period. A general law upon this subject has been clearly revealed in Scripture history. When the last judgment took place upon the most ancient Church, "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of his heart was only evil continually."[1] When the last judgment was executed upon the Jewish dispensation, its professors in the world had sunk into the deepest hypocrisy; they were of their father, the devil, and the works of their father they would do.[2] So it is found that when the time came for executing the last judgment upon perverted Christianity, the condition of society was a reflex of its spiritual corruptions. This is in strict accordance with the Divine predictions on the subject: for although these predictions, in their internal sense, refer to a cessation of those graces which are proper to the Church, it is plain that such cessation would be manifested in the outer lives and characters of the people: for spiritual causes produce natural effect in correspondence with themselves.
There are, then, and always have been, peculiar conditions in society, when remarkable providential epochs were about to occur. Extraordinary circumstances taking place amongst men, have, by the observant, always been regarded as the indications of something remarkable occurring in their spiritual states. The experience of calamities is commonly interpreted as the visitation of a judgment, and this view is not entirely destitute of truth: they may,
- ↑ Gen. vi. 5.
- ↑ If any should instance the peaceful condition of the Roman empire, and from thence object to this general argument, they are reminded that that peace was little else than the awful stillness which precedes an earthquake. It was the mere appearance of a peace where there was no peace. The empire fell by the atrocities resulting from its ambition, and it has bequeathed to posterity a variety of evidence, proving that peace was no element of its character.
