know him, to be like him, to glorify him, and to enjoy him, is to enjoy him, is our happiness, now and for ever. Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

KNOWLEDGE OF THE PECULIARITIES OF POPERY, and of THE SCRIPTURAL ANSWERS to them is another duty in this day. The great peculiarity is the artfully sustained system, salvation by works of man, under the mask of salvation by grace through faith; all other parts of the apostasy flew from this evil fountain. Cramp's Text book of Popery,' will show you their accredited principles; and to meet all that they can bring, you will find ample materials in Bishop Jewell's Defence of his Apology, in Archbishop Usher's Answers to a Jesuit, Bedel's Letters to Wadsworth, Bishop Hall's No Peace with Rome, and Bishop Gibson's Preservative against Popery, and above all, as full of the sweet spirit of the gospel of Christ, in Fox's Book of Martyrs. The Protestant memorial, by my friend Hartwell Horne, is also a most valuable little compendium of information. A full knowledge of the Bible, and especially of the Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, Timothy, and the Thessalonians, and of the Revelation, will furnish the infallible answer to all that Popery can say. Let us never be drawn from the main bulwark of Protestantism, the sufficiency of the scriptures. (2 Tim. iii. 15-17.)

CONFESSION OF CHRIST is a duty at all times; whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven; but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Matt. x. 32, 33. O may this awakening and encouraging motive powerfully impress all our minds at this time. May we ourselves be taught, by the Spirit, the things of Christ, and have thus clear views of salvation by grace in all its riches, freeness, fulness, and extent; a salvation for sinners as ample as the world, treasured up in Jesus for all men, and received and enjoyed by simple faith in the divine testimony, a faith filling us with joy and peace in the very act of believing God's precious

promises concerning Christ our Saviour. The first Christians overcame the Pagan persecutors, by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and we shall overcome, in these days, by similar means. "Witnesses" is the very name of our character and office till our Lord returns, and our testimony is, We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.

STRICT OBSERVANCE OF GOD'S HOLY LAW is another duty of these days. True doctrinal statements without corresponding practice, is an evil which gives much room for Popery and infidelity. Not only may the law be turned into selfrighteousness, but the grace of God also into licentiousness, and this is a special evil of these days; when men hold in many things the form of godliness but deny the power. O how sad it is when the truth is contended for in a bitter, uncharitable, unloving and unholy spirit! O how sad it is when error is exposed, but in doing it there is a making ourselves judges of the motives of others, and there is a total want of the humility and contrition of a true Christian, and the meekness and gentleness of Christ. There is much reason to fear that the law in its right use has been far too much lost sight of, as the standard at which we must continually aim, obedience to which is connected with the richest promises, and strength for the performance of which obedience is given us in Christ Jesus.

COMMUNICATING RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION TO THE IGNORANT is a primary duty now. Most awful is the present state of gross ignorance of God's truth among immense masses of our countrymen, in the midst of the blaze of religious light which shines in our land. They are just left a prey for Popery and infidelity. Our population has amazingly increased, and religious zeal has not been awake to provide means for their instruction. owe much to those Dissenters who from love to Christ have laboured to supply our lack of service; but the necessity is yet most urgent. Why, O why! is there one impediment in the way of building churches, to be occupied by regularly ordained ministers, holding the doctrines and adhering to the discipline of our

We

church? The only real reason is, (for all others may be easily met,) we do not see in the light of God's word the immense evil of ignorance of God's truth. No rights are superior to the plain rights of Him who is King of kings, and says, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Does not our neglect of this imply, that we do not really believe in the Majesty of Him who has issued the command, and see not the true blessedness of the gospel of Christ. If there be selfish ends which impede the building of churches, how aggravated must be the guilt of letting them influence us! To love a little power, or money, or ease, more than we love the will of God and his glory, and the salvation of our fellow-men, is far indeed from the mind of Christ! The Lord awaken us all, whether patrons or incumbents, ministers or laymen, to a sense of the view in which God regards these things, and to the share we thus have in introducing infidelty, Popery, and democracy, and helping in bringing on the ruin of our country and the everlasting ruin of countless myriads of immortal souls. In the meantime, let all do what they can for conveying truth to the uninstructed. Nothing but simple gospel truth will, however, at all meet the wants of the people. Large churches may be built and left empty, not for a few early years only, but always, even in a thick population,-if Christ be not preached as the light, life, and joy of man, with zeal and unction from a personal experience of his grace. God will show the vanity of every thing but his own truth.

TO TAKE HEED TO THE SURE WORD OF PROPHECY, is another general duty of these days. The command is given positively; ye have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed. The neglecters of it are called scoffers, saying, Where is the promise of his coming? the evil servant is described as thinking my Lord delayeth his coming. The blessing on a due regard to prophecy, is repeated at the beginning and the end of the most difficult book of prophecy. (Rev. i. 3; xxii. 7.) O, what Christian dare then throw slight and ridicule upon this study! Say you

it has led to all sorts of enthusiasm and extravagance of error? But is it not one of Satan's devices, to discredit that which most tends to his overthrow? It is our light in the darkness. (2 Peter i.) It is our comfort in the hour of sorrow. (1 Thess. iv. 14-18.) Hope, clearly developed in prophecy, is the very helmet of salvation in the battle, (1 Thess. v. 8,) and the anchor of the soul in the tempest. (Heb. vi. 12.) Attend then to prophecy.

Prophecy at this era, points out three SPECIAL duties as incumbent on the Church of Christ, under the sublime imagery of three angels going forth from God. (Rev. xiv.) Let us notice the office of these angels.

The first duty, is, to SEND THE GOSPEL THROUGH THE World. I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. (Rev. xiv. 7, 8.) In our day, and within the recollections of many yet surviving, we have seen this great work going on from small beginnings to a state that gives hope that Christians may yet awake to an adequate sense of their duty to the heathen. Without excluding the great work of the Reformers from Wickliffe downwards, in translating the scriptures, and giving them to the people; and the earlier efforts in Christian Missions of Eliot and Brainerd, the Christian Knowledge, Gospel Propagation, Scotch and Moravian Missions; it is, still, in our day, contemporary with the beginning of the judgments on papal kingdoms in the first French Revolution; that efforts corresponding to the largeness of the terms of the prediction, open, conspicuous, and universal, have been made. This work, remember, precedes the hour of judgment on antichristian kingdoms. It will be little aided by dead, nominal Christianity, but it is an enlarged means of confessing Christ through the world. This is the work in which, whatever mixture of human infirmities they may have had, our

chief Religious Societies are now engaged; and blessed be God, it is a work year by year increasing, and which he has owned with the highest success, gathering his elect from every land into her Church.

But let us see to it, that it be THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL that we carry and make known both at home and abroad. A Protestant minister asked a Papist Why she did not attend the Protestant church? She replied, for three reasons; because she heard nothing of Jesus Christ, found no worshipping congregation, and saw no connection between the minister and people. It is too true, this has been the awful state of many a nominally Protestant Church, and we see in it why popery has so grown:-and Popery which does hold truth, though it be leavened, is better than such a formal dead Protestantism. Let us then take care what gospel we make known; remembering the solemn, twice repeated curse, though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. What that gospel is, is clear from repeated testimonials in the same epistle. The Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, is its main doctrine; and this is clearly laid out in that most distinct statement of our free justification in him, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Surely it must be felt, that a very different gospel to this has been preached extensively, and destructively, over decayed Protest ant churches.

And let us see to it, that this gospel is connected with that awful sanction, the coming judgment, in which the Lord will discriminate between those who have received his grace, and the unbelieving and fearful of this world; between

those who serve him, and those who serve him not.

The second duty is, TO PROCLAIM THE FALL OF BABYLON. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fal len, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. (Rev. xiv. 8.) Here is the next important

work of the Church, to which it is of vast moment that its energies should be now directed. While we feel,-while we in every way show love to the papists, and because we love them, therefore hate so much the chains which imprison them, the poison which destroys them, the unsound ship in which they are sinking, let us testify irreconcilable enmity to popery as man's bitterest foe, and doomed of God to certain and speedy destruction. Let us more distinctly show that Rome is Babylon; that it shall surely, (twice is the fall mentioned to indicate the reality,) suddenly, (Rev. xviii. 810.) swiftly, (Rev. xvi. 19,) and for ever fall; as a mill-stone cast into the sea, thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. (Rev. xviii. 21.) This is that offensive weapon, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, that can alone meet all the sophistries of popery. Soft and polished words, arguments from reason, and powerful eloquence displaying its inconsistency and absurdity, are valuable in their place; and very thankful we have to be for such advocates: yet these no more penetrate the skin of the dragon, than straws do that of the crocodile. It is the word of the living God that is irresistible. May not God withhold his full blessing from all that which, however it may be courteous to man, yet does not rise to the full testimony of his word? Nor must we be stopped by unbelieving notions of charity. It is very remarkable how the heavenly Host are described as praising God for the fall of Babylon. I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Hallelujah, salvation and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God, for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great whore which did corrupt the earth with

her fornications, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand: and God commands his people to rejoice in it, rejoice over her thou heaven, and ye holy Apostles, and prophets, for God hath avenged you of her. The causes of this joy are the removal of reproaches against the gospel, the dishonour put on our Lord, and the darkness, misery, and sin, entailed on men by this apostasy.

The mode in which this duty is to be 'fulfilled is very varied. There are RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES by which something may be done. And even the extravagance of rash zeal is better than the lukewarmness of modern Protestants on this point. (Rev. iii. 15.)

SERMONS AGAINST POPERY well become us. We are under that discipline which states in its very first canon," All ecclesiastical persons having care of souls, and all other preachers and readers of divinity lectures, shall to the uttermost of their wit, knowledge and learning, purely and sincerely, without any colour or dissimulation, teach, manifest, open and declare, four times every year at the least, in their sermons and other collations and lectures, that all usurped and foreign power (forasmuch as the same has no establishment nor ground by the law of God) is for the most just causes taken away and abolished." Let our parishioners and congregations understand what the bitter root of popery is, that they may all join in the dying prayer of king Edward the VIth, "O my Lord God, defend this realm from papistry and maintain the true religion, that I and my people may praise thy holy name, for thy Son Jesus Christ's sake."

PUBLICATIONS AGAINST POPERY may be multiplied. A series of publications are greatly needed now, adapted to the present state of the world, such as HISTORICAL

• The admirable "History of the Reformation," by Merle de Aubigne, is deserving of the highest praise. It has been more universally read by the Protestants of the United States than any other historical work published in this century. We are pleased to observe that Dalton's abridgement of it has been reprinted by John S. Taylor, of New York. The Book of Martyrs, Llorente's History of the Inquisition, and other works of the kind spoken of by Mr. Bickersteth, have also been published;

Tracts, giving authenticated accounts of the Inquisition all over the world. The martyrdoms recorded in Fox, Leger, &c.; the history of Bartholomew's Day in France, the cruelties of D'Alva in the Low Countries, furnish painfully ample materials. To this evidence of fact, may be added modern information respecting popery, the difference between protestant and papal countries, even where contiguous, as in Switzerland; a just display of the present state of Irish superstition, and contrasting it with Scotland. With these might be given facts showing the effects of the pure protestant faith, and the present activity of protestant missions. To these historical facts, tracts containing DOCTRINAL statements drawn from the word of God, are now wanted; such as popular expositions of the predictions in Daniel, 1 Tim. iv., 2 Thess. ii., and in Revelations respecting popery; its true character exhibited from its own canons and catechisms, and their manifest opposition to the good tidings of great joy brought to us through Christ Jesus.

TO COUNTERACT THE machinations of the PAPISTS, is an immense duty lying upon the Protestant churches. A tide of population, partly uneducated English, partly Irish Catholics, generally with but little religion, go away from all the means of grace and the scriptural light of home, and no provision, or most inadequate provision, is made for their instruction. The papists are fully alive to this state of things, and are sending forth their missionaries east and west, north and south. Protestants should preoccupy the ground, and fill the field with wheat, that the enemy may be less able to introduce the tares.

The third duty is to DENOUNCE GOD'S WRATH ON ADHERENCE TO POPERY. And the third angel followed them, saying 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

and their large sale affords cheering evidence of the interest felt in the great question by the people of this country.—E». P. R.

holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who wor ship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. (Rev. xiv. 9-11.) Observe who it is denounces this. An angel from the Lord! Look at the strength of the statement, and say not in the spirit of modern infidelity, How can you be so uncharitable as thus to denounce wrath on millions of your fellow-creatures?' The more they are, the more necessary it is to speak openly; and the real charity,-the true love to them is, to believe God's word, and not man's word, and to forewarn them most plainly of their danger and ruin, while in their present state. The Roman Bishop Milner may, with all sincerity, say, when speaking of our calling Rome the great harlot, I shudder to repeat these blasphemies, and I blush to hear them uttered by my fellow Christians and countrymen!' But if our eyes have been opened to the enormities of popery, the shuddering will be at the danger of supporting such enormities, and the blushing at belonging to them, and it will be found to be no blasphemy but the very truth, to testify this scriptural character of popery. The first enemy was so CHARITABLE as to say, Ye shall not surely die. O false charity, which brought ruin into our world! The real love was the love of the Creator, expressed in the words, In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The Reformers felt this wrath so strongly, that hundreds of them cheerfully yielded their bodies to the burning flame rather than consent to popery. They wept over those who, rather than undergo papal cruelties, went to mass with their bodies, though they abhorred the idolatry of its worship in their consciences. They put the wrath of God against the terrors of man, and willingly went through their suffering and fiery trial, that we might have the gospel. The Lord give us, their successors, grace, if called thereto, to be equally faithful unto death. All the strength of this warning of the third angel, may soon be needed in this country; and nothing but the strong meat of the Bible and its powerful denun

ciations, can sustain the soul in the agonies of conflict with the powers of darkness.

In conclusion, let us contemplate the GLORIOUS REWARD of the faithful witnesses for Christ. It is the joy to be attained hereafter, that will make us endure the present cross; it is the prize of our high calling, that will stir us to run with undiminished ardour and unwearied patience, the race that is set before us. Read the glowing account of the faithful who have been sealed by the angel, and of the company who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, given in Rev. vii. Read the bright description of the same glorious sealed company, in chapter xiv. standing with the Lamb on Mount Zion:-and does not your heart burn within you to be numbered with them? Read of the happy company, of whom it is said, Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Observe how those with the Lamb, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, are called and chosen, and faithful. See how the armies which were in heaven, follow the Rider upon the white horse called Faithful and True, and the word of God, each upon white horses clothed in fine linen white and clean. See the glories of their reign with Christ, in chapter xx. and the glories of the heavenly Jerusalem, their everlasting abode, in chapter xx. and xxi. and of the Lord God giving them light, and their reigning for ever. These things are infallibly true, and to come; and Oh, does not your heart pant after these glories? We have difficult duties in this day, and the difficulties may, very likely, greatly increase: but we have a glorious prize in view. May we fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life, looking to the joyful hope of that crown of righteousness laid up for us, which the Lord the righteous Judge will give us, at his appearing, and kingdom, and not to us only, but to all them that love his appearing.

The author cannot close, without lifting up his heart in fervent prayer to the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, that we all, who love our Saviour Christ