Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

T

APPENDIX.

A LIST of the most prominent, unforeseen, and moft extraordinary Events which have come to pass in the Course of the Providence of God, within the laft twenty Years, and for the most Part are referred to in the preceding Commentaries.

1780.

THIRTEEN colonies, planted, fostered, and defended by one of the greatest nations in Europe, and enjoying every bleffing that reafon could wish for, or heart ought to defire, ungratefully and wantonly revolting into open rebellion against the PARENT STATE, that had given them birth, and often faved them from deftruction..

1781-A great, powerful, and traitorous faction rifing up in the fupreme councils of a great nation, from motives of ambition, and a thirst for riches and power, avowedly inciting those colonies into open rebellion, fupporting them throughout the conteft, and at length compelling the parent ftate to grant them independence, at the moment they were at her feet.

1783. A great independent empire of 4,000,000 of people fpringing out of thofe colonies in the new world, through the treafon of that faction.

1784.-The new empire, for her pride, ambition, and wanton difcontent, her injuftice to her mother-country, and her abufe of the late bleffings of God, was afflicted with his heavy vifitations, firft by a non-defcript infect, never before known*, travelling in fwarms from eaft to weft, overfpreading its fields, and deftroying its ungathered wheat, that staff of life, until the principal wheat countries were obliged to be planted with rye, and other grain, for fubfiftence. And, fecondly, it was vifited by a peftilence, fore indeed, unknown before in that hemifphere; for although the colonies for the most part had been settled an hundred and fifty years, yet they had ever been Lremarkably healthy, and had never experienced any thing of the kind: a peftilence with rapid deftruction in its train, ravaging in a remarkable manner the capital cities, and the feats of government (thofe fources of diffipation and wickedness), from east to west, deftroying thoufands of the inhabitants, and compelling the reft to flee every year from their abodes, to avoid the dreadful judgment, during the course of feveral fucceffive years.

[ocr errors]

1 ... 1.

Paffing from America to Europe, we have feen its kings, princes, with their people, and their councils, thrown into the utmoft confufion, terror, and difmay, under the judgments of a long-forbearing and offended God.

1789.-For inftance, France, through the conspiracy and wicked doctrines of three men principally, found her people confifting of twenty

The Heffian fly, as it was called, from a falfe notion that

the Heffians brought it into the country.

fix

fix millions, perverted of a fudden from faith
in God and Jefus Chrift, into the blackest
blafphemy and atheism, and with them mil-
lions of the people in other parts of Europe; not
excepting many of the kings and princes, and
other great men.

1792. That ancient monarchy of France, which
had stood the test of fourteen ages, and not
more than five years before in the height of
its glory, was now tumbled into ruin, and
became, as it were, the baseless fabric of a
vifion; and a revolutionary republic was efta-
blished in its ftead.

1793. The king of that country, one of the most powerful of monarchs, lately beloved and adored by his people, was fuddenly forfaken, deferted, and betrayed by thofe he esteemed his friends, and obliged to flee for fafety to his enemies; next tried by those that had no right to arraign him, and murdered by those who had given him an afylum, and fworn allegiance to him.

1794.-France next became a fcene of events fo extraordinary, fo numerous, fo complicated, that no language can give any thing more than a faint idea of it. It was one great theatre of action and reaction, without law, juftice, or religion. It was the field of bloody factions, agitated by uncontrolled paffions with as much violence as that of the four winds when they contend on the ftormy ocean for victory. It was the empire of deception, fraud, and confpiracies, and of the most dreadful. uproar and convulfions. It was a land of maffacre and murder, where the innocent and honeft

1 I

[ocr errors]

honeft were cut off without notice, and the adepts in villainy only triumphed; infomuch that its rivers were loaded with human carcaffes, and its water turned into blood; or, according to the hiftorians of the time, it was the land of "terror and death, forming ONE VAST TOMB."

1795. The Stadtholder of the United Provinces was obliged to feek refuge in Great Britain, and a revolution took place in Holland.

1798. The Helvetic union was destroyed, and the Swifs cantons formed into a republic by France,

The arms of the Republic paffed the Alps, ravaged and conquered a great part of Italy, and put an end to the power of the Pope; which had ruled the confciences, and dictated law to the kings and princes of the greater part of Europe, more than twelve hundred years.

1799. The arms of France paffed from Italy into the heart of Germany, when the Monarch of that great empire, trembling for the safety of his capital, accepted of an ignominious peace from the Republic of France.

1801.-All the powers in Europe became hoftile to Great Britain, left alone now without an ally; and the most formidable of them, as Ruffia, Sweden, Denmark, Pruffia, France, and Spain, entered into a league to ruin her; but infpired, as it would feem, by a miraculous fortitude, fhe flood firm and undifmayed amidst the roaring billows. She put her trust in THE KING OF KINGS and THE GOD OF HEAVEN. She doubled her diligence, and prepared to meet her innumerable foes both by land and

« ZurückWeiter »