the are inflamed under the mask of loyalty and of attachment to the monarchy. They remonstrate with force and elevation against every measure that tends to the prejudice of the provinces they protect. They can go no farther; but they await the moment to strike the blow that shall lay the fabric of despotism in ruins! When this blow is struck, the effects of it will be equal to those of magic; the cottage will be put on a level with the palace; the peasant with the prince; ranks shall be confounded; titles, distinctions, and birth, shall tumble into an undistinguished heap of confusion; a new moral creation shall strike the view of an admiring universe, and France, like old Rome in her first flights to empire, shall appear with the sceptre óf universal dominion bourgeoning in her hands. Out of universal confusion, order shall arise; the great, of nature's creating, will assume their places; and the great, by title and accident, will drop despised into the common mass of the people."

This article, written nearly thirty years before the French revolution, shows it was not difficult to observe the crisis towards which that nation was so rapidly hastening. Frivolity, dissimulation, and blind submission to the female favourites of the court, were the sole guides to promotion and honour; whilst talents and integrity

availed not, but were injurious to their posses who were either kept in awe, or the open aisplay of their feelings checked, by towers, messengers, and informers; and this, though it served for a time to smother the spark of patriotism, caused it eventually to burst forth with the most overwhelming violence, having, in its own defence, been obliged to add to its bulk, those inflammable and destructive materials-an oppressed and infuriated mob.

Prediction of St. Cesaire, Bishop of Arles in 542. Taken from a book entitled Liber Mirabilis, which has been verified at the King's Library at Paris, where is an unique original.

THE administrators of France shall, at a future and distant period, be so blinded, that they shall leave it without defenders; the hand of God shall extend itself over them, and likewise over all the rich; all the nobles shall be deprived of their estates and dignities; a division shall spring up in the church of God, and there shall be two husbands, the one true, and the other adulterous: the former shall be put to flight. There shall be a great carnage, and as great an effusion of blood as in the times of the Gentiles.

The uni

world. 2d, That Mystical Babylon, or the great Whore, described there, doth signify Rome in an Antichristian Church state. 3d, That, therefore, this cannot be Rome pagan properly, but Rome papal.

The verity of our holy religion is proved from two things principally, viz. miracles and prophecy and both these arguments have been excellently improved by learned men. But yet, as the first of these was perhaps the principal and most convincing topic to those that lived in our Saviour's days; so I look upon the second to be the most considerable to those who live in after ages.

It has been a very ancient opinion, that the world would last only six thousand years; that, according to the old traditional prophecy of the house of Elias, the world should stand as many millenaries as it was made in days; and that therefore, as there were two thousand years from the creation to Abraham, without a written directory of religion, and two thousand from thence to Christ, under the old economy of the law, so there would be two thousand years more under the Messiah. So that after the militant state of the christian church is run out, in the year 2000, it is to enter upon that glorious sabbatical millenary, when saints shall reign on the earth, in a peaceable manner, for a thousand years more.

* See Rev. xvii. 1. 5. 18.

And now I hope I have said enough of the future part of time, as to the general idea which I think the Revelation gives of it. But I must proceed one step farther with you, and consider under what revolution of time we are at present, that we may thence see what we are to expect.

Now, in order to this performance, I must premise this one thing, viz. That the seven seals, trumpets, and vials (in which is contained the order and series of the whole apocalyptical prophecy, and to the explication and illustration of which all the other particular visions are subservient), that I say these are joined together by the link of the seventh seal, doth, as it were, produce or include the seven trumpets, and the seventh trumpet the seven vials in the same manner.

And, 1st, as to the remaining part of this vial, (speaking of the fourth), I do humbly suppose that it will come to its highest pitch about A. D. 1717, and that it will run out about the year 1794. The reasons for the first conjecture are two. The first is, because I find that the papal kingdom got a considerable accession to its power upon the Roman Western empire's being destroyed, A.D. 475, to which the Heruli succeeded the year following, and the Ostro Goths afterward. Now if from this remarkable year we begin the calculation of the 1260 years, they lead us down to A. C. 1735, which, in prophetical account, ist this very year 1717. The second is, because

(as I have many years ago observed) this year leads us down to a new centenary revolution; so that there is ground to hope, that about the beginning of another such century things may again alter for the better; for I cannot but hope, that some new mortification of the chief supporters of Antichrist will then happen, and perhaps the French Monarchy may begin to be. considerably humbled about that time that whereas the present French King takes the sun for his emblem, and this for his motto, Nec pluribus impar, he may at length, or rather his successors, and the Monarchy itself (at least before the year 1794) be forced to acknowledge, that (in respect to neighbouring potentates) he is even singulis impar.

But as to the expiration of this vial, I do fear it will not be till the year 1794. The reason of which conjecture is this, that I find the Pope got a new foundation of exaltation, when Justinian, upon his conquest of Italy, left it in a great measure to the Pope's management, being willing to eclipse his own authority to advance that of this haughty prelate. Now this being in the year 552; this, by the addition of the 1260 years, reaches down to the year 1811, which, according to prophetical account, is the year 1794. And then I do suppose the fourth vial will end, and the fifth commence by a new mortification of the Papacy, after this vial has lasted