afforded to the wretched, who, amidst the distress of nations, have fled to her as their only refuge; the records of her history, her unrivalled constitution, and the noble stand she has often made against the encroachments of civil, military, and ecclesiastical despotism; her vast resources, her commanding attitude, at this moment, among the nations, her religious advantages, and, above all, her extensive agency, as the instrument of divine providence, in spreading the blessings of eternal salvation, through the most distant regions of the world, all conspire to render her lovely and venerable in the esteem of her loyal children.

With this sentiment I deeply sympathize, and have often said, with one of our poets, justly styled the poet of the Millennium,

"England, with all thy faults, I love thee still

My country! and, while yet a nook is left,

Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee."

Thy follies too."

"And I can feel

After a long and painful investigation, during which I have endured mental conflicts, which no language can describe, in opposition to the strongest prejudices, the fondest hopes, and the dearest wishes of my heart, I have been constrained to look, while the tempest has been gathering around us, to the dark side of the horizon. I pretend not, however, to any extraordinary knowledge of futurity. I assume not the character of a prophet, but only that of an humble, a very humble fellow labourer, with those, among whom, beyond all comparison, are ranked the wisest and the best of men, who have endeavoured to interpret prophecy; to the study of which, I hope I may add, without arrogance, I have been devoted from the eighteenth year of my age to this day. All the knowledge that has been derived on this subject, has been drawn from sources which lie open to all mankind, in the lively oracles of God, as corresponding with the signs of the times, in the dispensations of Divine Providence. In those holy oracles, the Creator of the world—the author of revelation, has laid open the rise and progress, the varied fortunes, and final destinies, of all the nations and empires of the world. He has decreed that they shall all perish, and his decree is founded in righteous judgment. For all earthly kingdoms are founded in slaughter, cemented with blood, defended with weapons of destructive warfare, and maintained by maxims of a crooked and iniquitous policy. Insomuch, that were the angel of retribution to proceed from the throne of God, with the balance of justice in

one hand, and the mace of power in the other, to weigh the nations in scales, and to distribute awards accordingly, "MENE, TEKEL," would be written on all their walls, as was once written on the walls of Belshazzar's palace, and like the monarchy of Babylon, they would quickly be destroyed from off the face of the earth. There is, brethren, a righteous God, that judgeth in the earth; who rules the nations in righteousness, and will judge them with equity. His justice demands that they all perish; and he has distinctly pronounced their doom by his servants the prophets. To confirm the truth of this statement at large, by the authority of the word of God, would be to quote one-third, at least, of the sacred volume. David tells us, in the second Psalm, that the Messiah shall break in pieces all nations who refuse to bow to the sceptre of his kingdom, with a rod of iron, like a potter's vessel. Isaiah is very bold and explicit, and his words are very terrible; as it is written in the twenty-fourth and thirty-fourth chapters of his prophecies:-"Come near, all ye nations to hear, and hearken ye people; let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and the inhabitants thereof. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their enemies; he hath delivered them to the slaughter. And the mountains shall be melted with their blood; and all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll."

In order to understand the meaning of this sublime imagery, and that which follows, it will be necessary to remember that, in the symbolical language of prophecy, the heavens symbolize nations and civil governments; that the sun is the symbol of the ruling power of a kingdom or a nation; the moon, of an ecclesiastical establishment, in alliance with the state, whether Pagan, Jewish, Mahomedan, or Christian; the stars of heaven called also the hosts of heaven, of subordinate governors, as rulers of provinces, or rulers of churches; mountains, of empires; and hills, of lesser states and kingdoms; and that the earth is the symbol of the great mass of the population, of which nations are composed, or the lower orders, who are in subjection to the higher powers. According to this mode of interpreting the sacred symbols, laid down by Sir Isaac Newton, in his Key to the Prophecies, the darkening of the sun signifies the extinction of the ruling power of a nation; the confounding of the moon, or the turning of it into blood, the overthrow of the ecclesiastical establishment by sanguinary conflict; the falling down of the stars from heaven, as a fig falleth from a fig-tree, denotes the downfall of subordinate rulers, in the civil or ecclesiastical department; the melting of

the mountains with blood, the dissolution of empires by the ravages of war; the shaking of the earth, denotes revolutionary convulsions, occasioned by popular insurrection, overturning the established order of things, as a natural earthquake subverts cities and kingdoms: and the rolling together of the heavens as a scroll, their passing away with a great noise, signifies the dissolution, the passing off, the annihilation, of the whole civil and ecclesiastical establishment. Under these symbols, the prophets have described and foretold the destruction of Egypt, Babylon, Tyre, Sydon, Persia, Greece, Jerusalem, and the Roman Empire; and, under the same symbols, they have described and foretold the destruction of all the nations and empires that ever have existed, or that now exist, upon the face of the earth. Let us now return, with this key in our hands, to the prophet Isaiah,-"Come near, ye nations, to hear; let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and the inhabitants thereof. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies; he hath delivered them to the slaughter. And the mountains (symbol for empires) shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their hosts shall fall down as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree." And my sword shall be bathed in heaven, i. e. in the political heaven; and the foundations of the earth, i. e. the political earth, the lower orders, in subjection to the higher powers, shall be shaken; for it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion. The earth is utterly broken; the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again. Re-ascending from the political earth to the political heavens, the prophet then adds,-"And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, even the kings of the earth upon the earth. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." Ah! who shall live when God doth this? The words of the prophet Jeremiah are equally explicit, and not less terrible, as you will read in the twenty-fifth chapter of his prophecies:-"I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts; therefore prophecy against them all these words, and say unto them, The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall give

shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. A noise shall come even to all the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with all nations; and he will plead with all flesh; he will give them to the sword, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, behold evil shall go forth from nation to nation; and the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other." These awful predictions have never yet been fulfilled; but they are stamped with eternal truth, and must, therefore, receive their accomplishment. Is the British nation, my fellow-citizens, included among all the nations and kingdoms that exist from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth, or is she not? If she be, she must fall with them; if not,-if she be a mere cipher in the great account, then, indeed, she may escape,-if not, her ruin is inevitable.

There is, indeed, one exception to this general doom, and but one exception, made in favour of the Jewish nation; and the period of their restoration to their own land, and their conversion to their fathers' God, is often mentioned by the prophets, as the crisis of all nations. "Thus saith the Lord, to Jacob whom I have chosen, and Israel my servant, I will surely make a full end of all nations whither I have driven thee, but I will not make a full end of thee; but I will gather thy seed from the east, and from the west, and from all the coasts of the earth; and I will plant them in their own land, and will rejoice over them to do them good, with my whole heart, and with all my soul. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all the nations that are round about. And on that day I will make Jerusalem a burthensome stone to all nations, and they shall be cut in pieces and broken, though all the people of the earth be gathered together." The time when Michael, the prince, shall stand up for Daniel's people, and cause their scattering to cease, shall be a time of trouble to all nations, such as never was since there was a nation until this day. To this fearful crisis of the nations our Lord himself alludes, when he says, nearly in the very words of Daniel, "There shall be tribulation in those days such as has not been from the beginning of the world, no, nor never shall be.”

Besides the idolatry, infidelity, impiety, oppression, injustice, and general depravation of manners, which are mentioned by the prophets as the procuring causes of these exterminating calamities, the cruelties inflicted by the nations upon the house of Israel are particularly distinguished. Hear the voices of the prophets, Haggai and Joel: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, in that day I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I

will destroy all the kingdoms of the heathen, whither my people have been scattered. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: in that day when I turn again the captivity of Judah, and of my people Israel, I will also gather all nations together, and will plead with them for my people, and for Israel my heritage, whom they have scattered among the nations, and whose land they have parted. Behold I will raise them out of the places whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompense upon your own head. Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles: Assemble yourselves, and come all ye heathen, and gather yourselves round about; thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe; come, get ye down, for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes! multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and shall utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake, but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel."-Mal. iv. Hag. ii. Joel i.

This controversy with the guilty nations will be finally decided, by the appearance of the great Messiah, the son of God, in glory and majesty. On this doctrine, we find the most perfect harmony between the prophets of the Old and of the New Testament: "Behold," saith the prophet Isaiah, "behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots, like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For, by fire, and by his sword, will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many." -Isaiah lxvi. "Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate; for the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall be removed out of her place in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. Behold the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof; for the Lord hath spoken this word." "Behold," saith the prophet Zachariah, "the day of the Lord cometh; for I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; (this supposes the previous restoration of the Jews, and the rebuilding of their temple;) then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of