But "the Man of Sin" is not only to "exalt "himself above all that is called God, by his un"paralleled impiety, but above all that is worshipped," nothing excepted. Here again the apostle evidently means by the word "worshipped," that refpect and veneration which are paid to men, in a state of civil fociety, to kings, chief rulers, magiftrates, laws, and civil regulations: and these are the objects "worshipped," or revered by men in the focial state. Taking the text in this fenfe, the republic, by her conduct, has fully verified the part foretold. She has denounced all the governments upon earth, as defpotic, and their rulers as tyrants. She has fworn, over and over again, eternal hatred to all kings. She has, by repeated decrees and proclamations, declared, that he would fraternize all mankind into her atheistical "liberty and equa"lity," meaning, into her civil polity: and the has farther given the world warning, that the will never ceafe from the impious project, until fhe has formed it into one great univerfal community of atheistical brethren and freemen; fuch are her vaunting and arrogant menaces. Have not her actions, in a great measure, kept pace with them? She has already, in the course of a few years, carried her triumphs over the Netherlands, Holland, Switzerland, a part of Germany, Italy, and Egypt, overturning, and deftroying their governments, their laws, and civil regulations; feizing upon and dividing their territory at her pleasure; and inftituting a number of inferior republics upon her own impious and deftructive principles, fubject to her own will!

"The Man of Sin" is farther to exalt himself, fo" that he, as God, fhall fit in the temple of God, * fhewing himself that he is God." We often find in the prophecies, that the fame words, and fentences, have a literal as well as an allegorical and fpiritual meaning; and it is often the in

tention

tention of the spirit of prophefy, that they fhould be fulfilled in both. So here the "temple of "God" has a double meaning, which I fhall confider separately. The "temple of God," in a literal fenfe, is a house confecrated to his fervice. The houfe built at Jerufalem, for the worship of God, is fo called, and every church, or confecrated place, is confidered as his temple. Now, however improbable it may feem, that a power fo wicked and depraved, as "the Man of Sin," should take poffeffion of, and fit in, fuch a temple as God; yet the fact has literally been fulfilled by the revolutionary Power of France. For we have feen the whole body of this monftrous Power, proceed from the feat of its authority, with millions of the people in its train, to the church of St. Genevieve, in Paris, long fince dedicated to the worship of the God of heaven, with profeffed defign to exalt itself above him. We have feen it there erafe his holy name from the wall, and then abjure the living God, and his bleffed Son. We have feen it, with inexpreffible and horrid blafphemy, affume the power of creating and deifying a new fupreme god, the fallible and corrupt reafon of man, as the only true God, and light of the world. And we have feen it offering incenfe upon its altar, and proftrating itself in adoration before it, in the presence of millions of the people; thus, according to the literal fenfe of the text, "exalting itself above, and as God fitting in the temple of God, and showing "himself that he is God."

In the figurative and fpiritual fenfe, the temple of God means the rational and immortal part of man. God is a fpirit, and he created man after his own likenefs;" that is, endowed him with

* Gen. i. 26.

a fpiritual

a fpiritual foul, that he might, by his grace and mercy, refide in, prefide over, and govern it, or, as St. Paul has it, "that he might dwell in the "fouls of his people, walk in them, and be their "God.". Hence the fouls of men are called "the "temple of God." Thus St. Paul to the church of Corinth, "Ye are the temple of the living God *;" and in his first epiftle to the fame church, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that "the fpirit of God dwelleth in you? for the temple "of God is holy, which temple ye are.".

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Thus we find, that the temple of God, in the fcriptural fenfe, not only denotes the houfe of God, but also the fouls of men; and to fulfil the prophetic fact, mentioned in the text, in the latter fenfe, the Man of Sin muft" exalt himself," fo that, as "God, he shall fit" in the fouls of men," fhewing "himfelf as God." But when is he to fit in this fpiritual temple of God? Surely not until he shall have polluted it with the darkness and filth of his atheistical errors, eftranged it from God, and difpoffeffed him of it.. For what fellowship can there be between God and Satan? Or, in the words of the apostle, "What communion hath light with dark"nefs? What concord hath Chrift with Belial?: or, "what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” Now, the means by which this great corruption has been effected in the minds of men, have been detailed by that learned and indefatigable fearcher after the truth, the Abbé Barruel, and other historians, of the causes of the French revolution. It is in their labours, that the reader may find the arts, deceit, fraud, falfehood, yes, perjuries, and horrid blafphemies, by which this extraordinary and unparallelred corruption of the reafon and intellectual part of

2 Cor. vi. 16. † Chap. iii. 17, 18.

‡ 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15.

man

man may

be traced from its origin, to its deftructive accomplishment. They tell us, and indeed inconteftibly prove, that it was generated in the dark impiety of modern and French philofophy, nurtured in those dens of fworn confpiracy against all religion, virtue, and truth, the occult lodges of mafonry; and that bottomlefs pit of treafon, impiety, and atheifm, the Jacobin club; and matured and eftablished in the revolutionary republic of France.

Such were the authors of this dreadful corruption of the minds of men. Let us take as brief a view as poffible of the means made use of to accomplish this infernal work; and here we muft principally look up to that unreftrained liberty of the prefs fo much extolled, adored, and defended, by every artful impoftor, who has a finifier and wicked purpofe in his view. Through thefe infernal vehicles, thefe floodgates of evil and mifchief, the fophifters of impiety and blafphemy, in the course of a few years inundated the extenfive regions of France with their fpecious, delufive, though falfe, philosophy, a name cunningly invented to veil the horror of atheifm, of which it was replete: nothing else was read, nothing , talked of, and nothing elfe believed. The darkness and deadly poifon of atheism, gilded over with every poffible art, fraud, and deceit, was embraced by all ranks, by the minifters of ftate, the nobility, the clergy, down to the common peafant; infomuch that the generality, a very few excepted, became more bigotted profelytes to atheism, than they had been before to papal fuperftition; and that people, remarkable among nations for their loyalty, their civil order and peace, forgot every religious, moral, and focial tie. The light of reafon and confcience being extinguifhed, and the revealed word, and even the name of God, effaced from their fouls, what else could fucceed but tumult, anarchy, and uproar?

uproar? Yes, Frenchmen, they did fucceed, and were followed by terror, difmay, and death, until your property was wrecked and left floating upon the great ocean of uncertainty; until your true liberty was deftroyed by the demon of licentiousness; and until your country, overwhelmed by infurrections, maffacres, and the most wanton murders, was made one great field of innocent blood. Upon these measures the revolutionary hydra was erected, and the demagogues of the Jacobin club mounted the throne of French philofophy, atheism, and anarchy. Happy had it been for mankind had this dreadful peftilence stopped in France; but the atheistical defpots of perdition had no fooner felt their power at home, than they refolved to extend it over the whole earth, and to fraternize, or profelyte, the human race to atheism, or to deftroy all that opposed it, as they had done in France. Accordingly their emiffaries have been fent to the four quarters of the globe to diffeminate their doctrines, and to corrupt and lead the fouls of men into everlasting deftruction; and this they have done with no small degree of fuccefs. Swarms of affociated profelytes are to be found in every country in Europe alone there are millions upon millions fo converted; and when their whole number is confidered, it furpafies all poffible calculation; and fuch has been their policy, that, from the moment of their profelytism, they become fraternized into the bofom and protection of the republic, and, by fecret figns, tokens, and the most horrid oaths, devoted to its fovereign will: thus forming, altogether, one immenfe, compact, though invifible, body, united in one vaft league againft the peace, order, and happiness of mankind, and even against the God of heaven-a God from whom they derive their being, and without whofe permiffion they could not exift a moment. In the hearts and fouls of this immenfe body

of