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be already put under the feet of our conquering Immanuel. But when the whole mystery of salvation will close; when the day of judgment will open, and the dead arise, is not revealed. This no man knoweth nor may know. How long after the defeat of Gog and Magog, before the blessed Jesus will come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe, is not declared. From the state of things which appear to be then fully ripened and brought to a crisis, we may conclude, it will not be very long before he will appear the second time, without sin, for the complete and eternal salvation of his redeemed family.

H.

The Martyrs avenged.

THE astonishing events which distinguish the close of the last century are already considered by some of the most enlightened and pious ministers in Europe, as the commencement of divine judgments for avenging the blood of the martyrs. In the Evangelical Magazine, an excellent periodical work, published under the immediate inspection and auspices of these ministers, there is a review of a sermon upon the death of Louis XVI, where they observe: "There are few instances in which the retributive justice of God has been more evidently displayed than in the late melancholy events which have taken place in that unhappy nation.

"By all the readers of ecclesiastical history it must have been observed, that France has produced a greater number of martyrs and confessors for pure Christianity than all the other European nations. Exclusive of the Waldenses, and Albigenses, the sufferings of the Protestants in that kingdom, from the reign of Francis the First to the period of the Revolution, have been both numerous and extreme.

"When employed in perusing the details of the disastrous transactions of that country, protracted from age to age, we have been astonished at the marvellous patience of God, and his mysterious providence, in seeming to disregard the souls under the alter, of them that were slain for the testimony of Jesus, though they daily cried, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? Now at last, the righteous Jehovah has taken vengeance; and as punishment was long delayed, it has, according to the divine procedure fallen on its victims with the greater severity. Nor should it be accounted presumptuous if we say, that God has marked the transgressors in the punishment he has inflicted. The

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King, the Nobles the Clergy, and the Parliaments of France, who were all united in persecuting the Protestants, do now all share in bitter sufferings themselves. We have seen the Parliaments and nobles annihilated; the Clergy, who were attached to the hierarchy of Rome, driven from their country; and the King put to death. Nor is this all; there is something still more stricking. Those streets of Paris, which on St. Bartholomew's day 1572, ran with the blood of the Protestants, are in the same month, 1792, stained with the blood of some hundreds of Romish Priests: And as the revocation of the edicts of Nantes banished multitudes of Protestants into every country that would receive them, a decree of the national assembly has driven thousands of the Clergy (the chief authors of the sufferings of the Protestants) into every kingdom of Europe that would afford them an asylum. These remarkable circumstances are so obvious to those who study the providence of God, that it is astonishing they should be so little thought of at the present time. Too many, we fear, have reason to charge themselves with guilt for being wholly occupied with the actions of second causes, so as to disregard the work of the Lord, and the operation of his hands." Evangel. Mag. vol. i. 1793.

I.

Delays compensated.

"THE number of the inhabitants of the earth will, doubtless, then be vastly multiplied, and the number of redeemed ones much more. If we should suppose that glorious day to last no more than a thousand years, and that at the beginning of that thousand years the world of mankind should be just as numerous as it is now, and that the number should be doubled, during that time of great health and peace, and the universal blessing of heaven, once only in an hundred years, the number at the end of the thousand years would be more than a thousand times greater than it is now; and if it should be doubted once in fifty years (which probably the number of inhabitants of New England has ordinarily been in about half that time) then, at the end of the thousand years, there would be more than a million of inhabitants on the face of the earth where there is one now; and there is reason to think, that through the greater part of this period, at least, the number of saints will, in their increase, bear a proportion to the increase of the number of inhabitants. We shall be very moderate in our conjectures, if we say, it is probable that there will be an hundred thousand times more, that will actually be redeemed to