ly supposed to be the same with that, mentioned, Zechariah xiv. 3, 4, 5, x 14. and has been supposed to be a single battle, fought in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, after the return of the Jews to their own land. But nothing can, I apprehend, be more erroneous than this construction. The prophecy has not even a remote reference to the Jews, nor to their country. Its scene is the Romish empire: and its object is, first, the Hierarchy, and secondly, the people governed by it. The name, Armageddon, or the mountain of Megiddo, mistakenly supposed to indicate, that Judæa is the scene of this battle, and the only expression in the prophecy, which can be supposed even remotely to countenance this construction, indicates the contrary. As a symbolical expression, it very naturally denotes the mountain of mourning, as was specified above; because several afflicting events had taken place at Megiddo; particularly the death of Josiah; for whom a singular public mourning was instituted with great pomp and solemnity, and made an ordinance in Israel. In consequence of this event, any remarkable public sorrow, was, among the Jews, proverbially compared with the mourning of Megiddo. Of this a strong instance is furnished by the prophet Zechariah; when he compares the pre-eminent sorrow of the Jews, after their final return to their own land, for their sin in crucifying Christ, to the mourning instituted for Josiah. They shall mourn for him, says the prophet, as one mourneth for his only son; and shall be in bitterness for him, as one is in bitterness for his first-born. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad Rimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

But the word also means the mountain of the Gos

pel, and in this sense denotes a place, or places, where the Gospel has been customarily preached ; a meaning which, as you well know, excludes every reference to Judæa.

As a literal expression, Armageddon can have no meaning. Megiddo was a city in a plain, or flat valley, at the foot of Mount Carmel. There is, therefore, no such place as the mountain Megiddo.

The great day of GOD Almighty denotes here, very obviously, a day of vengeance; a day, in which God will singularly manifest himself; in which his agency will be distinctly seen, and reverentially acknowledged. It is expressly styled a day of war; in which the war is his own, and in which the vengeance will be inflicted openly on his enemies. Accordingly, although these malignant, deceitful spirits, go forth to the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of this great day, it is yet said, that GOD himself gathered them together in a place, called in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon. It is, therefore, a dispensation of his own, in which these profligate deceivers are, unwittingly, instruments of accomplishing his wrath against those wicked nations, for whom it has been treasured

up.

Let us now revert to the history. The European war, which began in the year 1792, has no parallel in the history of man, since the deluge; whether we regard the number of nations engaged in it, the number of armies in the field, the number of battles, the multitude of the slain, the destruction of cities, the depopulation of countries, or the immense ruin and devastation, brought upon the world.

For a long time it was almost a continued succession of battles; generally fought with great obstinacy,

and prodigious slaughter. General Danican, a French officer, declares, that three millions of Frenchmen perished within the first four or five years of the Revolution. Of the inhabitants of La Vendee only, a single province of France, 700,000 fell by the hand of violence. From the close of that period to the present time, thirteen or fourteen years, the number destroyed can scarcely be much less. In the two great battles of Prussian Eylan and Aspern, they lost, within a small number, 100,000. In Spain, and Portugal, they are supposed to have lost 300,000. But the strongest proof of the vast extent of the ruin, so far as France herself is concerned, is found in this great fact; that, notwithstanding the annual conscription, amounting to a prodigious number, the French armies are sensibly diminished; and the Emperor has, for a series of years, been compelled to constitute his forces, in a great degree, of other nations. At the same time he has anticipated, in several instances, both the period of conscription, and the conscription itself. Nothing could prove with more certainty the immeasurable waste of human life in this mighty and populous realm. Accordingly, travellers regularly inform us, that the fields of France are cultivated chiefly by women and old men.

If such has been the devastation of man in the kingdom of France; we cannot but be assured, that the destruction must have borne a melancholy proportion to it in many other countries. The soldiers of Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Batavia, Belgium, Spain, and Poland, have fought in her armies; and shared in the common slaughter. All these countries have, also, together with Prussia, Russia, and Turkey, been invaded by her: some of them several times. Their inhabitants have, through a series of

campaigns, fought against her armies; and the countries themselves have, to a great extent, been wasted and destroyed. In Germany only, it has been computed, between 1 and 2,000,000 of mankind perished by famine, in consequence of a single French invasion. Spain and Portugal have not improbably lost from once and an half to twice the number of the French, who have fallen in their country. Russia and Turkey have sacrificed prodigious numbers of their inhabitants in a war between themselves. Sweden also has suffered deeply. It will be no excessive estimate, therefore, if we suppose 10,0000,000 of mankind to have become victims to this overflowing scourge of heaven.

It is declared in the prophecy, that, these deceivers shall go forth to the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them together to this great battle. The word kings, in this passage, may, with the strictest propriety, be considered as denoting ingdoms. Yet it deserves our particular attention, that the kings and princes of Europe, have, in a far greater number of instances, been personally engaged in this war, than in any other. The emperors of Aus¬ tria, France, and Russia; the brothers of them all; the princes of the house of Bourbon; the king of Prussia, and his brother; several of the British princes; two kings of Sweden; the various reigning princes of Germany, and Italy; and a prodigious number of the nobility of all these countries; have been personally present at these hostilities. All, also, have been allured, or compelled, either directly or consequentially, to this scene of destruction by these abandoned men.

Nor has the dispensation stopped here. The Emperor of Persia has been once engaged by a part of the same men to embark in their great design.Tippoo Saib was seduced to his ruin by their means, Their emissaries have attempted to embroil the Mahrattas, and Seiks, in the contest; and, as there is reason to believe, have raised up a rebellion in China, for the same purpose. Lately they have set on fire the Spanish World, on this side of the Atlantic; and the flame, unhappily, has reached to our own shores.

When, let me ask, were the kings, and kingdoms, of the whole world, ever before embarked in a single war? When was this great globe so agitated to its centre? When, since men were upon the earth, was there so mighty an earthquake, and so great? With what pre-eminent propriety may this be called the battle of the great day of GOD Almighty ?

5. During this period, and several years which preceded it, all the sources, from which the Romish empire derived its wealth, strength, and safety, have been dried up; especially by being diverted into other channels.

All the branches of the Hierarchy have in this manner been withered. The pontiff has been broken down; forced to flee for his life; taken; confined in a prison; stripped of his wealth, power, and dignity; persecuted; insulted; and transformed from the mighty ruler of Christendom, into a poor, dependent, beggared old man. In the same manner have the ecclesiastics in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and Germany, been stripped of their possessions, the sacredness of their character, and their magical influence; and exposed to the inroads of mere brutal