Constantine, or the opening of the first seal. As hath been already noticed, this, and the three following, were, in their general principle, homogeneous, presenting us in regular gradation, in four distinct eras, the general view of the progress of outward Christianity, from its victory over paganism, to its utmost corruption and degeneracy under the papal usurpation. But the Reformation was of a character altogether new; it was the victorious struggle of better principles, the re-action of Gospel truth and light over the prevailing error and darkness, ameliorating the whole surface of society, producing new habits of thought, and extending its most beneficent effects and saving influence to the most distant parts of the globe. It was a tremendous, and to a very great extent a successful attack on the power Satan in his stronghold of popery, the western "little horn of Daniel," throughout the whole of the Latin empire; and it was a change, great as it was, brought about by such humble instruments, that they are not even named or hinted at. It was a silent unexpected blow from a quarter from which of all others no apparent danger to the apostate power of Rome had, or could have been, apprehended.

of

There had been nothing at all like it in the world, since the first propagation of the Gospel, when God chose the weak things of this world in the persons of the twelve Apostles, and the first preachers of the Gospel, to demolish the paganism of the heathen world. He now chose similar instruments to bring to the ground the paganism of the Christian world:

He chose LUTHER, an obscure monk, endowed him with the most extraordinary qualities for the great work he had to accomplish, gave him a deep and wonderful insight into the essentials of divine truth, anointed his soul with an extraordinary unction of the divine Spirit; and thus armed, sent him forth to contend with the abounding error, and darkness, and iniquity, supported, as this state of things then was, by all the power and authority of the kings and great men of the earth. A host of similar men, led on and encouraged by his great example, likewise appeared in Germany, Switzerland, England, and more or less in the other western nations, and boldly preached the truth as it is in Jesus-and great was their success.

And it is to be remarked, that this wonderful prosperity in the preaching of the Gospel was not effected whilst Satan held his sceptre now, any more than in the times of the heathen emperors, in weak and feeble hands. As if more decidedly to display the all-conquering power and efficacy of the Word of God, dispensed in its simplicity and plainness, unadulterated by man's wisdom and traditions, it was so ordered that the throne of the Cæsars, the successor of Augustus and Constantine, should, at this time, be filled by the emperor Charles the Fifth, a man, who, besides his shining abilities, inherited more dominions than any European monarch had done since the time of Charlemagne. That likewise Francis I. should be the reigning monarch of France; Henry VIII. of England; and that the pontifical

throne should be filled by Leo the Tenth. The whole of these contemporary and chief sovereigns of the papal world, were, as well as the head of the empire, likewise men of distinguished abilities; such, perhaps, as Europe had never before seen at any one time; and they were all strongly attached to the papacy, and equally wedded to the prevailing apostacy and corruption of the times. They all consequently resisted, to the utmost of their power in their respective dominions, the progress of this great reformation; and although our own monarch was brought ultimately to favour it, yet he is no exception to this observation, as the slightest knowledge of his actions, character, and motives, abundantly testify.

Precisely the same results that took place on the first preaching of the Gospel, whilst Satan held the world in heathen darkness, now took place on its faithful preaching in the midst of Popish darkness; the most determined opposition which it met with from the ruling powers, showed itself in exactly the same way; and from time to time, for nearly three hundred years, (about the same period, in fact, that the persecutions of the pagans lasted) have the unoffending disciples of the Lord Jesus been persecuted unto death, and with even more savage cruelty than that of a Trajan, Nero, and Diocletian.

It comports not with this brief outline, to descend into the particulars of the dreadful scenes in which their blood has been spilt. The histories of the church, and the books of martyrs, have made the

As

sanguinary history familiar to most readers. pre-eminent in guilt and atrocity, it may be sufficient to mention a few of the principal instances— and first the dreadful massacre of St. Bartholomew in France, under Charles IX. At the time when this took place, the principal Protestants in the kingdom were, by invitation in Paris, under a solemn oath of safety. But, regardless of oaths, instruments of destruction had been put in the hands of above sixty thousand furious and bigoted Papists; and on the 24th of August, 1572, at an appointed signal, this numerous band of assasins was let loose on the Protestant part of the population; and in three days of continued slaughter, such as the annals of pagan persecution never recorded, a great multitude of persons of all ranks were indiscriminately butchered; and a scene of things was exhibited which, though many have attempted to describe, beggars, in its atrocity and infernal cruelty, all the powers of language. From Paris, the massacre spread throughout the whole kingdom, and similar scenes of cruelty were every where repeated on the Protestant portion of its numerous population.

A few years after this happened, the severest persecutions fell upon the protestants in Holland and Flanders, under the merciless and unrelenting hands of the Duke of Alva, by command of Philip II., where neither age, sex, nor condition was spared. In England, those under queen Mary are well known, as well as those in the Irish rebellion in 1641; and what, for many years, followed the revocation of the

edict of Nantz, under Lewis XIV., when the dragoons hunted and destroyed the Protestants like wild beasts. But the accounts of the innumerable company of martyrs, who have died in these great and marked persecutions, give, after all, but a poor idea of the real number of those who have suffered. For when it is considered that in most of the papal countries all who have embraced the principles of the Reformation have been, by the strong arm of power, put down; and in most instances, through the silent workings of that dark and hellish engine of cruelty the Inquisition, quietly and unobtrusively tortured and murdered; and that England alone, of all the ten kingdoms, may be said to have had a full respite, it may truly be denominated the age of martyrs. So that as truly as the church, during the four first periods, presented the respective and gradual stages of decay and corruption, so truly does it now present the aspect of persecution.

Hence, with appropriate scenery, this epoch is represented as exhibiting the souls of those who have perished, "as under the altar," in allusion to the pouring out of the blood at the bottom of the altar,* crying with a loud voice for vengeance "How long," they say, "sovereign Lord,"-or the dread arbiter of life and death, for the term here used is a title implying terror,-"How long, sovereign Lord, the Holy One and True, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" If it were said

* Lev. iv. 7, 18, 25, 34; v. 9; ix. 9.