Spirit."* Some of them are described as "denying the Lord that bought them;" as denying the Son, and by consequence the Father also, as not confessing, "Jesus Christ come into the flesh."† Some "walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government: presumptuous, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities." "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption." Others of a more sanctimonious cast, though they "deny its power," retain a "form of godliness." "Of this sort," says the apostle, speaking of the "perilous times" of the "last days," are they "which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

Of these it is, in particular, that he says: "Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth," by seeming perhaps, for that to the elect would be most seductive, to produce in the sight of men the most extraordinary effects in conversions, and in the moral reformation of the people, similar to, or more ostensible than, those wrought by the preachers of the truth; yet "they are reprobate"-without a discerning mind

concerning the faith."§ This is their characteristic; and the most charitable in their judgment must acknowledge, that such things are; and are prevailing, more and more. It is not at all improbable, however, that under this guise, the advocates

* Jude, 11.

1 John ii. 18. iv. 1, &c. 2 John vii.

2 Peter ii. 10.

§ 2 Timothy iii.

of the Papacy will prevail in their seductions of Protestants in these last times; but, there are other sects and associations to which we can have little doubt the description applies.

The preaching of the Gospel of the kingdom in all nations is another sign mentioned by the Lord. This is thus symbolized in the Revelation:

xiv. 6. "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of water."

This, I have little doubt, is beginning to be accomplished, by the prospered exertions of Bible and Missionary Societies, in their relation more especially to the heathen world. For the proclamation is described to be to the heathen nations, that did not worship the God who made heaven and earth, &c. And though some who took the lead in these societies chose to set their faces against the expectation of an approaching judgment of apostate nations, and of the appearing of the Lord in glory, and deemed it inimical to all missionary zeal and exertion-thinking to prepare a Millennium for themselves, under the present dispensation, each in the extension of his own community and form of worship; not adverting to the Divine maxim, “a house divided against itself cannot stand:" yet, notwithstanding, as their translations of the sacred

D 2

volume will declare the whole truth, and no doubt many of their missionaries will be enlightened to see the bearing of the word of prophecy upon the times on which we are fallen: the proclamation will go forth, "Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come." And, though instances of individual conversions have not been, and we trust will not be wanting, this I apprehend will be one grand effect upon the heathen world—to prepare them to understand, and to acknowledge the hand of the Maker of heaven and earth, in the judgments which he is about to execute upon the apostate nations of the Christian faith. Nay already, in the remotest regions of the earth, the impression has been made, that great changes are about to take place in the Christian and Mahomedan nations. The epithet 'everlasting,' applied to the "Gospel" of the kingdom, is peculiar to this passage, and seems to intimate the introduction of a dispensation of the kingdom which shall be for ever.

To these events, which prophecy has disclosed as taking place in the latter times, before "the great and terrible day of the Lord" come, we must add another; an event which will produce a considerable change in the constitution of the anti-christian adversary, before he sends forth his armies, for the invasion of the Holy Land; and this, as I observed in the introduction, together with the partial restoration of Israel, stands most prominent in the prophetic vision. It is the occurrence symbolized Rev. xvii. 16.

And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire."

This seems to denote something to take place in the anti-christian empire before the beast and the kings are gathered together with their armies at Armageddon; of course before the body of the beast is given to the flaming fire, and before Babylon, considered not as a city, but as an empire, is destroyed by the immediate judgment of God. The woman here, as we are told in the eighteenth verse, "is that great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth;" and the instrument of her destruction is not He who appears in the great judgment of the nations, but these kings themselves, over whom she had reigned. This seems to denote the overturning of the supremacy and dominion of the Roman Church, which the kingdoms of the western empire had borne for so many ages as a beast of burden: the abolition, perhaps, of the Papal sacerdotal monarchy of the Roman see, the withdrawing of her revenues, and confiscation of her property, it may be with the literal conflagration of her city. The authors of her superstition, however, survive, and still answer to the symbols of the false prophet with the beast to the very last. These events we notice as preceding the coming of the great day. As occurring, therefore, if not before the pouring out of the last vial of judgment, yet before its close.

It is a very general impression among the students of prophecy, as we have before noted, that

we see at this present hour, in the decay of the Turkish power, that "drying up" of "the waters of the Euphrates," which was to mark the pouring out of the sixth vial. The effect predicted is, “that the way of the kings from the east," or "from the sun-risings," may be prepared. Many conjectures are abroad respecting the "kings from the east.” Some imagine the restored Israelites are signified. There seems no analogy afforded by prophetical language, indeed, to fix the epithet directly and absolutely upon them; though, as the time is evidently drawing nigh, a way must be made for that first restoration, and even for that second, of which we have been treating.

On this supposition, however, we cannot determine, whether the Israelites themselves are designated, or some powerful sovereigns of the eastern part of the world, who are to become the instruments of their restoration; and for whom, by the decay of the Turkish and Mahomedan powers, access to the Holy Land in this direction is to be afforded.

And in this point of view, that extraordinary extension of the British empire in that part of Asia, in connection with what has been said respecting the “merchants of Tarshish and the lions thereof," cannot but awaken many conjectures, as to what may be the designs of Providence in the raising up of this novel power in the east, through whose protection we see the foundations of an Apostolic Church already laid on the banks of the Ganges. However this may be in the secret counsels of God, the eyes of all expectants must be intensely fixed on this quarter