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 instancesand 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.

to Cain, "Thy brother's blood crieth to me from the ground" and further, "He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye"-and "it were better for that man that a mill-stone was hanged about his neck, and he was cast into the sea:"-where shall such persecutors appear! We are in fact informed, that vengeance only sleeps; and, in the mean while, that white robes are given unto EVERY ONE of those who had been thus slain, as a distinguished mark of honour and reward for what they had suffered for Christ.

"And it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also, and their brethren that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." This language, to my mind, implies, that persecution unto death will not be confined to this seal. It is spoken to those who form a part of it; and, therefore, that part of it which looks to the future," until their brethren should be killed as they were," must have reference to the next seal. As much as to say, that the martyrs who suffer under this epoch in the church's history, have an assurance given, that vengeance will come ; but not until others of their brethren have suffered, under another epoch that shall transpire, and that then it will no longer delay. I have drawn attention to this, because it is in exact harmony with what is yet to follow.

The state of things to which the Reformation gave birth, lasted from the beginning of the sixteenth to the latter end of the eighteenth century. The revi

val it occasioned in religion, in no instance came up to the expectations that were formed of it by those who witnessed the splendid successes of the first reformers. It was indeed firmly established in England, in a great part of Germany, and in some of the more northern nations; but in consequence of the most severe persecutions it met with in France, Spain, Portugal, and of course in all the states of Italy the head quarters of the apostacy, it was in those countries successfully resisted. Although, however, it was comparatively but "a little help,"* yet it was a blessed period, as we individually have reason to testify; for we live and enjoy our privileges under its shade, and in the blessings it conveyed.

THE OPENING OF THE SIXTH SEAL ;

Or the actings of Infidelity in the French Revolution.

"And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal; and lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind: and the heaven departed as a scroll, when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were removed out of their places: and the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond-man, and every free-man, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains; and said unto the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand ?"

*See Diss. ch. xii. p. 325, 326.