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The Romans had alfo their feftivals, and one in particular, which they called " Quinquatria," This was a feftival of five days, as the name imports. like manner, the republic has appointed a festival of five days, and called it les Sans Culotides, and, like the Romans, fpend it in all manner of riot and debauchery. Thus, in direct compliance with the prediction, he has "worshipped," or paid fuch veneration to the policy of pagan Rome, as to revive both her civil and religious cufioms, after they had ceafed upwards of a thousand years, and adopted them as her own,

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Ver. 13." And he doeth wonders; so that "he maketh fire come down from heaven upon the earth, in the fight of men."

Here the prophet foretels, that the revolutionary fpirit of the people of France, or the republic, fhall "do wonders;" fo that the fhall make, or caufe fire (or the wrath of God) to come" down from heaven (or the throne of God) on the earth" (or on France in its ungodly and atheistical state), " in the "fight of men;" or in the fight of the powers and princes of Europe, who were to be the mere spectators of them, without interfering to prevent their magic effects. I have thus tranflated the text into its literal meaning, from other parts of Scripture, where I find the word fire, the most destructive and powerful of all the elements, made ufe of as a fymbol of the dreadful wrath of God *, the word heaven, for the throne of God; the word earth, for a finful revolutionary power, as I have before fhown, from Jerem. xxv. 29, 30. Matth. xxiv. 30, &c.

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With regard to the "wonders" here predicted, it feems impoffible to confider the ftate of revolutionary France, withont perceiving a continued feries of the most wonderful exploits; exploits and their effects fo unnatural, fo eccentrical, and apparently impoffible, that the utmoft degree of credulity, had they been foretold feven years before, could not have been perfuaded, were within the confines of poffibility. Among the variety of thefe wonderful acts, we may reckon the rapid change in the mind of a great nation, confifting of upwards of 25,000,000 of people, enthusiastically devoted to their monarch and to their religion, from zealous loyalty to causelefs rebellion, and from the most ardent fuperftition to the rankeft atheism! the fudden captivity, dethronement, and murder of one of the most powerful monarchs, lately fo beloved by his people, and commanding all the military force in the kingdom; the utter extinction of all the principles of their an cient government; of all the rights of the ancient nobility and clergy; of all civil order and fubordi. nation, which had continued for more than fourteen centuries; and the reduction of the people to a ftate of anarchy, worse than a state of nature! To thefe may be added, the extreme injuftice and oppreffion of new laws, and the abject fubmiffion of the people! the wonderful effects of fraudulent af fignats, and of unjust and arbitrary requifitions, of the properties and perfons of the people! the unprovoked and fworn hatred and declaration of war against all the kings of the earth; their feeble refiftance, and inactive flupor; and the amazing fuccefs of this irresistible enemy; the utter abolition of the national religion, and indeed of all divine truths, and of all the natural and moral obligations, which unite man to the great Author of his exiftence, and man to man! and, laftly, the facility with which a fyftem of atheism has been established in their ftead, and diffeminated

diffeminated its poifonous contagion through the four quarters of the globe!

Such is only a part of the wonders foretold by the prophet, and actually performed by the revolutionary Spirit and power of France! Are we then to be fur prifed, that fuch atrocious deeds fhould be the cause of making fire," or the wrath of God, come down from heaven, even from the throne of God itfelf, "upon the earth?" upon fuch abandoned and daring perpetrators of all manner of evil? or that he fhould withhold his divine grace and protection, and leave a nation, which has impioufly rejected his providence, and even denied his exiftence, to the finful imaginations, or, as St. Paul expreffes it, to the "ftrong delufion" of their own wicked hearts?

What is man, when deserted by his Creator," in "whom he lives, moves, and hath his being *?" when the fear, grace, and Spirit of God, no longer reftrain him from evil? He is more wild, more voracious and infatiable, more fierce and terrible in the gratification of his ambition and his lufts, than the worft of the brute creation! The truth of this reflection has been fully manifefted by thofe party diffenfions, which raged in the Convention itself, in the time of the general maffacre, juftly called " the reign of terror. The moft fierce and unrelenting of the bestial tribes will not devour one another; and yet it was in that period of terror, that the rulers of the republic, thofe demons of revolution, thus forfaken of God, after having wantonly murdered many tens of thousands of their innocent fellow-creatures, turned their fury againft, and murdered one another. Nor did the wrath of an offended God, referred to in the text, end here. It was farther manifefted in

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* Acts, xvii. 28.

thofe

thofe numerous and long-continued tumults, flaughters, and civil wars, which broke out in many of the departments of France, and were profecuted with more than barbarian ferocity and cruelty, until that devoted country became one fhocking fcene of devaftation and blood.

Moreover, thefe judgments, thus reprefented by

fire," are faid, in the text, to come down from "heaven in the fight of men'." The expreffion here, in the fight of men, means, within the view or knowledge of the kings, princes, and nations of Europe, who have been mere fpectators of those dreadful calamities, which God has permitted the frantic and impious rulers and people of France, to inflict upon themselves. But why have they been mere fpectators, and not partakers of thofe judgments? The anfwer feems ftrongly implied in the text; and it is this, that it has been the divine pleafure, in the abundance of mercy, notwithstanding their degeneracy, to exempt them at prefent, from fimilar mifery, that, having been, as it were, eye-witneffes of the dreadful nature of his wrath upon the ungodly, they might reject, with horror, their blafphemous tenets, and licentious practices; and, repenting of their fins, fubmit, in fpirit and in truth, to that holy obedience, which is due from all his creatures to the eternal KING of KINGS, the GOD OF THE UNIVERSE.

Ver. 14. And he deceiveth them that "dwell on the earth, by the means of those "miracles which he had power to do in the

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fight of the beaft: faying unto them that "dwell on the earth, that they fhould make "an image to the beaft which had the wound "by the fword, and did live.”

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In this verse, the prophet foretels a great political deception, which "the beaft of the earth" fhould practife on the people, and points out the particular means by which it fhould be accomplished. And as by this fraud a whole nation, defcribed by "them "that dwell on the earth," was to be deluded, cheated, ruined, it was to be, as St. Paul describes it*, replete with all deceivablenefs of unrigh"téoufnefs;" and of the moft extenfive and mifchievous nature. Let us then inquire by what means the French republic has been reared. And here it will appear, from her own hiftory, that she was generated by artifice and deception, nourished in her infancy, and her conftitution established by frauds, all of them leading to one great fraud, or, as St. Paul calls it," a lie," viz. that there is no God: a fraud fo artful and mifchievous, that it has never been equalled, by any heretofore impofed on mankind, except that which Satan himself impofed on our firft parents, by which they were precipitated from a state of innocence and immortality, to that of fuffering and death. And indeed the analogy is fo ftrong, that St. Paul informs us, when predicting the rife of the fame power, that it fhall come " after the working of Satan, with all power, with figns, and lying wonders." However, we shall compare the two frauds together, that the refemblance may more fully appear.

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We have before feen the republic compared to a" dragon," or ferpent; and we are informed that Satan, in the form of a ferpent, " deceived" the parents of mankind, by perfuading them to violate their allegiance, and fubordination to God, by eating of the fruit of the" tree of the knowledge of good and

*.

2 Theff. ii. 10.
Theff. ii. 9.

† Ibid. § Ver. 1.

Gen. iii. 1-6.

" evil,"

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