What other tokens, then, has the Church of Rome to produce, as concurrent evidence of her exclusive possession of the Divine favour; more especially when brought into comparison with those Protestant communities which have renounced her usurpation? We know, indeed, her claim to supremacy, by virtue of her descent from St. Peter; her assumption also of the power of miracles; and her boast of retaining many articles of Christian faith and worship which the rest of the Christian world disclaim. But these pretensions have been too often canvassed and refuted, to be admitted as grounds of that preeminence in the Divine favour, of which she deems her external greatness to be so indubitable a proof. Nor are we at any loss to account for the utmost extent of that greatness, or the influence it has had upon so vast a portion of Christendom, when we contemplate the means and resources which were for ages employed in maturing its designs. In these we discover such abundance of human policy, of subtilty, ingenuity, fraud, and force, as will sufficiently solve the problem, without having recourse to higher agency: and until the historical evidence on which this solution of it rests can be set aside, few impartial observers will incline to think the

mere success of popery a proof that it is the work of GOD.

But, it will be asked, on what better grounds do we assert such a claim in favour of the Protestant Reformation ?-On grounds, we apprehend, too strong to be removed by any such objections as lie against the pretensions just examined.

We allege, in the first place, the success of Protestantism against that prodigious weight of human machinery by which the papal power had been maintained; and which was employed to the very utmost for the overthrow of this extraordinary enterprise. We see the leaders of this enterprise struggling continually under the greatest difficulties and discouragements, exposed to the rage of malice and the storm of persecution. In their labours and distresses we discover much that reminds us of what the primitive Christians underwent in their struggle with Jewish bigotry and heathen violence. Under such circumstances, success in the attempt carries with it, we conceive, something strongly indicating the aid of an invisible and all-powerful hand. The external means appear so inadequate to the exigencies of the case, the instruments so incompetent to effect the purpose, without the interposition of an over

ruling Providence, that we feel almost constrained to say, more than mortal strength must have been engaged in the transaction.

But we should deem even this argument insufficient to establish the point in question, were it not corroborated by more decisive evidence. That the Protestant reformation prospered through the Divine blessing, we infer from the character of the work itself, as well as from its result. Its features are those of truth and purity; of truth, recovered, after the lapse of ages, from the genuine stores of Scripture and primitive antiquity; of purity, not rejecting the comely and venerable externals of religion, but retaining such only as befit its holy character, and are in no wise repugnant to scriptural or apostolical authority. Contrasted, in these respects, with the Church which it renounced, it bears the character of an undaunted champion of the genuine, simple "faith, once delivered to the "saints," against the corrupt abettors of idolatrous superstitions. It stands forth, the advocate of the written word, against those who would have made it almost of none effect by their unwritten and unauthorized traditions. It comes forward, in the panoply of apostolical truth, to vindicate that main foundation e Jude 3.

of the Christian's hope, salvation by Christ alone, against those who had taught men to build their hopes upon other mediators and intercessors, or upon the fallacious ground of human merit. In these respects it exhibits credentials of its Divine original, totally different from the pretensions of that power to which it stands opposed.

Should it, however, be objected, that the Reformation was, in some countries, and especially in our own, considerably aided and promoted by the interested views of secular potentates, jealous of pontifical authority, and desirous to throw off its yoke; it may be answered, that these had, at most, but a partial and temporary operation, with reference to the general result, and bore but little proportion to the prodigious extent and magnitude of the undertaking, and the obstacles to be surmounted. Let it also be observed, that in the commencement, at least, of the work, little or no aid of this kind can be traced. Yet the Divine blessing was manifest in the antecedent circumstances of its birth and origin, no less than in its ulterior progress. Long before Popery had attained its zenith, faithful witnesses in various parts of Christendom bore testimony against its encroachments and its corruptions. Remnants of the

purest primitive Churches stedfastly resisted its persuasions and its threats. Individuals occasionally dared to appeal against it, even in the plenitude of its power. Whole communities from time to time endured its most sanguinary hostility, rather than embrace its terms of communion. So frequent were these efforts in the cause of truth, as to warrant us in affirming, that God "never left Himself "without witness," in this respect as in others, of His superintending watchfulness over the work of His own hands. So that, however unblessed by temporal prosperity, if amplitude and duration are indications of the Divine favour, the Protestant faith needs not shrink from the test, when applied with due regard to its comparative means and circum

stances.

Here, then, we might terminate the inquiry, were nothing further intended than simply to illustrate the maxim of the text, and to shew by what rules, and under what necessary restrictions and limitations, it is to be applied to specific cases. But the subject is of too great interest, and too fertile of observations which may be found to have some bearing upon the present state of religion among us, to be thus cursorily dismissed. History, indeed, furnishes so many instances