creased energy and activity, compassing sea and land to make one proselyte,* building the tombs of the prophets, and garnishing the sepulchres of the righteous, and filling up, as the Scribes and Pharisees did, the measure of their fathers. How nearly then must the dreadful cup of the iniquity of the Church of Rome be full!

3. GOD'S VISIBLE JUDGMENTS WILL AT LENGTH DEScend to desTROY BABYLON. There will be no reform of Popery. She has bound herself in the immutable chain of her own sins. Her claim to infallibility has made her rejection of her falsehoods impossible. The whole system will perish at once, and that with desolating judgments. Even now, more and more, Popery is grinding and crushing between the upper millstone of Divine truth and the lower millstone of infidelity. Nor will its vain pretences and assumptions, its tricks, disguises and absurd miracles, long be able to withstand its righteous doom. Many of its adherents will come to the Lord truly; or fall, as Balaam did, into the ranks of infidelity, and perish with the last foes of Christ. (Compare Numbers xxxi. 8, and Rev. xix. 20.) Those kings who, like our James II. of England, and Charles X. of France, adhere to it, will mourn its fall. (Rev. xviii. 9.) Those kings who, like Napoleon, are really infidel, will hate it and burn its flesh. Thus they are described in one place as hating the whore, and making her desolate (chap. xvii. 16;) and they are described in another place, as bewailing and lamenting for her (chap. xviii. 9) but it is the property of God's wonderful providence to bring out, in clear fulfilment, the most apparently contradictory prophecies. He thus calls our attention more distinctly to them, and illustrates the more his own foreknowledge of every thing. But the testimony of Scripture on this sudden and visible

*The energy with which Rome is thus exerting itself is now seen in all parts of the world. Even the remotest Protestant missions have not escaped these noxious visitations. O that all this zeal, like that of Saul's, were turned from an evil and destructive, to a holy and heavenly course! May it also raise us Protestants from our lukewarmness!

fall of Babylon is express. Her plagues shall come in one day; death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be burned with fire: for strong is the Lord that judgeth her. A mighty an gel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, AND SHALL BE FOUND NO MORE AT ALL: this last expression is made four times, and thus proves most conclusively that the prediction applies, not to a past but to a future destruction. In addition therefore to the wasting of the power and resources of Popery as a system, which has begun to take place, we have reason to expect peculiarly desolating judgments on the Papal state, and especially on the city of Rome itself. The kings of the earth .shall see the smoke of her burning; standing afar off for fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

The deluge was not more clearly announced to the world before the flood, by Noah, than this judgment is announced by the Word of God to the Christian world. This is the dreadful end of a lengthened course of horrible profanation of sacred things, and daring iniquity, blasphemy and idolatry.

What a solemn warning will the Lord thus give to all other nations and kingdoms! a warning effectual, we may hope, to the salvation of an innumerable multitude, while it hardens the wicked to the last form of Antichrist and the open war against Christ, before his millennial kingdom. Under the last vial the cities of the nations fell, as well as great Babylon came in remembrance before God, which seems to include the falling of the polities of professing Christian nations in general, and the time of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel; as well as the destruction of Babylon.

ETERNAL JUDGMENTS ARE PREPARED FOR THE OBSTINATE AND PERSEVERING ADHERENTS OF POPERY. It is much to be observed, that the strongest statements of the eternity of future judgments are those made by our compassionate Lord, when he tells us to part with things

nearest and dearest to us rather than be cast into hell fire, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched: and those made by his own beloved disciple John, warning us against the danger of adhering to the Beast and his image, or to Popery, having horns as a lamb, and speaking as a dragon, and claiming authority over all kingdoms. Thus the third angel says with a loud voice: "If any man worship the Beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the Beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name—so they are afterwards described as being tormented day and night for ever and ever. The mind shrinks with horror from such an awful doom so distinctly announced by the God of light, of truth, of holiness, and of love. This doom is thus clearly revealed on purpose that, seeing there is an evil in persevering in sin, and especially in this mystery of iniquity, far beyond our present comprehension, we may escape for our life, as Lot did out of Sodom, flying from the impending destruction our selves, and warning all whom our voice can reach, to flee from the wrath to come. Say, then, in this view, which we firmly hold to be God's own truth, O say if we are too earnest in our most stirring appeals, exhorting men against Popery. Say if it be not the greatest cruelty and the very mockery of all true love, for men to lower and excuse the evils of the Church of Rome, and to talk of it with a smooth and bland expression, as one among the many forms of Christianity, with some lesser errors belonging to it. I must say, true, deep, and real love, calls Christians to far more urgent, vehement, loud, and strenuous efforts than have ever yet been made to rescue the servants of God yet in the midst of this Babylon; and for this love we wait, in full hope that

I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her. Let us consider,

1. THE PEOPLE WHO ARE CALLED TO COME FORTH. There are to this day a people of God in the midst of Babylon. For the sake of this people she has so long been spared. As the angel said to Lot, I cannot do any thing till thou be come forth, so does God here speak to these his faithful servants. Many Papists have been trammelled so completely by their education, country, occupation, and circumstances in Babylon, that they have had no opportunity to escape; they mourn over the evils they see, and they suffer from the faith they profess; the gates of brass will more and more be opened for their escape. Many a Papist is unacquainted with the horrible delusions by which he has been deceived. The vain pretences of unity, sanctity, catholicity, and apostolicity, have deceived them. Antiquity and the name of "the true Church" have covered, as with a mask, the frauds by which idolatry, indulgences of sin, substitution of human mediators, feigned purgatory, and persecutions, have been imposed upon the true followers of Christ. Men of Pascal's, Fenelon's, Nicole's, Quesnel's spirit are still doubtless to be found in the Papal Churches. They are children of the living God, as Lot was in Sodom. Nor let us be turned from the hope by the hard things even such have said of us Protestants, calling us by opprobrious names of heresy and schism; let us still maintain our charity towards them, and remembering what occasion of offence our formal and powerless profession, our mere party and political enmity against Popery, our divisions and disputes, and the real heresies of men calling themselves Protestants have given; let us be humbled and still view such servants of Christ in Babylon as beloved brethren, in the spirit of that apostle who said, I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. There is a true Church in the midst of Babylon, as were

Nehemiah, Ezra, Esther, Mordecai, and Ezra of old, left in the land of their captivity. It is our great comfort to believe this. It gives great encouragement to us in our testimony to the truth. Would they were all such. Would to God all the professors of Christ's holy religion were spiritual, self-sacrificing, heavenly minded followers of the Lamb, giving all glory only to his name; but through the hardness and impenitent heart of sinners, unsoftened by all God's long-suffering and goodness, it will not be so till the day of wrath has visited our earth, and under the fiery trial of judgments, men at length learn righteousness. But why should God's people come out? The REASON FOR THIS COMING OUT of Babylon is because of the judgments impending over it; that ye receive not of her plagues: for her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. The proclamation goes forth to ALL NATIONS to come out of Babylon. Thus on this ground, no sooner is Babylon completely developed to the spiritual Church by idolatrous worship and persecution, than an angel flies in the midst of heaven having the everlasting Gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and people, and tongue, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come. He is succeeded by another angel giving this solemn warning, which contains the first mention of the name of Babylon in the Book of Revelation, Babylon is fal len, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornications. If any thing be clear respecting the future, it is, that nations adhering to Popery shall partake of her woe. Between two and three thousand years since Daniel foretold of the stone smiting the image at his feet, the last stage of the Roman empire, so that all parts were broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them. (Dan. ii. 35.) Providence, even in the past, by the first vials of wrath, here confirms prophecy. As nations have really separated from Po

pery, and held the pure truth, they have been blessed of God.

1. THE PRINCIPLES OF ROME. TO separate from and protest against all their false doctrines: their trust in the tradi tions of men apart from the Scriptures; their vain assertions of infallibility; their idolizing the Church of Rome; their invocation of saints; their transubstantiation and the pretended sacrifice of the mass; their priestly absolution; their worship in an unknown tongue; their adoration of images and relics, and those fond things, vainly invented, of indul gences and purgatory; not one, my brethren of the Church of Rome, must be kept if you would escape these plagues. You must give up the lordly supremacy of the Pope, self-inflicted penances, wor ship of crucifixes, and all self-righteous doctrines of human merit, as utterly worthless, and keeping you far from the holy light and full love of the children of God, received by a simple faith in the dying and risen Saviour. To the law and to the testimony bring every thing. If men speak not according to this, it is because there is no light in them. It is a cause with us of vast thankfulness to God, that the Church of England has, by its various testimonies, multiplied its protests, and manifested its separation from the corruptions of Rome; and that these realms were enabled nearly 300 years since, and continue to this day in so many important respects, to obey God's direction.

I, in the name of my heavenly Master, warn you against departing from the Protestant rule of faith, the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures. By joining the traditions of men with the Word of God, that clear light of Divine truth which he, in his infinite wisdom, has given to make us wise unto salvation, is disparaged, dishonoured, and accounted insufficient, obscure, doubtful, and uncertain. I warn you against setting up any human beings, whether Fathers or Reformers, as your Master or Father: one is your master, even Christ. I warn you against idolizing ordinances and apostolic succession, however valuable in their place, as if they were to operate any good of themselves without faith, or exclude real good with

faith; or were the end of religion instead of the means. I warn you against that spirit of bondage which would make repentance after Baptism next to impossible, give you only the terrors of the judgment to come, shut out the grace and loving-kindness of the Gospel, and deprive you of the spirit of adoption, enabling you to say, Abba, Father. I warn you against tithing mint, anise, and cummin, in Christianity, and neglecting the weightier matters, judgment, mercy, and faith. I warn you against any modern union of Pelagianism and Romanism, that would make the will of man the turning point of salvation, instead of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whoever holds and maintains these things, is under the seducing power of Romish principles, and the voice from heaven calls him aloud, Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins.

2. The people of God are also called

to COME OUT FROM THE COMMUNION OF

ROME; and to disown its supremacy and refuse obedience to its unscriptural de crees. So far from there being only salvation in the Church of Rome, it is the Church which the Holy Ghost has most explicitly pointed out of all the churches as doomed to receive the plagues of God's judgments; it is the Church, in which, refusing to hear the voice of Christ when he calls them to come out, if men wilful ly remain, they are certain of partaking of her plagues. As Lot, if he had refused to listen to the warning voice, and had remained in Sodom, would have partaken of its destruction, so most assuredly will all who wilfully remain in communion with modern Babylon be partakers of the judgments with which she shall be visited. Blessed be our God, that at the Reformation so many Protestant nations in Europe obeyed the Divine directions, and for three centuries the millions of their population have been separated from this apostasy. In the words of the martyr Latimer they deter mined "What fellowship hath Christ with Antichrist? Therefore it is not lawful to bear the yoke with Papists. Come forth from among them, saith the Lord."*

• See Richmond's "Fathers," vol. iv. p. 103.

The testimony of the Church of England in Jewell's "Apology," is repeatedly given. He asserts," We have departed from them, and we bless the great and holy God for it, and please ourselves mightily in it; but then we have not departed from the Primitive Church, from the Apostles, from Christ.. We have forsaken a church in which we could neither hear the pure Word of God, nor administer the sacraments, nor invoke the name of God as we ought. We have only departed from that Church which may err, which Christ who cannot err, so long since foretold should err, and which we see clearly with our eyes has departed from the holy Fathers, the A postles, Christ himself, and the Primitive and Catholic Church. . . . We have only left him whom we saw had for many ages blinded the nations of the earth.

We have departed from that Church which they have made a den of thieves-not out of contention but out of obedience to God, and have returned to the Primitive Church of the ancient Fathers and Apostles."

Let us further notice, THE VOICE WHICH CALLS MEN TO THIS SEPARATION. It is a voice heard from heaven. We shall gain a clearer view of this by seeing that whenever God stirs up his faithful servants to give a strong testimony to his truth, it is brought before us in this form. Thus the angels which follow the Refor mation in the xivth chapter, announce their messages with a loud voice. It may be thus illustrated: as John received the little book, or Word of God, and ate it up, and then prophesied again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings, so the teachers which the Lord raises up, receive his truth from him, and then boldly and widely proclaim it among their fellow-men. Then is the voice heard from heaven. The period at which this particular voice in our text is heard, is the beginning of the 7th vial, of which vial chapters xvii., xviii., xix., are the fuller exposition. First, an angel comes down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory: and he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the

habitation of devils. We may expect, therefore, that on the opening of the 7th vial, the Spirit of God, in the remarkable judgments which will then be taking place on the Church of Rome, will enable his ministers to proclaim, with a clearness and strength far beyond what we have yet seen, the destruction of Babylon. Thus the doctrine of the fall of Babylon is first announced, and then we have an exhortation proceeding equally from the same divine and heavenly source; the Spirit of God giving the truth to the Church, and the ministers of Christ proclaiming far and wide, to those still in the apostasy, Come out of her, my people.

But though we may justly expect a far more earnest and urgent message from Christ by his faithful ministers, thus to go forth through all the Churches now in the toils and snares of Babylon, the duty has ever been the same. Since Babylon has been completed in its decreeing the errors of Popery, and in its rejection of the truths of the Reformation, by the wicked canons and anathemas of the Council of Trent, the angel from heaven has been charging the Church to fear God, and give glory to him, and worship him only. Yes, by all the majesty and glory, by all the authority and plain command of the Most High, is every human being bound to come out of this apostasy. I can here make no reserves. I dare not resist the voice from heaven myself, nor cover the message with any thing that would hide its solemn and plain meaning. God here does most distinctly testify the plagues coming on Babylon, and that those who wilfully remain in her while he calls them to come out will justly receive of those plagues.

Nor let any one say, in the fond indulgence of flesh and blood, there are those in Babylon who may be saved, notwithstanding its apostasy, and as you admit this, and the Church of Rome denies any can be saved out of its pale, it is safest to remain where we are. To do the will of God is the only safety. The sheep who will never perish, are those who hear the voice of Christ, and follow him. Remember who it was said, Ye shall not surely die. This is the language of the old serpent. Follow God's directions and you

are safe. Beware of holding the truth in unrighteousness. To sin against God should be an evil dreaded by us even more than any sufferings. Duty, not safety, is our path. There is no safety in disobedience to God.

But where are THEY TO GO? If they leave Babylon, who will be their leader? What city will receive them? Blessed be God, the answer is made clear in his Word. He did not tell his people of old, Go ye forth of Babylon, till he could say, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob. (Isa. xlviii. 20.) He did not bid them remove out of the midst of Babylon, till he had predicted, They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward. (Jer. 1. 5, 8.) When he charged them, Go ye out of the midst of her, he also charged them, Let Jerusalem come into your mind. (Jer. li. 45, 50.) And he spreads before them the measure, and defence, and glory of Jerusalem, before he tells his captives, in Babylon, Ho, ho! come forth, and flee from the land of the north. (Zech. ii. 6.) We have, in pure Protestant churches, faithfully holding the doctrines which God gave with such revived light and glory at the Reformation, the substance and reality of all that of which Rome has but the empty show. The 144,000 sealed servants of our God are seen standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion, in their spiritual glory and blessedness, before men are told of the fall and torment of Babylon. (Rev. xiv. 1-8.) There is a city on a heavenly mountain, in contrast to the city on seven hills. There is a true Christ, far above Antichrist; there is a real Head and High Priest, instead of a fictitious Vicar of Christ. There is the truth itself, instead of lies spoken in hypocrisy. There is free, perfect, and everlasting absolution in the blood of Jesus; by his stupendous and all-atoning sacrifice once offered for all. There is present and immediate justification by grace, giving perfect peace with God, through faith; there is reception at once, and adoption into his family, through the wonderful love of our God, made known in his Gospel. There are with us the really cleansing waters of his Spirit, and the resurrection to come, and all trials