own age; they must have known that the time of Messiah's appearance had arrived; and that Jesus of Nazareth was every day displaying the very traits of character, which their ancient prophets had assigned to the promised Messiah. But they were hypocrites; they did not wish to have evidence of his character; they shut their ears against his doctrine, for it was too scriptural and too pure for their corrupted taste; they' closed their eyes against his miracles; and when they could not deny the facts, they ascribed them to the agency of the devil.

The general doctrine which I draw from the whole passage is this; that it is our duty to know the signs of our own times. It is universally admitted, that prophecy is one of the means which God has made use of in all ages, to keep alive in the world a sense of his providential government, and of his grace and goodwill to the sons of men. It is also universally admitted that there is in the Scriptures a chain of prophecy, leading down from the fall of man to the end of time; that every past age has been edified by beholding the fulfilment of some of these prophecies; and that every future age shall derive edification by the fulfilment of its own appropriate prophecies. We, therefore, in our age, should study the signs of our own times, and compare them with the prophecies of the Scripture, that we may know what is the duty, and what are the prospects of the church of God. This is the subject to which I would at present call your

attention.

On examining the prophecies we find, that there is an age predicted in which the three following events shall occur in rapid succession. 1. The dissolution of

the civil governments of Europe, or to speak more definitely the destruction of those civil governments, which at present exist within the bounds of the ancient Roman Empire. 2. The public abolition of Christianity within the same bounds. 3. The general diffusion of the gospel over the whole world. We live in the dawn of the day when all those things must happen; and when we look up to our morning clouds, we see them surcharged with portentous prognostications, and say it will be foul weather to-day for the sky is red and lowering. I shall produce a few extracts from the prophecies, which foretell the above events; and subjoin to each, a few of the signs of the times, which show that the causes which will produce those events are already in strong operation, and acquiring new force every day. To the whole I shall subjoin some observations on the peculiar ministerial duties of our age. I. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE CIVIL GOVERNMENTS OF EUROPE.

I shall quote what relates to this subject from Daniel's famous prophecy concerning the great image which appeared to king Nebucadnezzar in a dream. After describing the other parts of the image he thus speaks of its legs and feet. "His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet, that were of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, that no And the stone that smote

place was found for them.

the image became a great mountain, and filled the

whole earth."* I refer you also to his prophecy concerning the four beasts, which is found in the seventh chapter.

It is, I conceive, remote from the design of this discourse to enter minutely into the explanation of the prophecies which may be cited, or into any nice calculations respecting the time of their fulfilment. My object is merely to state a general fact; commentators and writers upon the prophecies are agreed that by the feet of iron and clay, divided into ten toes, are designated the ten kingdoms which were formed out the dismembered Empire of Rome. No point, I believe, is better fixed than this. Admitting then, the truth of this interpretation; the prophecy foretells in the most precise and definite terms, that all these governments shall be totally destroyed; that they shall become like the chaff of the summer threshing floor, that the wind will carry them away, and that no place shall be found for them. No language can be plainer. The dreadful crash must take place. And when the image is smitten on the feet, not only will their iron and clay be broken; but the legs of iron, the belly of brass, the breast of silver, and the head of fine gold will be broken together. From the river Tigris to the Atlantic ocean, the judgments of God will fall upon all those kingdoms which have oppressed his church, shed the blood of his saints, or corrupted his gospel. Awful will that day be. Other revolutions were nothing to this. It is not a revolution at all, but a destruction of all government. All existing institutions shall be blown away, like chaff before the wind;

*Dan. ii. 33-35..

never more to be seen or heard of; no place for them shall be found.

I am not concerned, particularly, about the instrument, by which all this is to be effected. Yet, as I shall discuss a subject in a subsequent part of my discourse, which is intimately connected with this, I shall make a few remarks in this place. The stone hewn out without hands, which smites the image on the feet of iron and clay, is, I believe, generally interpreted to mean the christian religion. I can by no means reconcile myself to this interpretation, not merely on account of the harshness and incongruity of the allegory, but mainly because I think the means totally unsuited to the end to be effected. In this view, christianity is to be the immediate cause of overturning all governments, abolishing laws and constitutions, and dissolving human society. I cannot conceive by what mode of operation it could produce any of these effects. It never yet has performed any thing of this sort. On the contrary, it ever has been the cement of every government which cherished it, or tolerated it. The more extensively, the more purely, christianity prevails in any nation, the less is that nation in danger of civil war, and revolution. The religion which teaches magistrates to rule their people with justice and mercy, in the fear of the Lord; and which teaches the people, next to the fear of God, to cherish obedience to their magistrates; which commands them to give honour to whom honour is due, fear to whom fear is due, tribute to whom tribute is due; which enjoins obedience to civil laws, not merely from fear of punishment, but from a conscientious regard to the authority of God; that religion whose

elemental principles are love, justice, gentleness, goodness, charity; that religion which teaches the forgiveness of injuries, and patient resignation to the evils and inconveniences of the human condition; that religion, I say, is not the instrument of destruction to states and empires. It never did, it never will, it never can destroy any association of men, for any moral worthy purpose.

The instrument of destruction is a huge, lumpish stone, hewn out without hands; a stone to which rule or square, or compass, has never been applied; a stone untouched by hammer or chissel, unformed and unpolished by the hand of any artificer. It is an instrument fitted for destruction, and unfit for any thing else. And when it has destroyed every thing, it swells into a huge shapeless mountain, and fills the whole earth which it has desolated; and burdens, and presses it down by its cumbrous weight. But, though enlarged in its base, and towering to the skies, it is still nothing but a stone, a huge mountain of stone. We hear nothing of its verdure, or of its shade: we are told nothing of its pine-clad pinnacles, of its fruitful vallies, of its tumbling cascades, of its vocal groves its flocks and its herds, its hamlets and villages, and happy population, are not hinted at. It is nothing, at first, but a shapeless stone; it becomes nothing, at last, but a huge mountain of stone. It breaks all things in pieces, and grows so large that the earth groans under the intolerable pressure of its weight.

I conceive that this stone is a tremendous atheistical, immoral tyranny, which shall shortly arise; which is to war against the God of all law and order,