"yard. What could have been done " more to my Vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore. when I "looked that it should bring forth " grapes, brought it forth wild grapes ? Nor is the remainder of this passage less applicable to our own cafe than that I have quoted; fince it contains a menace of impending inflictions: and under the same do we now lie.. Having thus a double call to reflection and amendment; that which flows from what the world have experienced of the certainty of the punishment threatened to the disobedient; and that which springs from having fet before our eyes the denunciation of future plagues, much severer than any that have yet been poured on the earth.

In truth, so clearly is the place which the presnet daies held in the line of prophecy marked as preceding at a very

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little interval the disclosure of God's final judgements on those who destroy the earth, that any must be utterly without excuse, who will not hence take warning to flee from the wrath to come. Of the twelve hundred and fixty years during which the outer court of the temple was to be abandoned to the Gentiles, nearly twelve centuries are already paft. Since the Œra in which I have before stated, authority was given unto the - beast over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations, almost twelve hundred years are now elapsed. The Turkish Empire, of which the removal from Europe is noted by Daniel as to precede almost immediately the gathering together of the Jews, is shaken to its foundation; and yields symptoms of approaching diffolution fo evident and strong, that Mr. Gibbon, after reporting a prophecy said to have been infcribed on an ancient statue in

Conftantinople, that the Ruffians in the laft

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last daies should become masters of that city, fays, " perhaps the present genera" tion may yet behold the accomplih. ment of the prediction." * The papal power is now in that state of decay, into which, it was foretold, it should be brought before its complete destruction

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by the brightness of the coming of " Lord." And this regular and faradvanced progreffion of predicted cir cumstances in the line traced out by the prophets

• Every reader conversant with travels into the Ottoman territories knows, that the inhabitants of them entertain a firm traditional perfuafion, that that empire will finally be overthrown by the Christians. But the following testimony of Volney to their prefent hourly expectation of this event is so much in point that I must produce it here: "It is generally believed to this moment, through" out their empire, that the predicted hour is ar"rived, when the power and religion of the "Mussulmen are about to be destroyed, and the yellow King is coming to establish a new em"pire." Volney's travels, V. 1. C. 3.

prophets forms fo favourable a pledge of their continuing through the small remainder of it, to accord with their words, as to impose on us a moral obligation not to be evaded, to prepare for that awefull confummation, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His prophets fince the world began. +

After

+ Having ventured to state my conjecture, that the time, times, and half a time, at the close of which the end of these wonders will arrive, will be finished at a much earlier period than Newton and other interpreters have supposed; it may be expected that I should more distinctly affign the reasons, which have emboldened me to differ from those, who have gone before me with so much reputation. I therefore request the reader to confider that the possession of the outer court by the Gentiles, and the prophefying of the witnesses in sackcloth, and the reign of the ten-horned beast, are all noticed as to continue the same period; whence we may fairly, perhaps ought necessarily to conclude that the subjugation of the eastern church

After that with which I have closed my lift of predictions already accomplished, the vision immediately proceeds to represent the harvest and the vintage of the