says will come quickly after the French revolution, if 1 am right in my explanation of the two witnesses. It is morally certain that the word of God is not now in an obscure state; it is not hid from the world, neither is clothed in sackcloth. It is true that many voices have united in the Bible societies to spread the knowledge of the word of God; and that it is translated into about all the known languages in the world. It is almost absolutely certain that the French people are the nation that is compared to Sodom and Egypt, in the passage we have been examining; and likewise the earthquake spoken of is the French revolution. Then if the two witnesses are the Old and New Testament, we are certain the third woe is coming quickly, and the seventh trump must shortly begin to sound, as I have already proved in my lecture on the trumpets, in the year 1839. You have undoubtedly seen, my friends, that we are likewise brought down to the judgment, when God will reward the righteous, and destroy the wicked, who have persecuted the saints and trampled them under foot.

And once more let me inquire how it stands with you, my dear hearer. Are you prepared for that great and solemn day? Are you ready to meet the judgment? The two witnesses will appear for or against you. Their testimony will not fail. Do you believe them? He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned. "The word that I have spoken," says Christ, "the same shall judge you in the last day." Why will you not be warned? If half the evidence that I have brought of our being on the end of this dispensation, was brought to prove there was a great treasure hid in your field, how soon would you search and how diligently would you seek until you found it!

In this book, of which we have now been speaking, are durable riches, gold tried in the fire, seven times purified. "Search for it as for hidden treasures; scek and you shall find." Can you tell me where the word of God, the Bible, has failed of being accomplished literally, and in the time specified? Many events have been foretold, the times given, and not one failed. How can you disbelieve? How can you shut your eyes

your hearts convicted that what has been declared concerning the two witnesses, in this discourse, is true. And if so, your reason must teach you that what follows under the third woe must be equally as true. "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth."

LECTURE XIV.

REV. xii. 6.

And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

THE history of the church, in all ages of this present world, is but a history of persecution and blood, when we follow her through all dispensations from Adam to Moses, and from Moses to Christ; so likewise from Christ's first coming down to his second appearance, the church have experienced, and according to the whole tenor of Scripture, must expect to realize from the kingdoms and men of this world, this one promise at least, "In the world ye shall have tribulation." These facts are so plain and obvious, that it has given rise to a common saying among almost all writers, that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church." Yet there is a bright side to her history; for she has come out of all her persecutions more purified, more faithful, and with more energy, to prosecute the work her divine Master has left her to perform. And one other thing is certain — God has preserved her, whether in the wilderness or among the nations of the earth, in an extraordinary and miraculous manner; even her enemies themselves being her judges. Where has a kingdom stood when all the nations about them have conspired their overthrow? Where is the Assyrian and populous Nineveh? Where is Chaldea, the queen of nations? Where is the Grecian empire, once the colossus of the world? Where is imperial

Rome? Gone, gone, by the power of earthly foes. But behold the church of Christ and of God, delivered first from Egyptian bondage by the mighty arm of the God of Jacob, led by miracles through the wilderness forty years, brought into the promised land, although all the nations of the earth were her enemies, preserved as a nation through the rise and fall of mighty empires, and experiencing a reverse of fortune only when she courted the aid of worldly kingdoms, or suffering diminution only when she adopted the more popular worship of heathen idolatry. Yet in her lowest estate, God told his servant the prophet, that "he had reserved seven thousand that had not bowed the knee to Baal." And if men would reason on the subject of religion as they do on other subjects, there could not be an infidel in the world. For nothing is or can be more manifest than the miraculous interposition of Providence in the preservation of his people through the most severe trials, heaviest afflictions, and deadliest hatred of all men, that men or societies ever endured.

Our present discourse will show us the history of the church by prophecy, through the darkest age the church has ever been permitted to experience since the days of Abraham.

I. I shall show what we may understand by "the woman " in our text.

II. I shall show what we are to understand by the great red dragon and beast.

III. I shall give the history of the woman given in the chapters of our text.

IV. The time specified in the text, 1260 days, their beginning and end.

I. What may we understand by woman in our text?

I answer, We must understand the people of God, in all ages of the church, whether among the Jew or Gentile: she is called a woman because she is the spouse of Christ; she is likewise called a woman because of her dependence on Christ for all things. As a man is the head of the woman, so is Christ the head over all things to the church, says the apostle. As the woman depends on her husband for a name, for food, and for raiment, so

likewise the church on Christ, for a name. "And thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name," Isa. lxii. 2—5. "And they were called Christians first at Antioch." For food, our text says, "that they should feed her there," &c. The prophet Isaiah says, xl. 11, " He shall feed his flock as a shepherd." John vi. 53, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." For raiment, the psalmist, speaking of the church, says, "She shall be brought to the king in raiment of needlework; her clothing is wrought gold." The angel to the seven churches says, "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment." And again, "I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God, out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." This shows conclusively that the people of God are compared to a woman. now let me show,

And

II. What we may understand by the great red dragon and beast that persecuted the church, or woman that fled into the wilderness.

The red dragon is the same power as Daniel's fourth kingdom, the Roman, for the description is the same, having ten horns; his character, too, is the same. Daniel says he should break in pieces the whole earth, and stamp the residue with his feet; that he should work deceitfully, &c. John says that the dragon drew a third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth, and that he deceiveth the whole world. The Roman government, then, must be the apocalyptical red dragon beast, having seven heads and ten horns. The Roman power is called red, either because of their persecuting and bloody spirit, or on account of their emperors wearing purple robes, when dressed in state; either might be sufficient to entitle them to the appellation "red." "Dragon" is undoubtedly given the Roman government from the fact that the Romans changed their forms of government so often, having seven different forms in about five hundred years, and from their deceitful, cunning, intriguing manner by which they obtained power over the nations around them, that they