the survivors of the second woe did not repent, but persisted in their idolatries and abominations, Rev. ix. 23, 21.

Mr. Faber's" assumption" evidently originated from his including the account of the expiration of the second woe, xi. 14, in the codicil; which necessarily belongs to the sealed book; as shewn before.

II. The scene of this last persecution has been much disputed. The learned Bossuet admits that "the great city is Rome, and its empire." And he adds, "It is literally true, that JESUS CHRIST was crucified there, even by the same Roman power.” It is also symbolically true, that this great city, both as the seat of Pagan and of Papal empire, resembles "Sodom," in her impieties and abominations; and " Egypt," in her cruel persecutions of the true Israelites. A later Romish writer, indeed, Walmsley, applies it to Jerusalem, where CHRIST was actually crucified. But Bossuet's interpretation is greatly preferable, for correctness and candour, "The great city" is twelve times applied to Rome in the Apocalypse, but never to Jerusalem, which is styled, by way of contrast, "the holy city," in this very prophecy, which represents her as now actually desolate, "given up to the Gentiles," and trampled upon, during this whole persecuting period of 1260 days, xi. 2, corresponding to the latter part of Daniel's 2300 days.

There is, therefore, abundant reason to dread, that as the Jewish and Roman persecutions of the witnesses "began with the house of GOD," Stephen, James the elder, and James the LORD's brother, Paul, Peter, &c. as Peter himself foretold, 1 Pet. iv. 17, so will they end with the house of GOD, under the reign of bigotry and infidelity; this is an obvious and impressive analogy.

Having now determined, that the last persecution of the witnesses is to take place within the precincts of " the great city," or territories of the Roman empire, it next remains to endeavour to trace the particular scene.

This is called "the street of the great city;" the article (rns Tλaraç,) expressing eminence, ver. 8. We are afterwards told, that (TO SEKαTоv,) "the tenth of the city fell," in the ensuing (το δέκατον,) judgment and earthquake, ver. 13, whence we may collect, that the persecution will take place in one of the ten kingdoms into which the city, or Roman empire was split. Of these, the most

eminent for pure and spiritual religion, is unquestionably Great Britain, where the remnant of the faithful witnesses, that have survived the dreadful persecutions of that infidel power which is now ravaging the continent, may be considered as collected, in the only secure asylum for religion and liberty, now left, alas! almost on the whole face of the globe. For where else are we to look for them?

Apparent RARI nantes in gurgite vasto !

If we look eastwards to Asia, whence the light of the Gospel dawned on mankind from THE DAY SPRING on high; how is the glorious Church founded by CHRIST and his Apostles, fallen! the skeleton remains in the Greek Church, indeed, but we hear of no spiritual witnesses there, no hidden seed, no chosen generation, to worship in the spiritual temple, and serve at the spiritual altar, since the establishment of Islamism; they remain plunged in the same superstitions as the Latin Church, though resolutely denying the Pope's supremacy.

In

If we turn our eyes to Europe, we find some witnesses in every age almost, who have prophesied in sackcloth, and lift up their warning voice against the corruptions of the Church; especially in the British Isles, from the days of Wickliffe. the north, the Russian Church is the Greek, which unfortunately too much resembles its sister in Asia. In Denmark and Sweden, the reformed Churches are subsisting, but do not appear to flourish; and their connexion with France at present, is ominous to their religion, as well as their liberty. In the south of Europe, the witnesses are prostrate, and expiring!

If we look across the Atlantic, westward to America, in the southern states, Popery and Quakerism, or mysticism, prevail; in the northern, Presbyterianism chiefly, overrun by an extravagant fanaticism. The Church of England, that purest branch of the Reformation, has there but a scanty footing, and the faithful witnesses throughout the whole new world, are few, and their voices scarcely heard, stifled by the multitude of jarring and discordant sects which there abound, promoting scepticism, and infidelity, and profligacy.

If we turn our eyes southward to Africa, where Christianity once took considerable root, from the streights of Gibraltar to the Nile, it has been completely extirpated by Islamism and Paganism.

To England, therefore," the tenth," as the only remaining asylum of the witnesses, we are compelled to look for the scene of their last persecution, and principally to her street, or most populous region, as contrasted in Scripture with the “lanes,” (Luke xiv. 21.)—" THOU hast taught in our streets, O LORD!" (Luke xiii. 26.)—And " the street †," by way of eminence, may chiefly denote the metropolis of the British empire, LONDON and her environs, that greatest seminary of religion and virtue, as of irreligion and vice. Where, we verily believe, there are to be found more intelligent and enlightened witnesses, to suffer persecution, than in all the rest of the world; and a multitude of bigots, infidels, and fanatics to inflict it; (even independently of the desolating fiend of the continent,) and where, from her boundless commerce, " spectators" cannot be wanting" of peoples, and tribes, and languages, and nations," from the four quarters of the globe. The resemblance, indeed, is so striking, in all the parts, that though we shudder thereat, and deprecate the catastrophe, we are forced, most reluctantly, to confess and maintain it.

However gratifying, then, it would be to our own, and the public feelings, to say that " England is secure," that " Great Britain and Ireland have nothing to fear" from this fatal persecution of the witnesses, we dare not "prophesy smooth things," nor "prophesy deceits," (Isai. xxx. 10.) "Because THE LORD is against the prophets that smooth their tongues, (Jer. xxiii. 31,) and "woe to the prophetesses that see visions of peace," and "sew cushions under every elbow,” (Ezek. xiii. 16-18.)-These countries, and their established Churches, we are strongly and irresistibly persuaded, have still much to endure, much to suffer, under the ensuing vials. Though we humbly trust they will pass through their last trial, like gold, purified and refined in the furnace of affliction.

These interpretations of rηs #λarelaç, Rev. xi. 7, and тo dɛkarov, xi. 13, as judicious and interesting as they are new and ingenious, we owe to the pious and learned author of Remarks on Mr. Faber's Dissertation on the Prophecies, Supplem. p. 20—24, shewing the incorrectness of rendering the former "the market place," which is expressed by a different term, ayopa.

See the above note.

That "THE GOD whom we still serve, and in whom, from his past deliverances, we trust, that He will yet deliver us," has still blessings in store for our most highly favoured Church, we presume also to infer, from the honourable mention of England's morning star, John Wickliffe, as the first angel of the Reformation, both in Daniel and the Apo

8

The seeds of decay in our established Churches especially, have been long since sown, and seem now to be ripening fast to maturity.

Those early pillars of Protestantism, the immortal Jewel, Whitgift, Hooker, and Mede, foresaw, and deprecated the fatal effects of the spoliation of ecclesiastical property, by the Crown and the Laity, which disgraced the beginnings of the Reformation in the days of Henry VIII. and first days of Queen Elizabeth. (See the foregoing article on the maintenance of the Church.)

Since their time, the alienation of that branch of the ecclesiastical revenues, appropriated to the building and repairs of Parish Churches, has occasioned a great dearth of such, to keep pace with the increasing population of the country. "My PEOPLE are destroyed for lack of knowledge," (Hos. iv. 6.) And for want of Churches, for the poorer classes especially, to whom public worship is most necessary, to supply the defects of their education, private chapels, meeting houses, and conventicles, have encreased to a prodigious degree; and to such, not only the lower classes eagerly flock, but too many of the upper also, fond of novelties.

The commendable indulgence of the Government to freedom of religious opinion in this free country, gave rise to the Toleration Acts of 1st of William and Mary, and 19th of George III. for licensing dissenting teachers, merely upon taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and signing the declarations, before the general or quarter sessions. But this indulgence has been grievously abused of late years, by adhering to the letter of these acts; persons of the descriptions of blacksmiths, chimney sweepers, taylors, carpenters, weavers, excommunicated clergymen, &c. without education, or learning, religion, or morals, ignorant and profligate men, tired of the laborious professions to which they had been bred, and eager to practise the easier trade of imposing on the credulity of the vulgar, and to be exempt from serving in the Militia, have obtruded themselves, presumptuously and self-appointed, into the sacred functions of the

calypse. We consider it as the glory of this work to have brought him from the shade to public view, and admiration and imitation.

ministry; obtaining licences with too much facility, in violation of the spirit of the acts, to teach any doctrine they thought fit, provided it was not treasonable. By this flagrant and novel abuse, the number of meeting houses, which, in the first fourteen years of his Majesty's reign, amounted to only eight, in the next fourteen were encreased twenty fold; and at present, (1811,) there are no less than 3000 dissenting places of worship in the kingdom, besides barns, private houses, &c. while of the established Church there are only 2310.

To correct such abuses, and explain these acts, a distinguished statesman, and leading peer of Parliament, Lord Viscount Sidmouth, (to whom and to Earl Stanhope, we owe the foregoing authentic statement) laudably brought in a bill, (May 1811,) to restrain the grant of licences for dissenting teachers, to persons either in holy orders, or who have already taught a congregation; and who can also produce six respectable and religious witnesses to the correctness of their religious opinions, and moral conduct. He suggested also, the expediency of encreasing the number of the established places of worship, for the benefit of the encreased population of the country. May such pious and patriotic endeavours be ultimately crowned with success! Under GOD, they may contribute to retard, if not to prevent, the ruin of the country *.

In IRELAND the prospect is more gloomy. There the spoliation of ecclesiastical property, has been carried on upon a larger scale, and upon a more systematic plan, by all ranks and descriptions, ever since the Reformation. Not only the funds for building and repairing Churches have been alienated, but great inroads made on the glebes and tythes of the Clergy. Insomuch, that for peace sake, they have gradually relinquished many tytheable articles, still paid in England, and the remnant that is left, is every day depreciated by inadequate moduses, or fixed pecuniary compositions, which, though formerly near the value of the tythe in kind, are every day diminishing, with the value of money, under the real value. This has made it neces

* Since the above was written, we learn, that this seemingly salutary bill has been withdrawn, for the present, in consequence of the violent and general opposition of the Dissenters, by petitions from all quarters; resisting, as they say, the beginnings of innovation. Until it shall be reproposed in a less questionable form, they are imperiously required to reform themselves abuses so disgraceful to them and so detrimental to the community.