and thinking to constitute an enlightened, wellgoverned, and blessed world without them. Such is the germ and rudimental idea of the first part of our discourse, to the logical and historical unfolding of which we now request your most patient attention.

I. It was not without a long series of ineffectual struggles, that the domestic and patriarchal and local governments of the civilized world, gave way before the spirit of autocracy and universal sovereignty, which was impersonified for the first time in Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold; nor was it without a distinct purpose of God, as Daniel, in his exposition of the great image, thus declareth, “Thou, O king, art a king of kings; for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and made thee ruler over them all. This investiture from God, in the whole earth, it was permitted unto the dragon to enjoy, in order to punish all the earth for their wickedness, and especially to bring into captivity God's own church; while at the same time it was overruled to manifest his own higher sovereignty, in the resistance and victory which he enabled his faithful servants, from Daniel downwards until the Papacy, to obtain over it; whose faithful testimony against this usurpation, in behalf of God, the King of kings, and in expectation of Messiah, the Prince of princes, did bring forth that body of prophecy, and weight of evidence, to the only rule and sovereignty of God, which

the Old and New Testaments contain. I would say, that the succession of autocratic and universal empires, which, from Nebuchadnezzar, continued through Cyrus the Persian, Alexander the Greek, and the Romans, down to the constitution of the Melchizedec usurpation of the Papacy, which is priest and king in one, though a great device of Satan, to anticipate and circumvent the office which belongeth only to the Son, and, alas! too successful a device to oppress and humiliate the church, and Christ, the Head of the church, even unto the death,was yet, in so far forth as it oppressed the church, overruled to shew forth the glory of God's justice and holiness, while in so far forth as it was a usurpation by Satan of that which pertaineth only to the Son, it was overruled to draw out those ample delineations of Messiah's kingdom, wherein the faithful now rejoice. For, ever as the usurper appropriated another point of Messiah's coming glory, the Holy Spirit, jealous for the honour of Christ, did reveal unto his servants the prophets, and through them make manifest unto the church, the right ownership and future certainty of that which had been blasphemously usurped, and so, by successive acts of revelation, the glory of Christ, the King, was fully developed. And this, no doubt, was the end for which God permitted that first form of the mystery of iniquity, which is the spirit out of the mouth of the dragon, whereof we are to expect the revival and going forth again under the sixth vial of wrath, immediately before the day of the Lord.

When we say that the arbitrariness of universal

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and absolute government was permitted of God, in order to quicken the desire of his church after the great Redeemer, we do not mean that his church was permitted to grumble or complain, much less to resist or attempt the overthrow of any power, however arbitrary and violent; for this would have been to foment quarrels, and set on foot struggles, and embroil the church in endless strife with the world, and bring in perpetual anxiety about her present condition: whereas the end in view was to place her under the necessary condition of suffering and bearing, without any expectation of deliverance, until the Son and Heir of all power should be brought in to possess his Moreover, with all its burden and oppression, the institution of a regular arbitrary government, over that portion of the earth where the church did chiefly take root, was truly a great blessing, as Peter in his First Epistle doth argue; nay was a Divine institution for good, as Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, absolutely asserteth; and I may add, was a standing type and emblem of the universal and autocratic monarchy of Christ. So that, on every account, it was right worthy to be obeyed, though ever and anon raging with brutal instinct of oppression against the saints of God. And most worthy is it of all observation, that no where did the church take permanent root, save within the bounds of that region of the earth which the four monarchies successively possessed: a fact which well proveth that regular and permanent government, however oppressive, is infinitely more favourable to religion than the changing and fluctuating humours of popular commonwealths, or the successive waves of foreign conquest. Yet, though

Satan in this, as in all things else, was outwitted and overruled for good to the church, I argue not the less that the church was intended at the first to have the rule within herself, yea and over the world, as God manifested by giving the victory to Abraham over Chederlaomer, who evidently lusted after absolute rule. And this continued till the oppression of Egypt; from which, when the church was delivered, and reconstituted at Sinai, she was presented with a form of power emanating from, and resting in herself, the nationality being only part of the church polity of the Jews. Nor was it until they had wearied out the patience and long-suffering of the Lord with their idolatries and seditions, that he was forced to break up their nationality, and put them under the oppression of the four monarchies, there to continue until Messiah the Prince should deliver them: not, however, until, as hath been said, he had defined the person and office of Messiah, in a great body of prophecy, and determined the times of waiting which he had before appointed. And this condition of subjection which he introduced by the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet, the Lord afterwards confirmed by his own example, and the Apostles in all their Epistles bound and rivetted upon the church.

Now, for all this long period of more than one thousand years, during which the church underlay the oppression of this first spirit, which is characterized in the text by the spirit out of the mouth of the dragon, because the power had passed through the form of the lion, and the bear, and the leopard, and in the time of our seer did. stand in the form of the ten horned monster;-during this long period, the church, while she bore

patiently and obeyed passively the laws and imposts of arbitrary and autocratic power, had continually to testify against its blasphemy, in arrogating to itself Divine honours. For resisting this, Daniel was cast into the lion's den, and the three children into the furnace of fire; for the same cause the huge cruelties of Antiochus and the Greek emperors were inflicted, which stung the nation into open rebellion, and most heroic resistance under the Maccabees: for this cause also,

I may say, was Jesus himself cut off, because he made himself King of the Jews, that superscription being written over his cross: therefore also the Apostles and first Christians were burnt in Rome, because they would not worship the Emperor Nero's image: therefore also, further on, in the time of Trajan, and the Antonines, and indeed throughout the ten persecutions, and I may say never-ceasing martyrdoms of the first three centuries. Of which testimonies against the boundless extravagancies, and blasphemous pretensions of arbitrary power, the effect was to change its very character, and so to ameliorate its heart, that towards the beginning of the third century, it began meekly to submit itself to be taught of God's word, and to govern according to the laws and statutes of Christ, reverently acknowledging him Head over all.

2. Whereupon, as is well known to the learned, and somewhat apprehended by all, the church began to forget her long cherished desire and longing after her King, about to come, whose betrothed wife she is, to be claimed at his coming, which is the day of her espousals; and she went on to commit whoredom with the kind and gracious em