consideration of this subject at all, were I to deduce from the history of what is past those manifest proofs which abound therein, and which show how true and faithful God has been to his gracious word. He hath, indeed, never left his Church without witness; and so the Saviour hath abundantly fulfilled his parting testimony, "lo, I am with you alway, even

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unto the end of the world." (St. Matth. xxviii. 20.) The peculiar providences by which he hath accomplished this merciful promise are visibly displayed to every honest inquirer into the history of the Church of Christ, from that day to the present; and to its sufficient manifestation in the page of history I must now be content to refer you. Minor opposition to these gigantic powers, interspersed amid the records of the past, will bring you down to the glorious æra of the Reformation, an epoch in the history of the Church of Christ wherein every enemy to the pure doctrines of the Cross, with Roman Catholicism at their head, received their death blow. For though the opposition was primarily made, in the acquirement of true knowledge, to the papistical usurpation; yet so much was the world thereby enlightened, that the way

was quite paved for the discovery of all error, Papistical, Pagan, or Saracenic, and ultimately for its utter extirpation. When the imposition of the See of Rome, lording it so long over God's heritage, was discovered, and the glorious champions of the faith, and martyrs in the cause of Christ, bared their arms to fight against it; Satan's reign was threatened, not merely as exercised in papal sovereignty and vaunted infallibility, but as ruling in the influence of pagan darkness, and Mahommedan imposture. Since that period, with violent interruptions from the enemies of the Lord, each power that has opposed "the kingdom of

our God, and of his Christ," has continued to decline, if not in some instances in measured acres of territory, undoubtedly in opinion and feeling in the hearts and understanding of mankind.

Had the errors of the papal tyranny, cramping the minds of the infatuated victims to its power, and enriching the coffers, and contributing to the real luxuries and external austerities of a secularized priesthood, had these errors been earlier examined, they would have fallen earlier. But that men dared not to do. The reign of a spiritual usurpation was complete;

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and ruled the thoughts, as well as influenced the writings, of the few who thought at all. But "God said, Let there be light; and there "was light." When the Bible was examined, truth beamed forth from the Bible; and the nations gradually resumed their Christian privileges, and soon found that it was not the priestcraft of a secular Church, concealing matter which they dare not teach, and enforcing observances which God hath not commanded, that could satisfy the soul in itself lost, and by no papistical indulgence to be forgiven; but that the soul could be satisfied only by "the holy Scriptures, which are able to make" men "wise unto salvation, through faith which "is in Christ Jesus." (2 Tim. iii. 15.) Since that revival of Christian knowledge dawned upon the Christian world, the errors of the papacy have been gradually dying away. Even in Catholic countries, with but very few exceptions, the fall of the once unbounded power of this Antichrist is visible to every one. Errors grounded upon ignorance must vanish, as knowledge resumes its proper office. office. But in Protestant countries, where Roman Catholicism is tolerated, under that Christian spirit which allows every man's conscience its proper liberty

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herein, so much is conceded by the members of the Roman Church of its errors now manifest to all, that they would seem almost disposed to make it appear that Roman Catholicism and Protestantism were one. In this concession we have a strong argument to prove the great decrease of its influence and authority, though it cannot nullify, as a vindication of that false Church itself, its still existing formularies, its missals, and its decrees.. To these we must go for the real character of that Church, and not to the altered opinions of her better taught members. Unchanged, and in herself unchangeable, she still remains; she changes not, according to the sure word of prophecy, for reform as a Church; but persists in error until her final and eternal ruin. In the mean time modern recantation of those among her members who still hold to her communion, of many of her most false and absurd positions, is the argument of our day that her influence wanes fast. Were the bold avowals of those members of the Church of Rome who live in Protestant countries, or who live as a nation with their national Roman Catholic Creed by general consent weakened and relaxed, were they to live as now they live, and avow what now they

avow, in countries where their priesthood still bears unlimited rule, we know where an inquisitorial power is lodged which would make them victims to concealed torment, and show them that they were unacknowledged sons of a Church which they had belied.

And while I thus lead your thoughts to the visible display of Almighty Power in the manifest decrease, in our day, of the longestablished errors of this anti-Christian power, I have but to refer you to the present position of those countries where the imposture of Mahomet still prevails, as pointing to the same. result. Large, indeed, those countries are in territorial extent. But so surrounded are they now becoming with the bright beams of Gospel truth breaking in upon their darkness on every side; so visibly is this leaven beginning to work among many of them; so glaring are their absurdities in every thing connected with their Koran Creed; so weak and insignificant are they in the scale and influence of nations, that we have argument enough before us to believe of Mahommedan usurpation that its reign is now verging to its end. It is not with the religion of Mahomet, as it has been with the decrees and power of the Vatican. This