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shoulders, that the globe which we inhabit is continued in existence; for, when the last subject of this kingdom shall be gathered in, "the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up;" for being under the curse, on account of sin, this world is " reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." Surely a theme which connects with it the destinies of all the human race can never be unimportant to any of them.

But there is still another view to be taken of this subject, the church or kingdom of Christ, which renders it peculiarly worthy of the Christian's study, and that is the connexion which it has with Old Testament prophecy.

The subject of prophecy is unquestionably one of the most sublime and interesting themes which can occupy the human mind. A great part of the Jewish Scriptures is made up of it; and, if you ask what is its main scope and ultimate design, we answer, that it is to bear testimony to Jesus Christ, and the affairs of his kingdom, Rev. xix. 10. It commenced with the fall of man, and continued to wind its course like a mighty river through successive ages and with increasing brightness, till the coming of the long expected Messiah, in whose advent many of the prophecies obtained their accomplishment. But there are numerous others which respected the setting up of his kingdom in the world; in which its humble origin, its growing extent, its grandeur and perpetuity, together with the blessings which its subjects should enjoy, are all distinctly marked and strongly pourtrayed. These predictions reach forward from the period of the setting up of this kingdom in the world to the consummation of all things—and it is a subject every way worthy of the great God from whose infinite mind it emanated, and to whom alone it арpertains to declare the end from the beginning. Of these predictions some are fulfilling in the times that are passing over us; such is the consumption of Antichrist," the man of sin, the son of perdition, whom the Lord is destroying by the brightness of his coming."

To convince you of the justness of what I have now said, permit me to direct your attention to the astonishing occur

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rences which have taken place within the last few weeks in a neighbouring country, France-one of the ten kingdoms which gave its strength and power to the beast, according to Rev, xvii. 13. During 1260 years has that monarchy been the main pillar and support of the Antichristian system. The persecutions which from age to age it has carried on against the faithful disciples of Christ, particularly the Albigenses, the Waldenses, and the Huguenots, for the sake of upholding a system of idolatry, superstition, and wickedness-in other words, the kingdom of the clergy in opposition to the kingdom of Christ-are an indelible stigma on the pages of its history. Yet this monstrous system has happily come to an end, in the age in which we live-the Lord has privileged us to witness its termination. Popery is no longer the established religion of France; the connexion between church and state is finally and for ever dissolved in that country; and the Catholic priesthood is at once tumbled from its eminence-the sword of persecution has there dropped from their palsied hand, and the clergy are left to gnaw their tongues with pain on account of the darkness which now fills their kingdom. But this is a subject which must often come before us in the course of these Lectures, and therefore I forbear to dwell further upon it in this place.

In order to illustrate the connexion between the prophecies of the Old Testament and the History of Christianity or Kingdom of Christ in the world, allow me to point you to that extraordinary prediction which is contained in Dan. ii. Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had a dream in which it was supernaturally made known to him what should take place in the times subsequent to those in which he lived. He beheld a great image set up before him of exceeding brightness, while the form thereof was very terrible to look upon. The head of the image was of fine gold, his breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs of iron, and the feet part of iron and part of clay. But, while the monarch was intently gazing upon it, lo! a stone, which was cut out of a mountain without hands, smote this colossal image upon the feet that were of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces, whence they became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors, and the wind carried them away, so that no place was found for them; and the stone that smote the

image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth, ver. 31-35. The interpretation which the prophet Daniel gave of this dream is this:-The image represented the four great empires, viz. the Babylonian (which was then in existence, and over which Nebuchadnezzar reigned), the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman, all of which succeeded it; while the stone cut out of the mountain without hands denoted a kingdom which the God of heaven should set up, and which should never be destroyed a kingdom which should not be left to other people, but which should break in pieces and consume all those kingdoms and stand for ever. This is the kingdom of the Messiah, the church of the living God, the history of which is to form the subject of these Lectures. And, from the prophetic description which is here given of it, we learn that at its commencement it was to be of the most humble and uninviting cast-that it should increase by little and little, until itself became a great mountain and filled the whole earth-and that so far from being liable to ruin and destruction, like the kingdoms of this world, it should break in pieces and consume all of them and itself stand for ever. Now these characteristics of the kingdom or church of Christ you will do well to keep constantly in mind while attending to these Lectures, and you will thereby be the better able to judge how far this prophecy has been fulfilled.

The remarks now made will, I hope, be thought sufficient to justify the view which I entertain of the importance of the subject, and I therefore proceed to another topic, viz. to offer some remarks on the method that has been usually adopted for writing ecclesiastical history, but to which in my humble judgment there are many and formidable objections—all of which may be traced to the same source, and originate in one common error. But, that you may fully comprehend my meaning and be better able to judge of its correctness, I must trouble you with a brief notice of the principal treatises on this subject that are extant in our language.

The ecclesiastical histories which are now chiefly in request in this country are those of Dupin, Mosheim, and Milner; concerning each of which I have a few things to say.

The first of the writers now mentioned, namely DUPIN, was a Frenchman, born at Paris in 1657, and descended from an an

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cient and noble family. At an early period of life he discovered a strong inclination for books, which was cherished by his father, who had him educated with great care. Having gone through his course of grammar-learning and philosophy, he determined on the clerical profession, and frequented Lectures of divinity in the Sorbonne, a celebrated college in Paris. In prosecuting his studies he made such progress, particularly in an acquaintance with the writers of ecclesiastical history, that, in 1684, he was admitted a doctor of the Sorbonne. He then set about writing a work on ecclesiastical history, the first volume of which appeared in 1686, and others followed in succession, as far as five volumes, which comprised an account of the first eight centuries. When he had arrived at this point, he was called to account by his superiors for the freedom with which he had treated some ecclesiastical writers, in regard to their style, opinions, and other matters, in doing which he gave great offence to certain persons, and in 1693 his work was suppressed. He, however, found means afterwards to pacify the higher powers, and, by making a trifling variation in the title of his work, he was allowed to carry it on, which he did to the publication of several successive volumes, continuing the history to the end of the 16th century. The whole was translated into English, and printed in six volumes folio, 1695-1702, enriched with notes, and I may add that there is a useful abridgment of it in four volumes 12mo. The author was possessed of very extensive reading, and wrote with ease and fluency. Add to which, that he had an extraordinary faculty of analyzing the works of another, which rendered his own pages very instructive; besides which his impartiality is admirable, and it was this quality which rendered him so obnoxious to the zealots of the church of Rome, to which he belonged. Yet, after all, it must be remembered that Dupin was a Catholic, and of course believed the church of Rome to be the church of Christ, which in my humble judgment was a fundamental error. I cannot, therefore, recommend his book to you as furnishing an authentic history of the Christian church, though it is certainly a repository of valuable materials connected with that interesting subject. His work, is much less read among us in the present day, than it was a century ago, having given place to the more popular production of

MOSHEIM. This learned writer was Chancellor of the University of Gottingen, about the middle of the last century, and wrote in Latin an Ecclesiastical History from the birth of Christ to the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was soon afterwards translated into our language by Dr. Maclaine, who accompanied it with very copious notes, in which he corrects a few errors in the author's text and supplies many deficiences which he had detected. Mosheim had certainly one great advantage over Dupin; I mean in being a Protestant; for he was of the Lutheran persuasion, and consequently under no temptation to advocate the cause of the Romish church, or find apologies for her corruptions. Yet somehow or other, by a singular perversion of judgment, throughout his whole work the church of Rome is identified with the church of Christ! To have given the work its appropriate title, it should have been designated "A History of Popery, detailing its rise and progress, with the various modifications of church power, &c;" for if you look into his pages you will presently perceive that "the church" whose history he narrates is always the dominant party, that is, the Roman Catholic party, whose influence was paramount, and which tyrannized over the bodies and souls of men with ruthless sway. Perhaps you will ask me, does he take no notice of the friends of truth, the real disciples of Christ, the meek and humble followers of the Lamb? I reply that he certainly does : they come in for a share of his notice; but then it is almost invariably to exhibit them as heretics who troubled the church! Now, had Mosheim himself been a Catholic, we might have found some apology for his conduct in this monstrous perversion of truth and justice: but, avowing himself a Protestant, he was both inconsistent and culpable.

It has been often remarked that Truth is the life's blood of History: deprive it of that valuable ingredient, and you convert it into fable or romance. But what truth can there be in holding up a corrupt and apostate communion as the Christian church, and the friends of truth, who opposed those corruptions, as heretics that troubled the church? Yet this is precisely Mosheim's plan of compiling the annals of Ecclesiastical History. In the course of Lectures which I am about to deliver, it will be my object to reverse that plan. We shall endeavour

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