of the ministers could read the Scriptures in their mother tongue; and though they made some efforts to get through the ordinary task of reading the established liturgy in Latin, there was not one of a hundred among them that could explain the simplest Latin sentence. And while such blind guides were the leaders, nothing but ignorance and delusion could be expected among the people. Nor did the bishops of Rome employ their influence either to preserve a taste for learning, where any remains of it subsisted, or to revive it, where it had expired. They soon found, that if ignorance were not the mother of devotion, it was a powerful engine, which a skilful hand could easily employ in a subserviency to its own designs. They saw that the more the human mind was covered with ignorance, and shackled with the rites and forms of superstition, the more were the people inclined to receive, with implicit credit, the absurd doctrines which were announced, and to yield a ready compliance with all the commands of their ecclesiastical superiors. They ventured at length to propagate the opinion, that ignorance was the true mother of devotion, and thus attempted to wreath for ever the intolerable yoke of their ghostly dominion over the minds and consciences of men.

rum.

⚫ In proof of the gross ignorance of persons, even in the highest and most important stations of life, the following short extracts from two very respectable authorities may be subjoined :- Many charters, granted by persons of the highest rank of life, are preserved, from which it appears, that they could not subscribe their name. It was usual for persons who could not write to make the sign of the cross in confirmation of a charter. Several of these remain where kings and persons of great eminence affix signum crucis manu propria pro ignoratione literaFrom this is derived the phrase of signing instead of subscribing a paper. -As late as the 14th century, Du Guesclin, constable of France, the greatest man in the state, and one of the greatest men of his age, could neither read nor write.-Nor was this ignorance confined to laymen; the greater part of the clergy was not many degrees superior to them in science. Many dignified ecclesiastics could not subscribe the canons of those councils in which they sat as members. Alfred the Great complained, that, from the Humber to the Thames, there was not a priest who understood the liturgy in his mother-tongue, or who could translate the easiest piece of Latin; and that, from the Thames to the sea, the ecclesiastics were still more ignorant.' Robertson's Chas. V. vol. I. Note 10.'Wherever they (the Barbarians) extended their conquests, ignorance and darkness followed their steps; and the culture of the sciences was confined to the priests and monks alone. And among these learning degenerated from its primitive lustre, and put on the most unseemly and phantastic form. Amidst the seduction of corrupt examples, the alarms of perpetual danger, and the horrors and devasta

There is not any supposable interval between the sounding of the third and fourth trumpets, because Antichristianism and ignorance go together; and therefore, as soon as the star of the third trumpet began to fall, the eclipse of the fourth must have begun to tinge the disk of the luminaries of the heavens. Its origin was in the commencement of the declination of the star; but its duration is far beyond the limits of any natural eclipse of the sun or planets. For hundreds of years this darkness continued to thicken, and to spread the most fearful and destructive gloom over the world.—It must, however, be admitted, that the light of truth was never completely extinguished in the West. There were always some who lamented over the general ignorance and superstition of the times, who laboured to make themselves acquainted with the truth, and who were faithful and zealous to transmit it to succeeding witnesses. Wherever the darkness extended, it was black indeed; sun, and moon, and stars, were smitten: but the whole surface of these luminaries was not covered with the shade; it was only a third part that was obscured. The eclipse of this trumpet was widely different from the darkness of the next; for under the fifth trumpet, the whole disk of every luminous body in the mystical heavens was shrouded in darkness; the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke which rose up out of the pit,' chap. ix. 2.

This chapter is concluded with a general notice respecting the three following trumpets. A series of events was to take place under them which would be peculiarly distressing. Every blast of the preceding trumpets had been the sound of alarm; but the notice prefixed to those that were to succeed is fitted to excite a much greater degree of terror. A threefold woe is denounced by reason of the voices of the trumpets of the three angels which were yet to sound. And to mark the absolute certainty of the prediction, John assures us, that he both heard and saw the angel by whom these woes were

tions of war, the sacerdotal and monastic orders lost gradually all taste for solid science, in the place of which they substituted a lifeless spectre, an enormous phantom of barbarous erudition.'-Mosh, Eccl. History, vol. I.

proclaimed. Ver. 13. I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabiters of the earth, by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound. -How all that is here stated hath been verified will come naturally to be considered in the illustration of the woe-trumpets, as laid in the order of the subsequent predictions.

OBSERV. 1st, A state of ignorance is fitly represented under the emblem of darkness. The natural condition of the soul is often symbolized by this figure. Of the Gentiles it is said, that they walked in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart,' Eph. iv. 18; and of believers in Christ we are told, that they are delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son, Col. i. 13.A state of darkness is both uncomfortable and perilous. And what consolations can those persons enjoy, who continue to be ignorant of all those sources whence genuine consolation may be drawn? How perilous the circumstances of those who are in danger of imposition from every seducer, of stumbling upon every block that may be lying in their way, and of falling headlong into the pit of everlasting despair!

2d, The greatest mental darkness may sometimes prevail, even among the professed friends and followers of Christ. This mystical eclipse was in the heavens of the church; and, though it was only partial, yet the effect of it, as to multitudes, was the same as if it had been total. To them the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.

3d, Whatever degrees of ignorance and corruption may prevail, the light of truth shall still be preserved. In no period since the revelation of mercy has the lamp of truth been quenched. When it was put out in one region, it was lighted up in another; when it perished in the East, it suffered only a partial eclipse in the West. Individuals were raised up who made themselves familiarly acquainted with the truth, and who were zealous in its propagation and defence. They shone like

stars between the openings of the clouds. They were so widely scattered over the heavens, that there is no country in Europe but can boast of some of them as its chief ornaments.

4th, There is no judgment so terrible, but something worse may be dreaded, where the voice of warning is disregarded. We can hardly conceive of greater calamities than those described in the history of the first four trumpets; and yet before the sound of the fifth was heard, an angel was seen flying in the midst of heaven, loudly proclaiming to the inhabitants of the earth, that far more serious calamities were about to befall them. What a fearful thing is it to fall into the hands of the living God! The arrows of his quiver can never be exhausted.

Besides these numerous individuals, there were also public organized bodies of men throughout the whole of the dark ages, who were honoured to display a banner because of the truth. In the valleys of Piedmont, there were thousands of Christians who never once acknowledged the authority of the Pope, nor had any fellowship with that church of which he is the head. So far as their religious opinions can now be ascertained, they seem to have held the same grand articles of faith that were afterwards so generally embraced at the Reformation. In the sequestered valleys between the high mountains of the Alps, "they continued steadfast in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." Popish writers admit that they existed before the 12th century; they represent them as the most ancient of all heretics. They are supposed to have betaken themselves to this wilderness in the times of Heathen persecution, before Constantine's elevation to the throne. Many ages passed over before the church of Rome paid them any attention, or seemed to know that such a people existed. Like the Christians, who have lately been discovered in the remote regions of the East, they lived without being known or molested by the rest of the world. They were secured by the natural bulwarks of the country against any sudden attack; and by the same means they were kept at a distance from the errors and corruptions which disfigured the other parts of the Christian church. But after the folJowers of Peter Waldo fled from the fury of persecution to seek a refuge in the same mountains, they came more into public notice, and had the same cup put into their hands of which the Waldenses had been drinking. For the space of two hundred years after this, they continued to be hunted like wild beasts upon the mountains, and were counted as sheep for the slaughter. Multitudes perished; others fled into the different countries of Europe, and went forth weeping, and sowing that precious seed which produced such a plentiful harvest at the period of the Reformation. In our own country, the Lord saw meet to ordain a lamp for his anointed, in the singular institutions of the Culdees. Their chief employment was to train up men for the office of the holy ministry; and as they drew their information from the proper source of light, the holy Scriptures, many parts of Scotland, especially in the Western islands, were favoured with a learned and evangelical ministry, while the inhabitants of a more genial climate and a richer soil were left to wander in all the mazes of error and delusion.-It were easy to trace through the long period of Popish darkness, that the existence of a public body endeavoured to be faithful for Christ, who either had no connexion with the church of Rome, or boldly opposed her corruptions.

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LECTURE LV.

FIFTH TRUMPET.

REV. ix. 1-12. And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out

of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace'; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have

power.

And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but

that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it ; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men.

And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.

And they had breast-plates, as it were breast-plates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.

And they had tails like unto scorpions; and there were stings in

their tails and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bot