murtherer of his master Mauritius; so that many fatal errors were introduced, and an universal dominion over the other churches was claimed by her. At length, towards the year eight hundred, the worshipping of images, by a decree of the second Nicene council, was introduced under the reign of the wicked empress Irene of Constantinople.

But, thanks be to God for his mercies! we may rest with implicit confidence on the Saviour's promise to his own church; "Lo, I am with 66 you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Matt. xxviii. 20.

When Boniface, called the apostle of the Germans, was sent in the year 719, by Gregory the second, for the purpose of establishing among them the superstitions of the Roman see, he was resisted not only by Adalbert the Gaul, of doubtful character, but by Clement of Ireland, Virgilius and Sidonius, learned men, who could not endure the ceremonies, which were urged respecting the sacraments of baptism and the

Lord's supper; and hence they were deemed presumptuous in considering the inspired word of God to have greater weight than the decrees of councils, and the opinions of fallible human creatures. In 841, we again find Bertram, a priest in France, (who was greatly esteemed by Charles, brother of king Lotharius), teaching that the body of Christ was not really present in the Eucharist, but that it is spiritually received by faith in the communion of the Lord's supper. In the year 847, Thergaudus, bishop of Treves, inveighed strongly against pope Nicholas, whom he designated as Anti-Christ and the Wolf: Rome, he termed Babylon, the mystic city. The ninth century had also to boast the names of Ado, archbishop of Vienna; and Godeschale, both eminent preachers of the doctrine of grace, and of the leading truths of the gospel: with them appeared, for the enlightening of God's church, Claudius, bishop of Turin, who not only denied all pretensions of human merit, but affirmed that man was saved by Christ alone. This distinguished person may not improperly be termed the founder of the doctrines of protes

tantism itself. About the year 1050, the learned, but undecided Berenger, had many followers, who publicly professed, that the real body of Christ was not in the elements of the Lord's supper. In 1140, Bernard, the firm opponent of the haughty and licentious Abelard, speaks, on the important and vital doctrine of justification before God by faith, in the language and spirit of a protestant, even when in danger of his life: "I am not worthy" (he confesses), "nor

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66

can I by any merits of my own obtain the

kingdom of heaven; but my Lord Jesus Christ "has obtained it by a double right; namely, by "inheritance, and by the merit of his passion: "with the one, he was himself content; and the "other, he graciously imparts to me." In 1220, William, a goldsmith, was burnt to death for asserting, that Rome was Babylon, and the pope anti-Christ. In 1250, the bones of Robert Grosselete, who had zealously resisted the papal tyranny, were to have been dug from his grave, and been consumed by fire, if Innocent the fourth had not been terrified by a dream, and therefore desisted from his profane and sacrilegious inten

tion. (Vide speciatim Hist. Magdeberg. in

Cent. div. Bernardi Vitam.-Fox' Acts and

Mon. of the Church.)

Many more defenders of christian truth might be enumerated, whom God was pleased at different times to raise up in his church; but the illustrious names already mentioned, may suffice to prove, that he has never ceased to regard his own people, nor been left without witnesses. If it were needful, reference might be made, for establishing the conviction of his over-ruling providence, to the history of the Albigenses; and particularly, to the interesting records of a Waldenses, who may be traced, if not to the very earliest ages of the church, at least to an *high antiquity, as residing in the vallies of Piedmont. While the inhabitants of these vallies* endured from the Romanists a long continuance of persecution and temporal suffering, they appear to have professed, with the most self-denying constancy, the fundamental doc

* See Notes C and D.

D

trines of the gospel: being fed themselves with the bread of life, they were employed, during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, by the spe cial direction of God, in imparting it to many a hungry soul in France, Switzerland, Germany, Bohemia, and Flanders; they received the sacred scriptures as the only revealed will of God made known to fallen man, and they worshipped the one God, through the sole Mediator, Jesus Christ; they further looked to the sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost for conformity, in their life and conduct, to the written word of inspiration. (Dr. Allia on the Anc. Churches of the Albig. and of Piedm. Histoire gen des Egl. Vaud. par Jean Leger..)

At length, we find John Wickliffe, in 1370, disputing openly at Oxford, and publicly defended by John, Duke of Lancaster, and Lord Henry Percy, against the pope. The points at issue between Wickliffe and the man of sin, were chiefly these:-That the material substances of bread and wine remained in the ele