ments of the Lord's supper; that outward confession to the priest was an abuse, superfluous and unprofitable; that the person who entered into an order of monks, became, for the most part, idle and dissolute, and less fitted, than he had been, to observe God's commandments; t that the church of Rome had proved herself a synagogue of Satan; that the pope was not the vicar of Christ; that it was a perversion of the` understanding to trust to the notion of human indulgencies, or the efficacy of relics; and that there was no scriptural warrant for a belief in purgatory, but that it was a mere invention of priestcraft. This servant of God, to whom England was indebted for the first translation of the bible in her vernacular tongue, was followed in 1410, by John Huss and Jerome of Prague. Huss began by reading the writings of Wickliffe, and defended them unto death. And, blessed be God! an hundred years afterwards arose Luther, and Calvin, and Zuingle; and the venerable fathers of the English church, Bilney, and Hooper, and Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley,-a mighty host! who had taken to them

the whole armour of God for the defence of the truth and of the gospel.

Slight and imperfect as this sketch is, it may serve to stop the mouths of slanderers, and to convince us, that the church of God has been of all times and ages. It may, perhaps, show, notwithstanding the influence of papal tyranny, and the disposition of the multitude to follow the great and powerful of this world, that the idolatrous practices of the Romanists, their abuses respecting the sacrament of the Lord's supper, and their conceit of the pope's supremacy, could never have been so generally approved, but that many well-affected and sincere worshippers saw them to be abominations, and resisted them, according to the strength which was given them by God.

III. Application. If such be a faithful statement of the Holy Catholic Church, how earnest, my beloved brethren, should be our supplications, that we may become very members incorporate of that body, which has Christ for its

Head. And while in stedfast, faith, and humble hope, we look, through the Saviour's death and prevailing righteousness, to be joined to the general assembly of the first-born, let us strive more and more to continue in fellowship and close communion with the saints of God. More especially should we, each of us, frequent, with all diligence, the preaching of God's word, by which he calls his people into the church, and which may direct us to eternity. O be it with us, like the Bereans of old, to receive the word with all readiness of mind, and to search the scriptures daily.

And may God, by the enlightening of his ever-blessed Spirit, prevent us, both in our hearing and reading, from being seduced by error. May we not, when the foundation has been scripturally laid, as in our own establishment; and when the substance of Christ's religion is held by that particular branch of the church universal, to which we have the privilege to belong,-O may we not separate ourselves on account of trifling and minor objections; for though they may be

inconveniences, the greater is to go, as Peter, did, from the company of our fellow-disciples. This is, in a degree, to deny Christ, the Lord who bought us. It is, with the Israelites, to fight against the enemy, without Moses and the ark. It is most probably to thrust ourselves into confusion and every evil work. 1aar valo

We should also, my brethren, esteem it our bounden duty, and our highest privilege, to pray constantly for God's true church, wherever situated, no less than for the members of it among our immediate families and neighbours; because wherever Christ's mystical body may be, it is all but one body; one holy catholic church. We are to pray, for the subjugation of error in false professors, and the extensions of the gospel among God's ancient people Israel, and the We are to

heathen world.

We are to pray, that such as have now been admitted to the fellowship of Christ's religion, may continue in the faith, grounded and settled; and may not be moved away from the hope of the gospel, which they have heard. No age, as we have seen, has been

without some witness of the truth; and little doubt can exist, but that, with the children yet unborn, very many more shall be registered in the courts of heaven for their faithfulness. If, even in the darkness of popery, others, who had only a little ray of knowledge, did yet follow it, -left as they were alone, and amidst many dangers, O may it be our ceaseless prayer to the throne of mercy, that the whole family of God shall be advancing continually unto the perfect light, with their many companions, and with all the glory of the Redeemer's church before them.