absolute and universal dominion, freed from the balance of any counterpoise in the possibility of resistance, is wont to be accompanied by caprice much more unaccountable. Political circumstances may conspire to dictate the utility, if not the necessity of such a measure, in a Machiavelian view of things; and the humour of to-day, which is for stripping the daw of his borrowed plumes, may to-morrow veer about with the wind of temporary and variable interest. From a changeable policy, and a spirit of indiscriminate opposition to whatever the hand of time hath spared, and contempt of what the wisdom of our ancestors has established, the great revolutions of modern times have originated.

1

sonal reign of Christ on earth," or intimated, as Mr MEDE's on Rev. xi. 7, that popery shall yet again for a while universally, or very generally, prevail in many or most of these countries and nations out of which it hath been expelled: and archbishop USHER concurred in the same opinion, if that paper called his prophecy may be credited, which has not been disproved. Hist. of Popery, vol, iv. Pref.

The times of late

years

have borne down

with the weight of a destructive torrent, against the tottering foundations of the once towering pride and omnipotence of papal Rome. Charles the great, the first Franco-roman emperor, about the year 800, erected the mighty fabric; and his pious coadjutors as zealously put their hands to the augmenting of the work, and strengthening its newly laid foundations. "For God had put it in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled." (Rev. xvii. 17.) In 1260 years after that time, another Franco-roman emperor may be found to have equally fulfilled the words of prophecy, by as systematically taking it to pieces; notwithstanding a temporary change of that system of policy for three years and a half: for the same hands which built shall pull down-" These shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." (Rev. xvii. 16.)

This temporary complaisance to the head of the church may possibly be not wholly ascribable to caprice, but principle may claim a share in the godly work, of the re-edification of the fallen majesty of papal Rome. For the piety which built up the popedom in the first instance, and acquired the title of the eldest son of the church, was of an equally questionable nature.* And in thus reinstating the pope in his long lost pageantry, and plenitude of persecuting authority for a short season, the will of God, and the truth of prophecy will be equally fulfilled.†

Isaiah (xxvi. 20,) speaks of this period as a little moment, in which, though by the si

The most famous monasteries were built, and largely endowed, and the original and future grants of power and territory made to the church and popedom, upon the principle of a false repentance of the most enormous crimes, and a supposed atonement to be made, by rich donations for the maintenance of superstition, and the increase of idolatry.

† Malachi, i. 4. In answer to the fancied security of their re-establishment, God says, "They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them THE BORDER OF

lent permission of Providence, the grandeur and spiritual power of the beast seems, to outward apprehension, to be set up again upon a firm basis; yet his ruin, and sudden fall for ever is secretly preparing underneath. And thus will the double fall of Babylon, spoken of by Isaiah, (xxi. 9,) as well as St John, (Rev. xiv. 8,)-" Babylon is fallen,-is fallen,"-be literally accomplished. Her fallen, and falling condition at this present time, is visible to every eye; but a second fall, and a far more conspicuous catastrophe awaits her.*

St John has limited this brief period of the triumph of wickedness in the death of the witnesses, to three years and a half. A very little moment, compared with her long reign of 1260 years, before her fall commenced. Then will the arm of the Lord awake, in his threatened vengeance upon great Babylon, and her dependencies; and

WICKEDNESS, and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation for ever.”

*Enlarged upon in section 15.

↑ Isa. li. 9.

Rev. xvi. 19.

he will come out of his place, “clad with seal as a cloak," to the prompt execution of it ;while the blood of the martyrs shall successfully cry to heaven,† and the insulted earth no more cover her slain.‡

If this interpretation of the prophecy of the two witnesses be (for reasons which do not appear to me,) deemed inadmissible, perhaps the other, insinuated above, that the two witnesses here meant are the two Testaments, may be more satisfactory: though it seems highly probable that both may be intended. The Old Testament, which so loudly proclaims the unity of God, and his abomination of idolatry, disseminated the knowledge of God in a great degree all over the world, by means of the dispersion of the ten tribes, and

* Isaiah lix. 17.

Rev. vi. 11. The blood of the martyrs slain by the first persecutors and by pagan Rome, cried to heaven for vengeance upon the bloody city. But Rome christian (or rather papal,) was to exceed even the pagans in the effusion of christian blood, before the ripe harvest should be reaped, and the vintage be gathered, Rev. xiv. 19, 20.

Isaiah xxvi. 21.