242

YOUR ONLY HOPE IS MERCY.

corroding ulcers, unless removed. The time allotted you on earth is short, and let me earnestly beseech you to improve the remaining hours in preparation for the fate which awaits you. You can not atone for the past, or undo what you have acted. Your only hope is in the mercy of that Divine Redeemer, who died to save the chief of sinners. Bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Abandon that accursed traffic, or it will destroy you. In the solitude of your reflections, think of your victims; think of the woes. you have created, of the widowed ones, and helpless, homeless orphans you have made, and relent. Earnestly seek for pardon at a throne of grace, AND MAY CHRIST HAVE

MERCY ON YOUR SOULS.

CHAPTER XI.

[A SERMON, written by the author, A. D. 1845, in the 70th year of his age, and delivered before a temperance society in Stillwater, Saratoga County, N. Y., and was subsequently published by request.]

THE TEMPERANCE REFORMATION OF THIS NINETEENTH CENTURY, A FULFILLMENT OF DIVINE PROPHECY.

When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.-Isaiah lix. 19.

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman; and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.-Revelation, xii. 15, 16.

THERE appears to be a striking coincidence between the aforesaid predictions. Although the prophets lived at different periods, more than 700 years from each other, yet, by the same spirit of inspiration, they both had the eyes of their mind directed to one and the same far distant period of future time, when a most subtle stratagem of the adversary for the destruction of mankind, would providentially be defeated.

From the above portions of Scripture in connection, it is proposed to illustrate and prove, that Satan's device to destroy the church of God by intoxicating liquors, and the providential Temperance Reformation, which is now blessing the world with sobriety, were subjects of divine prediction by the ancient prophets of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

244

THE ENEMY DESCRIBED.

To render the subject perspicuous, we shall First consider the import of the prediction, divested of its figurative language.

Secondly, consider the chronology of the events predicted.

And, Thirdly, show that the events predicted have commenced existence, and are now in progress fulfilling.

I. Consider the import of the prediction, divested of its figurative language.

In the sacred style of the text, the “ enemy, serpent, and dragon,” are mentioned. These appellations are all to be understood as alluding to one and the same object, which is the devil, the tempter of Eve in Eden; the father of lies; the murderer of souls; the adversary who walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Such is the enemy, the serpent, the dragon! And O what an enemy is Satan! An enemy concealed, armed with poisoned arrows of death; invisible in the light of day; ever awake and vigilant in the darkness of the night, to decoy his victims by stratagems of infernal policy; and never discouraged, though ever so often defeated. This enemy, with all his allied powers and instrumentalities, is ever malignantly engaged in forming devices to defeat the purposes of God; to pervert the whole system of revealed truth; to destroy the Church of Christ; and to rob God of his glory. Hence, Satan may be considered as an enemy to God; an enemy to holiness; an enemy to the church; an enemy to the souls of mankind; and an enemy to every work of God for man's salvation. This

A SYMBOLICAL WOMAN.

245

is the enemy evidently alluded to in the prediction, who is represented as coming in like a flood; and "the serpent that cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood."

By the "woman," alluded to in the text, we are to understand the CHURCH OF GOD. A woman is a common scriptural emblem of the church. Thus, "the bride, the Lamb's wife," is symbolical language, importing the church of Jesus Christ. The church, when spoken of figuratively as a woman, is the mother of all true believers, both under the Jewish and Christian dispensations. Paul speaks of the church under the appellation of "JERUSALEM," styl ing her "the mother of us all," i. e., of all true Christians. The Psalmist says of Zion (the church), "It shall be said this man was born in her." In this sense, the Messiah is represented by the prophet Isaiah as being born of the church. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called The Mighty God." The church derived her origin from heaven as the parent stock, and every true worshiper of God belongs to the spiritual seed of the church.

Hence, by the woman spoken of in the 12th chapter of Revelation, where she is represented as being clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, on her head a crown of twelve stars, who was driven by persecution into the wilderness, and whose destruction was attempted by water as a flood from the mouth of the dragon; this symbolical woman, we are to understand, is set forth in the scriptures

246 DEVICE OF THE ENEMY TO DESTROY THE WOMAN.

of truth as an emblem of the Church of God, comprising those who are heirs through faith in the atoning blood of Christ, to the kingdom of eternal glory.

No object on earth is so much the abhorrence of Satan, as the Church of Jesus Christ, the purchase of His blood and dying love. Hence, for her destruction the enemy comes in like a flood. Every stratagem that infernal malignity can invent; every agency that the spirit of darkness can employ; every weapon of destruction, and method of desolation that falls within the grasp of the enemy's power, is wielded by him against the Church, with the desolating fury of an overwhelming flood.

With implacable enmity, the old serpent, also, is represented in the prediction under consideration, as "casting out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood." And, let it be kept in mind, that in the figurative style of Scripture, the dragon persecuted the woman; that she fled into the wilderness for divine protection; and that the enemy, with increased malignity, pursued the woman to her place of retreat, and there invidiously plotted her destruction, by casting after her water as a flood from his mouth.

Before we reduce these emblems into plain language, let us for a few moments contemplate their figurative import, as the whole scene appeared to the holy apostle through the telescope of divine inspiration. In the inspired history of what he saw, he describes a woman in affliction. To escape the persecuting rage of an inveterate enemy, the poor woman had fled into a dreary wilderness, where she found a place prepared for her residence by the provident