None were more eager than the Clergy, who had thrown off the bandage of a blind reverence to the Papal fee, to acknowledge the enormity of those evils which had fo long prevailed; none were more ready with indignant warmth to reprobate the pretended conversion of the facred elements, the denial of the cup to the Laity, the efficacy of operated maffes, the abufes of auricular confeffion, the burthen of multiplied facraments. Lefs fincere advocates for truth would have fought to check that ardour, which rushed forward but to fhare the pillage and alienated poffeffions of the Church; and to reprefs a fpirit which too evidently betrayed, under the pretended zeal of reform, the schemes of innovation, and the defigns of felf-interest; but, anxious for the promotion of important principles, they looked only to the confirmation of them, and trufted that the temple of a purified faith would exhibit sufficient of the majefty, and inviolable fanctity of true religion, to awe and repel the invasion of facrilegious men, and that "He that dwelleth "in heaven would have his "defend it *." eye upon it and 2 Maccabb, ch. iii. From From the period of the first restoration of facred wisdom, its laws have been maintained by the fucceffors of these distinguished men with fimilar and unrelaxing fpirit; and every change in the progreffive work of Reformation has been defigned but to advance the principles, and promote the influence of religion. By the members of an enlightened Miniftry have the infpired oracles of the faith been anxiously studied and patiently explained; by their researches have the scattered documents of revelation been fought out and compared; by their industry likewife have the precepts of truth been circulated, and the elements of inftruction diffused through every rank, till timid and erroneous policy would restrain the liberal exertion. By them has the cause of Christianity been eftablished on a bafis from which it cannot be removed, while that word which paffeth not away fhall continue to be published with every teftimony of external evidence, and every illustration of human learning. The labours which have difclofed the accomplishment of prophecy, which have vindicated the truth of miracles, and brought for ward ward the beauty and confiftency of revealed doctrines, have infcribed their deductions on monuments that can fall but with the decay of science, and be buried only in the general ruins of literature and knowledge. TH world. HE promifes held out by Chrift to his Difciples, were not those of temporal profperity. The fervants who were to attest their zeal in the cause of a Mafter that had been wounded in the flesh, were to "arm "themselves with the fame mind" to "take up "the cross," and to fhew the firmness and fidelity of their attachment in trials and sufferings. Unwilling to ftir up paffions ever ready to kindle, and defirous rather of animating his followers, even to a determined and estimated difregard of life, and its dearest interests, our Redeemer predicted to them only such blessings as through perfecution were to be obtained. With denunciations of peril, and rejection G |