Section 1

I would first consider the former kind of success, consisting in God's grace here; which mainly appears in the work of God during the time that the Christian church continues under the means of grace; which is from Christ's resurrection to his appearing in the clouds of heaven to judgment; which includes the three former of those great events of providence before mentioned, which are called Christ's coming in his kingdom. In speaking of this success I would.

1. Mention those things by which the means of this success were established after Christ's resurrection; and,

2. Consider the success itself.

Section 1. I would consider those dispensations of providence, by which the means of this success were established after Christ's resurrection.

1. The abolishing of the Jewish dispensation. This indeed was gradually done, but it began from the time of Christ's resurrection, in which the abolition of it is founded. This was the first thing done towards bringing the former state of the world to an end. This is to be looked upon as the great means of the success of Christ's redemption. For the Jewish dispensation was not fitted for more than one nation: it was not fitted for the practice of the world in general, or for a church of God dwelling in all parts of the world: nor would it have been in any wise practicable by them; it would have been impossible for men living in all parts of the world to go to Jerusalem three times a year, as was prescribed in that constitution: When therefore God had a design of enlarging his church, as he did after Christ's resurrection, it was necessary that this dispensation should be abolished. If it had been continued, it would have been a great block and hindrance to the enlargement of the church. Besides, their ceremonial law, by reason of its burdensomeness, and great peculiarity of some of its rites, was as it were a wall of partition: and was the ground of enmity between the Jews and Gentiles, and would have kept the Gentiles from complying with the true religion. This wall therefore was broken down to make way for the more extensive success of the gospel; as Ephesians 2:14-15.

2. The next thing in order of time seems to be the appointment of the Christian Sabbath. For though this was gradually established in the Christian church, yet those things by which the revelation of God's mind and will was made, began on the day of Christ's resurrection, by his appearing then to his disciples, John 20:19; and was afterwards confirmed by his appearing from time to time on that day rather than any other, John 20:26 and by his sending down the Holy Spirit so remarkably on that day, Acts 2:1, and afterwards in directing that public assemblies and the public worship of Christians should be on that day, which may be concluded from Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, and Revelation 1:10. And so the day of the week on which Christ arose from the dead, that joyful day, is appointed to be the day of the church's holy sabbath to the end of the world, and the day of their stated public worship. This is a very great and principal means of the success which the gospel has had in the world.

3. The next thing was Christ's appointment of the gospel ministry, and commissionating and sending forth his apostles to teach and baptize all nations. Of these things we have an account in Matthew 28:19-20. "Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." There were three things done by this one instruction and commission of Christ to his Apostles, namely.

1. The appointment of the office of the gospel ministry. For this commission which Christ gives to his apostles, in the most essential parts of it belongs to all ministers; and the apostles, by virtue of it, were ministers or elders of the church.

2. Here is something peculiar in this commission of the apostles, namely to go forth from one nation to another, preaching the gospel in all the world. The apostles had something above what belonged to their ordinary character as ministers; they had an extraordinary power of teaching and ruling, which extended to all the churches; and not only all the churches which then were, but all that should be to the end of the world by their ministry. And so the apostles were, as it were, in subordination to Christ, made foundations of the Christian church. See Ephesians 2:20 and Revelation 20:14.

3. Here is an appointment of Christian baptism. This ordinance indeed had a beginning before; John the Baptist and Christ both baptized. But now especially by this institution is it established as an ordinance to be upheld in the Christian church to the end of the world. The ordinance of the Lord's supper had been established before, just before Christ's crucifixion.

4. The next thing to be observed, is the enduing the apostles and others, with extraordinary and miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost; such as the gift of tongues, the gift of healing, of prophecy, etc. The Spirit of God was poured out in great abundance in this respect, so that not only ministers, but a very great part of the Christians through the world were endued with them, both old and young; not only officers and more honourable persons, but the meaner sort of people, servants and handmaids, were commonly endued with them, agreeable to Joel's prophecy, Joel 2:28-29, of which prophecy the Apostle Peter takes notice, that it is accomplished in this dispensation, Acts 2:11.

How wonderful a dispensation was this! Under the Old Testament, but few had such honors put upon them by God. Moses wished that all the Lord's people were prophets, Numbers 11:29; whereas Joshua thought it much that Eldad and Medad prophesied. But now we find the wish of Moses fulfilled. This continued in a very considerable degree to the end of the apostolic age, or the first hundred years after the birth of Christ, which is therefore called the age of miracles.

This was a great means of the success of the gospel in that age, and of establishing the Christian church in all parts of the world; and not only in that age, but in all ages to the end of the world: for Christianity being by this means established through so great a part of the known world by miracles, it was after that more easily continued by tradition; and then, by means of these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, the apostles, and others, were enabled to write the New Testament, to be an infallible rule of faith and manners to the church to the end of the world. Furthermore, these miracles stand recorded in those writings as a standing proof and evidence of the truth of the Christian religion to all ages.

5. The next thing I would observe is the revealing those glorious doctrines of the gospel fully and plainly, which had under the Old Testament been obscurely revealed. The doctrine of Christ's satisfaction and righteousness, his ascension and glory, and the way of salvation, under the Old Testament, were in a great measure hid under the veil of types and shadows, and more obscure revelations, as Moses put a veil on his face to hide the shining of it: but now the veil of the temple is rent from the top to the bottom; and Christ, the antitype of Moses, shines: the shining of his face is without a veil; 2 Corinthians 3:12-13 and 18. Now these glorious mysteries are plainly revealed, which were in a great measure kept secret from the foundation of the world, Ephesians 3:3-5; Romans 16:25. "According to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest;" and, Colossians 1:26. "Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages, and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints."

Thus the Sun of righteousness, after it is risen from under the earth, begins to shine forth clearly, and not only by a dim reflection as it did before. Christ, before his death, revealed many things more clearly than ever they had been revealed in the Old Testament; but the great mysteries of Christ's redemption, and reconciliation by his death, and justification by his righteousness, were not so plainly revealed before Christ's resurrection. Christ gave this reason for it, that he would not put new wine into old bottles; and it was gradually done after Christ's resurrection. In all probability, Christ much more clearly instructed them personally after his resurrection, and before his ascension; as we read that he continued with them forty days, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom, Acts 1:3; and that "he opened their understandings, that they might understand the scriptures," Luke 24:45. But the clear revelation of these things was principally after the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, agreeable to Christ's promise, John 16:12-13. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot hear them now. Howbeit, when the Spirit of truth is come, he shall guide you into all truth." Most of the mysteries of the gospel, which are delivered, we have through the hands of the Apostle Paul, by whom we come to know more of the doctrines of the gospel than the greatest prophets knew under the Old Testament.

The light of the gospel, which began to dawn and gradually grew and increased through all the ages of the Old Testament, as we observed as we went along, is now come to the light of perfect day, and the brightness of the sun shining forth in his unveiled glory.

6. The next thing that I would observe, is the appointment of the office of deacons in the Christian church, which we have an account of in the sixth chapter of the Acts, to take care for the outward supply of the members of Christ's church, and the exercise of that great Christian virtue of charity.

7. The calling, and qualifying, and sending the Apostle Paul. This was begun in his conversion as he was going to Damascus, and was one of the greatest means of the success of Christ's redemption that followed: for this success was more by the labours, preaching, and writings of this Apostle, than all the other apostles put together. For, as he says, 1 Corinthians 15:10, he "laboured more abundantly than they all;" so his success was more abundant than that of them all. As he was the apostle of the Gentiles, so it was mainly by his ministry that the Gentiles were called, and the gospel spread through the world; and our nation, and the other nations of Europe have the gospel among them, chiefly through his means; and he was more employed by the Holy Ghost in revealing the glorious doctrines of the gospel by his writings, for the use of the church in all ages, than all the other apostles taken together.

8. The next thing I would observe, is the institution of ecclesiastical councils, for deciding controversies, and ordering the affairs of the church of Christ, of which we have an account in the fifteenth chapter of Acts.

9. The last thing I shall mention under this head, is the committing the New Testament to writing. This was all written after the resurrection of Christ; and all written, either by the apostles, or by the evangelists who were companions of the apostles. All the New Testament was written by the apostles themselves, excepting what was written by Mark and Luke, namely the gospels of Mark and Luke, and the book of the Acts of the Apostles. He that wrote the gospel of Mark, is supposed to be he whose mother was Mary, in whose house they were praying for Peter, when he, brought out of prison by the angel, came and knocked at the door; of which we read. Acts 12:12. "And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together, praying." He was the companion of the apostles Barnabas and Saul: Acts 15:37. "And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark." He was Barnabas's sister's son, and seems sometimes to have been a companion of the Apostle Paul: Colossians 4:10. "Aristarchus, my fellow-prisoner, saluteth you, and Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas; touching whom ye received commandment: if he come unto you, receive him." The apostles seem to have made great account of him, as appears by those places, and also by Acts 12:25. "And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, and took with them John, whose surname was Mark;" and Acts 13:5. "And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they had also John to their minister;" and, 2 Timothy 4:11. "Only Luke is with me: take Mark and bring him with thee; for he is profitable to me for the ministry."

This Luke, who wrote the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, was a great companion of the Apostle Paul. He is spoken of as being with him in the last-mentioned place, and speaks of himself as accompanying him in his travels in the history of the Acts; and therefore he speaks in the first person plural, when speaking of Paul's travels saying, We went to such and such a place; We set sail; We launched from such a place; and landed at such a place. He was greatly beloved by the Apostle Paul: he is that beloved physician spoken of, Colossians 4:14. The Apostle ranks Mark and Luke among his fellow-labourers, Philemon 24. "Marcus, Aristarcus, Demas, Lucas, my fellow-labourers."

The rest of the books were all written by the apostles themselves. The books of the New Testament are either historical, or doctrinal, or prophetical. The historical books are the writings of the four evangelists, giving us the history of Christ, and his purchase of redemption, and his resurrection and ascension; and the Acts of the apostles, giving an account of the great things by which the Christian church was first established and propagated. The doctrinal books are the epistles. These, most of them, we have from the great Apostle Paul. And we have one prophetical book, which takes place after the end of the history of the whole Bible, and gives an account of the great events which were to come to pass, by which the work of redemption was to be carried on to the end of the world.

All these books are supposed to have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem, excepting those which were written by the Apostle John, who lived the longest of all the apostles, and wrote what he wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem, as is supposed. To this beloved disciple it was that Christ revealed those wonderful things which were to come to pass in his church to the end of time; and he was the person that put the finishing hand to the canon of the scriptures, and sealed the whole of it. So that now the canon of scripture, that great and standing written rule, which was begun about Moses' time, is completed and settled, and a curse denounced against him that adds anything to it, or diminishes anything from it. And so all things are established and completed which relate to the appointed means of grace. All the stated means of grace were finished in the apostolical age, or before the death of the Apostle John, and are to remain unaltered to the day of judgment.

Thus far we have considered those things by which the means of grace were given and established in the Christian church.

Section 2. The other thing proposed relating to the success of Christ's redemption during the church's continuance under the means of grace, was to show how this success was carried on; which is what I would now proceed to do.

Here it is worthy to be remembered, that the Christian church during its continuance under the means of grace, is in two very different states.

1. In a suffering, afflicted, persecuted state, as, for the most part it is, from the resurrection of Christ till the fall of Antichrist.

2. In a state of peace and prosperity; which is the state that the church, for the most part, is to be in after the fall of Antichrist.

First, I would show how the success of Christ's redemption is carried on during the continuance of the church's suffering state, from the resurrection of Christ to the fall of Antichrist. This space of time, for the most part, is a state of the church's sufferings, and is so represented in scripture. Indeed God is pleased, out of love and pity to his elect, to grant many intermissions of the church's sufferings during this time, whereby the days of tribulation are as it were shortened. But from Christ's resurrection till the fall of Antichrist, is the appointed day of Zion's troubles. During this space of time, for the most part, some part or other of the church is under persecution; and great part of the time, the whole church, or at least the generality of God's people, have been persecuted.

For the first three hundred years after Christ, the church was for the most part in a state of great affliction, the object of reproach and persecution, first by the Jews, and then by the Heathen. After this, from the beginning of Constantine's time, the church had rest and prosperity for a little while; which is represented in Revelation 7 at the beginning, by the angel's holding the four winds for a little while. But presently after, the church again suffered persecution from the Arians; and after that, Antichrist rose, and the church was driven away into the wilderness, and was kept down in obscurity, and contempt, and suffering, for a long time, under Antichrist, before the reformation by Luther and others. And since the reformation, the church's persecutions have been beyond all that ever were before. Though some parts of God's church sometimes have had rest, yet to this day, for the most part, the true church is very much kept under by its enemies, and some parts of it under grievous persecution; and so we may expect it will continue till the fall of Antichrist; and then will come the appointed day of the church's prosperity on earth, the set time in which God will favor Zion, the time when the saints shall not be kept under by wicked men, as it has been hitherto; but wherein they shall be uppermost, and shall reign on earth, as it is said, Revelation 5:10. "And the kingdom shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High," Daniel 7:27.

This suffering state of the church is in scripture represented as a state of the church's travail, John 16:20-21 and Revelation 12:1-2. What the church is in travail striving to bring forth during this time, is that glory and prosperity of the church which shall be after the fall of Antichrist, and then shall she bring forth her child. This is a long time of the church's trouble and affliction, and is so spoken of in scripture, though it be spoken of as being but for a little season, in comparison of the eternal prosperity of the church. Hence the church, under the long continuance of this affliction, cries out, as in Revelation 6:10, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" And we are told, that "white robes were given to every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also, and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled." So, Daniel 12:6, "How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?"

It is to be observed, that during the time of these sufferings of the church, the main instrument of their sufferings has been the Roman government: her afflictions have almost all along been from Rome. That is therefore in the New Testament called Babylon; because, as of old the troubles of the city Jerusalem were mainly from that adverse city Babylon, so the troubles of the Christian church, the spiritual Jerusalem, during the long time of its tribulation, is mainly from Rome. Before the time of Constantine, the troubles of the Christian church were from Heathen Rome: since that time, its troubles have been mainly from Antichristian Rome. As of old, the captivity of the Jews ceased on the destruction of Babylon, so the time of the trouble of the Christian church will cease with the destruction of the church of Rome, that spiritual Babylon.

In showing how the success of Christ's redemption is carried on during this time of the church's tribulation, I would:

1. Show how it was carried on till the destruction of Jerusalem, with which ended the first great dispensation of Providence which is called Christ's coming in his kingdom.

2. How it was carried on from thence to the destruction of the Heathen empire in the time of Constantine, which is the second dispensation called Christ's coming,

3. How it is carried on from thence to the destruction of Antichrist, when will be accomplished the third great event called Christ's coming, and with which the days of the church's tribulation and travail end.

I. I would show how the success of Christ's purchase of redemption was carried on from Christ's resurrection to the destruction of Jerusalem. In speaking of this, I would, 1. take notice of the success itself; and, 2. the opposition made against it by the enemies of it; and, 3. the terrible judgments of God on those enemies.

1. I would observe the success itself. Soon after Christ had finished the purchase of redemption, and was gone into heaven, and entered into the holy of holies with his own blood, there began a glorious success of what he had done and suffered. Having undermined the foundation of Satan's kingdom, it began to fall apace. Swiftly did it hasten to ruin in the world, which might well be compared to Satan's falling like lightning from heaven. Satan before had exalted his throne very high in this world, even to the very stars of heaven, reigning with great glory in his Heathen Roman empire; but never before had he such a downfall as he had soon after Christ's ascension. He had, we may suppose, been very lately triumphing in a supposed victory, having brought about the death of Christ, which he doubtless gloried in as the greatest feat that ever he did; and probably imagined he had totally defeated God's design by him. But he was quickly made sensible, that he had only been ruining his own kingdom, when he saw it tumbling so fast so soon after, as a consequence of the death of Christ. For Christ, by his death, having purchased the Holy Spirit, and having ascended, and received the Spirit, he poured it forth abundantly for the conversion of thousands and millions of souls.

Never had Christ's kingdom been so set up in the world. There probably were more souls converted in the age of the apostles than had been before from the beginning of the world till that time. Thus God so soon begins gloriously to accomplish his promise to his Son, wherein he had promised, that he should see his seed, and that the pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand, if he would make his soul an offering for sin. And,

(1) Here is to be observed the success, which the gospel had among the Jews: for God first began with them. He being about to reject the main body of that people, first calls in his elect from among them, before he forsook them, to turn to the Gentiles. It was so in former great and dreadful judgments of God on that nation: the bulk of them were destroyed, and only a remnant saved, or reformed. So it was in the rejection of the ten tribes, long before this rejection: the bulk of the ten tribes were rejected, when they left the true worship of God in Jeroboam's time, and afterwards more fully in Ahab's time. But yet there was a remnant of them that God reserved. A number left their possessions in these tribes, and went and settled in the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. And afterwards there were seven thousand in Ahab's time, who had not bowed the knee to Baal. And so, in the captivity into Babylon, only a remnant of them ever returned to their own land. And so now again, by far the greater part of the people were rejected entirely, but some few were saved. Therefore the Holy Ghost compares this reservation of a number that were converted by the preaching of the apostles, to those former remnants: Romans 9:27. Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, "Though the number of the children be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved." See Isaiah 10:22.

The glorious success of the gospel among the Jews after Christ's ascension, began by the pouring out of the Spirit upon the day of Pentecost, of which we read in Acts 2. So wonderful was the pouring out of the Spirit, and so remarkable and swift the effect of it, that we read of three thousand who were converted to the Christian faith in one day, Acts 2:41. Probably the greater part of these were savingly converted. And after this, we read of God's adding to the church daily such as should be saved, verse 47. And soon after, we read, that the number of them were about five thousand. Thus were not only a multitude converted, but the church was then eminent in piety, as appears by Acts 2:46-47 and 4:32.

Thus the Christian church was first of all of the nation of Israel: and therefore, when the Gentiles were called, they were but as it were added to Israel, to the seed of Abraham. They were added to the Christian church of Israel, as the proselytes of old were to the Mosaic church of Israel; and so were as it were only grafted on the stock of Abraham, and were not a distinct tree; for they are all still the seed of Abraham and Israel: as Ruth, the Moabitess, and Uriah the Hittite, and other proselytes of old, were the same people, and ranked as the seed of Israel.

So the Christian church at first began at Jerusalem, and from thence was propagated to all nations: so that this church of Jerusalem was the church that was as it were the mother of all other churches in the world; agreeable to the prophecy. Isaiah 2:3, 4. "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem: and he shall judge among the nations, and rebuke many people." So that the whole church of God is still God's Jerusalem: they are his spiritual Jerusalem, and are as it were only added to the church, which was begun in the literal Jerusalem.

After this, we read of many thousands of Jews that believed in Jerusalem, Acts 21:20. And so we read of multitudes of Jews who were converted in other cities of Judea; and not only so, but even in other parts of the world. For wherever the apostles went, if there were any Jews there, their manner was, first to go into the synagogues of the Jews, and preach the gospel to them, and many in one place and another believed; as in Damascus and Antioch, and many other places that we read of in the Acts of the Apostles.

In this pouring out of the spirit, which began at the Pentecost following Christ's ascension, began that first great dispensation which is called Christ's coming in his kingdom. Christ's coming thus in a spiritual manner for the glorious setting up of his kingdom in the world, is represented by Christ himself as his coming down from heaven, whither he had ascended, John 14:18. There Christ having been speaking of his ascension, says "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come unto you," speaking of his coming by the coming of the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And, verse 28, "You have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you." Thus the apostles began to see the kingdom of heaven come with power, as he promised they should, Mark 9:1.

(2) What is next to be observed is the success of the gospel among the Samaritans. After the success of the gospel had been so gloriously begun among the proper Jews, the Spirit of God was next wonderfully poured out on the Samaritans, who were not Jews by nation, but the posterity of those whom the king of Assyria removed from different parts of his dominions, and settled in the land that was inhabited by the ten tribes, whom he carried captive. But yet they had received the five books of Moses, and practiced most of the rites of the law of Moses, and so were a sort of mongrel Jews. We do not find them reckoned as Gentiles in the New Testament: for the calling of the Gentiles is spoken of as a new thing after this, beginning with the conversion of Cornelius. But yet it was an instance of making that a people that were no people: for they had corrupted the religion which Moses commanded, and did not go up to Jerusalem to worship, but had another temple of their own in Mount Gerizim; which is the mountain of which the woman of Samaria speaks, when she says, "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain." Christ there does not approve of their separation from the Jews; but tells the woman of Samaria, that they worshipped they knew not what, and that salvation is of the Jews. But now salvation is brought from the Jews to them by the preaching of Philip, (excepting that before Christ had some success among them) with whose preaching there was a glorious pouring out of the Spirit of God in the city of Samaria, where we are told, that "the people believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of Christ, and were baptized, both men and women; and that there was great joy in that city," Acts 8:8-12.

Thus Christ had a glorious harvest in Samaria; which is what Christ seems to have had respect to, in what he said to his disciples at Jacob's well three or four years before, on occasion of the people of Samaria's appearing at a distance in the fields coming to the place where Christ was, at the instigation of the woman of Samaria. On that occasion, he bids his disciples lift up their eyes to the fields for that they were white to the harvest, John 4:35, 36. The disposition which the people of Samaria showed towards Christ and the gospel, showed that they were ripe for the harvest. Now the harvest is come by Philip's preaching. There used to be a most bitter enmity between the Jews and Samaritans; but now, by their conversion, the Christian Jews and Samaritans are all happily united: for in Christ Jesus is neither Jew nor Samaritan, but Christ is all in all. This was a glorious instance of the wolf's dwelling with the lamb, and the leopard's lying down with the kid.

(3) The next thing to be observed is the success there was of the gospel in calling the Gentiles. This was a great and glorious dispensation of divine providence, much spoken of in the prophecies of the Old Testament, and spoken of by the apostles time after time, as a most glorious event of Christ's redemption. This was begun in the conversion of Cornelius and his family, greatly to the admiration of Peter, who was used as the instrument of it, and of those who were with him, and of those who were informed of it; as you may see, Acts 10 and 11. The next instance of it that we have any account of, was in the conversion of great numbers of Gentiles in Cyprus, and Cyrene, and Antioch, by the disciples that were scattered abroad by the persecution which arose about Stephen, as we have an account in Acts 11:19-21. Presently upon this the disciples began to be called Christians first at Antioch, verse 26.

After this, vast multitudes of Gentiles were converted in many other parts of the world, chiefly by the ministry of the Apostle Paul, a glorious pouring out of the Spirit accompanying his preaching in one place and another. Multitudes flocked into the church of Christ in a great number of cities where the Apostle came. So the number of the members of the Christian church that were Gentiles, soon far exceeded the number of its Jewish members; yet so, that in less than ten years time after Paul was sent forth from Antioch to preach to the Gentiles, it was said of him and his companions, that they had turned the world upside down: Acts 17:6. "These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." But the most remarkable pouring out of the Spirit in a particular city that we have any account of in the New Testament, seems to be that in the city of Ephesus, which was a very great city. Of this we have an account in Acts 19. There was also a very extraordinary ingathering of souls at Corinth, one of the greatest cities in all Greece. And after this many were converted in Rome, the chief city of all the world; and the gospel was propagated into all parts of the Roman empire. Thus the gospel-sun, which had lately risen on the Jews, now rose upon, and began to enlighten the Heathen world, after they had continued in gross Heathenish darkness for so many ages.

This was a great thing, and a new thing, such as never had been before. All nations but the Jews, and a few who had at one time and another joined with them, had been rejected from about Moses' time. The Gentile world had been covered over with the thick darkness of idolatry; but now, at the joyful glorious sound of the gospel, they began in all parts to forsake their old idols, and to abhor them, and to cast them to the moles and to the bats, and to learn to worship the true God, and to trust in his Son Jesus Christ; and God owned them for his people; those who had so long been afar off, were made nigh by the blood of Christ. Men were changed from being Heathenish and brutish, to be the children of God; were called out of Satan's kingdom of darkness, and brought into God's marvelous light; and in almost all countries throughout the known world were assemblies of the people of God; joyful praises were sung to the true God, and Jesus Christ the glorious Redeemer. Now that great building which God began soon after the fall of man, rises gloriously, not in the same manner that it had done in former ages, but in quite a new manner; now Daniel's prophecies concerning the last kingdom, which should succeed the four Heathenish monarchies, begins to be fulfilled; now the stone cut out of the mountains without hands, began to smite the image on its feet, and to break it in pieces, and to grow great, and to make great advances towards filling the earth; and now God gathers together the elect from the four winds of heaven, by the preaching of the apostles and other ministers, the angels of the Christian church sent forth with the great sound of the gospel-trumpet, before the destruction of Jerusalem, agreeable to what Christ foretold, Matthew 24:31.

This was the success of Christ's purchase during this first period of the Christian church, which terminated in the destruction of Jerusalem.

2. I would proceed now, in the second place, to take notice of the opposition which was made to this success of Christ's purchase by the enemies of it. Satan, who lately was so ready to triumph and exult, as though he had gained the victory in putting Christ to death, now finding himself fallen into the pit which he had digged, and finding his kingdom falling so fast, and seeing Christ's kingdom make such amazing progress, such as never had been before, we may conclude he was filled with the greatest confusion and astonishment, and hell seemed to be effectually alarmed by it to make the most violent opposition against it. First, the devil stirred up the Jews, who had before crucified Christ, to persecute the church: for it is observable, that the persecution which the church suffered during this period, was mostly from the Jews. Thus we read in the Acts, when, at Jerusalem, the Holy Ghost was poured out at Pentecost, how the Jews mocked, and said, "These men are full of new wine;" and how the scribes and Pharisees, and the captain of the temple, were alarmed, and bestirred themselves to oppose and persecute the apostles, and first apprehended and threatened them, and afterwards imprisoned and beat them; and breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, they stoned Stephen in a tumultuous rage; and were not content to persecute those that they could find in Judea, but sent abroad to Damascus and other places, to persecute all that they could find everywhere. Herod, who was chief among them, stretched forth his hands to vex the church, and killed James with the sword, and proceeded to take Peter also, and cast him into prison.

So in other countries, we find, that almost wherever the apostles came, the Jews opposed the gospel in a most malignant manner, contradicting and blaspheming. How many things did the blessed Apostle Paul suffer at their hands in one place and another! How violent and bloodthirsty did they show themselves towards him, when he came to bring alms to his nation! In this persecution and cruelty was fulfilled that of Christ, Matthew 23:34. "Behold, I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them you shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city."

3. I proceed to take notice of those judgments which were executed on those enemies of Christ, the persecuting Jews.

(1) The bulk of the people were given up to judicial blindness of mind and hardness of heart. Christ denounced such a woe upon them in the days of his flesh; as Matthew 13:14, 15. This curse was also denounced on them by the Apostle Paul, Acts 28:25, 26, 27; and under this curse, under this judicial blindness and hardness, they remain to this very day, having been subject to it for about 1700 years, being the most awful instance of such a judgment, and monuments of God's terrible vengeance, of any people that ever were. That they should continue from generation to generation so obstinately to reject Christ, so that it is a very rare thing that any one of them is converted to the Christian faith, though their own scriptures of the Old Testament, which they acknowledge, are so full of plain testimonies against them, is a remarkable evidence of their being dreadfully left of God.

(2) They were rejected and cast off from being any longer God's visible people. They were broken off from the flock of Abraham, and since that have no more been reputed his seed, than the Ishmaelites or Edomites, who are as much his natural seed as they. The greater part of the two tribes were now cast off, as the ten tribes had been before, and another people were taken in their room, agreeable to the predictions of their own prophets; as of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:21. "They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people, I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation;" and of Isaiah, 65:1. "I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not." They were visibly rejected and cast off, by God's directing his apostles to turn away from them, and let them alone; as Acts 13:46, 47. "Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles: for so hath the Lord commanded us." And so Acts 18:6 and 28:28.

Thus far we have had the scripture-history to guide us: henceforward we shall have the guidance only of two things, namely, of scripture-prophecy, and God's providence, as related in human histories. But I proceed.

(3) The third and last judgment of God on these enemies of the success of the gospel which I shall mention, is the terrible destruction of their city and country by the Romans. They had great warnings and many means used with them before this destruction. First, John the Baptist warned them, and told them, that the axe was laid at the root of the tree; and that every tree which should not bring forth good fruit, should be hewn down, and cast into the fire. Then Christ warned them very particularly, and told them of their approaching destruction, and at the thoughts of it wept over them. And then the apostles after Christ's ascension abundantly warned them. But they proved obstinate, and went on in their opposition to Christ and his church, and in their bitter persecuting practices. Their so malignantly persecuting the Apostle Paul, of which we have an account towards the end of the Acts of the Apostles, is supposed to have been not more than seven or eight years before the destruction.

After this God was pleased to give them one more very remarkable warning by the Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Hebrews, which is an epistle written to that nation of the Jews, as is supposed, about four years before their destruction; wherein the plainest and clearest arguments are set before them from their own law, and from their prophets, for whom they professed such a regard, to prove that Christ Jesus must be the Son of God, and that all their law pointed to him and typified him, and that their Jewish dispensation must needs have now ceased. For though the epistle was more immediately directed to the Christian Hebrews, yet the matter of the epistle plainly shows that the apostle intended it for the use and conviction of the unbelieving Jews. In this epistle he mentions particularly the approaching destruction, as chapter 10:25. "So much the more; as ye see the day approaching;" and in verse 27 he speaks of the approaching judgment and fiery indignation which should devour the adversaries.

But the generality of them refusing to receive conviction, God soon destroyed them with such terrible circumstances, as the destruction of no country or city since the foundation of the world can parallel; agreeable to what Christ foretold, Matthew 24:21. "For then shall be tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." The first destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was very terrible, as it is in the most affecting manner described by the Prophet Jeremiah, in his Lamentations; but this was nothing to the dreadful misery and wrath which they suffered in the destruction; God, according as Christ foretold, bringing on them all the righteous blood that had been shed from the foundation of the world. Thus the enemies of Christ were made his footstool after his ascension, agreeable to God's promise in Psalm 110 at the beginning; and Christ rules them with a rod of iron. They had been kicking against Christ, but they did not kick against the pricks. The briars and thorns set themselves against him in battle: but he went through them: he burned them together.

This destruction of Jerusalem was in all respects agreeable to what Christ had foretold of it, Matthew 24, by the account which Josephus gives of it, who was then present, and was one of the Jews, who had a share in the calamity, who wrote the history of their destruction. Many circumstances of this destruction resembled the destruction of the wicked at the day of judgment, by his account, being accomplished with many fearful sights in the heavens, and with the separation of the righteous from the wicked. Their city and their temple were burnt, and razed to the ground, and the ground on which the city stood was plowed; and so one stone was not left upon another, Matthew 24:2.

The people had ceased for the most part to be an independent government after the Babylonian captivity: but the scepter entirely departed from Judah on the death of Archelaus; and then Judea was made a Roman province; after this they were cast off from being the people of God; but now their very city and land are utterly destroyed, and they carried away from it; and so have continued in their dispersions through the world for now about 1600 years.

Thus there was a final end to the Old Testament world; all was finished with a kind of day of judgment, in which the people of God were saved, and his enemies terribly destroyed. Thus does he who was so lately mocked, despised, and spit upon by the Jews, and whose followers they malignantly persecuted, appear gloriously exalted over his enemies.

Having thus shown how the success of Christ's purchase was carried on till the destruction of Jerusalem, I come now.

2. To show how it was carried on from that time till the destruction of the Heathen empire in the time of Constantine the Great, which is the second great event which is in scripture compared to Christ's coming to judgment.

Jerusalem was destroyed about the year of our Lord 68, and so before that generation passed away which was contemporary with Christ; and it was about thirty-five years after Christ's death. The destruction of the Heathen empire under Constantine, was about 260 years after this. In showing how the success of the gospel was carried on through this time, I would: 1. Take notice of the opposition made against it by the Roman empire. 2. How the work of the gospel went on notwithstanding all that opposition. 3. The peculiar circumstances of tribulation and distress that the church was in just before their deliverance by Constantine. 4. The great revolution in Constantine's time.

1. I would briefly show what opposition was made against the gospel, and the kingdom of Christ, by the Roman empire. The opposition that was made to the gospel by the Heathen Roman empire, was mainly after the destruction of Jerusalem, though their opposition began before; but the opposition that was before the destruction of Jerusalem, was mainly by the Jews. But when Jerusalem was destroyed, the Jews were put out of a capacity of much troubling the church. Now therefore the devil turns his hand elsewhere, and uses other instruments. The opposition which was made in the Roman empire against the kingdom of Christ, was chiefly of two kinds.

(1) They employed all their learning, philosophy, and wit, in opposing it. Christ came into the world in an age wherein learning and philosophy were at their height in the Roman empire. This was employed to the utmost against the kingdom of Christ. The gospel, which held forth a crucified Savior, was not at all agreeable to the notions of the philosophers. The Christian scheme of trusting in such a crucified Redeemer, appeared foolish and ridiculous to them. Greece was a country the most famous for learning of any in the Roman empire; but the apostle observes, that the doctrine of Christ crucified appeared foolishness to the Greeks, 1 Corinthians 1:23; and therefore the wise men and philosophers opposed the gospel with all the wit they had. We have a specimen of their manner of opposing, in the story we have of their treatment of the Apostle Paul at Athens, which was a city that had been for many ages the chief seat of philosophers of any in the whole world. We read in Acts 17:18 that the philosophers of the Epicureans and Stoics encountered him, saying, "What will this babbler say? He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods." So they were wont to deride and ridicule Christianity. After the destruction of Jerusalem, several of these philosophers published books against it; the chief of whom were Celsus and Porphyry. These wrote books against the Christian religion with a great deal of virulence and contempt, much after the manner that the Deists of the present age oppose and ridicule Christianity. Something of their writings yet remains. As great enemies and despisers as they were of the Christian religion, yet they never denied the facts recorded of Christ and his apostles, in the New Testament, particularly the miracles which they wrought, but allowed them. They lived too near the times wherein these miracles were wrought to deny them; for they were so publicly done, and so lately, that neither Jews nor Heathens in those days appeared to deny them; but they ascribed them to the power of magic.

(2) The authority of the Roman empire employed all their strength, time after time, to persecute, and if possible to root out Christianity. This they did in ten general successive persecutions. We have heretofore observed, that Christ came into the world, when the strength of Heathen dominion and authority was the greatest that ever it was under the Roman monarchy, the greatest and strongest human monarchy that ever was on earth. All the strength of this monarchy was employed for a long time to oppose and persecute the Christian church, and if possible to destroy it, in ten successive attempts, which are called the ten Heathen persecutions, which were before Constantine.

The first of these, which was the persecution under Nero, was a little before the destruction of Jerusalem, in which the Apostle Peter was crucified, and the Apostle Paul beheaded, soon after he wrote his second epistle to Timothy. When he wrote that epistle, he was a prisoner at Rome under Nero, and was soon after he wrote it beheaded, agreeable to what he says, chapter 4:6, 7. "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." There were many thousands of other Christians slain in that persecution. The other nine persecutions were all after the destruction of Jerusalem. Some of these were very terrible indeed, and far exceeded the first persecution under Nero. One emperor after another set himself with the utmost rage to root out the Christian church from the earth, that there should not be so much as the name of Christian left in the world. Thousands and millions were put to cruel deaths in these persecutions; for they spared neither sex nor age, but killed them as fast as they could. Under the second general persecution, that which was next after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Apostle John was banished to the isle of Patmos, where he had those visions of which he has given an account in the Revelation. Under that persecution it was reckoned, that about 40,000 suffered martyrdom; which yet was nothing to what were put to death under some succeeding persecutions. Ten thousand suffered that one kind of cruel death, crucifixion, in the third persecution under the Emperor Adrian. Under the fourth persecution, which began about the year of Christ 162, many suffered martyrdom in England, the land of our forefathers, where Christianity had been planted very early, and, as is supposed, in the days of the apostles. In the later persecutions, the Roman emperors being vexed at the frustration of their predecessors, who were not able to extirpate Christianity, or hinder its progress, were enraged to be the more violent in their attempts.

Thus a great part of the first 300 years after Christ was spent in violent and cruel persecutions of the church by the Roman powers. Satan was very unwilling to let go his hold of so great a part of the world, and every way the chief part of it, as the countries contained in the Roman empire were, of which he had had the quiet possession for so many ages: and therefore, when he saw it going so fast out of his hands, he bestirred himself to his utmost: and hell was, as it were, raised against it to oppose it with its utmost power.

Satan thus exerting himself by the power of the Heathen Roman empire, is called the great red dragon in scripture, having seven heads and ten horns, fighting against the woman clothed with the sun, as in the twelfth of Revelation. And the terrible conflict there was between the church of Christ, and the powers of the Heathen empire before Constantine's time, is there, in verse 7, represented by the war between Michael and his angels, and the dragon and his angels: "And there was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought, and the dragon fought and his angels."

2. I would take notice what success the gospel had in the world before the time of Constantine, notwithstanding all this opposition. Though the learning and power of the Roman empire were so great, and both were employed to the utmost against Christianity to put a stop to it, and to root it out for so long a time, and in so many repeated attempts; yet all was in vain; they could neither root it out, nor put a stop to it. But still, in spite all that they could do, the kingdom of Christ wonderfully prevailed, and Satan's Heathen kingdom mouldered and consumed away before it, agreeable to the words of the text, "The moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool." It was very observable, that for the most part the more they persecuted the church, the more it increased; insomuch that it became a common saying, The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Herein the church of Christ proved to be like a palm tree; of which tree it is remarked, that the greater weight is laid upon it, or hung to its branches, the more it grows and flourishes; on which account probably the church is compared to a palm tree in Canticles 7:7, "This thy stature is like to a palm tree." Justin Martyr, an eminent father in the Christian church, who lived in the age next after the apostles, in some writings of his, which are yet extant, says, that in his days there was no part of mankind, whether Greeks or barbarians, or by what name soever they were called, even the most rude and unpolished nations, where prayers and thanksgivings were not made to the great creator of the world, through the name of the crucified Jesus. Tertullian, another eminent father in the Christian church, who lived in the beginning of the following age, in some of his writings which are yet extant, sets forth how that in his day the Christian religion had extended itself to the utmost bounds of the then known world, in which he reckons Britain, the country of our forefathers; and thence demonstrates, that the kingdom of Christ was then more extensive than any of the four great monarchies; and moreover says, that though the Christians were as strangers of no long standing, yet they had filled all places of the Roman dominions, their cities, islands, castles, corporations, councils, armies, tribes, the palace, senate, and courts of judicature; only they had left to the Heathen their temples; and that if they should all agree to retire out of the Roman empire, the world would be amazed at the solitude and desolation that would ensue upon it, there would be so few left; and that the Christians were enough to be able easily to defend themselves, if they were disposed to rise up in arms against the Heathen magistrates. And Pliny, a Heathen who lived in those days, says, multitudes, of each sex, every age and quality, were become Christians. This superstition, says he, having infected and over-run not the city only, but towns and countries, the temples and sacrifices are generally desolate and forsaken.

It was remarked by both Heathen and Christian writers in those days, that the famous Heathen oracles in their temples, where princes and others for many past ages had been wont to inquire and receive answers with an audible voice from their gods, which were indeed answers from the devil; I say, those oracles were now silenced and struck dumb, and gave no more answers: and particularly the oracle at Delphi, which was the most famous Heathen oracle in the whole world, which both Greeks and Romans used to consult, began to cease to give any answers, even from the birth of Christ; and the false deity who was worshipped, and used to give answers from his oracle in that temple, being once inquired of, why he did now give answers as he was wont to do? He made this reply, as several Heathen historians who lived about those times relate, There is an Hebrew boy, says he, who is king of the gods, who has commanded me to leave this house, and be gone to hell, and therefore you are to expect no more answers. Many of the Heathen writers who lived about that time, speak much of the oracles being silenced, as a thing at which they wondered, not knowing what the cause should be. Plutarch, a Heathen writer of those times, wrote a particular treatise about it, which is still extant. And Porphyry, one of the Heathen writers before-mentioned, who opposed the Christian religion, in his writings has these words: It is no wonder if the city for these so many years has been over-run with sickness; Esculapius, and the rest of the gods, having withdrawn their converse with men "for since Jesus began to be worshipped, no man has received any public help or benefit by the gods."

Thus did the kingdom of Christ prevail against the kingdom of Satan.

3. I now proceed to take notice of the peculiar circumstances of tribulation and distress just before Constantine the Great came to the throne. This distress they suffered under the tenth Heathen persecution, which, as it was the last, so it was by far the heaviest, and most severe. The church before this, after the ceasing of the ninth persecution, had enjoyed a time of quietness for about forty years together; but, abusing their liberty, began to grow cold and lifeless in religion, and carnal, and contentions prevailed among them; by which they offended God to suffer this dreadful trial to come upon them. Satan having lost ground so much, notwithstanding all his attempts, now seemed to bestir himself with more than ordinary rage. Those who were then in authority set themselves with the utmost violence to root out Christianity, by burning all Bibles, and destroying all Christians; and therefore they did not stand to try or convict them in a formal process, but fell upon them wherever they could; sometimes setting fire to houses where multitudes of them were assembled, and burning them all together; and at other times slaughtering multitudes together: so that sometimes their persecutors were quite spent with the labor of killing and tormenting them; and in some populous places, so many were slain together, that the blood ran like torrents. It is related, that seventeen thousand martyrs were slain in one month's time; and that during the continuance of this persecution, in the province of Egypt alone, no less than 144,000 Christians died by the violence of their persecutors, besides 700,000 that died through the fatigues of banishment, or the public works to which they were condemned.

This persecution lasted for ten years together; and as it exceeded all foregoing persecutions in the number of martyrs, so it exceeded them in the variety and multitude of inventions of torture and cruelty. Some authors who lived at that time, say, they were innumerable, and exceed all account and expression.

This persecution in particular was very severe in England; and this is that persecution which was foretold in Revelation 6:9, 10. "And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held." "And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"

At the end of the ten years during which this persecution continued, the Heathen persecutors thought they had finished their work, and boasted that they had utterly destroyed the name and superstition of the Christians, and had restored and propagated the worship of the gods.

Thus it was the darkest time with the Christian church just before the break of day. They were brought to the greatest extremity just before God appeared for their glorious deliverance, as the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt was the most severe and cruel just before their deliverance by the hand of Moses. Their enemies thought they had swallowed them up just before their destruction, as it was with Pharaoh and his host when they had hemmed in the children of Israel at the Red Sea.

4. I come now, in the fourth place, to the great revolution which was in the world in the days of Constantine, which was in many respects like Christ's appearing in the clouds of heaven to save his people, and judge the world. The people of Rome being weary of the government of those tyrants to whom they had lately been subject, sent to Constantine, who was then in the city of York in England, to come and take the throne. He being encouraged, as is said, by a vision of a pillar of light in the heavens, in the form of a cross, in the sight of his whole army, with this inscription, In this overcome; and the night following, by Christ's appearing to him in a dream with the same cross in his hand, who directed him to make a cross like that to be his royal standard, that his army might fight under that banner, and assured him that he should overcome. Accordingly he did, and overcame his enemies, and took possession of the Imperial throne, and embraced the Christian religion, and was the first Christian emperor that ever reigned. He came to the throne about 320 years after Christ. There are several things which I would take notice of which attended or immediately followed Constantine's coming to the throne.

(1) The Christian church was thereby wholly delivered from persecution. Now the day of her deliverance came after such a dark night of affliction: weeping had continued for a night, but now deliverance and joy came in the morning. Now God appeared to judge his people, and repented himself for his servants, when he saw their power was gone, and there was none shut up or left. Christians had no persecutions now to fear. Their persecutors now were all put down, and their rulers were some of them Christians like themselves.

(2) God now appeared to execute terrible judgments on their enemies. Remarkable are the accounts which history gives us of the fearful ends to which the Heathen emperors, and princes, and generals, and captains, and other great men came, who had exerted themselves in persecuting the Christians; dying miserably, one and another, under exquisite torments of body, and horrors of conscience, with a most visible hand of God upon them. So that what now came to pass might very fitly be compared to their hiding themselves in the dens and rocks of the mountains.

(3) Heathenism now was in a great measure abolished throughout the Roman empire. Images were now destroyed, and Heathen temples pulled down. Images of gold and silver were melted down, and coined into money. Some of the chief of their idols, which were curiously wrought, were brought to Constantinople, and there drawn with ropes up and down the streets for the people to behold and laugh at. The Heathen priests were dispersed and banished.

(4) The Christian church was brought into a state of great peace and prosperity. Now all Heathen magistrates were put down, and only Christians were advanced to places of authority all over the empire. They had now Christian presidents, Christian governors, Christian judges and officers, instead of their old Heathenish ones. Constantine set himself to put honor upon Christian bishops or ministers, and to build and adorn churches; and now large and beautiful Christian churches were erected in all parts of the world, instead of the old Heathen temples.

This revolution was the greatest revolution and change in the face of things that ever came to pass in the world since the flood. Satan, the prince of darkness, that king and god of the Heathen world, was cast out. The roaring lion was conquered by the Lamb of God, in the strongest dominion that ever he had, even the Roman empire. This was a remarkable accomplishment of, Jeremiah 10:11, "The Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens." The chief part of the world was now brought utterly to cast off their old gods and their old religion, to which they had been accustomed much longer than any of their histories give an account of. They had been accustomed to worship the gods so long, that they knew not any beginning of it. It was formerly spoken of as a thing unknown for a nation to change their gods, Jeremiah 2:10-11; but now the greater part of the nations of the known world were brought to cast off their former gods. That multitude of gods that they worshipped were all forsaken. Thousands of them were cast away for the worship of the true God, and Christ the only Savior: and there was a most remarkable fulfillment of that in Isaiah 2:17-18, "And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. And the idols he shall utterly abolish." Since that, it has come to pass, that those gods that were once so famous in the world, as Jupiter, and Saturn, and Minerva, and Juno, etc. are only heard of as things which were of old. They have no temples, no altars, no worshippers, and have not had for many hundred years.

Now is come the end of the old Heathen world in the principal part of it, the Roman empire. This great revolution and change of the state of the world, with that terrible destruction of the great men who had been persecutors, is compared, in Revelation 6, to the end of the world, and Christ coming to judgment; and is what is most immediately signified under the sixth seal, which followed upon the souls under the altar, crying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" This vision of the sixth seal, by the general consent of divines and expositors, has respect to this downfall of the Heathen Roman empire; though it has a more remote respect to the day of judgment, or this was a type of it. The day of judgment cannot be what is immediately intended; because we have an account of many events which were to come to pass under the seventh seal, and so were to follow after those of the sixth seal. What came to pass now is also represented by the devil's being cast out of heaven to the earth. In his great strength and glory, in that mighty Roman empire, he had as it were exalted his throne up to heaven. But now he fell like lightning from heaven, and was confined to the earth. His kingdom was confined to the meaner and more barbarous nations, or to the lower parts of the world of mankind. This is the event foretold, Revelation 12:9 etc. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him etc. Satan tempted Christ, and promised to give him the glory of the kingdoms of the world, but now he is obliged to give it to him even against his will. This was a glorious fulfillment of that promise which God made to his Son, that we have an account of in Isaiah 53:12, "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." This was a great fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning the glorious time of the gospel, and particularly of the prophecies of Daniel. Now the kingdom of heaven is come in a glorious degree. It pleased the Lord God of heaven to set up a kingdom on the ruins of Satan's kingdom. And such success is there of the purchase of Christ's redemption, and such honor does the Father put upon Christ for the disgrace he suffered when on earth. And now see to what a height that glorious building is erected, which had been building ever since the fall.

INFERENCE. From what has been said of the success of the gospel from Christ's ascension to the time of Constantine, we may deduce a strong argument of the true Christian religion, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ is really from God. This wonderful success of it which has been spoken of, and the circumstances of it which have been mentioned, are a strong argument of it several ways.

1. We may gather from what has been said, that it is the gospel, and that only, which has actually been the means of bringing the world to the knowledge of the true God. That those are no gods whom the Heathen worshipped, and that there is but one only God, is what, now since the gospel has so taught us, we can see to be truth by our own reason: it is plainly agreeable to the light of nature: it can be easily shown by reason to be demonstrably true. The very Deists themselves acknowledge, that it can be demonstrated, that there is one God, and but one, who has made and governs the world. But now it is evident that it is the gospel, and that only, which has actually been the means of bringing men to the knowledge of this truth: it was not the instructions of philosophers. They tried in vain: "The world by wisdom knew not God." Till the gospel and the holy scriptures came abroad in the world, all the world lay in ignorance of the true God and in the greatest darkness with respect to the things of religion, embracing the absurdest opinions and practices, which all civilized nations now acknowledge to be childish fooleries. And so they lay one age after another, and nothing proved effectual to enlighten them. The light of nature, and their own reason, and all the wisdom of learned men, signified nothing till the scriptures came. But when these came abroad, they were successful to bring the world to an acknowledgement of the one only true God, and to worship and serve him.

Hence it is that all that part of the world which now does own one only true God, Christians, Jews, Mahometans, and even Deists too, originally came by the knowledge of him. It is owing to this that they are not in general at this day left in Heathenish darkness. They have it all, first of all, either immediately from the scriptures or by tradition from their fathers, who had it first from the scriptures. And doubtless those who now despise the scriptures, and boast of the strength of their own reason, as being sufficient to lead to the knowledge of the one true God, if the gospel had never come abroad in the world to enlighten their forefathers, would have been as sottish and brutish idolaters as the world in general was before the gospel came abroad. The Mahometans, who own but one true God, at first borrowed the notion from the scriptures: for the first Mahometans had been educated in the Christian religion, and apostatized from it. This is evidential, that the scriptures were designed of God to be the proper means to bring the world to the knowledge of himself, rather than human reason, or any thing else. For it is unreasonable to suppose, that the gospel, and that only, which God never designed as the proper means for obtaining this effect, should actually obtain it, and that after human reason, which he designed as the proper mean, had been tried for a great many ages without any effect. If the scriptures be not the word of God, then they are nothing but darkness and delusion, yea the greatest delusion that ever was. Now, is it reasonable to suppose, that God in his providence would make use of falsehood and delusion, and that only, to bring the world to the knowledge of himself, and that no part of it should be brought to the knowledge of him any other way?

2. The gospel's prevailing as it did against such powerful opposition, plainly shows the hand of God. The Roman government, that did so violently set itself to hinder the success of the gospel, and to subdue the church of Christ, was the most powerful human government that ever was in the world: and not only so, but they seemed as it were to have the church in their hands. The Christians were mostly their subjects, under their command, and never took up arms to defend themselves: they did not gather together, and stand in their own defense; they armed themselves with nothing but patience, and such like spiritual weapons: and yet this mighty power could not conquer them; but, on the contrary, Christianity conquered them. The Roman empire had subdued the world; they had subdued many mighty and potent kingdoms: they subdued the Grecian monarchy, when they were not their subjects, and made the utmost resistance: and yet they could not conquer the church which was in their hands; but, on the contrary, were subdued, and finally triumphed over by the church.

3. No other sufficient cause can possibly be assigned of this propagation of the gospel, but only God's own power. Nothing else can be devised as the reason of it but this. There was certainly some reason. Here was a great and wonderful effect: the most remarkable change that ever was in the face of the world of mankind since the flood; and this effect was not without some cause. Now, what other cause can be devised but only the divine power? It was not the outward strength of the instruments which were employed in it. At first, the gospel was preached only by a few fishermen, who were without power and worldly interest to support them. It was not their craft and policy that produced this wonderful effect; for they were poor illiterate men. It was not the agreeableness of the story they had to tell to the notions and principles of mankind. This was no pleasant fable: A crucified God and Savior was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness. It was not the agreeableness of their doctrines to the dispositions of men: for nothing is more contrary to the corruptions of men than the pure doctrines of the gospel. This effect therefore can have proceeded from no other cause than the power and agency of God: and if the power of God was what was exercised to cause the gospel to prevail, then the gospel is his word; for surely God does not use his almighty power to promote a mere imposture and delusion.

4. This success is agreeable to what Christ and his apostles foretold. Matthew 16:18. "Upon this rock will I build my church: and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." John 12:24. "Verily verily I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." And verses 31-32. "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out." "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." John 16:8. "When he (the Comforter) is come, he will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment,—because the prince of this world is judged."

So the Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 1:21-28, declares, how that after the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe; and that God chose the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise; and weak things of the world, to confound the things which are mighty: and base things of the world, and things which are despised, yea and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are. If any man foretells a thing, very likely in itself to come to pass, from causes which can be foreseen, it is no great argument of a revelation from God: but when a thing is foretold which is very unlikely ever to come to pass, is entirely contrary to the common course of things, and yet it does come to pass just agreeable to the prediction, this is a strong argument that the prediction was from God.

Thus the consideration of the manner of the propagation and success of the gospel during the time which has been spoken of, affords great evidence that the scriptures are the word of God.

3. I am to show how the success of Christ's redemption is carried on from the time of the overthrow of the Heathen Roman empire in the time of Constantine the Great, till the fall of Antichrist, and the destruction of Satan's visible kingdom on the earth, which is the third great dispensation which is in scripture compared to Christ's coming to judgment. This is a period wherein many great and wonderful things are brought to pass. Herein is contained a long series of wonders of divine providence towards the Christian church. The greater part of the book of Revelation is taken up in foretelling the events of this period.

The success of Christ's purchase of redemption in this period, appears mainly at the close of it, when Antichrist comes to fall, when there will be a far more glorious success of the gospel than ever was before: and that long series of events which are before, seem to be only to prepare the way for it. In order to a more clear view of the great works of God in accomplishing the success of Christ's redemption, and our seeing the glory of them, it will be necessary, as we have done in the foregoing periods, to consider not only the success itself, but the opposition made to it, and the great works of Satan in this period against the church and kingdom of Christ: and therefore, in taking a view of this period, I would take notice of events which may be referred to either of these heads, namely either to the head of Satan's opposition to the success of Christ's redemption, or to the head of success of Christ's redemption: and for the more orderly consideration of the events of this period, I would divide it into these four parts: the first reaching from the destruction of the Heathen empire to the rise of Antichrist; the second, from the rise of Antichrist to the reformation in Luther's time; the third, from thence to the present time; the fourth, from the present time, till Antichrist is fallen, and Satan's visible kingdom on earth is destroyed.

First, I would consider the events of the first part of this period, reaching from the destruction of the Heathen empire to the rise of Antichrist. Here, first, I would take notice of the opposition Satan made in this space of time to the church: and, secondly, the success that the gospel had in it.

1. The opposition. Satan being cast out of this old Heathen empire, the great red dragon, after so sore a conflict with Michael and his angels for the greater part of three hundred years, being at last entirely routed and vanquished, so that no place was found any more in heaven for him, but he was cast down, as it were, from heaven to the earth; yet does not give over his opposition to the woman, the church of Christ, concerning which all this conflict had been. But he is still in a rage, and renews his attempts, and has recourse to new devices against the church. The serpent, after he is cast out of heaven to the earth, casts out of his mouth water as a flood, to cause the woman to be carried away of the flood. The opposition that he made to the church of Christ before the rise of Antichrist, was principally of two sorts. It was either by corrupting the church of Christ with heresies, or by new endeavors to restore Paganism.

(1) I would observe, that after the destruction of the Heathen Roman empire, Satan infested the church with heresies. Though there had been so glorious a work of God in delivering the church from her Heathen persecutors, and overthrowing the Heathen empire; yet the days of the church's travail not being ended, and the set time of her prosperity not being yet come, as being what was to succeed the fall of Antichrist, therefore the peace and prosperity which the church enjoyed in Constantine's time, was but very short: it was a respite, which gave the church a time of peace and silence, as it were, for half an hour, wherein the four angels held the four winds from blowing, till the servants of God should be sealed in their foreheads. But the church soon began to be greatly infested with heresies; the two principal, and those which did most infest the church, were the Arian and Pelagian heresies.

The Arians began soon after Constantine came to the throne. They denied the doctrine of the Trinity, and the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost, and maintained, that they were but mere creatures. This heresy increased more and more in the church, and prevailed like a flood, which threatened to overflow all, and entirely to carry away the church, insomuch that before that age was out, that is, before the fourth century after Christ was finished, the greater part of the Christian church were become Arians. There were some emperors, the successors of Constantine, who were Arians; so that the Arians being the prevailing party, and having the civil authority on their side, did raise a great persecution against the true church of Christ; so that this heresy might well be compared to a flood out of the mouth of the serpent, which threatened to overthrow all, and quite carry away the woman.

The Pelagian heresy arose in the beginning of the next century. It began by one Pelagius, who was born in Britain: his British name was Morgan. He denied original sin, and the influence of the Spirit of God in conversion, and held the power of free will, and many other things of like tendency; and this heresy did for a while greatly infest the church. Pelagius's principal antagonist, who wrote in defense of the orthodox faith, was Saint Augustine.

(2) The other kind of opposition which Satan made against the church, was in his endeavors to restore Paganism. His first attempt was to restore it in the Roman empire, was by Julian the apostate. Julian was nephew to Constantine the Great. When Constantine died, he left his empire to his three sons; and when they were dead, Julian the apostate reigned in their stead. He had been a professed Christian; but he fell from Christianity, and turned Pagan; and therefore he is called the apostate. When he came to the throne, he used his utmost endeavors to overthrow the Christian church, and set up Paganism again in the empire. He put down the Christian magistrates, and set up Heathens in their room: he rebuilt the Heathen temples, and set up the Heathen worship in the empire, and become a most notorious persecutor of the Christians, and, as is thought, against his own light: he used to call Christ, by way of reproach, the Galilean. He was killed with a lance in his wars with the Persians. When he saw that he was mortally wounded, he took a handful of his blood, and threw it up towards heaven, crying out, Thou hast overcome, O Galilean. He is commonly thought by divines to have committed the unpardonable sin.

Another way that Satan attempted to restore Paganism in the Roman empire, was by the invasions and conquests of Heathen nations. For in this space of time that we are upon, the Goths and Vandals, and other Heathen barbarous nations, that dwelt in the north of the Roman empire, invaded the empire, and obtained great conquest, and even overran the empire, and in the fifth century took the city of Rome, and finally subdued and conquered, and took possession of the Western empire, as it was called, or the western half of the empire, and divided it amongst them; divided it into ten kingdoms, with which began the ten horns of the beast: for we are told, that the ten horns are ten kings, who should rise in the latter part of the Roman empire: these are also represented by the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image. The invasion and conquests of these Heathen nations are supposed to be foretold in the eighth chapter of Revelation, in what came to pass under the sounding of the four first trumpets. Now these nations, who now took possession of the Western empire, were Heathens; so that by their means Heathenism was again for a while restored after it had been rooted out.

So much for the opposition of Satan against the success of the gospel during this space before the rise of Antichrist. I proceed,

2. To show what success there was of the gospel in this space, notwithstanding this opposition.

(1) I would observe, that the opposition of Satan in those things was baffled. Though the dragon cast out of his mouth such a flood after the woman to carry her away, yet he could not obtain his design; but the earth helped the woman, and opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. These heresies, which for a while so much prevailed, yet after a while dwindled away, and orthodoxy was again restored: and his attempt by Julian was baffled at his death.

(2) The gospel, during this space of time, was further propagated amongst many barbarous Heathen nations in the confines of the Roman empire. In the time of Constantine there was a considerable propagation of the gospel in the East-Indies, chiefly by the ministry of one Frumentius. Great numbers of the Iberians, an Heathen people, were converted to Christianity by a Christian woman of eminent piety, whom they had taken captive. Some account is given of several other barbarous nations who were not within the Roman empire, that great numbers of them were brought to receive the gospel by the teaching and example of captives whom they had taken in war. After this, about the year of Christ 372, the gospel was propagated among the barbarous people that dwelt in Arabia; as it was also among some of the northern nations; particularly a prince of the country of the Goths about this time become Christian, and a great number of his people with him. Towards the latter end of this century, the gospel was also further propagated among the Persians, and also the Scythians, a barbarous people, that the apostle mentions in Colossians 3:11. "Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free."

After this, about the year 430, there was a remarkable conversion of a Heathen people, called the Burgundians, to the Christian faith. About the same time, in this age, the gospel began to be propagated in Ireland; and the Irish, who till now had been Heathen, began to receive the Christian faith. About the same time it was further propagated among some barbarous people in Scotland, and also in some other places. In the next century to this, one Zathus, a Heathen king, who ruled over a people called the Colchians, was brought to renounce his Heathenism, and to embrace the Christian religion. Several other barbarous nations are recorded to have renounced Heathenism and embraced Christianity about this time, that I cannot stand to mention.

Thus I have briefly considered the principal events of providence which concern the success of the gospel of Christ from Constantine to the rise of Antichrist.

Secondly, I come now to the second part of the time from Constantine to the destruction of Antichrist, namely that which reaches from the rise of Antichrist to the reformation by Luther and others. This is the darkest and most dismal day that ever the Christian church saw, and probably the darkest that ever it will see. The time of the church's affliction and persecution, as was observed before, is from Christ's resurrection till the destruction of Antichrist, excepting what the day is, as it were, shortened by some intermissions and times of respite, which God gives for the elect's sake. But this time, from the rise of Antichrist till the Reformation, was a space wherein the Christian church was in its greatest depth of depression, and its darkest time of all. The true church in this space was for many hundred years in a state of great obscurity, like the woman in the wilderness: indeed she was almost hid from sight and observation. In speaking of the events of this space of time, I would, 1. Take notice of the great machinations and works of the devil against the kingdom of Christ during this time; 2. How the church of Christ was upheld during this time.

1. I would take notice of the great works of the devil against the kingdom of Christ during this time. Satan had done great things against the Christian church before, but had been baffled once and again. Michael and his angels had obtained a glorious victory. How terrible was this opposition during the continuance of the Heathen empire; and how glorious was Christ's victory and triumph over him in the time of Constantine! It pleased God now to prepare the way for a yet more glorious victory over him, to suffer him to renew his strength, and to do the utmost that his power and subtlety can help him to; and therefore he suffers him to have a long time to lay his schemes, and to establish his interest, and make his matters strong; and suffers him to carry his designs a great length indeed almost to the swallowing up of his church; and to exercise a high, and proud, and almost uncontrolled dominion, in the world, a long time before Christ finally conquers, and subdues, and utterly ruins his visible kingdom on earth, as he will do in the time of the destruction of Antichrist: thus gloriously triumphing over him, after he has done the utmost that his power and subtlety can extend to, and showing that he is above him, after he has dealt most proudly, and lifted himself highest of all.

The two great works of the devil which he in this space of time wrought against the kingdom of Christ, are his erecting his Antichristian and Mahometan kingdoms, which have been, and still are, two kingdoms of great extent and strength, both together swallowing up the ancient Roman empire; the kingdom of Antichrist swallowing up the Western empire, and Satan's Mahometan kingdom the Eastern empire. As the scriptures in the book of Revelations represented it, it is in the destruction of these that the glorious victory of Christ, at the introduction of the glorious times of the church, will mainly consist. Here let us briefly observe how Satan erects and maintains these two great kingdoms of his in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.

(1) With respect to the kingdom of Antichrist. This seems to be the masterpiece of all the contrivances of the devil against the kingdom of Christ, and is evidently so spoken of in scripture, and therefore Antichrist is the man of sin, or that man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2:3. He is so called emphatically, as though he was so eminently. So he is called Antichrist, which signifies the opponent or adversary of Christ. Not that he is the only opponent of Christ; there were many others besides him. The Apostle John observes, that in his days there were many Antichrists. But yet this is called the Antichrist, as though there were none but he, because he was so eminently, and above all others. So this contrivance of the devil, is called the mystery of iniquity, 2 Thessalonians 2:7. We find no enemy of Christ one half so much spoken of in the prophecies of Revelation as this; and the destruction of no enemy is spoken of as so glorious and happy for the church. The craft and subtlety of the devil, above all appears in this work of his; as might be shown, were it not that it would consume too much time.

This is a contrivance of the devil to turn the ministry of the Christian church into a ministry of the devil, and to turn these angels of the churches into fallen angels, and so into devils. In the tyranny, and superstition, and idolatry, and persecution, which he sets up, he contrives to make an image of ancient Paganism, and more than to restore what was lost in the empire by the overthrow of Paganism in the time of Constantine: so that by these means the head of the beast, which was wounded unto death in Constantine, has his deadly wound healed in Antichrist, Revelation 13:3. The dragon, that formerly reigned in the Heathen Roman empire, being cast out thence, after the beast with seven heads and ten horns rises up out of the sea, gives him his power, and seat, and great authority; and all the world wonders after the beast.

I am far from pretending to determine the time when the reign of Antichrist began, which is a point that has been so much controverted among divines and expositors. It is certain that the 1260 days, or years, which are so often in scripture mentioned as the time of the continuance of Antichrist's reign, did not commence before the year of Christ 479, because if they did, they would have ended, and Antichrist would have fallen before now. But I shall not pretend to determine precisely how long it was after this that that period began. The rise of Antichrist was gradual. The Christian church corrupted itself in many things presently after Constantine's time, growing more and more superstitious in its worship, by degrees bringing in many ceremonies into the worship of God, till at length they brought in the worship of saints, and set up images in their churches, and the clergy in general, and especially the bishop of Rome, assumed more and more authority to himself. In the primitive times he was only a minister of a congregation; then a standing moderator of a presbytery; then a diocesan bishop; then a metropolitan, which is equivalent to an archbishop; then he was a patriarch; then afterwards he claimed the power of universal bishop over the whole Christian church through the world; wherein he was opposed for a while, but afterwards was confirmed in it by the civil power of the Emperor in the year 606. After that he claimed the power of that temporal prince; and so was wont to carry two swords, to signify that both the temporal and spiritual sword was his; and claimed more and more authority, till at length he, as Christ's vicegerent on earth, claimed the very same power that Christ would have, if he was present on earth, and reigned on his throne, or the same power that belongs to God, and used to be called God on earth; and used to be submitted to by all the princes of Christendom. He claimed power to crown princes, and to degrade them at his pleasure; and this power was owned: and it came to that, that kings and emperors used to kiss his feet. The emperors were wont to receive their crowns at his hands, and princes were wont to dread the displeasure of the Pope, as they would dread a thunderbolt from heaven; for if the Pope was pleased to excommunicate a prince, all his subjects were at once freed from their allegiance to him; yea, and obliged not to own him any more, on pain of excommunication; and not only so, but any man might kill him where ever he found him. And further, the Pope was believed to have power to damn men at pleasure; for whoever died under his excommunication, was looked upon as certainly damned. And several emperors were actually deposed, and ejected, and died miserable by his means; and if the people of any state or kingdom did not please him, he had power to lay that state or kingdom under an interdict, which was a sentence pronounced by the Pope against that state or kingdom, whereby all sacred administrations among them could have no validity. There could be no valid baptisms, or sacraments, or prayers, or preaching, or pardons, till that interdict was taken off; so that that people remained, in their apprehension, in a miserable, damnable state and therefore dreaded it as they would a storm of fire and brimstone from heaven. In order to execute his wrath on a prince or people with whom the Pope was displeased, other princes must also be put to a great deal of trouble and expense.

As the Pope and his clergy robbed the people of their ecclesiastical and civil liberties and privileges, so they also robbed them of their estates, and drained all Christendom of their money, and ingrossed most of their riches into their own coffers, by their vast revenues, besides pay for pardons and indulgences, baptisms and extreme unctions, deliverance out of purgatory, and an hundred other things. See how well this agrees with the prophecies, 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4. Daniel 7:20, 21. Revelation 13:6, 7. And chapter 17:3, 4.

During this time also superstition and ignorance more and more prevailed. The holy scriptures by degrees were taken out of the hands of the laity, the better to promote the unscriptural and wicked designs of the Pope and the clergy: and instead of promoting knowledge among the people, they industriously promoted ignorance. It was a received maxim among them, That ignorance is the mother of devotion: and so great was the darkness of those times, that learning was almost extinct in the world. The very priests themselves, most of them, were barbarously ignorant as to any commendable learning, or any other knowledge, than their hellish craft in oppressing and tyrannizing over the souls of the people. The superstition and wickedness of the church Rome, kept growing worse and worse till the very time of the Reformation; and the whole Christian world were led away into their great defection, excepting the remains of the Christian church in the Eastern empire that had not been utterly overthrown by the Turks, as the Greek church, and some others, which were also sunk into great darkness and gross superstition, excepting also those few that were the people of God, who are represented by the woman in the wilderness, and God's two witnesses, of which more hereafter.

This is one of those two great kingdoms which the devil in this period erected in opposition to the kingdom of Christ, and was the greatest and chief. I come now.

(2) To speak of the other, the second, which is in many respects like unto it, namely his Mahometan kingdom, which is another great kingdom of mighty power and vast extent, set up by Satan against the kingdom of Christ: he set this up in the Eastern empire, as he did that of Antichrist in the Western.

Mahomet was born in the year of Christ 570, in Arabia. When he was about forty years of age, he began to give forth that he was the great prophet of God, and began to teach his new invented religion, of which he was to be worshipped as the head next under God. He published his Alcoran, which he pretended he received from the angel Gabriel; and being a subtle crafty man, and possessed of considerable wealth, and living among a people who were very ignorant, and greatly divided in their opinions of religious matters, by subtlety, and fair promises of a sensual paradise, he gained a number to be his followers, and set up for their prince, and propagated his religion by the sword, and made it meritorious of paradise to fight for him. By which means his party grew, and went on fighting till they conquered and brought over the neighbouring countries; and so his party gradually grew till they over-ran a great part of the world. First, the Saracens, who were some of his followers, and were a people of the country of Arabia, where Mahomet lived, about the year 700, began dreadfully to waste the Roman empire. They over-ran a great many countries belonging to the empire, and continued their conquest for a long time. These are supposed to be meant by the locusts that we read of in the ninth chapter of Revelation.

After this the Turks, who were originally another people, different from the Saracens, but were followers of Mahomet, conquered all the Eastern empire. They began their empire about the year of Christ 1296, and began to invade Europe about 1300, and took Constantinople, and so became masters of all the Eastern empire in the year 1453, which is near three hundred years ago. Thus all those cities and countries where were those famous churches of old, that we read of in the New Testament, as Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and so on, now all became subject to the Turks. And they took possession of Constantinople, which was named after Constantine, the Great, being made by him the head city of the Roman empire, whereas Rome had been till then. These are supposed to be prophesied of by the horsemen in the ninth chapter of Revelation, beginning with the 15th verse. The remains of the Christians that are in those parts of the world, who are mostly of the Greek church, are in miserable slavery under these Turks, and treated with a great deal of barbarity and cruelty, and are become mostly very ignorant and superstitious.

Thus I have shown what great works of Satan were wrought during this space of time in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.

2. I come now to show how the church of Christ was upheld through this dark time. Here,

(1) It is to be observed, that towards the former part of this space of time, some of the nations of Christendom held out a long time before they complied with the corruptions and usurpations of the church of Rome. Though all the world wondered after the beast, yet all nations did not fall in at once. Many of the principal corruptions of the church of Rome were brought in with a great deal of struggle and opposition; and particularly, when the Pope gave out, that he was universal bishop, many churches greatly opposed him in it; and it was a long time before they would yield to his exorbitant claims. And so, when the worship of images was first brought into the churches, there were many who greatly opposed it, and long held out against it. And so with respect to other corruptions of the church of Rome. Those people that dwelt nearer the city of Rome complied sooner, but some that were more remote, were a long time before they could be induced to put their necks under the yoke: and particularly ecclesiastical history gives an account, that it was so with great part of the churches in England, and Scotland, and France, who retained the ancient purity of doctrine and worship much longer than many others, who were nearer the chief seat of Antichrist.

(2) In every age of this dark time, there appeared particular persons in all parts of Christendom, who bore a testimony against the corruptions and tyranny of the church of Rome. There is no one age of Antichrist, even in the darkest times of all, but ecclesiastical historians mention a great many by name, who manifested an abhorrence of the Pope, and his idolatrous worship, and pleaded for the ancient purity of doctrine and worship. God was pleased to maintain an uninterrupted succession of witnesses through the whole time, in Germany, France, Britain, and other countries; as historians demonstrate, and mention them by name, and give an account of the testimony which they held. Many of them were private persons, and many of them ministers, and some magistrates, and persons of great distinction. And there were numbers in every age who were persecuted and put to death for this testimony.

(3) Besides these particular persons dispersed here and there, there was a certain people, called the Waldenses, who lived separate from all the rest of the world, who kept themselves pure, and constantly bore a testimony against the church of Rome through all this dark time. The place where they dwelt was the Vaudois, or the five valleys of Piedmont, a very mountainous country, between Italy and France. The place they lived was compassed about with those exceeding high mountains called the Alps, which were almost impassable. The passage over these mountainous desert countries, was so difficult, that the valleys where this people dwelt were almost inaccessible. There this people lived for many ages, as it were, alone, in a state of separation from all the world, having very little to do with any other people. There they served God in the ancient purity of his worship, and never submitted to the church of Rome. This place in this desert mountainous country, probably was the place especially meant in the 12th chapter of Revelation, sixth verse, as the place prepared of God for the woman, that they should feed her there during the reign of Antichrist.

Some of the Popish writers themselves own, that that people never submitted to the church of Rome. One of the Popish writers, speaking of the Waldenses, says, the heresy of the Waldenses is the oldest heresy in the world. It is supposed that this people first betook themselves to this desert secret place among the mountains, to hide themselves from the severity of the Heathen persecutions which were before Constantine the Great. Thus the woman fled into the wilderness from the face of the serpent, Revelation 12:6. And so, verse 14. "And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place: where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." The people being settled there, their posterity continued there from age to age afterwards: and being, as it were, by natural walls, as well as by God's grace, separated from the rest of the world, never partook of the overflowing corruption.

These especially were those virgins who were not defiled with the rest of women, or when other women prostituted themselves and were defiled; but they kept themselves pure for Christ alone: they followed the Lamb, their spiritual husband, whithersoever he went: they followed him into this hideous wilderness, Revelation 14:4-5. Their doctrine and their worship, as there still remain accounts of them, appear to be the same with the Protestant doctrine and worship; and by the confession of Popish writers, they were a people remarkable for the strictness of their lives, for charity and other Christian virtues. They lived in external poverty in this hideous country, but they chose this rather than to comply with the great corruptions of the rest of the world.

They lived in so secret a place, it was a long time before they seem to have been much taken notice of by the Romanists; but at last falling under observation, they went out in mighty armies against them, and fell upon them with insatiable cruelty, barbarously massacring and putting to death, men, women, and children, with all imaginable tortures; and so continued persecuting them with but little intermission for several hundred years; by which means many of them were driven out of their old habitations in the valleys of Piedmont, and fled into all parts of Europe, carrying with them their doctrine, to which many were brought over. So their persecutors could not by all their cruelties extirpate the church of God; so fulfilling his word, "that the gates of hell should not prevail against it."

(4) Towards the latter part of this dark time, several noted divines openly appeared to defend the truth, and bear testimony against the corruptions of the church of Rome, and had many followers. The first and principal of these was a certain English divine, whose name was John Wycliffe, who appeared about 140 years before the Reformation, and strenuously opposed the Popish religion, and taught the same doctrine that the Reformers afterwards did, and had many followers in England. He was hotly persecuted in his life-time, yet he died in peace; and after he was buried, his bones were dug up by his persecutors, and burnt. His followers remained in considerable numbers in England till the Reformation, and were cruelly persecuted, and multitudes put to death for their religion.

Wycliffe had many disciples and followers, not only in England, but in other parts of Europe, whither his books were carried; and particularly in Bohemia, among whom were two eminent divines, the name of one was John Huss, the other's name was Jerome, a divine belonging to Prague, the chief city of Bohemia. These strenuously opposed the church of Rome, and had many who adhered to them. They were both burnt by the Papists for their doctrine; and their followers in Bohemia were cruelly persecuted, but never extirpated till the Reformation.

Thus having gone through this dark time of the church, which is the second part of the space from Constantine to the destruction of Antichrist, I come now,

Thirdly, to the third part, namely that which begins with the Reformation, and reaches to the present time. And here I would, 1. Speak of the Reformation itself; 2. The opposition which the devil has made to the Reformed church; 3. What success there has lately been of the gospel in one place and another; 4. What the state of things is now in the world with regard to the church of Christ, and the success of his purchase.

1. Here the first thing to be taken notice of is the Reformation. This was begun about 220 years ago: first in Saxony in Germany, by the preaching of Martin Luther, who, being stirred in his spirit, to see the horrid practices of the Popish clergy, and having set himself diligently to inquire after truth, by the study of the holy scriptures, and the writings of the ancient fathers of the church, very openly and boldly decried the corruptions and usurpations of the Romish church in his preaching and writings, and had soon a great number that fell in with him; among whom was the Elector of Saxony, the sovereign prince of the country to which he belonged. This greatly alarmed the church of Rome; and it did as it were rally all its force to oppose him and his doctrine, and fierce wars and persecutions were raised against it: but yet it went on by the labours of Luther, and Melancthon in Germany, and Zwingli in Switzerland, and other eminent divines, who were contemporary with Luther, and fell in with him; and particularly Calvin, who appeared something after the beginning of the Reformation, but was one of the most eminent Reformers.

Many of the princes of Germany soon fell in with the Reformed religion, and many other states and kingdoms in Europe, as Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, great part of France, Poland, Lithuania, Switzerland and the Low Countries. So that it is thought, that heretofore about half Christendom were of the Protestant religion; though, since, the Papists have gained ground; so that the Protestants now have not so great a proportion.

Thus God began gloriously to revive his church again, and advance the kingdom of his Son, after such a dismal night of darkness as had been before from the rise of Antichrist to that time. There had been many endeavors used by the witnesses for the truth for a reformation before. But now, when God's appointed time was come, his work was begun, and went on with a swift and wonderful progress; and Antichrist, who had been rising higher and higher from his very first beginning till that time, was swiftly and suddenly brought down, and fell halfway towards utter ruin, and never has been able to rise again to his former height. A certain very late expositor (Mr. Lowman), who explains the five first vials in the sixteenth chapter of Revelation, with greater probability perhaps than any who went before him, explains the fifth vial, which was poured out on the seat of the beast, of what came to pass in the Reformation; explaining the four proceeding vials of certain great judgments God brought on the Popish dominions before the Reformation. It is said, Revelation 16:10 that "the fifth angel poured out his vial on the seat of the beast;" in the original, it is the throne of the beast; "and his kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds." He poured out his vial upon the throne of the beast, that is, on the authority and dominion of the Pope: so the word throne is often used in scripture; so 1 Kings 1:37. "As the Lord hath been with my lord the king, even so be he with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David;" that is, make his dominion and authority greater, and his kingdom more glorious.

But now, in the Reformation, the vials of God's wrath were poured out on the throne of the beast. His throne was terribly shaken and diminished. The Pope's authority and dominion was greatly diminished, both as to the extent and degree. He lost, as was said before, about half his dominions. Besides, since the Reformation, the Pope has lost great part of that authority, even in the Popish dominions, which he had before. He is not regarded, and his power is dreaded in no measure as it was wont to be. The powers of Europe have learned not to put their necks under the Pope's feet, as formerly they were wont to do. So that he is as a lion that has lost his teeth, in comparison of what he was once.

When the Pope and his clergy, enraged to see their authority so diminished at the Reformation, laid their heads together, and joined their forces to destroy the Reformation; their policy, which was wont to serve them so well, failed; and they found their kingdom full of darkness, so that they could do nothing, any more than the Egyptians, who rose not from their seats for three days. The Reformed church was defended as Lot and the angels were in Sodom, by smiting the Sodomites with darkness or blindness, that they could not find the door. God then fulfilled that in Job 5:11, etc. "To set up on high those that below; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety." "He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise." "He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong." "They meet with darkness in the day-time, and grope in the noon-day as in the night." "But he saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty."

Those proud enemies of God's people being so disappointed, and finding themselves so unable to uphold their own dominion and authority, this made them as it were to gnaw their tongues for pain, or bite their tongues for their rage.

2. I proceed therefore to show what opposition has been made to this success of Christ's purchase by the Reformation by Satan and his adherents; observing, as we go along, how far they have been baffled, and how far they have been successful.

The opposition which Satan has made against the Reformed religion has been principally of the following kinds, namely, that which was made: 1. By a general council of the church of Rome; 2. By secret plots and devices; 3. By open wars and invasions; 4. By cruel oppression and persecution; and, 5. By bringing in corrupt opinions.

(1) The first opposition that I shall take notice of is that which was made by the clergy of the church of Rome uniting together in a general council. This was the famous council of Trent, which the Pope called a little while after the Reformation. In that council, there met together six cardinals, thirty-two archbishops, two hundred and twenty-eight bishops, besides innumerable others of the Romish clergy. This council, in all their sittings, including the times of intermission between their sittings, was held for twenty-five years together. Their main business all this while was to concert measures for establishing the church of Rome against the Reformers, and for destroying the Reformation. But it proved that they were not able to perform their enterprise. The Reformed church, notwithstanding their holding so great a council, and for so long a time together against it remained, and remains still. So that the counsel of the froward is carried headlong, and their kingdom is full of darkness, and they weary themselves to find the door.

Thus the church of Rome, instead of repenting of their deeds, when such clear light was held forth to them by Luther and other servants of God, the Reformers, does, by general agreement in council, persist in their vile corruptions and wickedness, and obstinate opposition to the kingdom of Christ. The doctrines and practices of the church of Rome, which were chiefly condemned by the Reformed, were confirmed by the decrees of their council; and the corruptions, in many respects, were carried higher than ever before; and they uttered blasphemous reproaches and curses against the Reformed religion, and all the Reformed church was excommunicated and anathematized by them; and so, according to the prophecy, "they blasphemed God." Thus God hardened their hearts, intending to destroy them.

(2) The Papists have often endeavored to overthrow the Reformation by secret plots and conspiracies. So there were many plots against the life of Luther. The Papists were engaged in contriving to dispatch him, and to put him out of their way; and he, as he was a very bold man, often very much exposed himself in the cause of Christ: but yet they were wonderfully prevented from hurting him, and he at last died in his bed in peace. And so there have been from time to time innumerable schemes secretly laid for the overthrow of the Protestant religion; among which, that which seem to be most considerable, and which seemed to be the most likely to have taken effect, was that which was in the time of King James the Second of England, which is within the memory of many of us. There was at that time a strong conspiracy between the King of England and Louis the Fourteenth of France, who were both Papists, to extirpate the Northern heresy, as they called the Protestant religion, not only out of England, but out of all Europe; and had laid their schemes so, that they seemed to be almost sure of their purpose. They looked upon it, that if the Reformed religion were suppressed in the British realms, and in the Netherlands, which were the strongest part, and chief defense of the Protestant interest, they should have easy work with the rest. And just as their matters seemed to become to a head, and their enterprise ripe for execution, God, in his providence, suddenly dashed all their schemes in pieces by the Revolution, at the coming in of King William and Queen Mary; by which all their designs were at an end; and the Protestant interest was more strongly established, by the crown of England's being established in the Protestant house of Hanover, and a Papist being, by the constitution of the nation, for ever rendered incapable of wearing the crown of England. Thus they groped in darkness at noon day as in the night, and their hands could not perform their enterprise, and their kingdom was full of darkness, and they gnawed their tongues for pain.

After this, there was a deep design laid to bring the same thing to pass in the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, by the bringing in of the Popish pretender: which was no less suddenly and totally baffled by divine Providence; as the plots against the Reformation, by bringing in the pretender, have been from time to time.

(3) The Reformation has often been opposed by open wars and invasions. So in the beginning of the reformation, the Emperor of Germany, to suppress the Reformation, declared war with the Duke of Saxony, and the principal men who favored and received Luther's doctrine. But they could not obtain their end; they could not suppress the Reformation. For the same end, the King of Spain maintained a long war with Holland and the Low Countries in the century before last. But those cruel wars issued greatly to the disadvantage of the Romish church, as they occasioned the setting up of one of the most powerful Protestant states in Europe, which, next to Great Britain, is the chief barrier of the Protestant religion. And the design of the Spanish invasion of England in Queen Elizabeth's time, was to suppress and root out the Reformed religion; and therefore they brought in their fleet all manner of instruments of cruelty wherewith to torture the Protestants who would not renounce the Protestant religion. But their designs were totally baffled, and their mighty fleet in a great measure ruined.

(4) Satan has opposed the Reformation with cruel persecutions. The persecutions with which the Protestants in one kingdom and another have been persecuted by the church of Rome, have in many respects been far beyond any of the Heathen persecutions which were before Constantine the Great, and beyond all that ever were before. So that Antichrist has proved the greatest and cruelest enemy to the church of Christ that ever was in the world, in this, as well as in all other respects; agreeable to the description given of the church of Rome, Revelation 17:6. "And I saw a woman drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." And, chapter 18:24. "And on her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and all of them that were slain upon the earth."

The Heathen persecutions had been very dreadful: but now persecution by the church of Rome was improved and studied, and cultivated, as an art or science. Such ways of afflicting and tormenting were found out, as are beyond the thought and invention of ordinary men, or men who are unstudied in those things, and beyond the invention of all former ages. That persecution might be managed the more effectually, there were certain societies of men established in various parts of the Popish dominions, whose business it should be to study, and improve, and practise persecution in its highest perfection, which are those societies called the courts of inquisition. A reading of the particular histories of the Romish persecution, and their courts of inquisition, will give that idea which a few words cannot express.

When the Reformation began, the beast with seven heads and ten horns began to rage in a dreadful manner. After the Reformation, the church of Rome renewed its persecution of the poor Waldenses, and great multitudes of them were cruelly tortured and put to death. Soon after the Reformation, there were terrible persecutions in various parts of Germany; and especially in Bohemia, which lasted for thirty years together; in which so much blood was shed for the sake of religion, that a certain writer compares it to the plenty of waters of the great rivers of Germany. The countries of Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary, were in like manner deluged with Protestant blood.

By means of these and other cruel persecutions, the Protestant Religion was in a great measure suppressed in Bohemia, and the Palatinate, and Hungary, which before were as it were Protestant countries. Thus was fulfilled what was foretold of the little horn, Daniel 7.20 21 "—and of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell, even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them." And what was foretold of the beast having seven heads and ten horns. Revelation 13.7. "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." Also Holland and the other Low Countries were for many years a scene of nothing but the most affecting and amazing cruelties, being deluged with the blood of Protestants, under the merciless hands of the Spaniards, to whom they were then in subjection. But in this persecution, the devil in a great measure failed of his purpose; as it issued in a great part of the Netherlands casting off the Spanish yoke, and setting up a wealthy and powerful Protestant state, to the great defence of the Protestant cause ever since.

France also is another country, which, since the Reformation, in some respects, perhaps more than any other, has been a scene of dreadful cruelties suffered by the Protestants there. After many cruelties had been exercised towards the Protestants in that kingdom, there was begun a persecution of them in the year 1571, in the reign of Charles the Ninth, King of France. It began with a cruel massacre, wherein 70,000 Protestants were slain in a few days time, as the King boasted: and in all this persecution, he slew, as is supposed, 300,000 martyrs. It is reckoned, that about this time, within thirty years, there were martyred in this kingdom, for the Protestant religion, 39 princes, 148 counts, 234 barons, 147,518 gentlemen, and 760,000 of the common people.

But all these persecutions were, for exquisite cruelty, far exceeded by those which followed in the reign of Lewis the Fourteenth, which indeed are supposed to exceed all others that ever have been; and being long continued by reason of the long reign of that King, almost wholly extirpated the Protestant religion out of that kingdom, where had been before a multitude of famous Protestant churches all over the kingdom. Thus it was given to the beast to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.

There was also a terrible persecution in England in Queen Mary's time, wherein great numbers in all parts of the kingdom were burnt alive. After this, though the Protestant religion has been for the most part established by law in England, yet there have been very severe persecutions by the high church men, who symbolize in many things with the Papists. Such a persecution was that which occasioned our forefathers to flee from their native country, and to come and settle in this land, which was then an hideous howling wilderness. These persecutions were continued with little intermission till King William came to the throne.

Scotland also has been the scene, for many years together, of cruelties and blood by the hands of high churchmen, such as came very little short of the Popish persecution in Queen Mary's days, and in many things much exceed it, which continued till they were delivered by King William.

Ireland also has been as it were overwhelmed with Protestant blood. In the days of King Charles the First of England, above 200,000 Protestants were cruelly murdered in that kingdom in a few days; the Papists, by a secret agreement, rising all over the kingdom at an appointed time, intending to kill every Protestant in the kingdom at once.

Besides these, there have been very cruel persecutions in Italy, and Spain, and other places, which I shall not stand to relate.

Thus did the devil, and his great minister Antichrist, rage with such violence and cruelty against the church of Christ! and thus did the whore of Babylon make herself drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus! and thus, by these persecutions, the Protestant church has been much diminished! Yet with all have they not been able to prevail; but still the Protestant church is upheld, and Christ fulfils his promise, that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against his church."

(5) The last kind of opposition that Satan has made to the Reformation is by corrupt opinions. Satan has opposed the light of the gospel which shone forth in the Reformation with many corrupt opinions, which he has brought in and propagated in the world.

Here, in the first place, the first opposition of this kind was by raising up the sect of the Anabaptists, which began about four or five years after the Reformation itself began. This sect, as it first appeared in Germany, were vastly more extravagant than the present Anabaptists, are in England. They held a great many exceeding corrupt opinions. One tenet of theirs was, That there ought to be no civil authority, and so that it was lawful to rebel against civil authority. On this principle, they refused to submit to magistrates, or any human laws; and gathered together in vast armies, to defend themselves against their civil rulers; and put all Germany into an uproar, and so kept it for some time.

The next opposition of this kind to the Reformation was that which was made by enthusiasts. Those are called enthusiasts who falsely pretend to be inspired by the Holy Ghost as the prophets were. These began in Germany about ten years after Luther began the Reformation; and there arose various sects of them who were exceeding wild and extravagant. The followers of these are the Quakers in England, and other parts of the British dominions.

The next to these were the Socinians, who had their beginning chiefly in Poland, by the teaching of two men; the name of the one was Laelius Socinus, of the other, Faustus Socinus. They held, that Christ was a mere man, and denied Christ's satisfaction, and most of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion. Their heresy has since been greatly propagated among Protestants in Poland, Germany, Holland, England, and other places.

After these arose the Arminians. These first appeared in Holland about 130 years ago. They take their name from a Dutchman, whose name was Jacobus Van Harmin, which, turned into Latin, is called Jacobus Arminius; and from his name the whole sect are called Arminians. This Jacobus Arminius was first a minister at Amsterdam, and then a professor of divinity in the university of Leyden. He had many followers in Holland. There was upon this a synod of all the Reformed churches called together, who met at Dort in Holland. The synod of Dort condemned them; but yet they spread and prevailed. They began to prevail in England in the reign of Charles the First, especially in the church of England. The church of England divines before that were almost universally Calvinists: but since that, Arminianism has gradually more and more prevailed, till they are become almost universally Arminians. And not only so, but Arminianism has greatly prevailed among the Dissenters, and has spread greatly in New England, as well as Old.

Since this, Arianism has revived. As I told you before, Arianism, a little after Constantine's time, almost swallowed up the Christian world, like a flood out of the mouth of the serpent which threatened to swallow up the woman. And of late years, this heresy has been revived in England, and greatly prevails there, both in the church of England, and among Dissenters. These hold, that Christ is but a mere creature, though they grant that he is the greatest of all creatures.

Again, another thing which has of late exceedingly prevailed among Protestants, and especially in England, is Deism. The Deists wholly cast off the Christian religion, and are professed infidels. They are not like the heretics, Arians, Socinians, and others, who own the scripture to be the word of God and hold the Christian religion to be the true religion, but only deny these and these fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion: they deny the whole Christian religion. Indeed they own the being of God; but deny that Christ was the Son of God, and say he was a mere cheat; and so they say all the prophets and apostles were: and they deny the whole scripture. They deny that any of it is the word of God. They deny any revealed religion, or any word of God at all; and say, that God has given mankind no other light to walk by but their own reason. These sentiments and opinions our nation, which is the principal nation of the Reformation, is very much overrun with, and they prevail more and more.

Thus much concerning the opposition that Satan has made against the Reformation.

3. I proceed now to show what success the gospel has more lately had, or what success it has had in these later times of the Reformed church. This success may be reduced to these three heads: 1. Reformation in doctrine and worship in countries called Christian; 2. Propagation of the gospel among the Heathen; 3. Revival of religion in the power and practice of it.

(1) As to the first, namely reformation in doctrine, the most considerable success of the gospel that has been of late of this kind, has been in the empire of Muscovy, which is a country of vast extent. The people of this country, so many of them as call themselves Christians, professed to be of the Greek church; but were barbarously ignorant and very superstitious, till of late years. Their late Emperor Peter the Great, who reigned till within these twenty years, set himself to reform the people of his dominions, and took great pains to bring them out of their darkness, and to have them instructed in religion. And to that end, he set up schools of learning, and ordered the Bible to be printed in the language of the country, and made a law that every family should keep the holy scriptures in their houses, and that every person should be able to read the same, and that no person should be allowed to marry till they were able to read the scriptures. He also reformed the churches of his country of many of their superstitions, whereby the religion professed and practised in Muscovy is much nearer to that of the Protestants than formerly it used to be. This emperor gave great encouragement to the exercise of the Protestant religion in his dominions. And since that Muscovy is become a land of light, in comparison of what it was before. Wonderful alterations have been brought about in the face of religion for the better within these fifty years past.

(2) As to the second kind of success which the gospel has lately had, namely its propagation among the Heathen, I would take notice of three things.

[1] The propagation there has been of the gospel among the Heathen here in America. This American continent on which we live, which is a very great part of the world, and, together with its neighbouring seas adjoining, takes up one side of the globe, was wholly unknown to all Christian nations till these latter times. It was not known that there was any such part of the world, though it was very full of people: and therefore here the devil had the people that inhabited this part of the world as it were secure to himself, out of the reach of the light of the gospel, and so out of the way of molestation in his dominion over them. And here the many nations of Indians worshipped him as God from age to age, while the gospel was confined to the opposite side of the globe. It is a thing which, if I remember right, I have some where lit of, as probably supposed from some remaining accounts of things, that occasioned the peopling of America was this, that the devil being alarmed and surprised by the wonderful success of the gospel which there was the first three hundred years after Christ, and by the downfall of the Heathen empire in the time of Constantine; and seeing the gospel spread so fast, and fearing his Heathenish kingdom would be wholly overthrown through the world, led away a people from the other continent into America, that they might be quite out of the reach of the gospel, that here he might quietly possess them, and reign over them as their god. It is what many writers give an account of, that some of the nations of Indians, when the Europeans first came into America, had a tradition among them, that their god first led them into this continent, and went before them in an ark.

Whether this was so or not, yet it is certain that the devil did here quietly enjoy his dominion over the poor nations of Indians for many ages. But in later times God has sent the gospel into these parts of the world, and now the Christian church is set up here in New England, and in other parts of America, where before had been nothing but the grossest heathenish darkness. Great part of America is now full of Bibles, and full of at least the form of the worship of the true God and Jesus Christ, where the name of Christ before had not been heard of for many ages, if at all. And although there has been but a small propagation of the gospel among the heathen here, in comparison of what were to be wished for; yet there has been something worthy to be taken notice of. There was something remarkable in the first times of New England, and something remarkable has appeared of late here, and in other parts of America among many Indians, of an inclination to be instructed in the Christian religion.

However small the propagation of the gospel among the heathen here in America has been hitherto, yet I think we may well look upon the discovery of so great a part of the world as America, and bringing the gospel into it, as one thing by which divine providence is preparing the way for the future glorious times of the church; when Satan's kingdom shall be overthrown, not only throughout the Roman empire, but throughout the whole habitable globe, on every side, and on all its continents. When those times come, then doubtless the gospel, which is already brought over into America, shall have glorious success, and all the inhabitants of this newly discovered world shall become subjects of the kingdom of Christ, as well as all the other ends of the earth: and in all probability providence has so ordered it, that the mariner's compass, which was an invention of later times, whereby men are enabled to sail over the widest ocean, when before they dared not venture far from land; should prove a preparation for what God intends to bring to pass in the glorious times of the church, namely the sending forth the gospel wherever any of the children of men dwell, how far soever off, and however separated by wide oceans from those parts of the world which are already Christianized.

There has of late years been a very considerable propagation of the gospel among the heathen in the dominions of Muscovy. I have already observed the reformation which there has lately been among those who are called Christians there: but I now speak of the heathen. Great part of the vast dominions of the Emperor of Muscovy are gross heathens. The greater part of Great Tartary, a heathen country, has in later times been brought under the Muscovite government; and there have been of late great numbers of those heathens who have renounced their heathenism, and have embraced the Christian religion.

There has been lately a very considerable propagation of the Christian religion among the heathen in the East Indies; particularly, many in a country in the East Indies called Malabar, have been brought over to the Christian Protestant religion, chiefly by the labors of certain missionaries sent thither to instruct them by the King of Denmark, who have brought over many heathens to the Christian faith, and have set up schools among them, and a printing press to print Bibles and other books for their instruction, in their own language, with great success.

The last kind of success which there has lately been of the gospel, which I shall take notice of, is the revivals of the power and practice of religion which have lately been. Here I shall take notice of but two instances.

There has not long since been a remarkable revival of the power and practice of religion in Saxony in Germany, through the endeavors of an eminent divine there, whose name was August Herman Frank, professor of divinity at Halle in Saxony, who being a person of eminent charity, the great work that God wrought by him, began with his setting on foot a charitable design. It began only with his placing an alms-box at his study door, into which some poor mites were thrown, whereby books were bought for the instruction of the poor. God was pleased so wonderfully to smile on his design, and so to pour out a spirit of charity on people there on that occasion, that with their charity he was enabled in a little time to erect public schools for the instruction of poor children, and an orphan-house for the supply and instruction of the poor; so that at last it came to that, that near five hundred children were maintained and instructed in learning and piety by the charity of others; and the number continued to increase more and more for many years, and till the last accounts I have seen. This was accompanied with a wonderful reformation and revival of religion, and a spirit of piety, in the city and university of Halle; and thus it continued. Which also had great influence in many other places in Germany. Their example seemed remarkably to stir up multitudes to their imitation.

Another thing, which it would be ungrateful in us not to take notice of, is that remarkable pouring out of the Spirit of God which has been of late in this part of New England, of which we, in this town, have had such a share. But it is needless for me particularly to describe it, it being what you have so lately been eyewitnesses to, and I hope multitudes of you sensible of the benefit of.

Thus I have mentioned the more remarkable instances of the success which the gospel has lately had in the world.

I proceed now to the last thing that was proposed to be considered relating to the success of Christ's redemption during this space, namely what the state of things is now in the world with respect to the church of Christ, and the success of Christ's purchase. This I would do, by showing how things are now, compared with the first times of the Reformation. First, I would show wherein the state of things is altered for the worse; and, secondly, how it is altered for the better.

First, I would show wherein the state of things is altered from what it was in the beginning of the Reformation, for the worse; and it is so especially in these three respects.

The reformed church is much diminished. The Reformation in the former times of it, as was observed before, was supposed to take place through one half of Christendom, excepting the Greek church; or that there were as many Protestants as Papists. But now it is not so; the Protestant church is much diminished. Heretofore there have been multitudes of Protestants in France; many famous Protestant churches were all over that country, who used to meet together in synods, and maintain a very regular discipline; and great part of that kingdom were Protestants. The Protestant church of France was a great part of the glory of the Reformation. But now it is far otherwise: this church is all broken to pieces and scattered. The Protestant religion is almost wholly rooted out of that kingdom by the cruel persecutions which have been there, and there are now but very few Protestant assemblies in all that kingdom. The Protestant interest is also greatly diminished in Germany. There were several sovereign princes who were Protestants, whose successors are now Papists; particularly, the Elector Palatine, and the Elector of Saxony. The kingdom of Bohemia was formerly a Protestant kingdom, but is now in the hands of the Papists; and so Hungary was formerly a Protestant country; but the Protestants there have been greatly reduced, and in a great measure subdued, by the persecutions that have been there. And the Protestant interest has no way remarkably gained ground of late of the church of Rome.

Another thing within the state of things is altered for the worse from what it was in the former times of the Reformation, is the prevailing of licentiousness in principles and opinions. There is not now that spirit of orthodoxy which there was then: there is very little appearance of zeal for the mysterious and spiritual doctrines of Christianity; and they never were so ridiculed, and had in contempt, as they are in the present age; and especially in England, the principal kingdom of the Reformation. In this kingdom, those principles, on which the power of godliness depends, are in a great measure exploded, and Arianism, Socinianism, and Arminianism, and Deism, are the things which prevail, and carry almost all before them. Particularly history gives no account of any age wherein there was so great an apostasy of those who had been brought up under the light of the gospel, to infidelity; never was there such a casting off of the Christian and all revealed religion; never any age wherein was so much scoffing at and ridiculing the gospel of Christ, by those who have been brought up under gospel light, nor any thing like it, as there is at this day.

Another thing wherein things are altered for the worse, is, that there is much less of the prevalency of the power of godliness, that there was at the beginning of the Reformation. There was a glorious outpouring of the Spirit of God that accompanied the first Reformation, not only to convert multitudes in so short a time from Popery to the true religion, but to turn many to God and true godliness. Religion gloriously flourished in one country and another, as most remarkably appeared in those times of terrible persecution, which have already been spoken of. But now there is an exceeding great decay of vital piety; yea, it seems to be despised, called enthusiasm, whimsy, and fanaticism. Those who are truly religious, are commonly looked upon to be crack-brained, and beside their right mind; and vice and profaneness dreadfully prevail, like a flood which threatens to bear down all before it. But I proceed now to show,

Secondly, in what respect things are altered for the better from what they were in the first Reformation.

The power and influence of the Pope is much diminished. Although, since the former times of the Reformation, he has gained ground in extent of dominion; yet he has lost in degree of influence. The vial which in the beginning of the Reformation was poured out on the throne of the beast, to the great diminishing of his power and authority in the world, has continued running ever since. The Pope, soon after the Reformation, became less regarded by the princes of Europe than he had been before; and so he has been since less and less. Many of the Popish princes themselves seem now to regard him very little more than they think will serve their own designs; of which there have been several remarkable proofs and instances of late.

There is far less persecution now than there was in the first times of the Reformation. You have heard already how dreadfully persecution raged in the former times of the Reformation; and there is something of it still. Some parts of the Protestant church are at this day under persecution, and so probably will be till the day of the church's suffering and travail is at an end, which will not be till the fall of Antichrist. But it is now in no measure as it was heretofore. There does not seem to be the same spirit of persecution prevailing; it is become more out of fashion even among the Popish princes. The wickedness of the enemies of Christ; and the opposition against his cause, seem to run in another channel. The humor now is, to despise and laugh at all religion; and there seems to be a spirit of indifferency about it. However, so far the state of things is better than it has been, that there is so much less of persecution.

(3) There is a great increase of learning. In the dark times of Popery before the Reformation, learning was so far decayed, that the world seemed to be overrun with barbarous ignorance. Their very priests were many of them grossly ignorant. Learning began to revive with the Reformation, which was owing very much to the art of printing, which was invented a little before the Reformation; and since that, learning has increased more and more, and at this day is undoubtedly raised to vastly a greater height than ever it was before: and though no good use is made of it by the greater part of learned men, yet the increase of learning in itself is a thing to be rejoiced in, because it is a good, and, if duly applied, an excellent handmaid to divinity, and is a talent which, if God gives to men an heart, affords them a great advantage to do great things for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ, and the good of the souls of men. That learning and knowledge should greatly increase before the glorious times, seems to be foretold, Daniel 12:4. "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book even to the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." And however little now learning is applied to the advancement of religion; yet we may hope that the days are approaching wherein God will make great use of it for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ.

God in his providence now seems to be acting over again the same part which he did a little before Christ came. The age wherein Christ came into the world, was an age wherein learning greatly prevailed, and was at greater height than ever it had been before; and yet wickedness never prevailed more than then. God was pleased to suffer human learning to come to such a height before he sent forth the gospel into the world, that the world might see the insufficiency of all their own wisdom for the obtaining the knowledge of God, without the gospel of Christ, and the teachings of his Spirit: and then, after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe. And when the gospel came to prevail first without the help of man's wisdom, then God was pleased to make use of learning as an handmaid. So now learning is at a great height at this day in the world far beyond what it was in the age when Christ appeared; and now the world, by their learning and wisdom, do not know God; and they seem to wander in darkness, are miserably deluded, stumble and fall in matters of religion, as in midnight-darkness. Trusting to their learning, they grope in the day time as in the night. Learned men are exceedingly divided in their opinions concerning the matters of religion, run into all manner of corrupt opinions, and pernicious and foolish errors. They will not submit their reason to divine revelation, to believe anything that is above their comprehension; and so being wise in their own eyes, they become fools, and even vain in their imaginations, and turn the truth of God into a lie, and their foolish hearts are darkened. See Romans 1:21, etc.

But yet, when God has sufficiently shown men the insufficiency of human wisdom and learning for the purposes of religion, and when the appointed time comes for that glorious effusion of the Spirit of God, when he will himself by his own immediate influence enlighten men's minds; then may we hope that God will make use of the great increase of learning as an handmaid to religion, as a means of the glorious advancement of the kingdom of his Son. Then shall human learning be subservient to the understanding of the scriptures, and to a clear explanation and a glorious defense of the doctrines of Christianity. There is no doubt to be made of it, that God in his providence has of late given the world the art of printing, and such a great increase of learning, to prepare for what he designs to accomplish for his church in the approaching day of its prosperity. Thus the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the just, agreeable to Proverbs 13:22.

Having now shown how the work of redemption has been carried on from the fall of man to the present time, before I proceed any further, I would make some Application.

1. From what has been said, we may see great evidence of the truth of the Christian religion and that the scriptures are the word of God. There are three arguments of this, which I shall take notice of, which may be drawn from what has been said.

(1) It may be argued from that violent and inveterate opposition there has always appeared of the wickedness of the world against this religion. The religion that the church of God has professed from the first founding of the church after the fall to this time, has always been the same. Though the dispensations have been altered, yet the religion which the church has professed has always, as to its essentials, been the same. The church of God, from the beginning, has been one society. The Christian church which has been since Christ's ascension, is manifestly the same society continued with the church, that was before Christ came. The Christian church is grafted on their root: they are built on the same foundation. The revelation on which both have depended, is essentially the same: for as the Christian church is built on the holy scriptures, so was the Jewish church though now the scriptures be enlarged by the addition of the New Testament; but still it is essentially the same revelation with that which was given in the Old Testament, only the subjects of divine revelation are now more clearly revealed in the New Testament than they were in the Old. But the sum and substance of both the Old Testament and New, is Christ and his redemption. The religion of the church of Israel, was essentially the same religion with that of the Christian church, as evidently appears from what has been said. The groundwork of the religion of the church of God, both before and since Christ has appeared, is the same great scheme of redemption by the Son of God; and so the church that was before the Israelitish church, was still the same society, as it was essentially the same religion that was professed and practiced in it. Thus it was from Noah to Abraham, and thus it was before the flood. And this society of men that is called the church, has always been built on the foundation of those revelations which we have in the scriptures, which have always been essentially the same, though gradually increasing. The church before the flood, was built on the foundation of those revelations of Christ which were given to Adam, and Abel, and Enoch, of which we have an account in the former chapters of Genesis, and others of the like import. The church after the flood, was built on the foundation of the revelations made to Noah and Abraham, to Melchizedek, Isaac, and Jacob, to Joseph, Job, and other holy men of whom we have an account in the scriptures, or other revelations that were to the same purpose. And after this the church depended on the scriptures themselves as they gradually increased; so that the church of God has always been built on the foundation of divine revelation, and always on those revelations that were essentially the same, and which are summarily comprehended in the holy scriptures, and ever since about Moses's time have been built on the scriptures themselves.

So that the opposition which has been made to the church of God in all ages, has always been against the same religion, and the same revelation. Now therefore the violent and perpetual opposition that has ever been made by the corruption and wickedness of mankind against this church, is a strong argument of the truth of this religion, and this revelation, upon which this church has always been built. Contraries are well argued one with another. We may well and safely argue, that a thing is good, according to the degree of opposition in which it stands to evil, or the degree in which evil opposes it, and is an enemy to it. We may well argue, that a thing is light, by the great enmity which darkness has to it. Now it is evident by the things which you have heard concerning the church of Christ, and that the holy religion of Jesus Christ which it has professed, that the wickedness of the world has had a perpetual hatred to it, and has made most violent opposition against it.

That the church of God has always met with great opposition in the world, none can deny. This is plain by profane history as far as that reaches; and before that, divine history gives us the same account. The church of God, and its religion and worship, began to be opposed in Cain's and Abel's time, and was so when the earth was filled with violence in Noah's time. After this, how was the church opposed in Egypt! And how was the church of Israel always hated by the nations round about, agreeable to that in Jeremiah 12:9, "Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her." After the Babylonish captivity, how was this church persecuted by Antiochus Epiphanes and others! And how was Christ persecuted when he was on earth! And how were the apostles and other Christians persecuted by the Jews, before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans! How violent were that people against the church, and how dreadful was the opposition of the Heathen world against the Christian church after this before Constantine! How great was their spite against the true religion! Since that, how yet more violent, and spiteful, and cruel, has been the opposition of Antichrist against the church!

There is no other such instance of opposition. History gives no account of any other body of men that have been so hated, and so maliciously and insatiably pursued and persecuted, nor anything like it. No other religion ever was so maligned age after age. The nations of other professions have enjoyed their religion in peace and quietness, however they have differed from their neighbors. One nation has worshipped one sort of gods, and others another, without molesting or disturbing one another about it. All the spite and opposition has been against this religion, which the church of Christ has professed. All other religions have seemed to show an implacable enmity to this; and men have seemed to have, from one age to another, such a spite against it, that they have seemed as though they could never satisfy their cruelty. They put their inventions upon the rack to find out torments that should be cruel enough; and yet, after all, never seemed to be satisfied. Their thirst has never been satisfied with blood.

So that this is out of doubt, that this religion, and these scriptures, have always been malignantly opposed in the world. The only question that remains is, What it is that has made this opposition? Whether it be the wickedness and corruption of the world, or not, that has done this? But of this there can be no greater doubt than of the other, if we consider how causeless this cruelty has always been, who the opposers have been, and the manner in which they have opposed. The opposition has chiefly been from Heathenism and Popery; which things certainly are evil. They are both of them very evil, and the fruits of the blindness, corruption, and wickedness of men, as the very Deists themselves confess. The light of nature shows, that the religion of Heathens, consisting in the worship of idols, and sacrificing their children to them, and in obscene and abominable rites and ceremonies, is wickedness. And the superstitions, and idolatries, and usurpations, of the church of Rome, are no less contrary to the light of nature. By this it appears, that this opposition which has been made against the church of God, has been made by wicked men. With regard to the opposition of the Jews in Christ's and the apostles' times, it was in a most corrupt time of that nation, when the people were generally become exceeding wicked, as some of the Jewish writers themselves, as Josephus and others, who lived about that time, do expressly say. That it has been mere wickedness that has made this opposition, is manifest from the manner of opposition, the extreme violence, injustice, and cruelty, with which the church of God has been treated. It seems to show the hand of malignant infernal spirits in it.

Now what reason can be assigned, why the corruption and wickedness of the world should so implacably set itself against this religion of Jesus Christ, and against the scriptures, but only that they are contrary to wickedness, and consequently are good and holy? Why should the enemies of Christ, for so many thousand years together, manifest such a mortal hatred of this religion, but only that it is the cause of God? If the scriptures be not the word of God, and the religion of the church of Christ be not the true religion, then it must follow, that it is a most wicked religion; nothing but a pack of lies and abominable delusions, invented by the enemies of God themselves. If this were so, it is not likely that the enemies of God, and the wickedness of the world, would have maintained such a perpetual and implacable enmity against it.

(2) It is a great argument that the Christian church and its religion is from God, that it has been upheld hitherto through all the opposition and dangers it has passed through. That the church of God and the true religion, which has been so continually and violently opposed, with so many endeavors to overthrow it, and which has so often been brought to the brink of ruin, and almost swallowed up, through the greatest part of six thousand years, has yet been upheld, does most remarkably show the hand of God in favor of the church. If we consider it, it will appear one of the greatest wonders and miracles that ever came to pass. There is nothing else like it upon the face of the earth. There is no other society of man that has stood as the church has. As to the old world, which was before the flood, that was overthrown by a deluge of waters: but yet the church of God was preserved. Satan's visible kingdom on earth was then once entirely overthrown; but the visible kingdom of Christ never has been overthrown. All those ancient human kingdoms and monarchies of which we read, and which have been in former ages, they are long since come to an end. Those kingdoms of which we read in the Old Testament, of the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, etcetera they are all long ago come to an end. Those four great monarchies of the world have been overthrown one after another. The great empire of Babylon was overthrown by the Persians; and then the Persian empire was overthrown by the Greeks; after this the Grecian empire was overthrown by the Romans;— and, finally, the Roman empire fell a sacrifice to various barbarous nations. Here is a remarkable fulfillment of the words of the text with respect to other things, even the greatest and most glorious of them: they have all grown old, and have vanished away; "The moth has eaten them up like a garment, the worm eaten them like wool;" but yet God's church remains.

Never were there so many and so potent endeavors to destroy any thing else, as there have been to destroy the church. Other kingdoms and societies of men, which have appeared to be ten times as strong as the church of God, have been destroyed with an hundredth part of the opposition which the church of God has met with: which shows, that it is God who has been the protector of the church. For it is most plain, that it has not upheld itself by its own strength. For the most part, it has been a very weak society. They have been a little flock: so they were of old. The children of Israel were but a small handful of people, in comparison of the many who often sought their overthrow. And so in Christ's time, and in the beginning of the Christian church after Christ's resurrection, they were but a remnant: whereas the whole multitude of the Jewish nation were against them. And so in the beginning of the Gentile church, they were but a small number in comparison with the Heathen, who sought their overthrow. And so in the dark times of Antichrist, before the Reformation, they were but a handful; and yet their enemies could never overthrow them. It has commonly been so, that the enemies of the church have not only had the greatest number of their side, but they have had the strength of their side in other respects. They have commonly had all the civil authority of their side. So it was in Egypt: the civil authority was of the side of the Egyptians, and the church were only their slaves, and were in their hands; and yet they could not overthrow them. So it was in the time of the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes: the authority was all on the side of the persecutors, and the church was under their dominion; and yet all their cruelty could not extirpate it. So it was afterwards in the time of the Heathen Roman government. And so it was in the time of Julian the apostate, who did his utmost to overthrow the Christian church, and to restore Heathenism. So it has been for the most part since the rise of Antichrist: for a great many ages, the civil authority was all on the side of Antichrist, and the church seemed to be in their hands.

Not only has the strength of the enemies of the church been greater than the strength of the church, but ordinarily the church has not used what strength they have had in their own defense, but have committed themselves wholly to God. So it was in the time of the Jewish persecutions before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; and so it was in the time of the Heathen persecutions before Constantine; the Christians did not only not rise up in arms to defend themselves, but they did not pretend to make any forcible resistance to their Heathen persecutors. So it has for the most part been under the Popish persecutions; and yet they have never been able to overthrow the church of God; but it stands to this very day.

This is still the more exceeding wonderful, if we consider how often the church has been brought to the brink of ruin, and the case seemed to be desperate, and all hope gone, and they seemed to be swallowed up. In the time of the old world, when wickedness so prevailed, as that but one family was left, yet God wonderfully appeared, and overthrew the wicked world with a flood, and preserved his church. So at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh and his host thought they were quite sure of their prey; yet God appeared, and destroyed them, and delivered his church. So was it from time to time in the church of Israel, as has been shown. So under the tenth and last Heathen persecution, their persecutors boasted that now they had done the business for the Christians, and had overthrown the Christian church; yet in the midst of their triumph, the Christian church rises out of the dust and prevails, and the Heathen empire totally falls before it. So when the Christian church seemed ready to be swallowed up by the Arian heresy; so when Antichrist rose and prevailed, and all the world wondered after the beast, and the church for many hundred years was reduced to such a small number, and seemed to be hidden, and the power of the world was engaged to destroy those little remainders of the church; yet they could never fully accomplish their design, and at last God wonderfully revived his church in the time of the Reformation, and made it to stand as it were on its feet, in the sight of its enemies, and raised it out of their reach. So since, when the Popish powers have plotted the overthrow of the Reformed church, and have seemed just about to bring their matters to a conclusion, and to finish their design, then God has wonderfully appeared for the deliverance of his church, as it was in the time of the Revolution by King William. So it has been from time to time: presently after the darkest times of the church, God has made his church most gloriously to flourish.

If such a preservation of the church of God, from the beginning of the world hitherto, attended with such circumstances, is not sufficient to show a divine hand in favor of it, what can be devised that would be sufficient? But if this be from the divine hand, then God owns the church, and owns her religion and owns that revelation and those scriptures on which she is built; and so it will follow, that their religion is the true religion, or God's religion, and that the scriptures, which they make their rule, are his word.

(3) We may draw this further argument for the divine authority of the scriptures from what has been said, namely that God has so fulfilled those things which are foretold in the scriptures. —I have already observed, as I went along, how the prophecies of the scripture were fulfilled: I shall now therefore single out but two instances of the fulfillment of scripture prophecy.

(1) One is in preserving his church from being ruined. I have just now shown what an evidence this is of the divine authority of the scriptures in itself considered: I now speak of it as a fulfillment of scripture-prophecy. This is abundantly foretold and promised in the scriptures, as particularly in the text; there it is foretold that other things should fall, other kingdoms and monarchies, which set themselves in opposition, should come to nothing: "The moth should eat them up like a garment, and the worm should eat them like wool." So it has in fact come to pass. But it is here foretold, that God's covenant-mercy to his church should continue for ever; and so it hath hitherto proved, though now it be so many ages since, and though the church has passed through so many dangers. The same is promised, Isaiah 54:17. "No weapon that is formed against thee, shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn." And again, Isaiah 49:14, 15, 16. "But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me." The same is promised again in Isaiah 59:21 and Isaiah 43:1, 2 and Zechariah 12:2, 3. So Christ promises the same, when he says, "On this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Now if this be not from God, and the scriptures be not the word of God, and the church of Christ built on the foundation of this word be not of God, how could the persons who foretold this, know it? for if the church were not of God, it was a very unlikely thing ever to come to pass. For they foretold the great opposition, and the great dangers, and also foretold that other kingdoms should come to nought, and that the church should often be almost swallowed up, as it were easy to show, and yet foretold that the church should remain. Now how could they foresee so unlikely a thing but by divine inspiration?

(2) The other remarkable instance which I shall mention of the fulfillment of scripture-prophecy, is in fulfilling what is foretold concerning Antichrist, a certain great opposer of Christ and his kingdom. The way that this Antichrist should arise is foretold, namely not among the Heathen, or those nations that never professed Christianity; but that he should arise by the apostasy and falling away of the Christian church into a corrupt state: 2 Thessalonians 2:3. "For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." —It is prophesied, that this Antichrist, or man of sin, should be one, that should set himself up in the temple or visible church of God, pretending to be vested with the power of God himself as head of the church, as in the same chapter verse 4. All this is exactly come to pass in the church of Rome. Again, it is intimated, that the rise of Antichrist should be gradual, as there, verse 7. "For the mystery of iniquity does already work: only he who now restrains, will restrain, until he be taken out of the way" This also came to pass. —Again, it is prophesied of such a great and mighty enemy of the Christian church, that he should be a great prince or monarch of the Roman empire: so he is represented as an horn of the fourth beast in Daniel, or fourth kingdom or monarchy upon earth, as the angel himself explains it, as you may see of the little horn in the seventh chapter of Daniel. This also came to pass. — Yes it is prophesied, that the seat of this great prince, or pretended vicar of God, and head of his church, should be in the city of Rome itself. In the seventeenth chapter of Revelation, it is said expressly, that the spiritual whore, or false church, should have her seat on seven mountains or hills: Revelation 17:9. "The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sits:" and in the last verse of the chapter, it is said expressly, "The woman which you saw, is that great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth" which it is certain was at that time the city of Rome. This prophecy also has come to pass in the church of Rome.

Further, it was prophesied, that this Antichrist should reign over peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues, Revelation 17:15. and that all the world should wonder after the beast, Revelation 13:3. This also came to pass in the church of Rome. It was foretold that this Antichrist should be eminent and remarkable for the sin of pride, pretending to great things, and assuming very much to himself: so in the forementioned place in Thessalonians, "That he should exalt himself above all that is called God," or that is worshipped. So Revelation 13:5. "And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things, and blasphemies." Daniel 7:20. the little horn is said to have a mouth speaking very great things, and his look to be more stout than his fellows. This also came to pass in the Pope, and the church of Rome. —It was also prophesied, that Antichrist should be an exceeding cruel persecutor, Daniel 7:21. The same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them: Revelation 13:7. "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them." Revelation 17:6. "And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." This also came to pass in the church of Rome. — It was foretold, that Antichrist should excel in craft and policy: Daniel 7:8. "In this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man." And verse 20. "Even so that horn that had eyes." This also came to pass in the church of Rome. —It was foretold, that the kings of Christendom should be subject to Antichrist: Revelation 17:12-13. "And the ten horns which you saw, are ten kings, which have received no kingdoms as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast." This also came to pass with respect to the Romish church. —It was foretold, that he should perform pretended miracles and lying wonders: 2 Thessalonians 2:9. "Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders." Revelation 13:13-14. "And he does great wonders, so that he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth, in the sight of men, and deceives them that dwell on the earth, by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast." This also came to pass in the church of Rome. Fire's coming down from heaven, seemed to have reference to their excommunications, which were dreaded like fire from heaven. — It was foretold, that he should forbid to marry, and to abstain from meats: 1 Timothy 4:3. "Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving." This also is exactly fulfilled in the church of Rome. —It was foretold, that he should be very rich, and arrive at a great degree of earthly splendor and glory: Revelation 17:4. "And the woman was arrayed in purple, and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones, and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand." And so chapter 18:7, 12, 13, 16. This also is come to pass with respect to the church of Rome. —It was foretold, that he should forbid any to buy or sell, without they had his mark: Revelation 13:17. "And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark of the beast, or the number of his name." This also is fulfilled in the church of Rome. —It was foretold, that he should sell the souls of men, Revelation 18:13. where, in enumerating the articles of his merchandise, the souls of men are mentioned as one. This also is exactly fulfilled in the same church. — It was foretold, that Antichrist would not suffer the bodies of God's people to be put into graves: Revelation 11:8-9. "And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, — and they — shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves." This also has literally come to pass with respect to the church of Rome. —I might mention many other things which were foretold of Antichrist, or that great enemy of the church so often spoken of in scripture, and show that they were fulfilled most exactly in the Pope and the church of Rome.

How strong an argument is this, that the scriptures are the word of God?

2 But I come now to a second inference; which is this: From what has been said, we may learn what the spirit of true Christians is, namely a spirit of suffering. Seeing God has so ordered it in his providence, that his church should for so long a time, for the greater part of so many ages, be in a suffering state, yes, and often in a state of such extreme suffering, we may conclude, that the spirit of the true church is a suffering spirit, otherwise God never would have ordered so much suffering for the church; for doubtless God accommodates the state and circumstances of the church to the spirit that he has given them. We see by what has been said, how many and great sufferings the Christian church for the most part has been under for these 1700 years: no wonder therefore that Christ so much inculcated upon his disciples, that it was necessary, that if any would be his disciples 'They must deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow him.'

We may argue, that the spirit of the true church of Christ is a suffering spirit, by the spirit the church has shown and exercised under her suffering. She has actually, under those terrible persecutions through which she has passed, rather chosen to undergo those dreadful torments, and to sell all for the pearl of great price, to suffer all that her bitterest enemies could inflict, than to renounce Christ and his religion. History furnishes us with a great number of remarkable instances, sets in view a great cloud of witnesses. This abundantly confirms the necessity of being of a spirit to sell all for Christ, to renounce our own ease, our own worldly profit, and honor, and our all, for him, and for the gospel.

Let us inquire, whether we are of such a spirit. How does it prove upon trial? Does it prove in fact that we are willing to deny ourselves, and renounce our own worldly interest, and to pass through the trials to which we are called in providence? Alas, how small are our trials, compared with those of many of our fellow Christians in former ages! I would on this occasion apply that in Jeremiah 12:5. "If you have run with the footmen, and they wearied you, then how can you contend with horses?" If you have not been able to endure the light trials to which you have been called in this age, and in this land, how would you be able to endure the far greater trials to which the church has been called in former ages? Every true Christian has the spirit of a martyr, and would suffer as a martyr, if he were called to it in providence.

3. Hence we learn what great reason we have, assuredly to expect the fulfillment of what yet remains to be fulfilled of things foretold in scripture. The scriptures foretell many great things yet to be fulfilled before the end of the world. But there seem to be great difficulties in the way. We seem at present to be very far from such a state as is foretold in the scriptures; but we have abundant reason to expect, that these things, however seemingly difficult, will yet be accomplished in their season. We see the faithfulness of God to his promises hitherto. How true has God been to his church, and remembered his mercy from generation to generation! We may say concerning what God has done hitherto for his church, as Joshua said to the children of Israel, Joshua 23:14. "That not one thing hath failed of all that the Lord our God hath spoken concerning his church;" but all things are hitherto come to pass agreeable to the divine prediction. This should strengthen our faith in those promises, and encourage us, and stir us up to earnest prayer to God for the accomplishment of the great and glorious things which yet remain to be fulfilled.

It has already been shown how the success of Christ's redemption was carried on through various periods down to the present time.

Fourthly, I come now to show how the success of Christ's redemption will be carried on from the present time, till Antichrist is fallen, and Satan's visible kingdom on earth is destroyed. —And with respect to this space of time, we have nothing to guide us but the prophecies of scripture. Through most of the time from the fall of man to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, we had scripture history to guide us; and from thence to the present time we had prophecy, together with the accomplishment of it in providence, as related in human histories. But henceforward we have only prophecy to guide us. Here I would pass by those things that are only conjectural, or that are surmised by some from those prophecies which are doubtful in their interpretation, and shall insist only on those things which are more clear and evident.

We know not what particular events are to come to pass before that glorious work of God's Spirit begins, by which Satan's kingdom is to be overthrown. By the consent of most divines, there are but few things, if any at all, that are foretold to be accomplished before the beginning of that glorious work of God. Some think the slaying of the witnesses, Revelation 11:7-8 is not yet accomplished. So divines differ with respect to the pouring out of the seven vials, of which we have an account, Revelation 16. how many are already poured out, or how many remain to be poured out; though a late expositor, whom I have before mentioned to you, seems to make it very plain and evident, that all are already poured out but two, namely the sixth on the river Euphrates, and the seventh into the air. But I will not now stand to inquire what is intended by the pouring out of the sixth vial on the river Euphrates, that the way of the kings of the east may be prepared; but only would say, that it seems to be something immediately preparing the way for the destruction of the spiritual Babylon, as the drying up of the river Euphrates, which ran through the midst of old Babylon, was what prepared the way of the kings of the Medes and Persians, the kings of the east, to come in under the walls, and destroy that city.

But whatever this be, it does not appear that it is any thing which shall be accomplished before that work of God's Spirit is begun, by which, as it goes on, Satan's visible kingdom on earth shall be utterly overthrown. Therefore I would proceed directly to consider what the scripture reveals concerning the work of God itself, by which he will bring about this great event, as being the next thing which is to be accomplished that we are certain of from the prophecies of scripture.

First, I would observe two things in general concerning it.

1. We have reason to conclude from the scriptures, that just before this work of God begins, it will be a very dark time with respect to the interests of religion in the world. It has been so before those glorious revivals of religion that have been hitherto. It was so when Christ came; it was an exceeding degenerate time among the Jews: and so it was a very dark time before the Reformation. Not only so, but it seems to be foretold in scripture, that it shall be a time of but little religion, when Christ shall come to set up his kingdom in the world. Thus when Christ spake of his coming to encourage his elect, who cry to him day and night, in Luke 18:8 he adds this, "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" Which seems to denote a great prevalency of infidelity just before Christ's coming to avenge his suffering church. Though Christ's coming at the last judgment is not here to be excluded, yet there seems to be a special respect to his coming to deliver his church from their long continued suffering persecuted state, which is accomplished only at his coming at the destruction of Antichrist. That time that the elect cry to God, as in Revelation 6:10. "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" and the time spoken of in Revelation 18:20. "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy Apostles, and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her," will then be accomplished.

It is now a very dark time with respect to the interests of religion, and such a time as this prophesied of in this place; wherein there is but little faith, and a great prevailing of infidelity on the earth. There is now a remarkable fulfillment of that in 2 Peter 3:3. "Knowing this, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts." So Jude 17-18. "But beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts." Whether the times shall be any darker still, or how much darker, before the beginning of this glorious work of God, we cannot tell.

2. There is no reason from the word of God to think any other, than that this great work of God will be wrought, though very swiftly, yet gradually. As the children of Israel were gradually brought out of the Babylonish captivity, first one company, and then another, and gradually rebuilt their city and temple; and as the Heathen Roman empire was destroyed by a gradual, though a very swift prevalency of the gospel; so, though there are many things which seem to hold forth as though the work of God would be exceeding swift, and many great and wonderful events should very suddenly be brought to pass, and some great parts of Satan's visible kingdom should have a very sudden fall, yet all will not be accomplished at once, as by some great miracle, as the resurrection of the dead at the end of the world will be all at once; but this is a work which will be accomplished by means, by the preaching of the gospel, and the use of the ordinary means of grace, and so shall be gradually brought to pass. Some shall be converted, and be the means of others conversion. God's Spirit shall be poured out first to raise up instruments, and then those instruments shall be used and succeeded. Doubtless one nation shall be enlightened and converted after another, one false religion and false way of worship exploded after another. By the representation in Daniel 2:3-4, the stone cut out of the mountains without hands gradually grows. So Christ teaches us, that the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard-seed, Matthew 13:31-32, and like leaven hid in three measures of meal, verse 33. The same representation we have in Mark 4:26-28, and in the vision of the waters of the sanctuary, Ezekiel 47. The scriptures hold forth as though there should be several successive great and glorious events, by which this glorious work should be accomplished. The angel, speaking to the prophet Daniel of those glorious times, mentions two glorious periods, at the end of which glorious things should be accomplished: Daniel 12:11. "And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days." But then he adds in the next verse, "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days;" intimating, that something very glorious should be accomplished at the end of the former period, but something much more glorious at the end of the latter.

But I now proceed to show how this glorious work shall be accomplished.

1. The Spirit of God shall be gloriously poured out for the wonderful revival and propagation of religion. This great work shall be accomplished, not by the authority of princes, nor by the wisdom of learned men, but by God's Holy Spirit: Zechariah 4:6-7. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." "Who art thou, O great mountain?" "Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying Grace, grace unto it." So the prophet Ezekiel, speaking of this great work of God, says, chapter 39:29 "Neither will I hide my face any more from them; for I have poured out my Spirit on the house of Israel, saith the Lord God." We know not where this pouring out of the Spirit shall begin, or whether in many places at once, or whether, what hath already been, be not some forerunner and beginning of it.

This pouring out of the Spirit of God, when it is begun, shall soon bring great multitudes to forsake that vice and wickedness which now so generally prevails, and shall cause that vital religion, which is now so despised and laughed at in the world, to revive. The work of conversion shall break forth, and go on in such a manner as never has been hitherto; agreeable to that in Isaiah 44:3-5. God, by pouring out his Holy Spirit, will furnish men to be glorious instruments of carrying on this work; will fill them with knowledge and wisdom, and fervent zeal for the promoting the kingdom of Christ, and the salvation of souls, and propagating the gospel in the world. So that the gospel shall begin to be preached with abundantly greater clearness and power than had heretofore been: for this great work of God shall be brought to pass by the preaching of the gospel, as it is represented in Revelation 14:6-8 that before Babylon falls, the gospel shall be powerfully preached and propagated in the world.

This was typified of old by the sounding of the silver trumpets in Israel in the beginning of their jubilee: Leviticus 25:9. "Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land." The glorious times which are approaching, are as it were the church's jubilee, which shall be introduced by the sounding of the silver trumpet of the gospel, as is foretold in Isaiah 27:13. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts of the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem." There shall be a glorious pouring out of the Spirit with this clear and powerful preaching of the gospel, to make it successful for reviving those holy doctrines of religion which are now chiefly ridiculed in the world, and turning many from heresy, and from Popery, and from other false religion; and also for turning many from their vice and profaneness, and for bringing vast multitudes savingly home to Christ.

That work of conversion shall go on in a wonderful manner, and spread more and more. Many shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, and shall come as it were in flocks, one flock and multitude after another continually flowing in, as in Isaiah 60:4-5. "Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all they gather themselves together, they come to thee; thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side." "Then thou shalt see and flow together." And so verse 8. "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?" It being represented in the forementioned place in the Revelation, that the gospel shall be preached to every tongue, and kindred, and nation, and people, before the fall of Antichrist; so we may suppose, that it will soon be gloriously successful to bring in multitudes from every nation; and it shall spread more and more with wonderful swiftness, and vast numbers shall suddenly be brought in as at once, as you may see, Isaiah 66:7-9.

2. This pouring out of the Spirit of God will not effect the overthrow of Satan's visible kingdom, till there has first been a violent and mighty opposition made. In this the scripture is plain, that when Christ is thus gloriously coming forth, and the destruction of Antichrist is ready at hand, and Satan's kingdom begins to totter, and appear to be imminently threatened, the powers of the kingdom of darkness will rise up, and mightily exert themselves to prevent their kingdom being overthrown. Thus after the pouring out of the sixth vial, which was to dry up the river Euphrates, to prepare the way for the destruction of the spiritual Babylon, it is represented in Revelation 16 as though the powers of hell will be mightily alarmed, and should stir up themselves to oppose the kingdom of Christ, before the seventh and last vial shall be poured out, which shall give them a final and complete overthrow. We have an account of the pouring out of the sixth in verse 12. Upon this, the beloved disciple informs us that in the following verses, that "three unclean spirits like frogs shall go forth unto the kings of the earth, to gather them together to the battle of the great day of God Almighty." This seems to be the last and greatest effort of Satan to save his kingdom from being overthrown; though perhaps he may make as great towards the end of the world to regain it.

When the Spirit begins to be so gloriously poured forth, and the devil sees such multitudes flocking to Christ in one nation and another, and the foundations of his kingdom daily undermining, and the pillars of it breaking, and the whole ready to come to swift and sudden destruction, it will greatly alarm all hell. Satan has ever had a dread of having his kingdom overthrown, and he has been opposing of it ever since Christ's ascension, and has been doing great works to fortify his kingdom, and to prevent it, ever since the day of Constantine the Great. To this end he has set up those two mighty kingdoms of Antichrist and Mahomet, and brought in all the heresies, and superstitions, and corrupt opinions which there are in the world. But when he sees all begins to fail it will rouse him exceedingly. If Satan dreaded being cast out of the Roman empire, how much more does he dread being cast out of the whole world!

It seems as though in this last great opposition which shall be made against the church to defend the kingdom of Satan, all the forces of Antichrist, and Mahometanism, and Heathenism, will be united; and all the forces of Satan's visible kingdom through the whole world of mankind. Therefore it is said, that "spirits of devils shall go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them together to the battle of the great day of God Almighty." These spirits are said to come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophets; that is, there shall be the spirit of Popery, and the spirit of Mahometanism, and the spirit of Heathenism, all united. By the beast is meant Antichrist; by the dragon, in this book, is commonly meant the devil, as he reigns over his Heathen kingdom; by the false prophet, in this book, is sometimes meant the Pope and his clergy: but here an eye seems to be had to Mahomet, whom his followers call a great prophet of God. This will be as it were the dying struggles of the old serpent: a battle wherein he will fight as one that is almost desperate.

We know not particularly in what manner this opposition shall be made. It is represented as a battle; it is called the battle of the great day of God Almighty. There will be some way or other a mighty struggle between Satan's kingdom and the church, and probably in all ways of opposition that can be; and doubtless great opposition by external force; wherein the princes of the world who are on the devil's side shall join hand in hand: for it is said, "The kings of the earth are gathered together to battle;" Revelation 19:19. Probably withal there will be a great opposition of subtle disputers and carnal reasoning, and great persecution in many places, and great opposition by virulent reproaches, and also great opposition by craft and subtlety. The devil now doubtless will ply his skill, as well as strength, to the utmost. The devils, and those who belong to their kingdom, will everywhere be stirred up, and engaged to make an united and violent opposition against this holy religion, which they see prevailing so mightily in the world. But,

3. Christ and his church shall in this battle obtain a complete and entire victory over their enemies. They shall be totally routed and overthrown in this their last effort. When the powers of hell and earth are thus gathered together against Christ, and his armies shall come forth against them by his word and spirit to fight with them, in how august, and pompous, and glorious a manner is this coming forth of Christ and his church to this battle described, Revelation 19:11 et cetera! To represent to us how great the victory should be which they should obtain, and how mighty the overthrow of their enemies, it is said, verses 17 and 18, that "all the fowls of heaven are called together, to eat the great supper given them, of the flesh of kings, and captains, and mighty men," et cetera; and then, in the following verses, we have an account of the victory and overthrow.

In this victory, the seventh vial shall be poured out. It is said, Revelation 16:16, of the great army that should be gathered together against Christ: "And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon:": and then it is said, "And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done." Now the business is done for Satan and his adherents. When this victory is obtained, all is in effect done. Satan's last and greatest opposition is conquered; all his measures are defeated; the pillars of his kingdom broken asunder, and will fall of course. The devil is utterly baffled and confounded, and knows not what else to do. He now sees his Antichristian, and Mahometan, and Heathenish kingdoms through the world, all tumbling about his ears. He and his most powerful instruments are taken captive. Now that is in effect done which the church of God had been so long waiting and hoping for, and so earnestly crying to God for, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true?" now the time is come.

The angel who set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and swore by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and all things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that when the seventh angel should come to sound, the time should be no longer. Now the time is come; now the seventh trumpet sounds, and the seventh vial is poured out, both together; intimating, that now all is finished as to the overthrow of Satan's visible kingdom on earth. This victory shall be by far the greatest that ever was obtained over Satan and his adherents. By this blow, with which the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, shall strike the image of gold, and silver, and brass, and iron, and clay, it shall all be broken to pieces. This will be a finishing blow to the image, so that it shall become as the chaff of the summer threshing floor.

In this victory will be a most glorious display of divine power. Christ shall therein appear in the character of King of kings, and Lord of lords, as in Revelation 19:16. Now Christ shall dash his enemies, even the strongest and proudest of them, in pieces; as a potter's vessel shall they be broken to shivers. Then shall strength be shown out of weakness, and Christ shall cause his church as it were to thresh the mountains, as in Isaiah 41:15: "Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing-instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff." Then shall be fulfilled that in Isaiah 42:13, 14, 15.

4. Consequent on this victory, Satan's visible kingdom on earth shall be destroyed. When Satan is conquered in this last battle, the church of Christ will have easy work of it; as when Joshua and the children of Israel had obtained that great victory over the five kings of the Amorites, when the sun stood still, and God sent great hailstones on their enemies, they after that went from one city to another, and burnt them with fire: they had easy work of subduing the cities and country to which they belonged. So it was also after that other great battle that Joshua had with that great multitude at the waters of Merom. So after this glorious victory of Christ and his church over their enemies, over the chief powers of Satan's kingdom, they shall destroy that kingdom and all those cities and countries to which they belonged. After this the word of God shall have a speedy and swift progress through the earth; as it is said, that on the pouring out of the seventh vial, the cities of the nations fell, and every island fled away, and the mountains were not found," Revelation 16:19, 20. When once the stone cut out of the mountain without hands had broken the image in pieces, it was easy to abolish all remains of it. The very wind will carry it away as the chaff of the summer threshing floor. Because Satan's visible kingdom on earth shall now be destroyed, therefore it is said, that the seventh vial, by which this shall be done, shall be poured out into the air; which is represented in scripture as the special seat of his kingdom; for he is called the prince of the power of the air, Ephesians 2:2. Now is come the time of punishing Leviathan, that piercing serpent, of which we read in Isaiah 27:1. "In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan, that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea."

Concerning this overthrow of Satan's visible kingdom on earth, I would, 1. Show wherein this overthrow of Satan's visible kingdom will chiefly consist; 2. The extent and universality of this overthrow.

1. I would show wherein this overthrow of Satan's kingdom will chiefly consist. I shall mention the particular things in which it will consist, without pretending to determine in what order they shall come to pass, or which shall be accomplished first, or whether they shall be accomplished together.

(1) Heresies, and infidelity, and superstition, among those who have been brought up under the light of the gospel, will then be abolished. Then there will be an end to Socinianism, and Arianism, and Quakerism, and Arminianism; and Deism, which is now so bold and confident in infidelity, shall then be crushed, and driven away, and vanish to nothing; and all shall agree in the same great and important doctrines of the gospel; agreeable to that in Zechariah 14:9. "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." Then shall be abolished all superstitious ways of worship, and all shall agree in worshipping God in his own ways: Jeremiah 32:39. "And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them."

(2) The kingdom of Antichrist shall be utterly overthrown. His kingdom and dominion has been much brought down already by the vial poured out on his throne in the Reformation; but then it shall be utterly destroyed. Then shall be proclaimed, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen." When the seventh angel sounds, "the time, times and half, shall be out, and the time shall be no longer." Then shall be accomplished concerning Antichrist the things which are written in the 18th chapter of Revelation of the spiritual Babylon, that great city Rome, or the idolatrous Roman government, that has for so many ages been the great enemy of the Christian church, first under Heathenism, then under Popery; that proud city which lifted herself up to heaven, and above God himself in her pride and haughtiness; that cruel, bloody city, shall come down to the ground. Then shall that be fulfilled, Isaiah 26:5. "For he bringeth down them that dwell on high, the lofty city he layeth it low, he layeth it low, even to the ground, he bringeth it even to the dust." She shall be thrown down with violence, like a great millstone cast into the sea, and shall be found no more at all, and shall become an habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." Now shall she be stripped of all her glory, and riches, and ornaments, and shall be cast out as an abominable branch, and shall be trodden down as the mire of the streets. All her policy and craft, in which she so abounded, shall not save her. God shall make his people, who have been so persecuted by her, to come and put their foot on the neck of Antichrist, and he shall be their footstool. All the strength and wisdom of this great whore shall fail her, and there shall be none to help her. The kings of the earth, who before gave their power and strength to the beast, shall now hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire, Revelation 17:16.

(3) That other great kingdom which Satan has set up in opposition to the Christian church, namely his Mahometan kingdom, shall be utterly overthrown. The locusts and horsemen in the 9th of Revelation, have their appointed and limited time set them there, and the false prophet shall be taken and destroyed. And then, though Mahometanism has been so vastly propagated in the world, and is upheld by such a great empire, this smoke, which has ascended out of the bottomless pit, shall be utterly scattered before the light of that glorious day, and the Mahometan empire shall fall at the sound of the great trumpet which shall then be blown.

(4) Jewish infidelity shall then be overthrown. However obstinate they have been now for above seventeen hundred years in their rejection of Christ, and instances of the conversion of any of that nation have been so very rare ever since the destruction of Jerusalem, but they have against the plain teachings of their own prophets, continued to approve of the cruelty of their forefathers in crucifying Christ; yet when this day comes, the thick veil that blinds their eyes shall be removed 2 Corinthians 3:16; and divine grace shall melt and renew their hard hearts, "and they shall look on him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness as one that is in bitterness for his first born," Zechariah 12:10 etc. Then shall the house of Israel be saved: the Jews in all their dispensations shall cast away their old infidelity, and shall wonderfully have their hearts changed, and abhor themselves for their past unbelief and obstinacy; and shall flow together to the blessed Jesus, penitently, humbly, and joyfully owning him as their glorious King and only Savior, and shall with all their hearts, as with one heart and voice, declare his praise unto other nations.

Nothing is more certainly foretold than this national conversion of the Jews is in the eleventh chapter of Romans. And there are also many passages of the Old Testament which cannot be interpreted in any other sense, which I cannot now stand to mention. Besides the prophecies of the calling of the Jews, we have a remarkable seal of the fulfillment of this great event in providence, by a thing which is a kind of continual miracle, namely their being preserved a distinct nation in such a dispersed condition for above sixteen hundred years. The world affords nothing else like it. There is undoubtedly a remarkable hand of providence in it. When they shall be called, then shall that ancient people, that were alone God's people for so long a time, be God's people again, never to be rejected more: they shall then be gathered into one fold together with the Gentiles; and so also shall the remains of the ten tribes, wherever they be, and though they have been rejected much longer than the Jews, be brought in with their brethren the Jews. The prophecies of Hosea especially seem to hold this forth, that in the future glorious times of the church, both Judah and Ephraim, or Judah and the ten tribes, shall be brought in together, and shall be united as one people, as they formerly were under David and Solomon; as Hosea 1:11; and so in the last chapter of Hosea, and other parts of his prophecy.

Though we do not know the time in which this conversion of the nation of Israel will come to pass; yet thus much we may determine by scripture, that it will be before the glory of the Gentile part of the church shall be fully accomplished; because it is said, that their coming in shall be life from the dead to the Gentiles Romans 11:12, 15.

(5) Then shall also Satan's Heathenish kingdom be overthrown. Gross Heathenism now possesses a great part of the earth, and there are supposed to be more heathens now in the world, than of all other professions taken together, Jews, Mohammedans, or Christians. But then the Heathen nations shall be enlightened with the glorious gospel. There will be a wonderful spirit of pity towards them, and zeal for their instruction and conversion put into multitudes, and many shall go forth and carry the gospel unto them; and then shall the joyful sound be heard among them, and the Sun of righteousness shall then arise with his glorious light shining on those many vast regions of the earth that have been covered with Heathenish darkness for many thousand years, many of them doubtless ever since the times of Moses and Abraham, and have lain thus long in a miserable condition, under the cruel tyranny of the devil, who has all this while blinded and befooled them, and domineered over them, and made a prey of them from generation to generation. Now the glad tidings of the gospel shall sound there, and they shall be brought out of darkness into marvelous light.

It is promised, that Heathenism shall thus be destroyed in many places. God has said, That the gods that have not made these heavens and this earth, shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens, Jeremiah 10:11 and that he will utterly abolish idols, Isaiah 2:18. Then shall the many nations of Africa, the nations of negroes, and other Heathens who chiefly fill that quarter of the world, who now seem to be in a state but little above the beasts, and in many respects much below them, be enlightened with glorious light, and delivered from all their darkness, and shall become a civil, Christian, understanding, and holy people. Then shall the vast continent of America, which now in so great a part of it is covered with barbarous ignorance and cruelty, be everywhere covered with glorious gospel-light and Christian love; and instead of worshipping the devil, as now they do, they shall serve God, and praises shall be sung everywhere to the Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Savior of the world. So may we expect it will be in that great and populous part of the world, the East Indies, which are now mostly inhabited by the worshippers of the devil; and so throughout that vast country Great Tartary, and then the kingdom of Christ will be established in those continents which are more lately discovered towards the north and south poles, where now men differ very little from the wild beasts, except that they worship the devil, and beasts do not. The same will be the case with respect to those countries which have never yet been discovered. Thus will be gloriously fulfilled that in Isaiah 35:1, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them: and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." See also verses 6, 7.

2. Having thus shown wherein this overthrow of Satan's kingdom will consist, I come now to the thing to be observed concerning it, namely its universal extent. The visible kingdom of Satan shall be overthrown, and the kingdom of Christ set up on the ruins of it, everywhere throughout the whole habitable globe. Now shall the promise made to Abraham be fulfilled, That "in him and in his seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed;" and Christ now shall become the desire of all nations, agreeable to Haggai 2:7. Now the kingdom of Christ shall in the most strict and literal sense be extended to all nations, and the whole earth. There are many passages of scripture that can be understood in no other sense. What can be more universal than that in Isaiah 11:9, "For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." As much as to say, As there is no part of the channel or cavity of the sea anywhere, but what is covered with water; so there shall be no part of the world of mankind but what shall be covered with the knowledge of God. So it is foretold in Isaiah 45:22 that all the ends of the earth shall look to Christ, and be saved. To show that the words are to be understood in the most universal sense, it is said in the next verse, "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear."

So the most universal expression is used, Daniel 7:27, "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High God." You see the expression includes all under the whole heaven.

When the devil was cast out of the Roman empire, because that was the highest and principal part of the world, and the other nations that were left were low and mean in comparison of those of that empire, it was represented as Satan being cast out of heaven to the earth, Revelation 12:9: but it is represented that he shall be cast out of the earth too, and shut up in hell, Revelation 20:1-3. This is the greatest revolution by far that ever came to pass: therefore it is said in Revelation 16:17-18, "That on the pouring out of the seventh vial, there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon earth, so mighty an earthquake and so great." This is the third great dispensation of providence which is in scripture compared to Christ's coming to judgment. So it is in Revelation 16:15. There, after the sixth vial, and after the devil's armies were gathered together to their great battle, and just before Christ's glorious victory over them, it is said, "Behold I come quickly; blessed is he that watches, and keeps his garments." So it is called Christ's coming in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. Speaking of Antichrist, it is said, "And then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming." See also Daniel 7:13-14 where Christ's coming to set up his kingdom on earth, and to destroy Antichrist, is called with clouds of heaven. And this is more like Christ's last coming to judgment, than any of the preceding dispensations which are so called, on these accounts.

(1) That the dispensation is so much greater and more universal, and so more like the day of judgment, which respects the whole world.

(2) On account of the great spiritual resurrection there will be of the church of God accompanying it, more resembling the general resurrection, at the end of the world than any other. This spiritual resurrection, is the resurrection spoken of as attended with judgment, Revelation 20:4.

(3) Because of the terrible judgments and fearful destruction which shall now be executed on God's enemies. There will doubtless at the introducing of this dispensation be a visible and awful hand of God against blasphemers, Deists, and obstinate heretics, and other enemies of Christ, terribly destroying them, with remarkable tokens of wrath and vengeance; and especially will this dispensation be attended with terrible judgments on Antichrist, and the cruel persecutors who belong to the church of Rome, shall in a most awful manner be destroyed; which is compared to a casting of Antichrist into the burning flame, Daniel 7:11 and to casting him alive into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, Revelation 19:20.

Then shall this cruel persecuting church suffer those judgments from God, which shall be far more dreadful than her cruelest persecutions of the saints, agreeable to Revelation 18:6-7. The judgments which God shall execute on the enemies of the church, are so great, that they are compared to God's sending great hail-stones from heaven upon them, every one of the weight of a talent, as it is said on the pouring out of the seventh vial, Revelation 16:21, "And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent; and men blasphemed God, because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." Now shall be that treading of the wine-press spoken of, Revelation 14:19-20.

(4) This shall put an end to the church's suffering state, and shall be attended with their glorious and joyful praises. The church's afflicted state is long, being continued, excepting some short intermissions, from the resurrection of Christ to this time. But now shall a final end be put to her suffering state. Indeed after this near the end of the world, the church shall be greatly threatened; but it is said, it shall be but for a little season, Revelation 20:3: for at the times of the church's rest are but short, before the long day of her afflictions are at an end: so whatever affliction she may suffer after this, it will be very short; but otherwise the day of the church's affliction and persecution shall now come to a final end. The scriptures, in many places, speak of this time as the end of the suffering state of the church. So Isaiah 51:22. God says to his church with respect to this time, "Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury, thou shalt no more drink it again." Then shall that be proclaimed to the church, Isaiah 40:1-2. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Also that in Isaiah 54:8-9 belongs to this time. And so that in Isaiah 60:20. "The Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." And so Zephaniah 3:15. "The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, and hath cast out thine enemy: the King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more."

The time which had been before this, had been the church's sowing time, wherein she sowed in tears and in blood; but now is her harvest, wherein she will come again rejoicing, bringing her sheaves with her. Now the time of the travail of the woman clothed with the sun is at an end: now she hath brought forth her son; for this glorious setting up of the kingdom of Christ through the world, is what the church had been in travail for, with such terrible pangs for so many ages: Isaiah 26:17. "Like as a woman with child draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O Lord" See Isaiah 60:20 and 61:10-11. — And now the church shall forget her sorrow, since a manchild is born into the world: now succeed her joyful praise and triumph. Her praises shall then go up to God from all parts of the earth; as Isaiah 42:10-12. And praise shall not only fill the earth, but also heaven. The church on earth, and the church in heaven, shall both gloriously rejoice and praise God, as with one heart, on that occasion. Without doubt it will be a time of very distinguished joy and praise among the holy prophets and apostles, and the other saints in heaven: Revelation 18:20. "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath avenged you on her." See how universal these praises will be in Isaiah 44:23. "Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein, for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel." See what joyful praises are sung to God on this occasion by the universal church in heaven and earth, in the beginning of the nineteenth chapter of Revelation.

(5) This dispensation is above all preceding ones like Christ's coming to judgment, in that it so puts an end to the former state of the world, and introduces the everlasting kingdom of Christ. Now Satan's visible kingdom shall be overthrown, after it had stood ever since the building of Babel; and the old heavens and the old earth shall in a greater measure be passed away then than before, and the new heavens and the new earth set up in a far more glorious manner than ever before.

THUS I have shown how the success of Christ's purchase has been carried on through the times of the afflicted state of the Christian church, from Christ's resurrection, till Antichrist is fallen, and Satan's visible kingdom on earth is overthrown. — Therefore I come now,

SECONDLY, To show how the success of redemption will be carried on through that space wherein the Christian church shall for the most part be in a state of peace and prosperity. In order to this, I would,

1. Speak of the prosperous state of the church through the greater part of this period.

2. Of the great apostasy there shall be towards the close of it: how greatly then the church shall be threatened by her enemies for a short time.

I. I would speak of the prosperous state of the church through the greater part of this period. In doing this, I would, 1. Describe this prosperous state of the church; 2. Say something of its duration.

First, I would describe the prosperous state the church shall be in.

In the general, I would observe two things.

1. That this is most properly the time of the kingdom of heaven upon earth. Though the kingdom of heaven was in a degree set up soon after Christ's resurrection, and in a further degree in the time of Constantine; and though the Christian church in all ages of it is called the kingdom of heaven; yet this time that we are upon is the principal time of the kingdom of heaven upon earth, the time principally intended by the prophecies of Daniel, which speak of the kingdom of heaven, whence the Jews took the name of the kingdom of heaven

2. Now is the principal fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament which speak of the glorious times of the gospel which shall be in the latter days. Though there has been a glorious fulfillment of those prophecies already, in the times of the apostles, and of Constantine; yet the expressions are too high to suit any other time entirely, but that which is to succeed the fall of Antichrist. This is most properly the glorious day of the gospel. Other times are only forerunners and preparatories to this: other times were the seed time, but this is the harvest — But more particularly.

(1) It will be a time of great light and knowledge. The present days are days of darkness, in comparison of those days. The light of that glorious time shall be so great, that it is represented as though there should then be no night, but only day; no evening nor darkness. So Zechariah 14:6-7. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark. But it shall be one day, which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light." — It is further represented, as though God would then give such light to his church, that it should so much exceed the glory of the light of the sun and moon, that they should be ashamed: Isaiah 24:23. "Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously."

There is a kind of a veil now cast over the greater part of the world, which keeps them in darkness: but then this veil shall be destroyed: Isaiah 25:7. "And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations." Then all countries and nations, even those which are now most ignorant, shall be full of light and knowledge. Great knowledge shall prevail everywhere. It may be hoped, that then many of the Negroes and Indians will be divines, and that excellent books will be published in Africa, in Ethiopia, in Tartary, and other new and most barbarous countries and not only learned men, but others of more ordinary education, shall then be very knowing in religion: Isaiah 32:3-4. "The eyes of them that see, shall not be dim; and the ears of them that hear, shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge. Knowledge then shall be very universal among all sorts of persons; agreeable to Jeremiah 31:34. "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them."

There shall then be a wonderful unravelling of the difficulties in the doctrines of religion, and clearing up of seeming inconsistencies: "So crooked things shall be made straight, and rough places shall be made plain, and darkness shall become light before God's people." Difficulties in scripture shall then be cleared up, and wonderful things shall be discovered in the word of God, which were never discovered before. The great discovery of those things in religion which had been before kept hid, seems to be compared to removing the veil, and discovering the ark of the testimony to the people, which before used to be kept in the secret part of the temple, and was never seen by them. Thus, at the sounding of the seventh angel, when it is proclaimed, "that the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ;" it is added that "the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament." So great shall be the increase of knowledge in this time, that heaven shall be as it were opened to the church of God on earth.

(2) It shall be a time of great holiness. Now vital religion shall everywhere prevail and reign. Religion shall not be an empty profession, as it now mostly is, but holiness of heart and life shall abundantly prevail. Those times shall be an exception from what Christ says of the ordinary state of the church, namely that there shall be but few saved; for now holiness shall become general: Isaiah 60:21. "Thy people also shall be all righteous." Not that there will be none remaining in a Christless condition; but that visible wickedness shall be suppressed everywhere, and true holiness shall become general, though not universal. It shall be a wonderful time, not only for the multitude of godly men, but for eminency of grace: Isaiah 65:20. "There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old, but the sinner being an hundred years old, shall be accursed." And Zechariah 12:8. "He that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them." Holiness shall then be as it were inscribed on every thing, on all men's common business and employments, and the common utensils of life: all shall be as it were dedicated to God, and applied to holy purposes, every thing shall then be done to the glory of God: Isaiah 23:18. "And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the Lord." And so Zechariah 14:20-21. — As God's people then shall be eminent in holiness of heart, so they shall be also in holiness of life and practice.

(3) It shall be a time wherein religion shall in every respect be uppermost in the world. It shall be had in great esteem and honor. The saints have hitherto for the most part been kept under, and wicked men have governed. But now they will be uppermost. The kingdom shall be given into the hands of the saint of the Most High God," Daniel 7:27. "And they shall reign on the earth," Revelation 5:10. "They shall live and reign with Christ a thousand years," Revelation 20:4. In that day, such persons as are eminent for true piety and religion, shall be chiefly promoted to places of trust and authority. Vital religion shall then take possession of kings, palaces and thrones; and those who are in highest advancement shall be holy men: Isaiah 49:23. "And kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-mothers." Kings shall employ all their power, and glory, and riches, for the advancement of the honor and glory of Christ, and the good of his church: Isaiah 60:16. "Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breasts of kings." The great men of the world, and the rich merchants and others who have great wealth and influence, shall devote all to Christ and his church: Psalm 45:12. "The daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift, even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favor."

(4) Those will be times of great peace and love. There shall then be a universal peace and a good understanding among the nations of the world, instead of such confusion, wars and bloodshed, as have hitherto been from one age to another: Isaiah 2:4. "And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." So it is represented as if all instruments of war should cease, as being become useless: Psalm 46:9. "He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth: and breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder, he burneth the chariot in the fire." See also Zechariah 9:10. Then shall all nations dwell quietly and safely, without fear of any enemy, Isaiah 32:13. "And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places." Also Zechariah 8:10, 11.

Then shall malice, and envy, and hatred, and revenge, be suppressed everywhere, and peace and love shall prevail between one man and another; which is most elegantly set forth in Isaiah 11:6-10. Then shall there be peace and love between rulers and ruled. Rulers shall love their people, and with all their might seek their best good; and the people shall love their rulers, and shall joyfully submit to them, and give them that honor which is their due. And so shall there be a happy love between ministers and their people: Malachi 4:6. "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." Then shall flourish in an eminent manner those Christian virtues of meekness, forgiveness, long suffering, gladness, goodness, brotherly kindness, those excellent fruits of the Spirit. Men, in their temper and disposition, shall then be like the Lamb of God, the lovely Jesus. The body shall be conformed to the head.

Then shall all the world be united in one amiable society. All nations, in all parts of the world, on every side of the globe, shall then be knit together in sweet harmony. All parts of God's church shall assist and promote the spiritual good of one another. A communication shall then be upheld between all parts of the world to that end; and the art of navigation, which is now applied so much to favor men's covetousness and pride, and is used so much by wicked debauched men, shall then be consecrated to God, and applied to holy uses, as we read in Isaiah 60:5-9. It will then be a time wherein men will be abundant in expressing their love to one another, not only in words, but in deeds of charity, as we learn Isaiah 32:5. "The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful;" and, verse 8. "But the liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand."

(5) It will be a time of excellent order in the church of Christ. The true government and discipline of the church will then be settled and put into practice. All the world shall then be as one church, one orderly, regular, beautiful society. And as the body shall be one, so the members shall be in beautiful proportion to each other. There shall that be verified in Psalm 122:3. "Jerusalem is built as a city, that is compact together."

(6) The church of God shall then be beautiful and glorious on these accounts; yea, it will appear in perfection of beauty: Isaiah 60:1. "Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." Isaiah 61:10. "He hath covered me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." On these forementioned accounts, the church will then be the greatest image of heaven itself.

(7) That will be a time of the greatest temporal prosperity. Such a spiritual state as we have just described has a natural tendency to temporal prosperity: it has a tendency to health and long life; and that this will actually be the case, is evident by Zechariah 8:4. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age." It has also a natural tendency to procure ease, quietness, pleasantness, and cheerfulness of mind, and also wealth, and great increase of children; as is intimated in Zechariah 8:5. "And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." But further, the temporal prosperity of the people of God will also be promoted by a remarkable blessing from heaven: Isaiah 65:21. "They shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them." And in Micah 4:4. "But they shall sit every man under his vine, and under his fig-tree, and none shall make them afraid." Zechariah 8:12. "For the seed shall be prosperous, the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give her dew, and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things." See also Jeremiah 31:12, 13 and Amos 9:13. Yea then they shall receive all manner of tokens of God's presence, and acceptance, and favor Jeremiah 33:9. "And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honor before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them: and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it." Even the days of Solomon were but an image of those days, as to the temporal prosperity which shall obtain in them.

(8) It will also be a time of great rejoicing: Isaiah 35:10. "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Chapter 55:12. "For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you." Chapter 66:11. "That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory." Chapter 12:3. "With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." Then will be great rejoicing. That will be the church's glorious wedding-day, so far as her wedding with Christ shall ever be upon earth: Revelation 19:7. "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready." Verse 9. "Blessed are they which are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb." But I come now,

Secondly, To say something of the duration of this state of the church's prosperity. On this I shall be very brief. The scriptures everywhere represent its continuance. The former times of rest and prosperity, as we before observed, are represented to be but short; but the representations of this state are quite different: Revelation 20:4. "And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, — and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." Isaiah 60:15. "Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations."

This may suffice as to the prosperous state of the church through the greater part of the period from the destruction of Satan's visible kingdom in the world to Christ's appearing in the clouds of heaven to judgment.

2. I now come to speak of the great apostasy there shall be towards the close of this period, and how imminently the church shall be for a short time threatened by her enemies. This I shall do under three particulars.

1. A little before the end of the world, there shall be a very great apostasy, wherein great part of the world shall fall away from Christ and his church. It is said in Revelation 20:3 that Satan should be cast into the bottomless pit, and shut up, and have a seal set upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled; and that after that he must be loosed out of his prison for a little season. Accordingly we are told, in the seventh and eighth verses, that when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and should go forth to deceive the nations, which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog. Which seems to show as though the apostasy would be very general. The nations of the four quarters of the earth shall be deceived; and the number of those who shall now turn enemies to Christ shall be vastly great, as the army of Gog and Magog is represented in Ezekiel, and as it is said in Revelation 20:8 that the number of them is as the sand of the sea, and that they went upon the breadth of the earth, as though they were an army big enough to reach from one side of the earth to the other.

Thus after such a happy and glorious season, a day of light and holiness, of love, and peace, and joy, now it is again to be a dark time. Satan shall begin to set up his dominion again in the world. This world shall again become a scene of darkness and wickedness. The bottomless pit of hell shall be opened, and devils shall come up again out of it, and a dreadful smoke shall ascend to darken the world. The church of Christ, instead of extending to the utmost bounds of the world, as it did before, shall be reduced to narrow limits again. The world of mankind being continued so long in a state of such great prosperity, shall now begin to abuse their prosperity, to serve their lust and corruption. This we learn from Luke 17:26, etc.

2. Those apostates shall make great opposition to the church of God. The church shall seem to be imminently threatened with a sudden and entire overthrow by them. It is said, Satan shall gather them together to battle, as the sand on the seashore; and they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city. So that this beloved city shall seem just ready to be swallowed up by them: for her enemies shall not only threaten her, but shall actually have gathered together against her; and not only so, but shall have besieged her, and have compassed her about on every side.

There is nothing in the prophecy which seems to hold forth as though the church had actually fallen into their hands, as the church had fallen into the hands of Antichrist, to whom it was given to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. God will never suffer this to be again after the fall of Antichrist; for then the day of her mourning shall be ended. But the church shall seem most eminently threatened with utter and sudden destruction.

3. Now the state of things will seem most remarkably to call for Christ's immediate appearance to judgment. For then the world shall be filled with the most aggravated wickedness that ever it was. For much the greater part of the world shall have become visibly wicked and open enemies to Christ, and their wickedness shall be dreadfully aggravated by their apostasy. Before the fall of Antichrist, most of the world was full of visibly wicked men. But the greater part of these are poor Heathens, who never enjoyed the light of the gospel; and others are those that have been bred up in the Mohammedan or Popish darkness. But these are those that have apostatized from the Christian church, and the visible kingdom of Christ, in which they enjoyed the great light and privileges of the glorious times of the church, which shall be incomparably greater than the light and privileges which the church of God enjoys now. This apostasy will be most like the apostasy of the devils of any that ever had before been: for the devils apostatized, and turned enemies to Christ, though they enjoyed the light of heaven; and these will apostatize, and turn enemies to him, though they have enjoyed the light and privileges of the glorious times of the church. That such should turn open and avowed enemies to Christ, and should seek the ruin of his church, will cry aloud for such immediate vengeance as was executed on the devils when they fell.

The wickedness of the world will remarkably call for Christ's immediate appearing in flaming fire to take vengeance on them, because of the way in which they shall manifest their wickedness, which will be by [mocking] and blaspheming Christ and his holy religion; and particularly, they will [scoff] at the notion of Christ's coming to judgment, of which the church shall be in expectation, and of which they will warn them. For now doubtless will be another fulfillment, and the greatest fulfillment, of 2 Peter 3:3-4. "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last day scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were [from] the beginning of the creation." They shall [be] in no expectation of the coming of Christ to judgment, and shall laugh at the notion. They shall trample all such things under foot, and shall give up themselves to their lusts, or to eat and drink, and wallow in sensual delights, as though they were to be here for ever. They shall despise the warnings the church shall give them of the coming of Christ to judgment, as the people of the old world despised what Noah told them of the approaching flood, and as the people of Sodom did when Lot said to them, "The Lord will destroy this city." Their wickedness on this account will cry aloud to heaven for Christ's appearing in flaming fire to take vengeance of his enemies; and also because another way that they shall exercise their wickedness will be in the wicked design and violent attempt they shall be engaged in against the holy city of God, against that holy city, wherein lately, and for so long a time, so much of the religion of Christ had been seen. They shall then be about to perpetrate the most horrid design against this church.

The numerousness of the wicked that shall then be, is another thing which shall especially call for Christ's coming: for the world will doubtless then be exceeding full of people, having continued so long in so great a state of prosperity, without such terrible desolating extremities, as wars, pestilences, and the like, to diminish them. The most of this world, which shall be so populous, will be such wicked contemptuous apostates from God. Undoubtedly that will be a day wherein the world will be by far fuller of wickedness than ever before it was from the foundation of it. And if the wickedness of the old world, when men began to multiply on the earth, called for the destruction of the world by a deluge of waters, this wickedness will as much call for its destruction by a deluge of fire.

Again, the circumstances of the church at that day will also eminently call for the immediate appearing of Christ, as they will be compassed about by their blasphemous murderous enemies, just ready to be swallowed up by them. And it will be a most distressing time with the church, excepting the comfort they will have in [the] hope of deliverance from God: for all other help will seem to fail. The case will have come to the last extremity, and there will be an immediate need that Christ should come to their deliverance. Though the church shall be so eminently threatened, yet so will Providence order it, that it shall be preserved till Christ shall appear in his immediate presence, coming in the glory of his Father with all his holy angels. Then will come the time when all the elect shall be gathered in. That work of conversion which has been carried on from the beginning of the church after the fall through all those ages, shall be carried on no more. There never shall another soul be converted. Every one of those many millions, whose names were written in the book of life before the foundation of the world shall be brought in; not one soul shall be lost. The mystical body of Christ, which has been growing since it first began in the days of Adam, will be complete as to number of parts, having every one of its members. In this respect, the work of redemption will now be finished. And now the end for which the means of grace have been instituted shall be obtained. All that effect which was intended to be accomplished by them shall now be accomplished.

I will first consider the success that consists in God's grace — which appears mainly in the work of God during the time the Christian church continues under the means of grace. This spans from Christ's resurrection to His appearing in the clouds of heaven to judge — and includes the first three of the great providential events previously described, which are called 'Christ's coming in His kingdom.' In speaking of this success, I will:

1. Note the things by which the means of this success were established after Christ's resurrection; and

2. Consider the success itself.

Section 1. I will consider the providential acts by which the means of this success were established after Christ's resurrection.

1. The abolishing of the Jewish dispensation. This was done gradually, but it began from the time of Christ's resurrection, in which its abolition is grounded. This was the first step taken toward bringing the former state of the world to an end. It is also to be seen as a great means of the success of Christ's redemption. The Jewish dispensation was designed for only one nation. It was not suited to a church spread across the whole world, nor would it have been practically workable for people living in all parts of the world — it would have been impossible for them to travel to Jerusalem three times a year as that system required. When God therefore purposed to enlarge His church after Christ's resurrection, it was necessary for this dispensation to be abolished. Had it continued, it would have been a major obstacle to the expansion of the church. Furthermore, the ceremonial law — with its burdens and its peculiar rites — had served as a dividing wall between Jews and Gentiles, fostering hostility and keeping the Gentiles from embracing the true religion. This wall was therefore torn down to make way for the wider spread of the Gospel. Ephesians 2:14-15.

2. The next thing in order of time appears to be the appointment of the Christian Sabbath. Although this was established gradually in the Christian church, the revelation of God's will in this regard began on the day of Christ's resurrection, when He appeared to His disciples — John 20:19. It was confirmed by His repeated appearances on that particular day rather than any other, as John 20:26 shows, and by His pouring out the Holy Spirit so remarkably on that day, as Acts 2:1 records. Further direction came in the pattern of public worship being held on that day, which can be inferred from Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:1-2, and Revelation 1:10. So the day of the week on which Christ rose from the dead — that joyful day — is appointed as the church's holy Sabbath to the end of the world, and the day of its regular public worship. This has been a very great and central means of the Gospel's success in the world.

3. The next thing was Christ's appointment of the Gospel ministry, and His commissioning and sending forth of His apostles to teach and baptize all nations. We read of this in Matthew 28:19-20: 'Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.' Three things were accomplished by this one instruction and commission of Christ to His apostles.

1. The appointment of the office of Gospel ministry. The commission Christ gave to His apostles, in its most essential elements, belongs to all ministers. By virtue of it, the apostles were ministers and elders of the church.

2. There is also something distinctive in the apostles' commission — namely, to go from one nation to another, preaching the Gospel throughout the whole world. The apostles possessed something above ordinary ministerial authority: an extraordinary power to teach and govern that extended to all the churches — not only those existing at the time, but all that would come into existence to the end of the world through their ministry. In this way the apostles were, in subordination to Christ, made foundations of the Christian church. See Ephesians 2:20 and Revelation 21:14.

3. Here is also the appointment of Christian baptism. This ordinance had existed before — both John the Baptist and Christ had baptized. But now it was formally established by this institution as an ordinance to be maintained in the Christian church to the end of the world. The ordinance of the Lord's Supper had been established earlier, just before Christ's crucifixion.

4. The next thing to note is the endowing of the apostles and others with extraordinary and miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit — such as the gift of tongues, healing, prophecy, and others. The Spirit of God was poured out in great abundance in this regard. Not only ministers but a very large portion of Christians throughout the world received these gifts — young and old alike. Not only leaders and people of higher standing, but ordinary people, servants and slave women, commonly received them, in fulfillment of Joel's prophecy in Joel 2:28-29. The apostle Peter notes that this prophecy was being fulfilled in this very dispensation, as Acts 2:17 records.

What a remarkable dispensation this was! Under the Old Testament, very few were honored by God in this way. Moses had wished that all the Lord's people were prophets, as Numbers 11:29 records — while Joshua was troubled that even Eldad and Medad were prophesying. Now the wish of Moses was fulfilled. This continued at a very significant level through the end of the apostolic age — the first hundred years after Christ's birth — which is therefore called 'the age of miracles.'

This was a great means of the Gospel's success in that age, and of establishing the Christian church throughout the world. Its impact extended not only to that age but to all ages until the end of the world — because Christianity, having been established across so much of the known world through miracles, was afterward more easily preserved through tradition. Through these extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, the apostles and others were enabled to write the New Testament, which would serve as an infallible rule of faith and practice for the church to the end of the world. Furthermore, these miracles stand recorded in those writings as permanent proof and evidence of the truth of the Christian faith to every generation.

5. The next thing to observe is the full and plain revelation of the glorious doctrines of the Gospel — doctrines that had been only obscurely revealed under the Old Testament. The doctrines of Christ's satisfaction and righteousness, His ascension and glory, and the way of salvation were largely hidden under the Old Testament behind types and shadows and obscure revelations — just as Moses put a veil over his face to hide its radiance. But now the veil of the temple has been torn from top to bottom, and Christ — the antitype of Moses — shines without a veil over His face. 2 Corinthians 3:12-13, 18. Now these glorious mysteries are plainly revealed — mysteries that had been largely kept hidden since the foundation of the world. Ephesians 3:3-5; Romans 16:25: 'According to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested.' Colossians 1:26: 'The mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints.'

So the Sun of righteousness, having risen from beneath the earth, begins to shine clearly — not merely by the faint reflected light it gave before. Christ, before His death, had revealed many things more clearly than they had ever been revealed in the Old Testament. But the great mysteries of Christ's redemption, reconciliation through His death, and justification through His righteousness were not fully revealed before His resurrection. Christ gave the reason for this — that new wine should not be put into old wineskins — and the full revelation came gradually after His resurrection. In all probability, Christ instructed the disciples far more clearly during the forty days between His resurrection and ascension, when, as Acts 1:3 records, He appeared to them and spoke about the things concerning the kingdom of God. Luke 24:45 tells us He 'opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.' But the clearest revelation came chiefly after the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost, in fulfillment of Christ's promise in John 16:12-13: 'I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.' Most of the mysteries of the Gospel that we possess came to us through the apostle Paul, through whom we understand more of Gospel doctrine than even the greatest Old Testament prophets knew.

The light of the Gospel, which began to dawn and gradually grew through all the ages of the Old Testament — as we observed along the way — has now come to the full light of day, and to the brightness of the sun shining in his unveiled glory.

6. The next thing to note is the appointment of the office of deacon in the Christian church, described in Acts 6 — an office established to care for the material needs of the members of Christ's church and to exercise that great Christian virtue of charity.

7. The calling, equipping, and sending of the apostle Paul. This began with his conversion on the road to Damascus, and it became one of the greatest means of the success of Christ's redemption. More of that success came through the labors, preaching, and writings of this one apostle than through all the other apostles combined. As he himself says in 1 Corinthians 15:10, 'I labored even more than all of them' — and his fruit was correspondingly greater. As the apostle to the Gentiles, it was chiefly through his ministry that the Gentiles were reached and the Gospel spread throughout the world. The nations of Europe, including our own, have the Gospel primarily because of him. He was also more used by the Holy Spirit in revealing the glorious doctrines of the Gospel through his writings — for the benefit of the church in all ages — than all the other apostles put together.

8. The next thing to note is the establishment of church councils for deciding controversies and ordering the affairs of the church of Christ, described in Acts 15.

9. The last thing I will mention under this heading is the committing of the New Testament to writing. All of it was written after Christ's resurrection, and all of it was written either by the apostles or by companions of the apostles. All of the New Testament was written by the apostles themselves except for what was written by Mark and Luke — that is, the Gospels of Mark and Luke and the book of Acts. The writer of the Gospel of Mark is understood to be the one whose mother was Mary, in whose house believers were gathered praying for Peter when Peter, released from prison by an angel, came and knocked at the door. We read of this in Acts 12:12: 'And when he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John who was also called Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.' He was a companion of the apostles Barnabas and Paul. Acts 15:37: 'Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also.' He was the nephew of Barnabas and appears at times to have been a companion of the apostle Paul. Colossians 4:10: 'Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings; and also Barnabas's cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him).' The apostles held him in high regard, as these passages show, along with Acts 12:25: 'And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark,' and Acts 13:5: 'When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they also had John as their helper,' and 2 Timothy 4:11: 'Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.'

Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, was a close companion of the apostle Paul. He is mentioned as being with Paul in the passage just cited, and he refers to himself as accompanying Paul in his travels throughout Acts — using the first person plural when describing Paul's journeys, saying things like, 'We went to such and such a place,' 'We set sail,' and 'We put in at such a place.' He was deeply loved by the apostle Paul — he is the 'beloved physician' spoken of in Colossians 4:14. The apostle counts both Mark and Luke among his fellow workers in Philemon 24: 'Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers.'

The remaining books were all written by the apostles themselves. The books of the New Testament fall into three categories: historical, doctrinal, and prophetical. The historical books are the four Gospels, which give us the account of Christ, His purchase of redemption, and His resurrection and ascension — plus the Acts of the Apostles, which records the great events by which the Christian church was first established and spread. The doctrinal books are the epistles, most of which we have from the great apostle Paul. And there is one prophetical book, which reaches beyond the end of all the other biblical history and describes the great events yet to come by which the work of redemption would be carried forward to the end of the world.

All these books are understood to have been written before the destruction of Jerusalem, except those written by the apostle John, who outlived all the other apostles and wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem. To this beloved disciple Christ revealed the wonderful things that were to take place in His church to the end of time. He was the one who put the finishing hand to the canon of Scripture and sealed the whole. So the canon of Scripture — that great and permanent written rule that was begun around the time of Moses — is now complete and settled, with a curse pronounced against anyone who adds to it or takes away from it. With this, everything pertaining to the appointed means of grace is established and complete. All the regular means of grace were finalized in the apostolic age — before the death of the apostle John — and are to remain unchanged until the day of judgment.

We have now covered the things by which the means of grace were given and established in the Christian church.

Section 2. The other matter to address regarding the success of Christ's redemption during the church's time under the means of grace is how that success was carried forward — which I will now take up.

It is important to recognize that the Christian church, throughout its time under the means of grace, passes through two very different states.

1. A state of suffering, affliction, and persecution — which is its condition for most of the time from Christ's resurrection until the fall of Antichrist.

2. A state of peace and prosperity — which is largely the condition the church will be in after the fall of Antichrist.

I will first show how the success of Christ's redemption is carried forward during the church's time of suffering — from the resurrection of Christ to the fall of Antichrist. This entire span of time is, for the most part, a period of suffering for the church, and Scripture consistently represents it this way. God does, out of love and compassion for His elect, grant many periods of relief from suffering during this time, so that the days of tribulation are shortened in measure. But from Christ's resurrection until the fall of Antichrist is the appointed season of Zion's troubles. Throughout most of this time, some part of the church is under persecution — and for much of the time, the whole church, or at least the large majority of God's people, has been persecuted.

For the first three hundred years after Christ, the church was for the most part in a state of great affliction — exposed to reproach and persecution, first by the Jews and then by the pagans. After this, beginning with Constantine's time, the church enjoyed a period of rest and prosperity for a while — pictured in Revelation 7 at the opening, by the angel holding back the four winds for a season. But soon after, the church again suffered persecution from the Arians. Then Antichrist arose, and the church was driven into the wilderness and kept down in obscurity, contempt, and suffering for a long time under Antichrist — until the Reformation through Luther and others. Since the Reformation, the church's persecutions have surpassed all that came before. Though some parts of God's church have at times had rest, for the most part the true church remains greatly oppressed by its enemies to this day, with some parts of it under severe persecution. We can expect this to continue until the fall of Antichrist — and then will come the appointed day of the church's prosperity on earth, the set time when God will favor Zion. This will be the time when the saints are no longer kept under by the wicked, as has been the case until now, but will prevail and reign on earth, as Revelation 5:10 says. And as Daniel 7:27 declares: 'Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.'

Scripture represents this suffering state of the church as a season of travail, as in John 16:20-21 and Revelation 12:1-2. What the church labors to bring forth during this time is the glory and prosperity that will come after the fall of Antichrist — and then she will give birth to her child. It is a long period of trouble and affliction for the church, and Scripture speaks of it as such — though it also calls it a 'little while' in comparison with the church's eternal prosperity. Under the long continuation of this suffering, the church cries out as in Revelation 6:10: 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?' And the response was given: 'a white robe was given to each of them; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.' Similarly, Daniel 12:6 asks: 'How long will it be until the end of these wonders?'

It should be noted that throughout the church's time of suffering, the main instrument of that suffering has been the Roman government — the church's afflictions have come almost entirely from Rome. This is why Rome is called Babylon in the New Testament: just as the troubles of the ancient city of Jerusalem came mainly from the opposing city of Babylon, so the troubles of the Christian church — the spiritual Jerusalem — throughout its long period of tribulation have come mainly from Rome. Before Constantine's time, the troubles of the Christian church came from pagan Rome. Since that time, they have come mainly from Antichristian Rome. Just as the captivity of the Jews ended with the destruction of Babylon, so the time of trouble for the Christian church will end with the destruction of the church of Rome — that spiritual Babylon.

In showing how the success of Christ's redemption advanced during the church's time of suffering, I will cover three things:

1. How it advanced until the destruction of Jerusalem, which ended the first great display of God's providence known as Christ's coming in His kingdom.

2. How it advanced from that point to the destruction of the pagan empire in Constantine's time, which is the second event known as Christ's coming.

3. How it advances from that point to the destruction of Antichrist, when the third great event known as Christ's coming will take place, and the days of the church's suffering and labor will end.

I. I will show how the success of Christ's purchased redemption advanced from His resurrection to the destruction of Jerusalem. In discussing this, I will: 1. describe the success itself; 2. note the opposition raised against it by its enemies; and 3. describe the terrible judgments of God on those enemies.

1. I will describe the success itself. Soon after Christ had finished purchasing redemption, ascended into heaven, and entered the holy of holies with His own blood, a glorious success began flowing from what He had done and suffered. Having undermined the foundation of Satan's kingdom, it began to collapse rapidly. It rushed toward ruin across the world, which could well be compared to Satan falling like lightning from heaven. Satan had previously raised his throne very high in this world, even to the very stars of heaven, reigning with great glory in his pagan Roman empire. But he had never experienced such a downfall as the one that came soon after Christ's ascension. We can suppose that Satan had very recently been celebrating what he thought was a victory, having brought about the death of Christ. He no doubt gloried in this as the greatest achievement he had ever accomplished, and probably imagined he had totally defeated God's plan. But Satan quickly realized that he had only been destroying his own kingdom when he saw it crumbling so fast as a direct result of Christ's death. For Christ, through His death, had purchased the Holy Spirit. After ascending and receiving the Spirit, He poured it out abundantly for the conversion of thousands and millions of souls.

Never had Christ's kingdom been so established in the world. More souls were probably converted in the age of the apostles than had been converted from the beginning of the world up to that time. In this way, God quickly and gloriously began to fulfill His promise to His Son — that He would see His offspring, and that the purpose of the Lord would prosper in His hand, if He would make His soul an offering for sin. And,

(1) Here we should notice the success the gospel had among the Jews, because God began with them first. Since He was about to reject the main body of that people, He first called His elect out from among them before He turned to the Gentiles. This pattern appeared in earlier great and terrible judgments of God on that nation: the majority were destroyed, and only a remnant was saved or reformed. The same thing happened in the rejection of the ten tribes, long before this later rejection. The majority of the ten tribes were rejected when they abandoned the true worship of God in Jeroboam's time, and later more fully in Ahab's time. Yet there was a remnant that God preserved. A number of people left their possessions in those tribes and went to settle in the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. And afterward, there were seven thousand in Ahab's time who had not bowed the knee to Baal. Likewise, in the Babylonian captivity, only a remnant ever returned to their own land. And so now again, by far the greater part of the people were entirely rejected, but some few were saved. The Holy Spirit compares this preservation of a number who were converted by the apostles' preaching to those earlier remnants: Romans 9:27. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel, "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved." See Isaiah 10:22.

The glorious success of the gospel among the Jews after Christ's ascension began with the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which we read about in Acts 2. The outpouring of the Spirit was so wonderful and its effect so remarkable and swift that three thousand people were converted to the Christian faith in a single day, as recorded in Acts 2:41. The greater part of these were probably genuinely converted. After this, we read of God adding to the church daily those who were being saved, in verse 47. Soon after, we read that the number of believers was about five thousand. Not only were many converted, but the church was also outstanding in its devotion, as we can see in Acts 2:46-47 and 4:32.

The Christian church was first made up entirely of the nation of Israel. So when the Gentiles were called, they were essentially added to Israel, to the offspring of Abraham. They were added to the Christian church of Israel, just as converts in earlier times were added to the Mosaic church of Israel. They were grafted onto the stock of Abraham and were not a separate tree, for they are all still the offspring of Abraham and Israel. Ruth the Moabitess, Uriah the Hittite, and other earlier converts were counted as the same people and ranked as the offspring of Israel.

The Christian church first began at Jerusalem, and from there it spread to all nations. The church of Jerusalem was like a mother to all other churches in the world, in agreement with the prophecy. Isaiah 2:3-4. "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and rebuke many people." So the whole church of God is still God's Jerusalem. They are His spiritual Jerusalem, and they are essentially added to the church that began in the literal Jerusalem.

After this, we read of many thousands of Jews who believed in Jerusalem, as recorded in Acts 21:20. We also read of large numbers of Jews who were converted in other cities of Judea, and not only there, but in other parts of the world as well. Wherever the apostles went, if there were any Jews there, their practice was to first go into the Jewish synagogues and preach the gospel to them. Many believed in one place after another, as in Damascus and Antioch, and many other places that we read about in the Acts of the Apostles.

In this outpouring of the Spirit, which began at the Pentecost following Christ's ascension, the first great event known as Christ's coming in His kingdom began. Christ's coming in this spiritual manner to gloriously establish His kingdom in the world is described by Christ Himself as His coming down from heaven, to which He had already ascended. In John 14:18, having spoken of His ascension, He says, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you" — referring to His coming through the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. And in verse 28, "You heard that I said to you, 'I go away, and I will come to you.'" In this way the apostles began to see the kingdom of heaven come with power, as He had promised they would, in Mark 9:1.

(2) The next success to note is that of the gospel among the Samaritans. After the gospel had so gloriously begun its work among the Jews, the Spirit of God was next poured out in a remarkable way on the Samaritans. They were not Jews by ancestry but the descendants of people the king of Assyria had relocated from various parts of his empire to settle in the land left by the ten tribes after they were taken captive. They had received the five books of Moses and practiced most of the Mosaic rites, making them a kind of mixed people with Jewish elements. They are not counted as Gentiles in the New Testament — the calling of the Gentiles is spoken of as something new after this, beginning with the conversion of Cornelius. But this was still a striking instance of making a people out of those who were not a people. They had corrupted the religion Moses prescribed and did not worship in Jerusalem but had their own temple on Mount Gerizim. This is the mountain the woman of Samaria refers to when she says, "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain." Christ did not approve of their separation from the Jews, but told the woman of Samaria that they worshiped what they did not know, and that salvation is from the Jews. But now salvation was brought from the Jews to them through the preaching of Philip (though Christ had already had some success among them before). There was a glorious outpouring of the Spirit in the city of Samaria. We are told that "the people believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of Christ, and were baptized, both men and women, and that there was great joy in that city," Acts 8:8-12.

Christ thus had a glorious harvest in Samaria. This seems to be what He had in mind when He spoke to His disciples at Jacob's well three or four years before, prompted by the sight of the Samaritans coming toward Him in the distance at the urging of the woman of Samaria. On that occasion He told His disciples to lift up their eyes to the fields, for they were already white for harvest, John 4:35-36. The openness the Samaritans had shown toward Christ and the gospel proved they were ripe for the harvest. Now the harvest came through Philip's preaching. There had long been a deep and bitter hostility between Jews and Samaritans. But now, through their conversion, Jewish and Samaritan Christians were happily united, for in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Samaritan — Christ is all in all. This was a glorious picture of the wolf dwelling with the lamb, and the leopard lying down with the young goat.

(3) The next thing to note is the success of the gospel in calling the Gentiles. This was a great and glorious act of divine providence, spoken of extensively in Old Testament prophecy and referenced repeatedly by the apostles as one of the most glorious results of Christ's redemption. It began with the conversion of Cornelius and his family, to the great amazement of Peter — who served as the instrument of it — and of those with him and those who heard about it afterward, as you can see in Acts 10 and 11. The next recorded instance was the conversion of large numbers of Gentiles in Cyprus, Cyrene, and Antioch by disciples scattered through the persecution that arose around Stephen, as described in Acts 11:19-21. Right after this, the disciples first began to be called Christians at Antioch, in verse 26.

After this, vast numbers of Gentiles were converted in many other parts of the world, chiefly through the ministry of the apostle Paul, with a glorious outpouring of the Spirit accompanying his preaching from place to place. Crowds flocked into the church of Christ in city after city where he came. Within less than ten years of Paul being sent out from Antioch to preach to the Gentiles, it was said of him and his companions that they had turned the world upside down. Acts 17:6: "These men who have upset the world have come here also." The most remarkable outpouring of the Spirit in a single city recorded in the New Testament appears to have been in Ephesus, a very great city, as described in Acts 19. There was also an extraordinary gathering of souls at Corinth, one of the greatest cities in all of Greece. After this, many were converted in Rome, the leading city of the entire world, and the gospel spread throughout the Roman empire. So the gospel sun, which had only recently risen on the Jews, now rose upon the pagan world and began to enlighten it after it had remained in deep pagan darkness for so many ages.

This was a great and entirely new thing — nothing like it had ever happened before. From roughly the time of Moses onward, all nations except the Jews and a few who had from time to time joined with them had been shut out. The Gentile world had been covered in the thick darkness of idolatry. But now, at the joyful and glorious sound of the gospel, people in every part of the world began to turn away from their old idols, to despise them and cast them aside, and to learn to worship the true God and trust in His Son Jesus Christ. God claimed them as His people. Those who had so long been far off were brought near by the blood of Christ. People were transformed from being pagan and brutal into children of God. They were called out of Satan's kingdom of darkness and brought into God's marvelous light. In nearly every country throughout the known world, assemblies of God's people gathered, and joyful praise was offered to the true God and to Jesus Christ the glorious Redeemer. Now that great building which God had begun soon after the fall of man rose gloriously — not in the same manner as in former ages, but in an entirely new way. Now Daniel's prophecies concerning the last kingdom, which would follow the four pagan empires, began to be fulfilled. The stone cut out of the mountain without human hands began to strike the statue on its feet and break it to pieces, growing great and advancing toward filling the earth. Now God gathered His elect from the four winds of heaven through the preaching of the apostles and other ministers — the messengers of the Christian church sent forth with the great sound of the gospel trumpet — before the destruction of Jerusalem, just as Christ foretold in Matthew 24:31.

This was the success of Christ's purchase during the first period of the Christian church, which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem.

2. I will now turn to the opposition brought against this success of Christ's purchase by its enemies. Satan — who had so recently been ready to boast as though he had won the victory by putting Christ to death — now found himself fallen into the very pit he had dug. Watching his kingdom collapse so rapidly and seeing Christ's kingdom making such astonishing progress as had never occurred before, he must have been filled with the greatest confusion and alarm. Hell itself seemed fully roused to mount the most violent opposition possible. First, the devil stirred up the Jews — who had already crucified Christ — to persecute the church. It is worth noting that the persecution the church endured during this period came mostly from the Jews. As we read in Acts, when the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost in Jerusalem, the Jews mocked, saying, "These men are full of new wine." The scribes and Pharisees, along with the captain of the temple guard, were alarmed and moved to oppose and persecute the apostles. They first arrested and threatened them, then imprisoned and beat them. Breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, they stoned Stephen in a furious rage. Not satisfied with persecuting those they could find in Judea, they sent agents to Damascus and other places to hunt down believers wherever they could be found. Herod, who held the chief authority among them, stretched out his hand to harm the church. He killed James with the sword and then arrested Peter as well, throwing him into prison.

In other countries as well, wherever the apostles went, the Jews almost everywhere opposed the gospel in the most hostile way, contradicting and blaspheming. How much the blessed apostle Paul suffered at their hands from place to place! How violent and murderous they showed themselves toward him when he came to bring financial aid to his own people! In this persecution and cruelty, Christ's words in Matthew 23:34 were fulfilled: "I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from city to city."

3. I will now describe the judgments that fell on these enemies of Christ — the persecuting Jews.

(1) The majority of the people were given over to a judicial blindness of mind and hardness of heart. Christ pronounced this judgment on them during His earthly ministry, as recorded in Matthew 13:14-15. This curse was also pronounced on them by the apostle Paul in Acts 28:25-27. Under this curse — this judicial blindness and hardness — they have remained to this very day, now about 1,700 years. They are the most striking and terrible example of such a judgment, and the most solemn monument of God's dreadful vengeance, of any people who have ever existed. That they should continue from generation to generation so stubbornly to reject Christ — so that it is an extremely rare thing for even one of them to be converted to the Christian faith, even though their own Old Testament Scriptures, which they acknowledge, are full of plain testimony against them — is a remarkable evidence of their having been terribly abandoned by God.

(2) They were rejected and cut off from being God's visible people any longer. They were broken off from the family of Abraham, and since then have been no more counted as his offspring than the Ishmaelites or Edomites, who are just as much his natural descendants as they are. The greater part of the two tribes were now cast off, just as the ten tribes had been before them, and another people were brought in to take their place. This fulfilled the predictions of their own prophets. Moses declared in Deuteronomy 32:21, "They have made Me jealous with what is not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." And Isaiah said in Isaiah 65:1, "I permitted Myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me; I permitted Myself to be found by those who did not seek Me." They were visibly rejected and cut off when God directed His apostles to turn away from them. Acts 13:46-47 records, "Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, 'It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first. But since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us.'" See also Acts 18:6 and Acts 28:28.

Up to this point we have had Scripture history to guide us. From here on, we will be guided by two things only: biblical prophecy and God's providence as recorded in human histories. I proceed.

(3) The third and final judgment of God on these enemies of the Gospel's success was the terrible destruction of their city and nation by the Romans. Many warnings and means had been used with them before this destruction. First, John the Baptist warned them — telling them the axe was already laid at the root of the tree, and that every tree that did not bear good fruit would be cut down and thrown into the fire. Then Christ warned them in great detail, telling them of their coming destruction, and wept over them at the thought of it. Then the apostles after Christ's ascension warned them repeatedly. But they proved stubborn and continued in their opposition to Christ and His church, pressing on with their bitter persecution. Their savage persecution of the apostle Paul — described toward the end of Acts — is thought to have occurred no more than seven or eight years before the destruction.

After this, God was pleased to give them one more remarkable warning through the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews — written to the Jewish nation, as is commonly understood, about four years before their destruction. In it, the clearest and most compelling arguments drawn from their own law and from the prophets they claimed to honor are laid before them: that Christ Jesus must be the Son of God, that all their law pointed to Him and foreshadowed Him, and that the Jewish dispensation must by now have come to an end. Though the letter was addressed most immediately to Hebrew Christians, the content makes plain that the apostle intended it also for the conviction of unbelieving Jews. In that letter he specifically mentions the approaching destruction, as in Hebrews 10:25: 'And all the more as you see the day drawing near.' And in verse 27 he speaks of the approaching judgment and the fury of fire that would consume the adversaries.

But the majority refused to accept the warning, and God soon destroyed them under circumstances so terrible that no destruction of any city or country since the foundation of the world can compare — in fulfillment of what Christ foretold in Matthew 24:21: 'For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will.' The first destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians had been dreadful, described in the most moving terms by the prophet Jeremiah in his Lamentations — but it was nothing compared to the misery and wrath that fell in this destruction. God, as Christ had foretold, brought upon them all the righteous blood that had been shed from the foundation of the world. So the enemies of Christ were made His footstool after His ascension, in fulfillment of God's promise in Psalm 110 from the beginning. Christ ruled them with a rod of iron. They had been kicking against Christ — but they had been kicking against the goads. The briars and thorns set themselves against Him in battle, but He went through them and burned them together.

This destruction of Jerusalem corresponded precisely to what Christ had foretold about it in Matthew 24, according to the account of Josephus — who was present at the time, was himself one of the Jews who shared in the calamity, and wrote the history of their destruction. Many details of the destruction, by his account, resembled the final judgment of the wicked — accomplished with terrifying signs in the heavens and with the separation of the righteous from the wicked. Their city and temple were burned and razed to the ground, and the ground on which the city stood was plowed. Not one stone was left upon another, as Matthew 24:2 had foretold.

The people had largely ceased to be an independent nation after the Babylonian captivity. The scepter departed entirely from Judah at the death of Archelaus, when Judea was made a Roman province. After that they were cut off from being the people of God. And now their very city and land were utterly destroyed and they were scattered from it — and they have remained in their dispersions throughout the world for now about 1,600 years.

So there was a final end to the Old Testament world — all brought to a close in a kind of day of judgment, in which the people of God were preserved and their enemies terribly destroyed. And so He who had so recently been mocked, despised, and spat upon by the Jews — while His followers were maliciously persecuted — appeared gloriously exalted over His enemies.

Having shown how the success of Christ's purchase was carried forward up to the destruction of Jerusalem, I now come to:

2. Show how it was carried on from that time to the destruction of the pagan empire in the time of Constantine the Great — the second great event that Scripture compares to Christ's coming to judgment.

Jerusalem was destroyed around the year AD 68 — before that generation which had been contemporaries with Christ had passed away, and about thirty-five years after Christ's death. The destruction of the pagan empire under Constantine came about 260 years after this. In showing how the success of the Gospel was carried on through this period, I will: 1. Note the opposition brought against it by the Roman empire. 2. Show how the work of the Gospel continued despite all that opposition. 3. Describe the peculiar circumstances of tribulation and distress the church faced just before its deliverance under Constantine. 4. Describe the great revolution in Constantine's time.

1. I will briefly describe the opposition brought against the Gospel and the kingdom of Christ by the Roman empire. The opposition from the pagan Roman empire came mainly after the destruction of Jerusalem, though it had begun before — but the earlier opposition had come primarily from the Jews. Once Jerusalem was destroyed, the Jews were stripped of much of their capacity to trouble the church. The devil therefore turned his hand elsewhere and found new instruments to use. The opposition raised in the Roman empire against the kingdom of Christ took mainly two forms.

(1) They used all their learning, philosophy, and intellectual skill to oppose it. Christ came into the world at a time when learning and philosophy were at their peak in the Roman empire — and all of this was pressed into service against the kingdom of Christ. The Gospel, which proclaimed a crucified Savior, was deeply offensive to the philosophers' way of thinking. The Christian message of trusting in a crucified Redeemer struck them as foolish and absurd. Greece was the most celebrated center of learning in the Roman empire, and the apostle notes that the doctrine of Christ crucified appeared to be foolishness to the Greeks — 1 Corinthians 1:23. So the philosophers and learned men opposed the Gospel with all the intellectual force they had. We have an example of their manner of opposition in the account of how they treated the apostle Paul at Athens — a city that had been for many ages the leading seat of philosophy in the entire world. Acts 17:18 records that the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him, saying, 'What is this babbler trying to say? He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities.' This derision and mockery of Christianity was characteristic of them. After the destruction of Jerusalem, several philosophers published books against Christianity — chief among them Celsus and Porphyry. These men attacked the Christian faith with great hostility and contempt, much in the way that the Deists of the present day oppose and ridicule it. Portions of their writings still survive. As hostile and contemptuous of Christianity as they were, they never denied the events recorded of Christ and His apostles in the New Testament — including the miracles — but rather acknowledged them. They lived too close to the time when those miracles were performed to deny them. The miracles had been done so publicly and so recently that neither Jews nor pagans of that day attempted to deny them. They simply attributed them to magic.

(2) The authority of the Roman empire used all its power, time and time again, to persecute Christianity and, if possible, to eradicate it entirely. This was attempted in ten successive empire-wide persecutions. As we have noted, Christ came into the world when pagan power and authority were at their highest point under the Roman monarchy — the greatest and most powerful human empire that had ever existed on earth. All the strength of this empire was employed for a long time to oppose and persecute the Christian church and, if possible, to destroy it — in ten successive attempts known as the ten pagan persecutions, which all preceded Constantine.

The first of these — the persecution under Nero — came shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem. In it the apostle Peter was crucified and the apostle Paul was beheaded, soon after Paul wrote his second letter to Timothy. When Paul wrote that letter he was a prisoner in Rome under Nero, and he was beheaded shortly after writing it, as he himself foresaw in 2 Timothy 4:6-7: 'I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.' Many thousands of other Christians were also killed in that persecution. The other nine persecutions all came after the destruction of Jerusalem. Some of these were extremely severe — far exceeding the first persecution under Nero. One emperor after another set himself with the utmost fury to root out the Christian church from the earth so that not even the name of Christian would remain in the world. Thousands and millions were put to cruel deaths in these persecutions, with no mercy shown toward either sex or age — they were killed as fast as possible. Under the second general persecution — the one following the destruction of Jerusalem — the apostle John was banished to the island of Patmos, where he received the visions he recorded in Revelation. Under that persecution it is estimated that about 40,000 suffered martyrdom — and yet that number was nothing compared to those killed in later persecutions. Ten thousand suffered crucifixion alone in the third persecution under the emperor Hadrian. Under the fourth persecution, which began around AD 162, many suffered martyrdom in England — the land of our forefathers — where Christianity had been planted very early, understood to have been during the apostles' own time. In the later persecutions, the Roman emperors — frustrated that their predecessors had been unable to exterminate Christianity or stop its spread — grew all the more violent in their efforts.

So a large part of the first 300 years after Christ was spent in violent and cruel persecutions of the church by the Roman authorities. Satan was extremely unwilling to let go of so great a portion of the world — indeed the most powerful part of it — over which he had held undisturbed possession for so many ages. When he saw it slipping from his grasp so rapidly, he exerted himself to the fullest extent, and hell was, as it were, fully roused to oppose it with every power it had.

Satan exerting himself through the power of the pagan Roman empire is what Scripture calls 'the great red dragon' — having seven heads and ten horns — fighting against the woman clothed with the sun, as Revelation 12 describes. The terrible conflict between the church of Christ and the pagan empire before Constantine's time is portrayed in that chapter, verse 7, as war between Michael and his angels and the dragon and his angels: 'And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war.'

2. I will note the success the Gospel had in the world before the time of Constantine, despite all this opposition. Though the learning and power of the Roman empire were so great, and both were pressed to their utmost against Christianity — to stop it and root it out — for such a long time and through so many repeated attempts, all of it was in vain. They could neither eradicate it nor halt its spread. Instead, despite everything they could do, the kingdom of Christ continued to advance remarkably, and Satan's pagan kingdom crumbled and wasted away before it — in keeping with the words: 'The moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool.' It was widely observed that for the most part, the more the church was persecuted, the more it grew — so much so that it became a common saying: 'The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.' The church of Christ proved to be like a palm tree — a tree noted for the property that the greater the weight placed upon it or hung from its branches, the more it grows and flourishes. This is perhaps why the church is compared to a palm tree in Song of Solomon 7:7: 'Your stature is like a palm tree.' Justin Martyr, a prominent early church father who lived in the generation just after the apostles, writes in surviving works that in his day there was no part of humanity — whether Greeks or barbarians, or by whatever name they were called, even the most primitive nations — where prayers and thanksgiving were not being offered to the great Creator through the name of the crucified Jesus. Tertullian, another prominent early church father writing in the following age, describes in surviving works how the Christian faith had extended in his day to the furthest boundaries of the known world — including Britain, the land of our forefathers. He argues from this that the kingdom of Christ was already more extensive than any of the four great ancient empires. He further writes that though Christians were relative newcomers, they had filled every corner of the Roman territories — their cities, islands, forts, towns, councils, armies, regions, the imperial palace, the senate, and the courts of law — leaving only the temples to the pagans. He adds that if all Christians were to withdraw from the empire, the world would be astonished at the emptiness and desolation that would follow, so few non-Christians would remain — and that the Christians were numerous enough to easily defend themselves by force if they chose to resist the pagan authorities. Even the pagan writer Pliny, who lived in that era, wrote that multitudes of both sexes, every age and rank, had become Christians, and that this faith had spread not only through the city but through towns and countryside, so that the temples and sacrifices were generally empty and abandoned.

Both pagan and Christian writers of that era noted something remarkable: the famous pagan oracles in the temples — where princes and others had for many ages been accustomed to inquire and receive audible answers from their gods (answers which were in truth from the devil) — had now fallen silent and gave no more responses. Especially notable was the oracle at Delphi — the most celebrated pagan oracle in the world, consulted by both Greeks and Romans — which had begun to cease giving answers from the very birth of Christ. When the false deity worshiped there was once asked why he no longer gave answers as he used to, he reportedly replied (as several pagan historians of that time record): 'There is a Hebrew boy who is king of the gods, who has commanded me to leave this house and go to the place of the dead — therefore you should expect no more answers.' Many pagan writers of that time wrote at length about the silencing of the oracles, expressing wonder at it and being unable to explain the cause. Plutarch, a pagan writer of that era, wrote an entire treatise on the subject, which still survives. And Porphyry — one of the pagan writers mentioned earlier who opposed Christianity — wrote these words: 'It is no wonder if the city has been overrun with sickness for so many years, since Asclepius and the rest of the gods have withdrawn their presence from among men — for since Jesus began to be worshiped, no man has received any public help or benefit from the gods.'

So the kingdom of Christ prevailed over the kingdom of Satan.

3. I now turn to take note of the particular circumstances of tribulation and distress immediately before Constantine the Great came to the throne. This distress was the result of the tenth pagan persecution — which, being the last, was by far the heaviest and most severe. Before this, the church had enjoyed a period of peace lasting about forty years after the ninth persecution ended. But abusing their freedom, they had grown cold and lifeless in religion, and contentiousness spread among them — by which they provoked God to allow this dreadful trial to come upon them. Satan, having lost so much ground despite all his attempts, now seemed to stir himself with extraordinary fury. Those then in power set themselves with extreme violence to root out Christianity — burning all Bibles and destroying all Christians. They did not bother with formal legal proceedings but fell upon Christians wherever they could find them — sometimes setting fire to buildings where large numbers were assembled and burning them all alive, other times slaughtering large groups at once. At times the persecutors grew exhausted from the labor of killing and torturing. In some densely populated places, so many were killed at once that blood ran in streams. It is recorded that seventeen thousand martyrs were killed in a single month. During this one persecution, in the province of Egypt alone, no fewer than 144,000 Christians died at the hands of their persecutors, in addition to 700,000 who died from the hardships of exile or the forced labor camps to which they were condemned.

This persecution lasted ten years — and as it surpassed all previous persecutions in the number of martyrs, so it surpassed them in the variety and number of methods of torture and cruelty. Authors who lived through that time say the forms of cruelty were beyond counting and beyond any adequate description.

This persecution was especially severe in England. It is this persecution that was foretold in Revelation 6:9-10: "When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?'"

At the end of the ten years this persecution lasted, the pagan persecutors believed they had finished their work. They boasted that they had utterly destroyed the name and religion of the Christians, and had restored and spread the worship of the gods.

So it was the darkest hour for the Christian church just before the dawn. They were brought to their greatest extremity just before God appeared for their glorious deliverance — just as the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt was most severe and brutal right before their deliverance through Moses. Their enemies believed they had swallowed them up, just before their own destruction came — just as Pharaoh and his army thought when they had trapped the children of Israel at the Red Sea.

4. I come now to the great revolution that took place in the world in the days of Constantine, which in many ways resembled Christ appearing in the clouds of heaven to save His people and judge the world. The people of Rome, weary of the tyrants who had recently ruled them, sent to Constantine — who was then in the city of York in England — to come and take the throne. He was encouraged, as the account goes, by a vision of a pillar of light in the sky in the shape of a cross, seen by his entire army, with the inscription, "In this, overcome." The following night, Christ appeared to him in a dream holding the same cross, directing him to make a cross like it as his royal standard so that his army would fight under that banner, and assuring him that he would prevail. He did so, overcame his enemies, took possession of the imperial throne, embraced the Christian faith, and became the first Christian emperor ever to reign. He came to the throne about 320 years after Christ. Several things attended or immediately followed Constantine's rise to power.

(1) The Christian church was completely delivered from persecution. The day of deliverance came after such a long, dark night of affliction. Weeping had continued through the night, but now deliverance and joy came in the morning. God appeared to vindicate His people, taking compassion on His servants when He saw that their strength was gone and no one was left to help. Christians had nothing more to fear from persecution. Their persecutors were all overthrown, and some of their rulers were now fellow Christians.

(2) God now appeared to execute terrible judgments on their enemies. History gives us remarkable accounts of the dreadful ends to which the pagan emperors, princes, generals, captains, and other powerful men came — those who had devoted themselves to persecuting Christians. They died miserably, one after another, under extreme physical torment and anguish of conscience, with the visible hand of God upon them. What happened could fittingly be compared to people hiding themselves in caves and among the rocks of the mountains.

(3) Paganism was now largely abolished throughout the Roman empire. Idols were destroyed and pagan temples torn down. Images of gold and silver were melted down and minted into coins. Some of the finest idols, skillfully crafted, were brought to Constantinople and dragged through the streets on ropes for the people to see and mock. The pagan priests were scattered and banished.

(4) The Christian church was brought into a state of great peace and prosperity. All pagan officials were removed, and only Christians were elevated to positions of authority throughout the empire. There were now Christian governors, Christian judges, and Christian officers in place of the old pagan ones. Constantine devoted himself to honoring Christian bishops and ministers and to building and beautifying churches. Large and beautiful Christian churches were erected throughout the world to replace the old pagan temples.

This revolution was the greatest change in the face of things that had occurred in the world since the flood. Satan — the prince of darkness, the king and god of the pagan world — was cast out. The roaring lion was conquered by the Lamb of God in the strongest dominion Satan had ever held: the Roman empire. This was a remarkable fulfillment of Jeremiah 10:11: "The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens." The greater part of the world was brought to utterly abandon their old gods and their old religion — customs they had followed for longer than any of their histories could trace. They had worshiped their gods for so long that they knew no beginning of it. It was formerly spoken of as an unheard-of thing for a nation to change its gods, as Jeremiah 2:10-11 notes. But now the greater part of the nations of the known world were brought to cast off their former gods. That vast multitude of gods they had worshiped were all forsaken. Thousands of idols were cast away for the worship of the true God and Christ the only Savior. There was a most remarkable fulfillment of Isaiah 2:17-18: "The pride of man will be humbled and the loftiness of men will be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. And the idols will completely vanish." Since that time, those gods once so famous in the world — Jupiter, Saturn, Minerva, Juno, and the rest — are known only as things of the distant past. They have no temples, no altars, no worshipers, and have had none for many hundreds of years.

The old pagan world had now come to an end in its most dominant part — the Roman empire. This great revolution and transformation of the world, along with the terrible destruction of the powerful men who had persecuted the church, is compared in Revelation 6 to the end of the world and Christ coming to judgment. It is what is most immediately described under the sixth seal — which followed upon the souls under the altar crying, 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?' By the general consensus of theologians and commentators, this vision of the sixth seal refers to the fall of the pagan Roman empire — though it also has a more distant reference to the final day of judgment, of which this was a type. The day of judgment cannot be what is immediately intended, since we are told of many events still to occur under the seventh seal — events to follow those of the sixth. What now took place is also represented by the devil being cast out of heaven to the earth. In his great strength and glory — through that mighty Roman empire — he had as it were exalted his throne to heaven. But now he fell like lightning from heaven and was confined to the earth. His kingdom was reduced to the more barbarous nations and the lower parts of the world. This is the event foretold in Revelation 12:9: 'And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.' Satan had tempted Christ and promised to give Him the glory of the kingdoms of the world — but now he was forced to surrender it to Him against his will. This was a glorious fulfillment of the promise God made to His Son in Isaiah 53:12: 'Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors.' This was a great fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the glorious age of the Gospel — and particularly the prophecies of Daniel. The kingdom of heaven had now come in a glorious degree. The Lord God of heaven was pleased to establish a kingdom on the ruins of Satan's kingdom. Such is the fruit of Christ's purchase of redemption — and such the honor the Father bestows on Christ for the disgrace He bore while on earth. See now to what height that glorious building has risen — the building that had been under construction since the fall of man.

Observation. From what has been said about the success of the Gospel from Christ's ascension to the time of Constantine, we can draw a strong argument for the truth of the Christian religion — that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is genuinely from God. The remarkable success described, and the specific circumstances surrounding it, make a compelling case in several ways.

1. We may conclude from what has been said that it is the Gospel, and the Gospel alone, that has actually brought the world to the knowledge of the true God. That the gods the pagans worshiped are no gods, and that there is only one God — this is something we can see to be true by our own reason now that the Gospel has taught us. It is plainly consistent with the light of nature, and can be demonstrated by reason to be clearly true. Even the Deists themselves acknowledge that the existence of one God — who made and governs the world — can be demonstrated. But it is clear that it is the Gospel, and the Gospel alone, that has actually been the means of bringing people to the knowledge of this truth. It was not the instruction of philosophers — they tried and failed. 'The world through its wisdom did not come to know God.' Until the Gospel and the Holy Scriptures were spread abroad in the world, all of humanity lay in ignorance of the true God and in the deepest darkness in matters of religion — embracing the most absurd beliefs and practices, which all civilized nations now recognize to be childish foolishness. So they remained, age after age, and nothing proved capable of enlightening them. The light of nature, their own reason, and all the wisdom of learned men accomplished nothing — until the Scriptures came. But when the Scriptures spread, they succeeded in bringing the world to acknowledge the one true God and to worship and serve Him.

This is why all the people in the world who today acknowledge one true God — Christians, Jews, Muslims, and even Deists — originally came to that knowledge through the Scriptures. It is because of the Scriptures that they are not still living in pagan darkness today. All of them obtained this knowledge either directly from the Scriptures or through tradition from ancestors who first received it from the Scriptures. Those who now despise the Scriptures and boast of the power of their own reason as sufficient to lead them to the knowledge of one God — had the Gospel never been spread to enlighten their forefathers, they would undoubtedly have been as foolish and degraded in idolatry as the world generally was before the Gospel came. The Muslims, who affirm one true God, originally borrowed the idea from the Scriptures — for the first Muslims had been raised in the Christian faith and had apostatized from it. This makes it clear that the Scriptures were designed by God to be the proper means of bringing the world to knowledge of Himself — not human reason or anything else. It is unreasonable to suppose that the Gospel alone — which God supposedly never designed as the proper means for this — would actually achieve it, while human reason — supposedly the right means — was tried for many ages without any effect. If the Scriptures are not the word of God, then they are nothing but darkness and delusion — indeed the greatest delusion that has ever existed. Is it reasonable to suppose that God, in His providence, would use falsehood and delusion alone to bring the world to the knowledge of Himself, and that no part of the world would come to know Him in any other way?

2. The Gospel's advance against such powerful opposition plainly shows the hand of God. The Roman government, which set itself so violently to hinder the Gospel's success and subdue the church of Christ, was the most powerful human government that had ever existed in the world. Not only that, but they seemed to hold the church entirely in their hands — most Christians were their subjects, under their authority, and never took up arms in self-defense. They never gathered together to fight back; they armed themselves with nothing but patience and other spiritual weapons. And yet that mighty power could not conquer them. On the contrary, Christianity conquered it. The Roman empire had subdued the world. They had overcome many mighty and powerful kingdoms — including the Greek empire, when the Greeks were not under their control and put up the strongest possible resistance. Yet they could not conquer the church that was already in their grip. Instead they were subdued by it and finally overcome.

3. No other sufficient cause can possibly be given for this spread of the Gospel except the power of God alone. No other explanation can be devised. Certainly some cause there was. Here was a great and remarkable effect — the most significant change in the face of human civilization since the flood — and such an effect did not come without a cause. What cause can be named other than the divine power? It was not the outward strength of the instruments used. At first the Gospel was preached by a handful of fishermen, without power or worldly influence to support them. It was not their cleverness or strategy that produced this remarkable effect — they were poor, uneducated men. It was not that their message was agreeable to popular thought and values. This was no pleasant story — a crucified God and Savior was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. It was not that their doctrines suited the natural inclinations of people — nothing is more contrary to human corruption than the pure doctrines of the Gospel. This effect therefore can only have come from the power and agency of God. And if God's power was what caused the Gospel to prevail, then the Gospel is His word — for surely God does not employ His almighty power to advance a mere fraud and delusion.

4. This success precisely matches what Christ and His apostles had foretold. Matthew 16:18: 'I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.' John 12:24: 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.' And John 12:31-32: 'Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.' John 16:8: 'He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment — because the ruler of this world has been judged.'

So the apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1:21-28, declares that after the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe — choosing the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, the weak things to shame the strong, and the base and despised things — things that are not — to do away with the things that are. When someone predicts something that appears likely to happen from causes that can already be seen in motion, it is no great evidence of a revelation from God. But when a prediction is made about something that appears highly unlikely — entirely contrary to the normal course of events — and it comes to pass exactly as predicted, this is a strong argument that the prediction came from God.

So the manner of the spread and success of the Gospel during the period we have been examining provides strong evidence that the Scriptures are the word of God.

3. I will now show how the success of Christ's redemption is carried forward from the overthrow of the pagan Roman empire in Constantine's time to the fall of Antichrist and the destruction of Satan's visible kingdom on earth — which is the third great providential event that Scripture compares to Christ's coming to judgment. This is a period in which many great and remarkable things take place. It contains a long series of wonders of divine providence toward the Christian church. The greater part of the book of Revelation is devoted to foretelling the events of this period.

The success of Christ's purchase of redemption in this period appears most clearly at its close — when Antichrist falls and there will be a far more glorious success of the Gospel than has ever been seen before. The long series of events that precede it seem designed only to prepare the way for it. In order to see clearly the great works of God in accomplishing the success of Christ's redemption, and to appreciate their glory, it will be necessary — as we have done in previous periods — to consider not only the success itself, but also the opposition brought against it, and the great works of Satan in this period against the church and kingdom of Christ. Therefore, in reviewing this period, I will take note of events that fall under two headings: Satan's opposition to the success of Christ's redemption, and the success of Christ's redemption itself. For an orderly treatment, I will divide this period into four parts: the first from the destruction of the pagan empire to the rise of Antichrist; the second from the rise of Antichrist to the Reformation in Luther's time; the third from there to the present; and the fourth from the present until Antichrist falls and Satan's visible kingdom on earth is destroyed.

First, I will consider the events of the first part of this period — from the destruction of the pagan empire to the rise of Antichrist. Here I will first take note of the opposition Satan made against the church during this time, and second, the success the Gospel had in it.

1. The opposition. Satan, having been cast out of the old pagan empire — the great red dragon, after so severe a conflict with Michael and his angels for the better part of three hundred years, being at last entirely routed and overthrown so that no place was found for him in heaven and he was cast down to the earth — did not give up his opposition to the woman, the church of Christ, over which the whole conflict had been fought. He remained in a rage and renewed his attacks, resorting to new tactics against the church. After being cast down from heaven to the earth, the serpent poured water like a flood from his mouth to sweep the woman away. The opposition Satan brought against the church before the rise of Antichrist took mainly two forms: corrupting the church with heresies, and new attempts to restore paganism.

(1) After the destruction of the pagan Roman empire, Satan infested the church with heresies. Though God had done such a glorious work in delivering the church from her pagan persecutors and overthrowing the pagan empire, the days of the church's travail were not yet over — the appointed time of her prosperity had not yet come, since that awaited the fall of Antichrist. So the peace and blessing the church enjoyed in Constantine's time was short-lived. It was a respite — a time of peace and quiet, as it were, for 'half an hour,' while the four angels held back the four winds until the servants of God could be sealed on their foreheads. But the church soon began to be gravely troubled by heresies. The two principal ones, which did the most harm, were the Arian and Pelagian heresies.

The Arians arose soon after Constantine came to the throne. They denied the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, claiming that they were merely created beings. This heresy grew and spread through the church like a flood threatening to overflow everything and sweep the church entirely away. Before the fourth century after Christ was finished, the majority of the Christian church had become Arian. Several emperors who were successors to Constantine held Arian views. With the Arians becoming the dominant party and holding civil authority on their side, they raised a great persecution against the true church of Christ. This heresy could rightly be compared to the flood the serpent poured from his mouth, threatening to drown everything and carry the woman away.

The Pelagian heresy arose at the beginning of the following century. It began with a man named Pelagius, who was born in Britain — his British name was Morgan. He denied original sin and the work of the Spirit in conversion, and affirmed the power of free will, along with many other related errors. This heresy greatly troubled the church for a time. Pelagius's main opponent, who wrote in defense of orthodox doctrine, was Augustine.

(2) The other form of opposition Satan brought against the church was his efforts to restore paganism. His first attempt to restore it in the Roman empire was through Julian the Apostate. Julian was the nephew of Constantine the Great. When Constantine died, he left his empire to his three sons. When they had died, Julian the Apostate reigned in their place. He had been a professed Christian but fell away from the faith and turned to paganism — which is why he is called 'the apostate.' When he came to the throne, he did everything in his power to overthrow the Christian church and reestablish paganism in the empire. He removed the Christian officials and replaced them with pagans. He rebuilt the pagan temples and reinstated pagan worship in the empire, becoming a notorious persecutor of Christians — apparently going against his own better judgment. He habitually referred to Christ contemptuously as 'the Galilean.' He was killed by a spear wound during his wars with the Persians. When he saw that his wound was fatal, he took a handful of his own blood, threw it up toward heaven, and cried out, 'You have overcome, O Galilean.' He is commonly understood by theologians to have committed the unpardonable sin.

Another way Satan attempted to restore paganism in the Roman empire was through the invasions and conquests of pagan nations. During this period, the Goths and Vandals and other pagan barbarian nations living to the north of the Roman empire invaded, made great conquests, and eventually overran the empire. In the fifth century they took the city of Rome itself, and finally conquered and took possession of what was called the Western empire — the western half — dividing it among themselves into ten kingdoms. This began the ten horns of the beast, for we are told that the ten horns are ten kings who would arise in the latter period of the Roman empire. These are also represented by the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar's statue. The invasion and conquests of these pagan nations are understood to be foretold in Revelation 8 in the events described under the sounding of the first four trumpets. These nations that took possession of the Western empire were pagans — and through them, paganism was for a time restored after it had been eradicated.

That covers Satan's opposition to the success of the Gospel during the period before the rise of Antichrist. I proceed:

2. To show what success the Gospel had during this period, despite this opposition.

(1) Satan's opposition in these things was defeated. Though the dragon poured out a great flood from his mouth after the woman to sweep her away, he could not accomplish his purpose — for the earth helped the woman, opening its mouth and swallowing up the flood the dragon had poured out. The heresies that for a while prevailed so greatly eventually faded, and sound doctrine was restored. And his attempt through Julian was ended at Julian's death.

(2) During this period, the Gospel was further spread among many pagan and barbarous nations on the borders of the Roman empire. In the time of Constantine, there was significant spread of the Gospel in the East Indies, chiefly through the ministry of a man named Frumentius. Large numbers of the Iberians — a pagan people — were converted to Christianity through the godly example and witness of a Christian woman they had taken captive. There are accounts of several other barbarian peoples outside the Roman empire, large numbers of whom received the Gospel through the teaching and example of captives taken in war. Around AD 372, the Gospel was spread among the barbarian peoples of Arabia, and also among some northern nations. In particular, a ruler of the Goths became a Christian around this time, along with many of his people. Toward the end of that century, the Gospel was also spread further among the Persians and among the Scythians — the barbarian people the apostle mentions in Colossians 3:11: 'Barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman.'

Around AD 430, there was a remarkable conversion of a people called the Burgundians to the Christian faith. Around the same time, the Gospel began to be proclaimed in Ireland, and the Irish — who until then had been pagan — began to receive the Christian faith. Around the same period the Gospel was spread further among some barbarian peoples in Scotland, and in other places as well. In the following century, a pagan king named Zathus, who ruled over a people called the Colchians, was brought to renounce paganism and embrace Christianity. Several other barbarian nations are recorded as having renounced paganism and received Christianity around this time, more than I can mention here.

That briefly covers the main providential events relating to the success of the Gospel of Christ from Constantine to the rise of Antichrist.

Second, I come now to the second part of the time from Constantine to the destruction of Antichrist — the period from the rise of Antichrist to the Reformation through Luther and others. This was the darkest and most dreadful period the Christian church has ever known, and probably the darkest it will ever see. The time of the church's affliction and persecution — as noted earlier — runs from Christ's resurrection until the destruction of Antichrist, except where God mercifully shortens it through intermissions and seasons of relief for the sake of His elect. But the period from the rise of Antichrist until the Reformation was the time when the Christian church was at its deepest low and in its darkest hour. Throughout those many centuries the true church was in a state of great obscurity — like the woman in the wilderness — almost hidden from sight. In speaking of the events of this period I will: 1. take note of the great schemes and works of the devil against the kingdom of Christ during this time; 2. show how the church of Christ was sustained through it.

1. I will take note of the great works of the devil against the kingdom of Christ during this time. Satan had done great things against the Christian church before — but had been defeated again and again. Michael and his angels had won a glorious victory. How terrible had been the opposition under the pagan empire, and how glorious Christ's victory and triumph over Satan in the time of Constantine! Now God was pleased to prepare the way for an even more glorious victory over him — allowing Satan to rebuild his strength, to do the full extent of what his power and cunning could accomplish, to take a long time to lay his plans, establish his position, and consolidate his power. God allowed him to advance his schemes very far — almost to the point of swallowing up the church — and to exercise a high, proud, and nearly unchecked dominion in the world for a long period before Christ finally conquers, subdues, and utterly destroys his visible kingdom on earth at the time of the destruction of Antichrist. In this way Christ triumphs gloriously over him after he has done his absolute worst — proving that Christ is above him even after Satan has acted with greatest arrogance and most highly exalted himself.

The two great works the devil accomplished during this period against the kingdom of Christ were the erection of his Antichristian kingdom and his Islamic kingdom — two kingdoms of vast extent and strength, which together swallowed up the ancient Roman empire: the Antichristian kingdom absorbing the Western empire, and the Islamic kingdom the Eastern empire. As the book of Revelation describes it, the glorious victory of Christ at the beginning of the church's glorious age will consist mainly in the destruction of these two kingdoms. Let us briefly consider how Satan established and maintained these two great kingdoms in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.

(1) Regarding the kingdom of Antichrist. This appears to be the greatest single scheme the devil ever devised against the kingdom of Christ, and Scripture clearly presents it as such. This is why Antichrist is called 'the man of sin' — or more precisely, 'that man of sin' in 2 Thessalonians 2:3. The title is used emphatically, as though he were supremely and distinctively this. Similarly he is called 'the Antichrist' — meaning the opponent or adversary of Christ. This is not to say he is the only opponent of Christ — there were many others. The apostle John observes that in his own day there were already many antichrists. But this one is called 'the Antichrist,' as though there were no other, because he was so supremely and above all others this. Correspondingly, this scheme of the devil is called 'the mystery of lawlessness' in 2 Thessalonians 2:7. No enemy of Christ receives anywhere near as much attention in the prophecies of Revelation as this one, and the destruction of no enemy is spoken of as bringing such great glory and joy to the church. The craft and cunning of the devil appear above all in this work of his — as could be shown at length, if time permitted.

This was a scheme of the devil to turn the ministry of the Christian church into a ministry of the devil — to transform the angels of the churches into fallen angels, and so into agents of darkness. Through the tyranny, superstition, idolatry, and persecution he set up, he contrived to create an image of ancient paganism — and more than restore what had been lost in the empire when paganism was overthrown in Constantine's time. By this means, the head of the beast that had received its deadly wound in Constantine now had that wound healed in Antichrist — Revelation 13:3. The dragon, who had formerly reigned in the pagan Roman empire and was cast out from it, now rises again through the beast with seven heads and ten horns coming up out of the sea, and gives him his power, his throne, and great authority — and all the world marvels and follows after the beast.

I am not attempting to determine precisely when the reign of Antichrist began — a point that has been long debated among theologians and commentators. What is certain is that the 1,260 days (or years) so frequently mentioned in Scripture as the duration of Antichrist's reign could not have begun before AD 479, because if they had, they would already have ended and Antichrist would already have fallen. But I will not attempt to determine exactly how long after this the period began. The rise of Antichrist was gradual. The Christian church corrupted itself in many ways shortly after Constantine's time, growing more and more superstitious in its worship — gradually introducing more ceremonies into the worship of God, until at length they brought in the veneration of saints, set up images in their churches, and the clergy in general — especially the bishop of Rome — assumed more and more authority. In the earliest times the bishop of Rome was simply the pastor of a congregation, then a standing moderator of a presbytery, then a bishop over a diocese, then a metropolitan (equivalent to an archbishop), then a patriarch. After that he claimed authority as universal bishop over the whole Christian church throughout the world — opposed for a time, but then confirmed in that claim by imperial authority in AD 606. After that he claimed temporal princely authority as well, carrying two swords to signify that both the temporal and the spiritual sword belonged to him. His claimed authority grew continually until, as Christ's representative on earth, he claimed the very same power Christ would exercise if He were physically present and reigning on His throne — the same authority that belongs to God. He was commonly called 'God on earth,' and all the princes of Christendom were expected to submit to him. He claimed the power to crown princes and to depose them at will — and this power was recognized. It came to the point where kings and emperors kissed his feet. Emperors received their crowns at his hands, and princes feared the Pope's displeasure as they would fear a thunderbolt from heaven. If the Pope excommunicated a ruler, all his subjects were immediately released from their allegiance to him — indeed they were required not to recognize him any longer, on pain of excommunication themselves. And more than this, anyone might kill that ruler wherever he was found. Furthermore, the Pope was believed to have the power to damn people at will — whoever died under his excommunication was regarded as certainly condemned to hell. Several emperors were in fact deposed, driven from their thrones, and died in misery through his means. If the people of any state or kingdom displeased him, he could place that territory under an interdict — a sentence pronounced by the Pope declaring that no sacred functions among them would have any validity. There could be no valid baptisms, sacraments, prayers, preaching, or pardons until the interdict was lifted. The people understood themselves to be in a miserable, damnable condition, and therefore feared it as they would fear fire and brimstone raining from heaven. In order to carry out his wrath on a prince or people who had displeased him, other princes also had to bear great trouble and expense.

Just as the Pope and his clergy stripped the people of their religious and civil liberties, so they also robbed them of their wealth — draining all of Christendom of its money and concentrating most of its riches into their own coffers through enormous revenues, plus payments for pardons and indulgences, baptisms and last rites, release from purgatory, and a hundred other things. Consider how well all this matches the prophecies: 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, Daniel 7:20-21, Revelation 13:6-7, and Revelation 17:3-4.

During this time superstition and ignorance grew worse and worse. The Holy Scriptures were gradually taken from the hands of ordinary people — the better to advance the unscriptural and wicked agenda of the Pope and clergy. Rather than promoting knowledge among the people, they actively promoted ignorance. A common principle among them was that 'ignorance is the mother of devotion.' The darkness of those times was so deep that learning nearly vanished from the world. Most of the priests themselves were grossly ignorant of anything worthy to be called learning — knowing little beyond their own oppressive craft of dominating and tyrannizing the souls of the people. The superstition and wickedness of the church of Rome kept getting worse and worse right up to the time of the Reformation. The entire Christian world was swept into this great apostasy — except for the remnants of the Christian church in the Eastern empire that had not been completely destroyed by the Turks (such as the Greek church and others), which were themselves sunk into great darkness and gross superstition. The exception also includes the small number of true believers represented by the woman in the wilderness and God's two witnesses — of which more later.

This is the first of the two great kingdoms the devil erected in this period in opposition to the kingdom of Christ — and it was the greatest and chief of the two. I come now to:

(2) The second of the two — the Islamic kingdom — which in many respects resembles the first. This was another great kingdom of mighty power and vast extent, established by Satan against the kingdom of Christ. Satan set it up in the Eastern empire, just as he set up the Antichristian kingdom in the Western.

Muhammad was born in Arabia in AD 570. When he was about forty years old, he began claiming to be the great prophet of God and started teaching the religion he had invented — in which he was to be worshiped as the supreme leader under God. He published his Quran, which he claimed to have received from the angel Gabriel. Being a cunning and clever man, possessing considerable wealth, and living among people who were deeply ignorant and sharply divided in their religious views, he used shrewdness and attractive promises of a sensual paradise to gather followers. He established himself as their ruler, spread his religion by the sword, and declared that fighting for him was the path to paradise. By these means his movement grew, and his followers fought and conquered neighboring countries — gradually overrunning a large part of the world. First, around AD 700, the Saracens — followers of Muhammad from the Arabian region where he had lived — began savagely devastating the Roman empire. They overran a great many countries belonging to the empire and continued their conquests for a long time. These are understood to be the locusts described in Revelation 9.

After this, the Turks — originally a different people from the Saracens, but also followers of Muhammad — conquered the entire Eastern empire. They established their empire around AD 1296, began invading Europe around 1300, and took Constantinople in 1453 — making themselves masters of the entire Eastern empire, roughly three hundred years ago. With this, all those cities and regions where the famous early churches once existed — Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and the rest — came under Turkish rule. They also took possession of Constantinople — the city named after Constantine the Great, who had made it the capital of the Roman empire in place of Rome. These are understood to be prophesied by the horsemen described in Revelation 9, beginning at verse 15. The remaining Christians in those parts of the world — mostly of the Greek church — live in miserable slavery under the Turks, are treated with great barbarity and cruelty, and have for the most part become deeply ignorant and superstitious.

I have now shown the great works Satan accomplished during this period in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.

2. I now turn to show how the church of Christ was sustained through this dark time.

(1) It should be noted that in the earlier part of this period, some nations within Christendom held out for a long time before giving in to the corruptions and power grabs of the church of Rome. Though all the world marveled and followed after the beast, all nations did not fall in at once. Many of the principal corruptions of the church of Rome were introduced only after considerable struggle and opposition. When the Pope declared himself universal bishop, many churches strongly resisted him, and it was a long time before they would yield to his excessive claims. Similarly, when image worship was first introduced into the churches, many opposed it vigorously and resisted it for a long time. And so with the other corruptions of Rome. Those living closer to the city of Rome gave way sooner, but those in more distant regions took much longer to be brought under the yoke. Church history specifically records that much of the church in England, Scotland, and France preserved the ancient purity of doctrine and worship far longer than many others who were nearer the main seat of Antichrist.

(2) In every age of this dark period, individuals appeared throughout Christendom who bore witness against the corruptions and tyranny of the church of Rome. There is no era of Antichrist's dominion — even the very darkest — in which church historians do not name large numbers of people who expressed their abhorrence of the Pope and his idolatrous worship, and who pleaded for the ancient purity of doctrine and practice. God was pleased to maintain an unbroken succession of witnesses throughout the entire period — in Germany, France, Britain, and other countries. Historians document this, naming them and recording the testimony they held. Many of these were ordinary people, many were ministers, and some were magistrates and people of great prominence. In every age, numbers of them were persecuted and put to death for this witness.

(3) Besides these scattered individuals throughout Christendom, there was a people called the Waldenses — a distinct community that kept themselves separate from the surrounding world, maintained their purity of faith, and consistently bore witness against the church of Rome throughout this entire dark period. They lived in the Vaudois — the five valleys of Piedmont — a very mountainous region between Italy and France. Their homeland was surrounded by the exceptionally high mountains called the Alps, which were nearly impassable. The passes through this mountainous wilderness were so difficult that the valleys where this people lived were almost unreachable. There they lived for many ages in a state of separation from the rest of the world, having very little to do with any outside people. There they worshiped God in the ancient purity of His worship, and never submitted to the church of Rome. This place in the wilderness mountains was very likely the specific location described in Revelation 12:6 as the place prepared by God for the woman — where she would be nourished during the reign of Antichrist.

Some Roman Catholic writers themselves acknowledge that this people never submitted to the church of Rome. One such writer, speaking of the Waldenses, says that 'the heresy of the Waldenses is the oldest heresy in the world.' It is understood that these people first retreated to this remote, hidden place among the mountains to escape the severity of the pagan persecutions before the time of Constantine the Great. So the woman fled into the wilderness from the face of the serpent, as Revelation 12:6 describes. And verse 14: 'But the two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, so that she could fly into the wilderness to her place, where she was nourished for a time and times and half a time, from the presence of the serpent.' Once settled there, their descendants continued in that place from generation to generation. Separated from the rest of the world both by the natural walls of the mountains and by God's grace, they never took part in the overwhelming corruption.

These in particular were those virgins who were not defiled while other women prostituted themselves — but who kept themselves pure for Christ alone. They followed the Lamb, their spiritual husband, wherever He went — following Him even into that harsh wilderness. Revelation 14:4-5. Their doctrine and worship, according to surviving records, are the same as Protestant doctrine and worship. Even Roman Catholic writers acknowledge that they were a people remarkable for the strictness of their lives, for charity, and for other Christian virtues. They lived in outward poverty in that harsh land, but they chose it rather than comply with the great corruptions of the surrounding world.

Living in so secluded a place, they went largely unnoticed by the Roman Church for a long time. But eventually they came under attention, and the Roman Church sent powerful armies against them, falling on them with insatiable cruelty — barbarously massacring and putting to death men, women, and children with every form of torture. They continued persecuting them with little interruption for several hundred years. By these means many were driven from their ancient home in the valleys of Piedmont and scattered throughout Europe, carrying their doctrine with them, and many were won over to it. So their persecutors, despite all their cruelty, could not extinguish the church of God — fulfilling His word that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.'

(4) Toward the latter part of this dark period, several notable theologians openly arose to defend the truth and bear witness against the corruptions of the church of Rome, and they gathered many followers. The first and most prominent of these was an English theologian named John Wycliffe, who appeared about 140 years before the Reformation. He vigorously opposed Roman religion, taught the same doctrine the Reformers would later teach, and had many followers in England. He was fiercely persecuted throughout his life, yet he died in peace. After he was buried, his persecutors dug up his bones and burned them. His followers continued in considerable numbers in England until the Reformation, suffering cruel persecution, with multitudes put to death for their faith.

Wycliffe had many disciples and followers not only in England but in other parts of Europe where his writings spread — particularly in Bohemia, where two prominent theologians arose: one named John Huss, the other named Jerome, a theologian from Prague, the chief city of Bohemia. Both strenuously opposed the church of Rome and had many who stood with them. Both were burned by the Roman Church for their doctrine. Their followers in Bohemia were cruelly persecuted but were never fully wiped out until the Reformation.

Having now passed through this dark period of the church — the second part of the time from Constantine to the destruction of Antichrist — I come now to:

Third, the third part — beginning with the Reformation and reaching to the present day. Here I will: 1. Speak of the Reformation itself; 2. The opposition the devil has made against the Reformed church; 3. What success the Gospel has recently had in various places; 4. What the current state of things is in the world with respect to the church of Christ and the success of His purchase.

1. The first thing to take note of here is the Reformation. This began about 220 years ago, first in Saxony in Germany, through the preaching of Martin Luther. Stirred in his spirit by the terrible practices of the Roman clergy, and having devoted himself diligently to searching out the truth through study of the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the ancient church fathers, he openly and boldly denounced the corruptions and overreach of the Roman church in his preaching and writings. He quickly gathered a large number of followers, including the Elector of Saxony — the ruling prince of the territory where he lived. This alarmed the church of Rome greatly, and it seemed to rally all its forces to oppose him and his teaching, launching fierce wars and persecutions against it. Yet the work went forward through the labors of Luther and Melanchthon in Germany, Zwingli in Switzerland, and other prominent theologians who were contemporary with Luther and aligned with him — especially Calvin, who appeared somewhat later in the Reformation but was one of its most eminent leaders.

Many of the German princes quickly embraced the Reformed faith, as did many other states and kingdoms in Europe — Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, much of France, Poland, Lithuania, Switzerland, and the Low Countries. At one point it was estimated that roughly half of Christendom held the Protestant faith — though since then the Roman Catholics have regained ground, and Protestants now make up a smaller proportion.

So God began gloriously to revive His church and advance the kingdom of His Son — after such a dreadful night of darkness as had covered the world from the rise of Antichrist until that time. There had been many efforts made by witnesses for the truth to bring about a reformation before. But now, when God's appointed time had come, His work began and moved forward with swift and wonderful progress. Antichrist — who had been rising higher and higher from his very beginning until this moment — was swiftly and suddenly brought down, falling halfway to complete ruin, and has never been able to return to his former height. A relatively recent commentator, Mr. Lowman, who has explained the first five bowls of Revelation 16 with perhaps greater probability than anyone before him, identifies the fifth bowl — poured out on the throne of the beast — with what took place at the Reformation, explaining the four preceding bowls as certain great judgments God brought upon Roman Catholic territories before the Reformation. Revelation 16:10 says: 'Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds.' The bowl was poured on 'the throne of the beast' — that is, on the authority and dominion of the Pope. The word 'throne' is often used in Scripture with this meaning, as in 1 Kings 1:37: 'As the Lord has been with my lord the king, so may He be with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David' — meaning, make his rule and authority greater, and his kingdom more glorious.

In the Reformation, God's wrath was poured out on the throne of the beast. His throne was terribly shaken and reduced. The Pope's authority and dominion were greatly diminished both in extent and in degree. He lost, as noted, about half his territories. Beyond that, since the Reformation the Pope has lost a great portion of even the authority he previously held within the territories that remained Roman Catholic. He is no longer heeded or feared as he once was. The powers of Europe have learned not to bow their necks under the Pope's feet as they once did. He is like a lion that has lost its teeth compared to what he once was.

When the Pope and his clergy — enraged to see their authority so diminished at the Reformation — gathered their heads together and united their forces to destroy the Reformation, their schemes, which had served them so well before, failed. They found their kingdom full of darkness and could accomplish nothing — like the Egyptians who did not rise from their seats for three days. The Reformed church was defended as Lot and the angels were in Sodom — by striking the attackers with blindness so that they could not find the door. God fulfilled then what is written in Job 5:11 and following: 'He sets on high those who are lowly, and those who mourn are lifted to safety. He frustrates the plotting of the shrewd, so that their hands cannot attain success. He captures the wise by their own shrewdness, and the advice of the cunning is quickly thwarted. They encounter darkness in the daytime, and grope at noon as in the night. But He saves from the sword of their mouth, and the poor from the hand of the mighty.'

Those proud enemies of God's people, finding themselves so thoroughly defeated and so unable to maintain their own dominion and authority, bit their tongues in fury and pain.

2. I now turn to show what opposition Satan and his agents have made against the success of Christ's purchase through the Reformation — noting along the way where they have been defeated and where they have had some success.

The opposition Satan has mounted against the Reformed faith has taken principally the following forms: 1. Through a general council of the church of Rome; 2. Through secret plots and schemes; 3. Through open wars and invasions; 4. Through cruel oppression and persecution; and 5. Through the introduction of corrupt doctrines.

(1) The first form of opposition I will note was the uniting of the Roman Catholic clergy in a general council. This was the famous Council of Trent, called by the Pope shortly after the Reformation began. At that council there gathered six cardinals, thirty-two archbishops, two hundred and twenty-eight bishops, and countless other clergy of the Roman church. This council, counting the periods between its sessions, continued over the course of twenty-five years. Its primary business throughout was to devise measures for establishing the church of Rome against the Reformers and for destroying the Reformation. But they proved unable to accomplish their purpose. The Reformed church, despite the council's size and length and its determination against it, survived — and still survives. So the schemes of the crafty were brought to nothing, their kingdom was filled with darkness, and they wore themselves out trying to find the door.

So the church of Rome — instead of repenting of its ways when Luther and the other servants of God set such clear light before them — by common consent in council persisted in its vile corruptions and wickedness and stubborn opposition to the kingdom of Christ. The doctrines and practices of the church of Rome that the Reformers most strongly condemned were confirmed by the council's decrees, and in many respects the corruptions were carried to a higher degree than ever before. They pronounced blasphemous curses and condemnations against the Reformed faith, and the entire Reformed church was excommunicated and anathematized by them — fulfilling the prophecy that 'they blasphemed God.' So God hardened their hearts, intending their destruction.

(2) The Roman Catholics repeatedly tried to overthrow the Reformation through secret plots and conspiracies. There were many plots against Luther's life. The Roman Catholics worked to eliminate him and remove him from their path, and Luther — being a very bold man — often put himself in great danger for Christ's cause. Yet they were remarkably prevented from harming him, and he died in his bed in peace. There have also been countless schemes secretly laid over the years for the overthrow of the Protestant faith. Among the most significant — and the one that seemed most likely to succeed — was the plot during the reign of King James II of England, which is within living memory for many of us. At that time there was a strong conspiracy between the King of England and Louis XIV of France — both Roman Catholics — to extinguish what they called the 'Northern heresy,' meaning the Protestant religion, not only in England but throughout all of Europe. Their plans were so developed that success seemed nearly certain. They calculated that if the Reformed faith could be suppressed in Britain and the Netherlands — the strongest bulwark of the Protestant cause — the rest would be easy to deal with. But just when their plans seemed to be coming to fruition and ready for execution, God in His providence suddenly shattered all their schemes through the Revolution — with the coming of King William and Queen Mary. All their designs collapsed. The Protestant cause was strengthened even further when the crown of England was settled on the Protestant House of Hanover and a Roman Catholic was permanently barred by the nation's constitution from wearing the English crown. So they groped in darkness at midday as in the night; their hands could not carry out their plans; their kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues in pain.

After this, there was a deep scheme laid to bring about the same end in the later part of Queen Anne's reign, through the introduction of the Catholic pretender to the throne — which was no less suddenly and completely overturned by divine providence. Such plots to bring in the pretender and overthrow the Reformation have been foiled again and again.

(3) The Reformation has also repeatedly been opposed through open wars and invasions. At the beginning of the Reformation, the Holy Roman Emperor declared war against the Duke of Saxony and the leading men who supported and embraced Luther's teaching, in order to suppress the Reformation. But they could not achieve their goal — they could not suppress it. For the same purpose, the King of Spain maintained a long war against Holland and the Low Countries in the century before last. But those brutal wars worked greatly to the disadvantage of the Roman Catholic cause, since they brought about the establishment of one of the most powerful Protestant states in Europe — which, next to Great Britain, stands as the chief defender of the Protestant faith. The Spanish invasion of England in Queen Elizabeth's time was likewise designed to suppress and exterminate the Reformed religion — their fleet carrying every instrument of cruelty they could find to torture Protestants who refused to renounce the Protestant faith. But their designs were completely foiled, and their great fleet was largely destroyed.

(4) Satan has also opposed the Reformation through cruel persecution. The persecutions inflicted on Protestants in country after country by the church of Rome have in many respects far exceeded the pagan persecutions before Constantine the Great, and surpassed all that had ever come before. So Antichrist proved the greatest and cruelest enemy the church of Christ has ever faced — in this as in all other ways — in fulfillment of the description given of the church of Rome in Revelation 17:6: 'And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.' And Revelation 18:24: 'And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints and of all who have been slain on the earth.'

The pagan persecutions had been terrible. But under the church of Rome, persecution was refined, studied, and developed as an art and a science. Methods of torturing and tormenting were devised that go beyond the imagination of ordinary people or those who have not studied such things — beyond anything invented in all previous ages. To carry out persecution more efficiently, special organizations were established throughout Roman Catholic territories — groups whose purpose was to study, develop, and practice persecution in its most effective form. These are the organizations known as the courts of inquisition. Reading the specific histories of Roman Catholic persecution and the courts of inquisition will give an idea that a few words cannot convey.

When the Reformation began, the beast with seven heads and ten horns raged in a dreadful manner. After the Reformation, the church of Rome renewed its persecution of the poor Waldenses, and great numbers of them were cruelly tortured and put to death. Shortly after the Reformation began, terrible persecutions broke out in various parts of Germany — especially in Bohemia, where they lasted for thirty years and so much blood was shed for religion that one writer compared it to the volume of water flowing through the great rivers of Germany. The countries of Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary were similarly flooded with Protestant blood.

Through these and other cruel persecutions, the Protestant faith was largely suppressed in Bohemia, the Palatinate, and Hungary — countries that had previously been predominantly Protestant. This fulfilled what had been foretold of the little horn in Daniel 7:20-21: 'and of the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn which came up, and before which three of them fell, namely, that horn which had eyes and a mouth uttering great boasts and which was larger in appearance than its associates. I kept looking, and that horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them.' And what was foretold concerning the beast with seven heads and ten horns in Revelation 13:7: 'It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him.' Holland and the other Low Countries were also for many years a scene of nothing but the most appalling and terrifying cruelties — flooded with the blood of Protestants at the merciless hands of the Spaniards, to whom they were then subject. But in that persecution the devil largely failed in his purpose — for it ended in a large part of the Netherlands throwing off the Spanish yoke and establishing a wealthy and powerful Protestant state, which has since been a great defender of the Protestant cause.

France too has been a country where, since the Reformation, Protestants have suffered dreadful cruelties — perhaps more than any other country in some respects. After many cruelties had already been inflicted on Protestants in that kingdom, a major persecution began in 1571 during the reign of Charles IX of France. It opened with a cruel massacre in which 70,000 Protestants were slain in just a few days, as the king himself boasted. In the full course of this persecution he killed an estimated 300,000 martyrs. It has been reckoned that within thirty years around this time, 39 princes, 148 counts, 234 barons, 147,518 gentlemen, and 760,000 common people were martyred in France for the Protestant faith.

But all these persecutions were far surpassed in cruelty by those that followed under Louis XIV — considered by many to have exceeded all others that have ever occurred. Sustained over the entire length of his long reign, they nearly wiped out the Protestant faith from a kingdom that had previously been home to a multitude of flourishing Protestant churches throughout every part of it. Thus it was given to the beast to make war with the saints and to overcome them.

There was also a terrible persecution in England during the reign of Queen Mary, in which large numbers throughout the kingdom were burned alive. After this, although the Protestant faith was for the most part established by law in England, there were still very severe persecutions carried out by the high church party, which shared many characteristics with Roman Catholicism. It was such a persecution that drove our forefathers to flee their native country and come to settle in this land — which was then a wild and desolate wilderness. These persecutions continued with little relief until King William came to the throne.

Scotland too was for many years a scene of cruelty and bloodshed at the hands of the high church party — cruelties that came very close to those of Roman Catholic persecution in Queen Mary's days, and in many respects surpassed it. This continued until they were delivered under King William.

Ireland too has been overwhelmed, as it were, with Protestant blood. During the reign of King Charles I of England, more than 200,000 Protestants were cruelly murdered in that country in just a few days — the Roman Catholics, by secret agreement, rising simultaneously throughout the entire country at an appointed time, intending to kill every Protestant in the land at once.

Beyond these, there have been very cruel persecutions in Italy, Spain, and other places, which I will not take the time to describe here.

So the devil and his great instrument Antichrist raged with such violence and cruelty against the church of Christ! So did the whore of Babylon make herself drunk with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus! And so, through these persecutions, the Protestant church was greatly diminished! Yet with all of this they were not able to prevail — the Protestant church still stands, and Christ fulfills His promise that 'the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church.'

(5) The last form of opposition Satan has made against the Reformation is through corrupt doctrines. Satan has opposed the light of the Gospel that shone forth in the Reformation by introducing and spreading many false teachings throughout the world.

The first opposition of this kind was the rise of the Anabaptist movement, which began about four or five years after the Reformation itself. This movement, as it first appeared in Germany, was far more extreme than the Anabaptists in England today. They held a great many thoroughly corrupt opinions. One of their doctrines was that there should be no civil authority — and therefore that rebellion against civil government was lawful. On this basis they refused to submit to magistrates or any civil laws, gathered together in large armed groups to resist their rulers, threw all of Germany into turmoil, and kept it in that state for some time.

The next opposition of this kind to the Reformation came through enthusiasts — those who falsely claimed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit as the prophets were. These arose in Germany about ten years after Luther began the Reformation, and various sects emerged among them that were extremely unstable and erratic. The Quakers in England and other parts of the British territories are among their spiritual descendants.

After these came the Socinians, who arose primarily in Poland through the teaching of two men: Laelius Socinus and Faustus Socinus. They held that Christ was merely a man, denied Christ's satisfaction for sin, and rejected most of the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith. Their heresy has since spread widely among Protestants in Poland, Germany, Holland, England, and elsewhere.

After these came the Arminians. They first appeared in Holland about 130 years ago and take their name from a Dutchman whose name was Jacobus van Harmin — which in its Latinized form is Jacobus Arminius. The entire movement takes its name from him. Arminius was first a minister in Amsterdam and then a professor of theology at the University of Leiden. He had many followers in Holland. A synod of all the Reformed churches was called together in response, meeting at Dort in Holland. The Synod of Dort condemned the Arminians — but they spread and gained ground anyway. Arminianism began to take hold in England during the reign of Charles I, especially within the Church of England. Before that time, virtually all Church of England theologians were Calvinists. Since then, Arminianism has gradually gained more and more ground until they have become almost universally Arminian. And not only that — Arminianism has greatly spread among the Dissenters as well, and has made significant inroads in New England as well as Old England.

Since then, Arianism has revived. As I mentioned earlier, Arianism shortly after Constantine's time nearly swallowed up the entire Christian world — like a flood from the mouth of the serpent threatening to engulf the woman. In recent years this heresy has been revived in England, where it now greatly prevails — both in the Church of England and among Dissenters. Arians hold that Christ is merely a creature, though they grant He is the greatest of all creatures.

Another thing that has greatly prevailed among Protestants in recent times — especially in England — is Deism. Deists have entirely abandoned the Christian religion and are professed unbelievers. They are different from heretics like Arians and Socinians, who still acknowledge Scripture as the word of God and hold the Christian religion to be true — merely denying certain foundational doctrines. The Deists reject the whole Christian faith. They acknowledge the existence of God, but deny that Christ was the Son of God, calling Him a mere fraud. They say the same of all the prophets and apostles. They deny all of Scripture and hold that none of it is the word of God. They deny any revealed religion or any divine word whatsoever, claiming God has given humanity no guide but their own reason. These views and opinions have spread widely throughout our nation — which is the leading nation of the Reformation — and they continue to grow.

That covers the opposition Satan has made against the Reformation.

3. I now turn to show what success the Gospel has had more recently — its success in these later times of the Reformed church. This success can be grouped under three headings: 1. Reformation in doctrine and worship in countries called Christian; 2. Spread of the Gospel among the pagans; 3. Revival of religion in its power and practice.

(1) Regarding the first — reformation in doctrine — the most significant recent success of the Gospel in this category has been in the Russian empire, a country of enormous extent. The people of this country, those who called themselves Christians, professed to be of the Greek church but were miserably ignorant and deeply superstitious until recent times. The late Emperor Peter the Great — who reigned until about twenty years ago — set himself to reform the people of his empire and worked hard to bring them out of their darkness and to have them instructed in religion. To that end, he established schools of learning, ordered the Bible to be printed in the language of the country, made a law that every family should keep the Scriptures in their home, that every person should be able to read them, and that no one could be permitted to marry until they were able to read the Scriptures. He also reformed the churches of his country from many of their superstitions, so that the religion now professed and practiced in Russia is much closer to Protestant Christianity than it used to be. He gave strong encouragement to the practice of the Protestant faith in his territories. As a result, Russia has become a land of light compared to what it was before. Remarkable improvements in the state of religion have come about within the past fifty years.

(2) Regarding the second kind of recent success — the spread of the Gospel among the pagans — I want to note three things.

[1] The spread of the Gospel among the pagans in America. This American continent on which we live — a very large part of the world, which together with its neighboring seas takes up one entire side of the globe — was completely unknown to all Christian nations until modern times. It was not known that such a part of the world existed, even though it was densely populated. As a result, the devil had the peoples of this continent to himself, as it were — safely beyond the reach of the Gospel, and undisturbed in his dominion over them. The many nations of Native Americans worshiped him as God from age to age, while the Gospel was confined to the other side of the globe. There is a notion I have encountered somewhere — based on what appears to be some remaining evidence — that the peopling of America may have come about in this way: the devil, alarmed and disturbed by the wonderful success of the Gospel in the first three hundred years after Christ, and by the fall of the pagan empire under Constantine, and seeing the Gospel spreading so rapidly and fearing that his pagan kingdom would be completely overthrown throughout the world, led a people from the other continent into America so that they would be entirely out of the Gospel's reach — and here he could quietly hold them and reign over them as their god. Many writers have recorded that when the Europeans first arrived in America, some of the Native American nations had a tradition among them that their god had first led them into this continent and had gone before them in an ark.

Whether or not this was the case, it is certain that the devil quietly held his dominion over the poor nations of Native Americans for many ages. But in later times, God sent the Gospel into these parts of the world. Now the Christian church has been established in New England and other parts of America, where before there had been nothing but the deepest pagan darkness. A large part of America is now filled with Bibles and at least the outward form of worship of the true God and Jesus Christ — in places where the name of Christ had not been heard for many ages, if ever. Admittedly, the spread of the Gospel among the Native peoples here has been small compared to what could be wished for. Yet there has been something worth noting. Something remarkable happened in the early days of New England, and more recently something remarkable has appeared here and in other parts of America — a growing desire among many Native peoples to be instructed in the Christian faith.

However small the spread of the Gospel among the Native peoples of America has been so far, I think we can rightly see the discovery of so vast a part of the world as America — and the bringing of the Gospel into it — as one way divine providence is preparing the way for the future glorious age of the church. In that day, Satan's kingdom will be overthrown not only throughout the Roman empire, but across the entire inhabited globe, on every continent. When those times come, the Gospel already brought to America will undoubtedly have glorious success, and all the inhabitants of this newly discovered world will become subjects of the kingdom of Christ, along with all the other ends of the earth. In all likelihood, providence arranged that the mariner's compass — a more recent invention that enables men to sail the widest oceans when before they dared not venture far from shore — would serve as preparation for what God intends to accomplish in the glorious age of the church: sending the Gospel to wherever any children of humanity dwell, however far away, and however separated by vast oceans from the parts of the world already reached by Christianity.

In recent years there has also been a significant spread of the Gospel among the pagans living within the Russian empire. I already noted the religious reforms that have taken place among those within that empire who call themselves Christians — but now I am speaking of the pagans. A large part of the vast Russian territories is home to people who practice paganism. Much of Greater Tartary — a pagan land — has in recent times come under Russian rule, and large numbers of those pagan people have recently renounced their paganism and embraced the Christian faith.

There has also been a significant recent spread of the Christian faith among the pagans in the East Indies. In particular, many people in a region called Malabar in the East Indies have been brought to the Protestant Christian faith, primarily through the work of certain missionaries sent there by the King of Denmark to instruct them. These missionaries have brought many pagans to the Christian faith, established schools among them, and set up a printing press to print Bibles and other books for their instruction in their own language — all with great success.

The last kind of recent gospel success I want to note is the revivals of the power and practice of religion that have taken place in recent times. I will mention just two examples.

Not long ago, there was a remarkable revival of the power and practice of religion in Saxony, Germany, through the efforts of an outstanding pastor there named August Herman Franck — a professor of theology at Halle in Saxony. He was a person of extraordinary generosity, and the great work God accomplished through him began with a charitable initiative he launched. It started simply: he placed an alms box at his study door, into which people dropped small gifts, and the money was used to buy books for the instruction of the poor. God was pleased to bless his effort in a remarkable way, and to pour out such a spirit of generosity on the people of that place that through their giving he was able, in a short time, to build public schools for poor children and an orphanage to house and educate the needy. Eventually nearly five hundred children were being maintained and taught in learning and faith through the charity of others — and the numbers kept growing for many years, up to the last reports I have seen. This was accompanied by a wonderful reformation and revival of religion and genuine piety in the city and university of Halle, and it continued to spread. It also had a powerful influence in many other places throughout Germany. Their example seemed to stir up many others to do the same.

Another thing we would be ungrateful not to acknowledge is the remarkable outpouring of the Spirit of God that has occurred recently in this part of New England — of which we in this town have received such a share. But there is no need for me to describe it in detail, since you have so recently witnessed it yourselves, and I trust that many of you have personally experienced its benefits.

With that, I have covered the more remarkable examples of the recent success of the Gospel in the world.

I now turn to the final matter proposed for consideration regarding the success of Christ's redemption during this period: the current state of the world with respect to the church of Christ and the success of His purchase. I will address this by comparing how things stand now to how they stood in the early days of the Reformation. First, I will show where things have changed for the worse. Second, I will show where they have changed for the better.

First, I will identify the ways in which things have changed for the worse since the beginning of the Reformation. There are three main areas.

The Reformed church has shrunk considerably. At the beginning of the Reformation, as noted earlier, Protestants were thought to make up roughly half of Christendom outside the Greek church — about as many Protestants as Roman Catholics. But that is no longer the case. The Protestant church has been greatly reduced. In earlier times there were vast numbers of Protestants in France, with many thriving Protestant churches spread throughout the country, meeting together in synods and maintaining strong discipline. A large portion of that kingdom was Protestant. The Protestant church of France was one of the great glories of the Reformation. But now it is entirely different: that church has been broken apart and scattered. The Protestant faith has been almost completely wiped out of France through the cruel persecutions carried out there, and now only a very small number of Protestant congregations remain in the entire country. The Protestant cause has also been greatly weakened in Germany. Several ruling princes who were Protestant have been succeeded by Roman Catholic rulers — particularly the Elector Palatine and the Elector of Saxony. The kingdom of Bohemia was once a Protestant kingdom but is now in Roman Catholic hands. Hungary was formerly a Protestant country as well, but the Protestants there have been greatly reduced and largely suppressed by the persecutions they endured. And in no significant way has the Protestant cause recently gained ground against Rome.

A second way things have gotten worse since the early days of the Reformation is the spread of loose and liberal views and opinions. There is nothing like the spirit of orthodoxy that once existed. There is very little visible zeal for the deep and spiritual doctrines of Christianity — and those doctrines have never been so mocked and despised as they are in the present age, especially in England, the leading nation of the Reformation. In England, the foundational principles on which genuine godliness depends have been largely rejected, and Arianism, Socinianism, Arminianism, and Deism are the views that now prevail and carry nearly everything before them. In particular, no age in recorded history has seen so great a departure from Christianity among people raised in the light of the Gospel. Never before has there been such a wholesale rejection of the Christian faith and all revealed religion. Never before has there been such widespread scoffing at and ridiculing of the Gospel of Christ by those brought up under Gospel light — nothing in history comes close to what we see today.

A third way things have gotten worse is that there is far less genuine godliness than there was at the beginning of the Reformation. There was a glorious outpouring of the Spirit of God accompanying the first Reformation — not only converting multitudes so quickly from Roman Catholicism to true religion, but turning many hearts to God in genuine faith. Religion flourished gloriously in one country after another, as was most powerfully demonstrated during those terrible times of persecution already described. But now there is an alarming decay of true, living faith. It is actually despised and dismissed as enthusiasm, fantasy, and fanaticism. Those who are genuinely religious are commonly regarded as unstable or out of their minds, while vice and irreverence spread like a flood threatening to sweep everything away. But I now turn to show,

Second, the ways in which things have changed for the better since the early Reformation.

The power and influence of the Pope has greatly diminished. Though he has gained some ground in territorial extent since the early Reformation, he has lost far more in the degree of influence he holds. The bowl that was poured out on the throne of the beast at the beginning of the Reformation — greatly reducing the Pope's power and authority in the world — has continued to take effect ever since. Shortly after the Reformation, the Pope began to be regarded with less deference by the princes of Europe than before, and that deference has continued to decline. Even many Roman Catholic rulers now appear to care very little for the Pope beyond what serves their own political purposes — and there have been several notable recent examples of this.

There is far less persecution now than there was in the early days of the Reformation. You have already heard how terribly persecution raged in those earlier times, and some of it continues today. Parts of the Protestant church are still under persecution at this very time, and likely will remain so until the church's season of suffering comes to an end — which will not happen until the fall of Antichrist. But it is nothing like what it once was. The spirit of active persecution no longer seems to prevail; it has even gone out of fashion among Roman Catholic rulers. The wickedness of Christ's enemies and their opposition to His cause seems to have taken a different form. The tendency now is to despise and mock all religion, with a general spirit of indifference toward it. Still, to whatever extent things are better now, there is at least far less outright persecution.

(3) There has been a great increase of learning. In the dark days of Roman Catholicism before the Reformation, learning had so far declined that the world seemed overrun with barbarous ignorance. Even many priests were grossly uneducated. Learning began to revive with the Reformation — driven in large part by the invention of the printing press, which appeared shortly before the Reformation. Since then, learning has continued to increase, and today it has undoubtedly reached a greater height than at any previous time in history. Though most educated people make poor use of it, the increase of learning is itself something to be welcomed — it is a genuine good and, rightly applied, an excellent servant of theology. It is a talent that, if God gives people the will to use it, provides a great advantage for doing significant things to advance the kingdom of Christ and the good of people's souls. That learning and knowledge would greatly increase before the glorious age of the church seems to be foretold in Daniel 12:4: "But as for you, Daniel, conceal these words and seal up the book until the end of time; many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase." And however little learning is now being applied to the advancement of religion, we may hope that days are coming when God will make great use of it to advance the kingdom of Christ.

God in His providence now seems to be doing something similar to what He did just before Christ came. The age when Christ came into the world was an age of great learning — it had reached a higher point than ever before, and yet wickedness had never been more prevalent. God was pleased to allow human learning to reach such a height before He sent the Gospel into the world so that the world might see the utter insufficiency of their own wisdom for knowing God apart from the Gospel of Christ and the teaching of His Spirit. Then, after that, in God's wisdom, 'the world through its wisdom did not come to know God,' and it pleased God 'through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.' And when the Gospel first prevailed without the help of human learning, God then saw fit to make use of learning as a servant of the Gospel. So now learning has reached a great height — far beyond what it was in the age when Christ appeared. And today the world, with all its learning and wisdom, does not know God. People seem to wander in darkness, badly deceived, stumbling and falling in matters of religion as though it were pitch dark at midnight. Trusting in their learning, they grope in broad daylight as if it were night. Educated people are deeply divided in their religious opinions, running into all manner of corrupt views and harmful errors. They refuse to submit their reason to divine revelation or believe anything beyond their comprehension. And so, thinking themselves wise, they become fools — their thinking becomes futile, they exchange the truth of God for a lie, and their foolish hearts are darkened. See Romans 1:21 and following.

But when God has sufficiently shown humanity the insufficiency of human wisdom and learning for religious purposes — and when the appointed time comes for that glorious outpouring of the Spirit of God, when He Himself by His direct influence enlightens people's minds — then we may hope that God will use the great increase of learning as a servant of religion and as a means of gloriously advancing the kingdom of His Son. At that time, human learning will become a tool for understanding the Scriptures, for clearly explaining the doctrines of Christianity, and for defending them brilliantly. There is no doubt that God in His providence has in recent times given the world the printing press and such a great increase of learning as preparation for what He intends to accomplish for His church in the approaching day of its prosperity. In this way the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous, as Proverbs 13:22 says.

Having now traced how the work of redemption has been carried on from the fall of humanity to the present day, before going further I want to make some application.

1. From what has been said, we can see strong evidence of the truth of the Christian religion and that the Scriptures are the word of God. There are three arguments for this that I will draw from what has been said.

(1) The first argument comes from the fierce and relentless opposition the wickedness of the world has always shown toward this religion. The religion professed by the church of God — from the founding of the church after the fall to the present time — has always been essentially the same. Though the outward forms have changed, the core religion the church has professed has always been the same in its essentials. The church of God has been one society from the beginning. The Christian church since Christ's ascension is clearly the same society continued from the church that existed before Christ came. The Christian church is grafted onto their root and is built on the same foundation. The revelation on which both have depended is essentially the same. The Christian church is built on the Holy Scriptures, and so was the Jewish church — though the Scriptures have now been enlarged by the addition of the New Testament. But this is still essentially the same revelation given in the Old Testament, with the New Testament revealing the subjects of divine revelation more clearly than the Old did. The sum and substance of both the Old Testament and the New is Christ and His redemption. The religion of the church of Israel was essentially the same as the religion of the Christian church, as is clear from everything that has been said. The foundation of the religion of the church of God — both before and after Christ appeared — is the same great plan of redemption by the Son of God. The church before the Israelite church was likewise the same society, professing and practicing essentially the same religion. This was true from Noah to Abraham, and also before the flood. This society of people called the church has always been built on the foundation of those revelations we have in the Scriptures — revelations that have always been essentially the same, though gradually growing. The church before the flood was built on the revelations of Christ given to Adam, Abel, and Enoch, which we read about in the opening chapters of Genesis and related passages. The church after the flood was built on the revelations given to Noah and Abraham, to Melchizedek, Isaac, and Jacob, to Joseph, Job, and other godly men recorded in Scripture, along with other revelations of the same nature. After this, the church depended on the Scriptures themselves as they gradually grew. So the church of God has always been built on the foundation of divine revelation — always the same revelation in its essentials — which is fully contained in the Holy Scriptures and, ever since the time of Moses, has been grounded in the Scriptures themselves.

The opposition made against the church of God in every age has always been against the same religion and the same revelation. Therefore, the fierce and unrelenting opposition that human corruption and wickedness have always made against this church is a strong argument for the truth of this religion and this revelation — the very foundation on which the church has always been built. Opposites can illuminate each other. We can rightly conclude that something is good by how strongly evil opposes it. We can rightly conclude that something is light by how intensely darkness hates it. From everything that has been said about the church of Christ and the holy religion it has professed, it is plain that the wickedness of the world has held a relentless hatred toward it and has mounted the most violent opposition against it.

No one can deny that the church of God has always faced fierce opposition in the world. This is clear from secular history as far back as it reaches, and before that, Scripture history gives us the same account. The church of God and its religion and worship began to be opposed in the time of Cain and Abel, and that opposition was present when the earth was filled with violence in Noah's time. After that, how the church was opposed in Egypt! How the church of Israel was always hated by the surrounding nations — as Jeremiah 12:9 expresses it: "My inheritance is like a speckled bird of prey; the birds of prey are against her all around." After the Babylonian captivity, how the church was persecuted by Antiochus Epiphanes and others! How Christ was persecuted while He was on earth! How the apostles and other Christians were persecuted by the Jews before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans! How violent that people were against the church, and how fierce was the pagan world's opposition to the Christian church after that, before the time of Constantine! How intense was their hatred of true religion! And since then, how much more violent, spiteful, and cruel has the opposition of Antichrist been against the church!

There is no other example of opposition like this. History records no other group of people that has been so hated and so relentlessly and maliciously hunted and persecuted — nothing comes close. No other religion has ever been so maligned age after age. People of other faiths have generally been allowed to practice their religion in peace and quiet, whatever their differences from their neighbors. One nation might worship one set of gods and another nation different gods, without those nations disturbing each other over it. All the hostility and opposition has been directed at the religion that the church of Christ has professed. All other religions have shown an unrelenting hatred toward this one, and from age to age people have seemed to harbor such a rage against it that they could never satisfy their cruelty. They stretched their imaginations to invent torments cruel enough — and even then were never satisfied. Their thirst for blood was never quenched.

So it is beyond dispute that this religion and these Scriptures have always been viciously opposed in the world. The only remaining question is: what has driven this opposition? Has it been the wickedness and corruption of the world? There can be no more doubt about this than about the opposition itself, if we consider how utterly without cause this cruelty has always been, who the opponents have been, and the manner in which they have opposed. The opposition has come chiefly from paganism and Roman Catholicism — both of which are clearly evil. Both are thoroughly evil, rooted in the blindness, corruption, and wickedness of humanity, as even the Deists themselves acknowledge. Natural reason shows that the religion of pagans — consisting in the worship of idols, sacrificing children to them, and practicing obscene and abominable rites — is wickedness. And the superstitions, idolatries, and overreach of the Roman church are no less contrary to the light of natural reason. From this it is clear that the opposition against the church of God has been made by wicked people. As for the opposition of the Jews in Christ's and the apostles' time, it came during one of the most corrupt periods of that nation — when the people had become deeply wicked, as even some Jewish writers of that time, including Josephus and others, explicitly state. That pure wickedness has driven this opposition is evident from the nature of the opposition itself — the extreme violence, injustice, and cruelty with which the church of God has been treated. It seems to bear the mark of malignant spiritual forces behind it.

What other reason can possibly explain why the corruption and wickedness of the world would so relentlessly set itself against the religion of Jesus Christ and against the Scriptures — unless it is precisely because they stand against wickedness and are therefore good and holy? Why would the enemies of Christ, across thousands of years, display such a deadly hatred of this religion — unless it is the cause of God? If the Scriptures were not the word of God, and if the religion of the church of Christ were not the true religion, then it would follow that it is a thoroughly wicked religion — nothing but a collection of lies and abominable deceptions invented by the enemies of God themselves. If that were the case, it would be very unlikely that the enemies of God and the wickedness of the world would have maintained such relentless and implacable hostility toward it.

(2) A second great argument that the Christian church and its religion are from God is that the church has survived all the opposition and dangers it has faced throughout history. The church of God and the true religion — so relentlessly and violently opposed, with so many determined attempts to destroy it, so often brought to the very edge of ruin and nearly swallowed up — has nonetheless survived through most of six thousand years. This most powerfully demonstrates the hand of God on behalf of the church. When you consider it, this stands as one of the greatest wonders and miracles that has ever occurred. Nothing else like it exists on the face of the earth. No other human society has endured as the church has. The old world before the flood was swept away by the deluge — yet the church of God was preserved. Satan's visible kingdom on earth was entirely overthrown at that time, but the visible kingdom of Christ has never been overthrown. All those ancient human kingdoms and empires we read about in history have long since come to an end. The kingdoms mentioned in the Old Testament — the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, and others — have all been gone for ages. The four great world empires have been overthrown one after another. The great empire of Babylon was overthrown by the Persians; the Persian empire was overthrown by the Greeks; the Greek empire was overthrown by the Romans; and finally the Roman empire fell to various barbarian nations. This is a remarkable fulfillment of Scripture's words regarding earthly things, even the greatest and most glorious of them — they have all grown old and vanished away: "A moth will eat them like a garment, and a worm will eat them like wool" — yet God's church remains.

Never have there been so many determined and powerful attempts to destroy anything as there have been to destroy the church. Other kingdoms and human societies that appeared ten times as strong as the church of God have been destroyed by a fraction of the opposition the church has faced. This shows that it is God who has been the church's protector. It is plainly evident that the church has not sustained itself by its own strength. For the most part, it has been a very weak society. They have been a small flock — so they were from ancient times. The children of Israel were but a small handful of people compared to the many who repeatedly sought their destruction. So it was in Christ's time, and at the beginning of the Christian church after His resurrection — they were only a remnant, while the entire Jewish nation was against them. So it was at the beginning of the Gentile church: they were a small number compared to the pagans who sought to destroy them. And so it was in the dark times of Antichrist before the Reformation — they were only a handful, yet their enemies could never overcome them. In most cases, the enemies of the church have not only had greater numbers on their side, but also greater power in other ways. The civil authorities have typically been on the side of the persecutors. So it was in Egypt: the civil authority sided with the Egyptians, and the church were merely their slaves, entirely in their power — and yet the Egyptians could not destroy them. So it was during the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes: all the authority was on the persecutors' side and the church was under their rule — yet all their cruelty could not wipe it out. So it was afterward under the pagan Roman government. So it was under Julian the Apostate, who did everything in his power to destroy the Christian church and restore paganism. And so it has been for the most part since the rise of Antichrist: for many ages the civil authority was entirely on the side of Antichrist, and the church seemed to be completely in their hands.

Not only has the strength of the church's enemies exceeded the church's own strength, but in most cases the church has not even used the strength it had to defend itself — instead committing itself entirely to God. This was true during the Jewish persecutions before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and during the pagan persecutions before Constantine. The Christians not only did not take up arms to defend themselves — they made no attempt at any kind of forcible resistance against their pagan persecutors. So it has been for the most part under Roman Catholic persecution as well — yet the enemies of the church have never been able to overthrow it. It stands to this very day.

This is all the more astounding when we consider how often the church has been brought to the brink of destruction — when the situation seemed hopeless, all hope seemed gone, and the church appeared to be swallowed up. In the time of the ancient world, when wickedness had so spread that only one family remained, God intervened in a wonderful way — sweeping away the wicked world with a flood and preserving His church. At the Red Sea, when Pharaoh and his army were certain their prey was caught, God appeared, destroyed them, and delivered His church. The same pattern repeated again and again in the history of the church of Israel, as has been shown. During the tenth and final pagan persecution, the persecutors boasted that they had at last finished off the Christians and destroyed the Christian church — yet in the midst of their triumph, the Christian church rose out of the dust and prevailed, and the pagan empire utterly fell before it. When the Christian church seemed ready to be swallowed up by the Arian heresy — and again when Antichrist rose and prevailed and all the world marveled at the beast, and the church for many hundreds of years was reduced to a tiny remnant, seemingly hidden, with all the power of the world bent on destroying those last traces of the church — still the enemies could never fully accomplish their aim. At last God wonderfully revived His church in the time of the Reformation, making it stand on its feet as it were in full view of its enemies and lifting it out of their reach. So again, when the Roman Catholic powers plotted the overthrow of the Reformed church and seemed on the verge of completing their plan, God intervened in a remarkable way for the deliverance of His church — as happened through the Revolution with King William. This has been the pattern again and again: after the darkest moments in the church's history, God has caused His church to flourish most gloriously.

If such a preservation of the church of God — from the beginning of the world to the present, under such extraordinary circumstances — is not sufficient to demonstrate a divine hand working on its behalf, what evidence could ever be sufficient? And if this preservation is indeed from God's hand, then God owns the church, owns its religion, and owns the revelation and the Scriptures on which it is built. It follows, then, that their religion is the true religion — God's own religion — and that the Scriptures, which they follow as their rule, are His word.

(3) A further argument for the divine authority of the Scriptures can be drawn from what has been said: that God has so thoroughly fulfilled what the Scriptures foretold. I have already noted along the way how various prophecies of Scripture were fulfilled. I will now single out just two examples of fulfilled prophecy.

(1) The first is God's preservation of His church from ruin. I have just shown what evidence this is of the divine authority of the Scriptures when considered in itself. I now speak of it as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. This preservation is abundantly foretold and promised in Scripture — particularly in the passage under discussion, where it is foretold that other things will fall, that other kingdoms and empires that set themselves in opposition will come to nothing: "A moth will eat them like a garment, and a worm will eat them like wool." And that is exactly what has happened. But Scripture also foretells that God's covenant love for His church will continue forever — and so it has proven, through so many ages and so many dangers. The same is promised in Isaiah 54:17: "No weapon that is formed against you will prosper; and every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn." And again in Isaiah 49:14-16: "But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.' Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me." The same promise appears again in Isaiah 59:21, Isaiah 43:1-2, and Zechariah 12:2-3. Christ makes the same promise when He says: "Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it." Now if this is not from God, if the Scriptures are not the word of God, and if the church of Christ built on the foundation of this word is not of God — how could those who made these predictions have known they would come true? If the church were not of God, its survival would have been extremely unlikely. The prophets foretold the great opposition and the great dangers; they foretold that other kingdoms would come to nothing and that the church would often seem almost completely overwhelmed — as could easily be shown — and yet they also foretold that the church would remain. How could they have foreseen something so unlikely without divine inspiration?

(2) The second remarkable instance of fulfilled prophecy I will mention concerns Antichrist — a great and specific opponent of Christ and His kingdom foretold in Scripture. Scripture foretold how this Antichrist would arise: not from among pagans or nations that never professed Christianity, but through the apostasy and falling away of the Christian church into a corrupt state. This is described in 2 Thessalonians 2:3: "For that day will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction." Scripture also prophesied that this Antichrist — this man of lawlessness — would establish himself within the visible church of God, claiming to hold the authority of God Himself as head of the church, as verse 4 of that same chapter states. All of this was precisely fulfilled in the church of Rome. Scripture also indicated that the rise of Antichrist would be gradual, as verse 7 says: "For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way." This too came to pass. Scripture also prophesied that this great enemy of the Christian church would be a great prince or ruler within the Roman empire — represented as a horn of the fourth beast in Daniel, which the angel himself explains is the fourth kingdom or empire on earth, as seen in the account of the little horn in Daniel chapter 7. This also came to pass. Scripture also prophesied that the seat of this great ruler — this self-proclaimed representative of God and head of His church — would be in the city of Rome itself. In Revelation 17, the spiritual prostitute, or false church, is said to sit on seven mountains or hills. Revelation 17:9 says: "The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits" — and the final verse of that chapter states explicitly, "The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth" — which was unmistakably the city of Rome at that time. This prophecy also was fulfilled in the church of Rome.

Scripture also foretold that this Antichrist would reign over peoples and multitudes and nations and languages (Revelation 17:15), and that all the world would marvel at the beast (Revelation 13:3). This too was fulfilled in the church of Rome. Scripture foretold that this Antichrist would be marked by extreme pride, claiming great things for himself: 2 Thessalonians 2:4 says he would exalt himself above everything called God or that is worshiped. Revelation 13:5 says: "There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies." In Daniel 7:20, the little horn is said to have a mouth speaking very great things, and his appearance was more imposing than his companions. This also was fulfilled in the Pope and the church of Rome. Scripture also prophesied that Antichrist would be a severe and cruel persecutor. Daniel 7:21 says the same horn made war with the saints and overpowered them. Revelation 13:7 says: "It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them." Revelation 17:6 says: "And I saw the woman drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus." This too was fulfilled in the church of Rome. Scripture foretold that Antichrist would excel in cunning and scheming. Daniel 7:8 says: "In this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man." Verse 20 similarly says: "even that horn which had eyes." This too was fulfilled in the church of Rome. Scripture foretold that the kings of Christendom would submit to Antichrist. Revelation 17:12-13 says: "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast." This also was fulfilled regarding the Roman church. Scripture foretold that Antichrist would perform false miracles and deceptive wonders. 2 Thessalonians 2:9 says: "his coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders." Revelation 13:13-14 says: "He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast." This too was fulfilled in the church of Rome. The fire coming down from heaven appears to refer to their excommunications, which were feared like fire from heaven. Scripture foretold that Antichrist would forbid marriage and command abstaining from certain foods. 1 Timothy 4:3 says: "men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth." This also was precisely fulfilled in the church of Rome. Scripture foretold that Antichrist would be extremely wealthy and attain great earthly splendor and glory. Revelation 17:4 says: "The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup." See also Revelation 18:7, 12-13, 16. This too was fulfilled in the church of Rome. Scripture foretold that Antichrist would forbid buying and selling to any who did not bear his mark. Revelation 13:17 says: "no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name." This also was fulfilled in the church of Rome. Scripture foretold that Antichrist would traffic in the souls of men. Revelation 18:13, in listing the articles of his merchandise, includes the souls of men as one of them. This too was precisely fulfilled in that same church. Scripture also foretold that Antichrist would not permit the bodies of God's people to be buried. Revelation 11:8-9 says: "And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city — and those — will not permit their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb." This also was literally fulfilled in the church of Rome. I could mention many other things foretold about Antichrist — that great enemy of the church spoken of so often in Scripture — and show how they were all fulfilled with remarkable precision in the Pope and the church of Rome.

How powerful an argument this is that the Scriptures are the word of God!

2. A second conclusion we can draw from what has been said is this: it teaches us what the spirit of true Christians is — a spirit willing to suffer. Since God has so ordered things in His providence that His church should be in a suffering condition for so long — indeed, for the greater part of so many ages, often suffering extremely — we can conclude that the spirit of the true church is a spirit willing to endure suffering. Otherwise God would never have arranged so much suffering for the church. Doubtless God shapes the circumstances of the church to match the spirit He has given her. From what has been said, we see how many and how great the sufferings of the Christian church have been throughout most of these 1,700 years. No wonder, then, that Christ so repeatedly impressed on His disciples that if anyone would follow Him, 'he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.'

We can see further that the spirit of the true church of Christ is a suffering spirit by looking at how the church has actually responded under persecution. Under those terrible persecutions through which she has passed, the church consistently chose to endure dreadful torments — to give up everything for the pearl of great price, to suffer all that her bitterest enemies could inflict — rather than renounce Christ and His religion. History provides us with a great number of remarkable examples and sets before us a great cloud of witnesses. This powerfully confirms that we must be people willing to give everything up for Christ — to surrender our own comfort, our worldly profit and reputation, and our all, for Him and for the Gospel.

Let us ask ourselves: are we of such a spirit? How does it prove when tested? Do our lives demonstrate that we are willing to deny ourselves, give up our worldly interests, and pass through the trials God's providence calls us to? How small our trials are compared to those of many fellow Christians in earlier ages! On this point I apply the words of Jeremiah 12:5: "If you have run with footmen and they have tired you out, then how can you compete with horses?" If you have been unable to endure the light trials to which you have been called in this age and in this land, how would you endure the far greater trials the church has been called to in earlier ages? Every true Christian carries the spirit of a martyr and would suffer as a martyr if God's providence called them to it.

3. From what has been said, we have strong reason to confidently expect the fulfillment of everything that Scripture has foretold but has not yet come to pass. Scripture foretells many great things still to be fulfilled before the end of the world. These can seem to face great obstacles, and we can seem very far at present from the state Scripture foretells. But we have every reason to expect that these things — however seemingly difficult — will yet be accomplished in their appointed time. We see how faithfully God has kept His promises up to this point. How true God has been to His church, remembering His mercy from generation to generation! We can say of what God has done for His church so far what Joshua said to the children of Israel in Joshua 23:14: "Not one word of all the good words which the Lord your God spoke concerning you has failed." Everything has come to pass in accordance with God's word. This should strengthen our faith in His promises, encourage us, and stir us to earnest prayer for the accomplishment of the great and glorious things that still remain to be fulfilled.

It has already been shown how the success of Christ's redemption was carried on through various periods down to the present time.

Fourth, I now turn to show how the success of Christ's redemption will be carried forward from the present time until Antichrist falls and Satan's visible kingdom on earth is destroyed. For this period of time, we have nothing to guide us but the prophecies of Scripture. For most of the time from the fall of humanity to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, we had Scripture history to guide us. From that point to the present, we had prophecy together with its fulfillment in God's providence, as recorded in human history. But from here forward, we have only prophecy to guide us. I will pass over things that are merely speculative or inferred from uncertain interpretations and focus only on what is more clear and evident.

We do not know what specific events will occur before that glorious work of God's Spirit begins — the work through which Satan's kingdom is to be overthrown. Most theologians agree that few things, if any, are foretold to occur before the beginning of that glorious work of God. Some believe that the killing of the witnesses described in Revelation 11:7-8 has not yet taken place. Theologians also disagree about the seven bowls in Revelation 16 — how many have already been poured out and how many remain. However, a recent commentator I have mentioned before appears to make it quite plain that all but two have already been poured out: the sixth on the great river Euphrates, and the seventh into the air. I will not here examine in detail what the pouring out of the sixth bowl on the river Euphrates means — the preparation of the way for the kings of the east — except to say that it appears to be something that directly prepares the way for the destruction of spiritual Babylon, just as the drying up of the literal river Euphrates that ran through ancient Babylon prepared the way for the kings of the Medes and Persians — the kings of the east — to enter under the city walls and destroy it.

Whatever this refers to, it does not appear to be something that will be accomplished before the work of God's Spirit begins — the work by which, as it advances, Satan's visible kingdom on earth will be completely overthrown. Therefore I will proceed directly to consider what Scripture reveals about God's own work by which He will bring about this great event, since this is the next certain thing the prophecies of Scripture point us toward.

First, I want to note two things about it in general.

1. From Scripture we have reason to conclude that just before this work of God begins, the state of religion in the world will be very dark. This has been the pattern before every great revival of religion up to this point. It was so when Christ came — it was a deeply corrupt time among the Jews — and it was also a very dark time just before the Reformation. Beyond this, Scripture seems to foretell that when Christ comes to establish His kingdom in the world, it will be a time of very little true faith. This is implied in Luke 18:8, where Christ, speaking about His coming to encourage His elect who cry out to Him day and night, adds: "However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" This suggests that unbelief will be widespread just before Christ's coming to avenge His suffering church. While Christ's coming at the final judgment is not excluded from this passage, it seems to have particular reference to His coming to deliver His church from their long state of suffering and persecution — which is fully accomplished only at His coming to destroy Antichrist. That is the time when the cry of the elect in Revelation 6:10 — "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" — will be answered, and when the rejoicing of Revelation 18:20 will be fulfilled: "Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her."

It is already a very dark time for the state of religion — the very kind of time prophesied in that passage, when there is little faith and unbelief widely prevails on earth. We see a remarkable fulfillment of 2 Peter 3:3: "Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts." And of Jude 17-18: "But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, 'In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.'" Whether things will grow even darker before this glorious work of God begins — and how much darker — we cannot say.

2. There is no reason from God's word to expect anything other than that this great work of God will unfold gradually, even if very swiftly. Just as the children of Israel returned from Babylonian captivity gradually — one group at a time — and gradually rebuilt their city and temple; and just as the pagan Roman empire was brought down by a gradual, though swift, spread of the Gospel — so too, though many things suggest that God's work will be extremely rapid and that great and wonderful events will occur with sudden force, and though some parts of Satan's visible kingdom will fall very suddenly, it will not all be accomplished at once by some great miracle the way the resurrection of the dead will occur instantly at the end of the world. Instead, this is a work that will be accomplished through ordinary means — through the preaching of the Gospel and the regular means of grace — and so it will come about gradually. Some will be converted and will become instruments in converting others. God will first pour out His Spirit to raise up instruments, and then those instruments will be used and blessed. No doubt one nation will be enlightened and converted after another, one false religion and false form of worship overthrown after another. In Daniel 2, the stone cut from the mountain without human hands gradually grows. Christ teaches us similarly: the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32), and like yeast hidden in three measures of flour (verse 33). The same picture appears in Mark 4:26-28 and in the vision of the water flowing from the sanctuary in Ezekiel 47. Scripture suggests there will be several successive great and glorious events through which this glorious work will be accomplished. The angel speaking to the prophet Daniel about those glorious times mentions two distinct glorious periods, at the end of each of which something glorious would be accomplished. Daniel 12:11: "From the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days." Then the following verse adds: "How blessed is he who keeps waiting and attains to the 1,335 days" — suggesting that something very glorious would be accomplished at the end of the first period, but something far more glorious at the end of the second.

I now proceed to show how this glorious work will be accomplished.

1. The Spirit of God will be poured out gloriously for a wonderful revival and spread of true religion. This great work will be accomplished not by the authority of rulers, nor by the wisdom of learned people, but by God's Holy Spirit. Zechariah 4:6-7: "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. What are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain; and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of 'Grace, grace to it!'" The prophet Ezekiel, speaking of this great work of God, says in chapter 39:29: "I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel, declares the Lord God." We do not know where this outpouring of the Spirit will begin, or whether it will begin in many places at once, or whether what has already occurred may be a forerunner and beginning of it.

When this outpouring of the Spirit begins, it will quickly bring great multitudes to turn away from the vice and wickedness that now so generally prevails, and it will cause the genuine faith that is now so despised and mocked in the world to revive. The work of conversion will break out and spread in a way never seen before — in keeping with what Isaiah 44:3-5 describes. God, by pouring out His Holy Spirit, will equip people to be powerful instruments in carrying on this work, filling them with knowledge and wisdom and burning zeal for the advance of Christ's kingdom, the salvation of souls, and the spread of the Gospel throughout the world. As a result, the Gospel will begin to be preached with far greater clarity and power than ever before. This great work of God will be accomplished through preaching, as Revelation 14:6-8 portrays: before Babylon falls, the Gospel will be powerfully preached and spread throughout the world.

This was foreshadowed in ancient Israel by the sounding of the silver trumpets at the beginning of the Year of Jubilee. Leviticus 25:9: "You shall then sound a ram's horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land." The glorious times that are approaching are in a sense the church's jubilee, which will be announced by the sounding of the silver trumpet of the Gospel — as foretold in Isaiah 27:13: "It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem." There will be a glorious outpouring of the Spirit accompanying this clear and powerful preaching of the Gospel. It will make the preaching effective in reviving those central doctrines of Christianity that are now mostly ridiculed in the world, in turning many away from heresy, from Roman Catholicism, and from other false religions, and also in turning many away from vice and irreverence — bringing vast multitudes savingly to Christ.

That work of conversion will advance in a wonderful way and spread more and more. Many will stream together to the goodness of the Lord, coming in crowds — one multitude after another flowing in continually — as Isaiah 60:4-5 describes: "Lift up your eyes round about and see; they all gather together, they come to you. Your sons will come from afar, and your daughters will be carried in the arms." "Then you will see and be radiant, and your heart will thrill and rejoice." And so verse 8: "Who are these who fly like a cloud and like the doves to their lattices?" Since Revelation foretells that the Gospel will be preached to every tribe, tongue, nation, and people before the fall of Antichrist, we may expect that it will soon bear glorious fruit, bringing in multitudes from every nation. It will spread with wonderful speed, and vast numbers will be brought in almost at once — as Isaiah 66:7-9 describes.

2. This outpouring of the Spirit of God will not bring about the overthrow of Satan's visible kingdom without first provoking a violent and fierce opposition. Scripture makes this plain: when Christ comes in this glorious way and the destruction of Antichrist draws near, and Satan's kingdom begins to totter and appears on the verge of collapse, the powers of the kingdom of darkness will rise up and fight with all their might to prevent it from being overthrown. After the pouring out of the sixth bowl — which was to dry up the river Euphrates and prepare the way for the destruction of spiritual Babylon — Revelation 16 depicts the powers of hell becoming greatly alarmed and rousing themselves to oppose the kingdom of Christ, before the seventh and final bowl is poured out to deliver them their complete and final defeat. The sixth bowl is poured out in verse 12. After this, the apostle John tells us in the following verses that "three unclean spirits like frogs" go out to the kings of the whole earth to gather them for "the battle on the great day of God, the Almighty." This appears to be Satan's final and greatest effort to save his kingdom from destruction — though he may make an equally great effort at the very end of the world to try to recover it.

When the Spirit begins to be poured out so gloriously, and the devil sees multitudes streaming to Christ in one nation after another — the foundations of his kingdom undermined daily, its pillars cracking, the whole structure on the verge of swift collapse — all of hell will be thrown into alarm. Satan has always dreaded the overthrow of his kingdom. He has been working against it ever since Christ's ascension, and has done great things to fortify and preserve it since the days of Constantine the Great. To this end he established those two mighty kingdoms of Antichrist and Muhammad, and has introduced all the heresies, superstitions, and corrupt opinions that fill the world. But when he sees everything beginning to fail, it will rouse him intensely. If Satan dreaded being driven out of the Roman empire, how much more will he dread being driven out of the entire world!

It appears that in this final great opposition made against the church in defense of Satan's kingdom, all the forces of Antichrist, Islam, and paganism will be united — indeed all the forces of Satan's visible kingdom from across the entire world. This is why it is said that "the spirits of demons" will go out to "the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty." These spirits are said to come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet — meaning the spirit of Roman Catholicism, the spirit of Islam, and the spirit of paganism will all be united. By the beast is meant Antichrist; in Revelation, the dragon typically refers to the devil as he reigns over his pagan kingdom; and the false prophet sometimes refers to the Pope and his clergy — but here the reference appears to be to Muhammad, whom his followers call a great prophet of God. This will be the death throes of the ancient serpent — a battle in which he will fight like one who is nearly desperate.

We do not know the specific form this opposition will take. It is described in Scripture as a battle — called the battle of the great day of God Almighty. There will be in some form a mighty struggle between Satan's kingdom and the church, likely involving every possible form of opposition. There will certainly be great opposition by external force, as the princes of the world who are on the devil's side will join forces together — as Revelation 19:19 says: "the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war." There will also likely be fierce opposition through clever argumentation and human reasoning, great persecution in many places, vicious attacks of slander, and cunning scheming. The devil will press both his intelligence and his strength to the absolute limit. Demons and those in their kingdom will be stirred up everywhere to mount a united and violent opposition against the holy religion they see advancing so powerfully in the world. But,

3. Christ and His church will win a complete and total victory in this battle. Their enemies will be utterly routed and overthrown in this final effort. When the powers of hell and earth are gathered against Christ, and His armies come forth against them by His word and Spirit to fight — how magnificent and glorious is the description of this coming forth of Christ and His church to battle in Revelation 19:11 and following! To convey the greatness of the victory and the completeness of the overthrow of their enemies, verses 17-18 describe all the birds of heaven called together to eat the great supper — the flesh of kings, captains, and mighty men. Then in the following verses the victory and overthrow are described.

In this victory the seventh bowl will be poured out. Revelation 16:16 speaks of the great army gathered against Christ: "And they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon." Then: "Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, 'It is done.'" And now it is done for Satan and his followers. When this victory is won, everything is in effect accomplished. Satan's final and greatest opposition is crushed. All his plans are ruined. The pillars of his kingdom are shattered, and the whole structure collapses. The devil is completely defeated and at a total loss for what to do. He watches his Antichristian, Islamic, and pagan kingdoms throughout the world come crashing down around him. He and his most powerful instruments are taken captive. Now what the church of God had long waited and hoped for — what they had so earnestly cried out to God for, saying "How long, O Lord, holy and true?" — has finally come.

The angel who stood with his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the earth lifted his hand to heaven and swore by Him who lives forever and ever — who created heaven and everything in it, and the earth and everything in it, and the sea and everything in it — that when the seventh angel sounded, there would be no more delay. Now that time has come. Now the seventh trumpet sounds and the seventh bowl is poured out together — signifying that everything is finished regarding the overthrow of Satan's visible kingdom on earth. This victory will be by far the greatest ever won over Satan and his followers. By this blow, the stone cut from the mountain without human hands strikes the image of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay and shatters it all to pieces. It is the finishing blow to the image, which becomes like the chaff on a summer threshing floor.

In this victory there will be a most glorious display of divine power. Christ will appear in the character of King of kings and Lord of lords, as in Revelation 19:16. He will shatter His enemies — even the strongest and proudest of them — like a potter's vessel broken into fragments. Strength will come through weakness, and Christ will cause His church to thresh the mountains, as in Isaiah 41:15: "Behold, I have made you a new, sharp threshing sledge with double edges; you will thresh the mountains and pulverize them, and will make the hills like chaff." Then the promise of Isaiah 42:13-15 will be fulfilled.

4. Following this victory, Satan's visible kingdom on earth will be destroyed. Once Satan is defeated in this final battle, the church of Christ will find the remaining work straightforward — like how Joshua and the children of Israel, after winning that great victory over the five kings of the Amorites when the sun stood still and God sent great hailstones on their enemies, went from city to city burning them with fire, easily subduing all the cities and territory those kings had ruled. So it was also after the other great battle Joshua fought against the large coalition at the waters of Merom. In the same way, after this glorious victory of Christ and His church over their enemies and over the chief powers of Satan's kingdom, they will destroy that kingdom and all its cities and territories. After this the word of God will advance through the earth with swift and irresistible progress — for when the seventh bowl is poured out, Revelation 16:19-20 says the cities of the nations fell, every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. Once the stone cut from the mountain without human hands has shattered the image to pieces, the remaining traces of it are easily swept away. The wind will carry it off like chaff from a summer threshing floor. Because Satan's visible kingdom on earth will be destroyed by this seventh bowl, it is said to be poured out into the air — which Scripture identifies as the special seat of his dominion, since he is called "the prince of the power of the air" in Ephesians 2:2. Now comes the time of punishing Leviathan, the piercing serpent, spoken of in Isaiah 27:1: "In that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, with His fierce and great and mighty sword, even Leviathan the twisted serpent; and He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea."

Regarding this overthrow of Satan's visible kingdom on earth, I will: (1) describe what this overthrow will mainly consist of, and (2) describe the scope and extent of it.

1. I will describe what this overthrow of Satan's kingdom will chiefly consist of. I will list the specific elements it will include, without claiming to determine in what order they will occur, which will happen first, or whether they will be accomplished together.

(1) Heresy, unbelief, and superstition among those raised under the light of the Gospel will be abolished. Socinianism, Arianism, Quakerism, and Arminianism will come to an end. Deism — now so bold and aggressive in its unbelief — will be crushed, driven away, and will vanish to nothing. All will agree on the same great and central doctrines of the Gospel, in keeping with Zechariah 14:9: "And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one." All false forms of worship will also be abolished, and all will agree in worshiping God in His own appointed ways, as Jeremiah 32:39 promises: "And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them."

(2) The kingdom of Antichrist will be completely overthrown. His power and dominion has already been greatly reduced by the bowl poured out on his throne at the Reformation — but then it will be utterly destroyed. The proclamation will go forth: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great." When the seventh angel sounds, the time, times, and half a time will be completed, and there will be no more delay. Then the things written in Revelation 18 about spiritual Babylon — that great city of Rome, the idolatrous Roman power that has for so many ages been the great enemy of the Christian church, first under paganism and then under the Pope — will be accomplished. That proud city that lifted herself up to heaven and above God Himself in her pride and arrogance, that cruel and bloodthirsty city, will be brought down to the ground. Isaiah 26:5 will then be fulfilled: "For He has brought low those who dwell on high, the unassailable city; He lays it low, He lays it low to the ground, He casts it to the dust." She will be thrown down with violence, like a great millstone hurled into the sea — never to be found again — and will become a dwelling place of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a cage of every unclean and detestable bird. She will be stripped of all her glory, riches, and adornments, cast out like a rotting branch, and trampled down like mud in the streets. All her cunning and craftiness, in which she so abounded, will not save her. God will cause His people — who have been so long persecuted by her — to place their foot on the neck of Antichrist, making him their footstool. All the power and cleverness of that great prostitute will fail her, and there will be no one to help her. The kings of the earth, who previously gave their power and strength to the beast, will now turn against the prostitute — making her desolate and naked, devouring her flesh, and burning her with fire (Revelation 17:16).

(3) The other great kingdom Satan has raised up against the Christian church — his Islamic kingdom — will be completely overthrown. The locusts and horsemen in Revelation 9 have their appointed and limited time, and the false prophet will be seized and destroyed. Though Islam has spread so vastly throughout the world and is sustained by a great empire, this smoke that rose from the bottomless pit will be utterly dispersed before the light of that glorious day, and the Islamic empire will fall at the sound of the great trumpet that will then be blown.

(4) Jewish unbelief will also be overthrown at that time. Although the Jewish people have been stubbornly rejecting Christ for more than seventeen hundred years, and examples of conversion among them have been extremely rare since the destruction of Jerusalem — and though they have continued, against the plain teaching of their own prophets, to approve of their ancestors' act of crucifying Christ — when that day comes, the thick veil that blinds their eyes will be removed (2 Corinthians 3:16). Divine grace will melt and transform their hardened hearts: "They will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn" (Zechariah 12:10 and following). Then the house of Israel will be saved. The Jewish people across all their communities will cast off their long-held unbelief, have their hearts wonderfully changed, and be ashamed of their past rejection and stubbornness. They will stream together to the blessed Jesus — with penitence, humility, and joy — owning Him as their glorious King and only Savior, and with all their hearts and with one voice declaring His praise to other nations.

Nothing is more clearly foretold than this national conversion of the Jews, as described in Romans 11. There are also many Old Testament passages that can only be interpreted in this sense, which I cannot take the time to mention here. Beyond the prophecies of the calling of the Jews, there is a remarkable confirmation in God's providence — something like a continual miracle: the Jewish people have been preserved as a distinct nation even in their scattered condition for more than sixteen hundred years. Nothing else like it exists in the world. There is undoubtedly a remarkable hand of providence in it. When the Jews are called, that ancient people who were alone God's people for so long will be God's people again — never to be rejected. They will be gathered into one fold together with the Gentiles. The remnants of the ten tribes, wherever they may be, will also be brought in with their brothers the Jews, even though they have been cut off for much longer. The prophecies of Hosea especially seem to point to this: in the future glorious age of the church, both Judah and Ephraim — Judah and the ten tribes — will be brought in together and united as one people, as they were under David and Solomon. See Hosea 1:11, the last chapter of Hosea, and other parts of his prophecy.

We do not know when the conversion of the nation of Israel will take place, but this much Scripture allows us to determine: it will occur before the full glory of the Gentile church has been accomplished, since Romans 11:12 and 15 say that the Jews' inclusion will be like life from the dead for the Gentiles.

(5) Satan's pagan kingdom will also be overthrown at that time. Paganism now covers a large part of the earth — there are thought to be more pagans in the world today than members of all other religions combined: Jews, Muslims, and Christians. But then the pagan nations will be enlightened with the glorious Gospel. A wonderful spirit of compassion for them and zeal for their instruction and conversion will fill many people, and many will go out carrying the Gospel to them. The joyful sound will be heard among them, and the Sun of Righteousness will rise with His glorious light shining on those vast regions of the earth that have been covered with pagan darkness for many thousands of years — many of them doubtless since the times of Moses and Abraham — and have lain so long in a miserable condition under the cruel tyranny of the devil, who has all this time blinded and deceived them, dominated them, and made prey of them from generation to generation. Now the good news of the Gospel will sound among them, and they will be brought out of darkness into wonderful light.

God has promised that paganism will be destroyed in many places. He has said that "the gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under the heavens" (Jeremiah 10:11), and that He will completely abolish idols (Isaiah 2:18). Then the many nations of Africa — peoples who now seem to live in a condition scarcely above animals, and in many respects below them — will be enlightened with glorious light and delivered from all their darkness, becoming a civilized, Christian, educated, and holy people. Then the vast continent of America — which in so much of it is now covered with savage ignorance and cruelty — will be covered everywhere with the glorious light of the Gospel and Christian love. Instead of worshiping the devil as they now do, they will serve God, and praises will be sung everywhere to the Lord Jesus Christ, the blessed Savior of the world. The same can be expected in that great and populous part of the world, the East Indies, which are now mostly inhabited by people who worship the devil. And so throughout the vast land of Greater Tartary, and in those regions toward the north and south poles that have been more recently discovered — where people now differ very little from animals except in that they worship the devil, which animals do not — the kingdom of Christ will be established. The same will be true of those countries that have not yet been discovered. All of this will gloriously fulfill Isaiah 35:1: "The wilderness and the desert will be glad, and the Arabah will rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it will blossom profusely." See also verses 6-7.

2. Having described what this overthrow of Satan's kingdom will consist of, I now turn to the second point: its universal scope. Satan's visible kingdom will be overthrown, and the kingdom of Christ established on its ruins, everywhere throughout the entire inhabited world. Then the promise made to Abraham will be fulfilled: "In you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Christ will become the desire of all nations, as Haggai 2:7 declares. The kingdom of Christ will be extended to all nations and the entire earth in the most full and literal sense. Many passages of Scripture cannot be understood in any other way. What could be more universal than Isaiah 11:9: "For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea"? This is equivalent to saying: just as no part of the seabed is without water covering it, so no part of humanity will be without the knowledge of God. Isaiah 45:22 likewise foretells that all the ends of the earth will look to Christ and be saved. And to show that these words are to be understood in the most universal sense, the following verse adds: "I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance."

The most universal language is also used in Daniel 7:27: "Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One." The phrase "under the whole heaven" encompasses all without exception.

When the devil was cast out of the Roman empire — which was the greatest and most dominant part of the world, while the remaining nations were comparatively small and weak — it was depicted as Satan being cast out of heaven to the earth (Revelation 12:9). But Revelation 20:1-3 depicts him being cast out of the earth itself and shut up in hell. This is by far the greatest revolution that has ever taken place. That is why Revelation 16:17-18 says that when the seventh bowl was poured out, "there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty." This is the third great act of divine providence that Scripture compares to Christ's coming to judgment. So it is in Revelation 16:15: after the sixth bowl, after the devil's armies were gathered for their great battle, and just before Christ's glorious victory over them, it says, "Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame." It is also called Christ's coming in 2 Thessalonians 2:8: speaking of Antichrist, "Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming." See also Daniel 7:13-14, where Christ's coming to establish His kingdom on earth and destroy Antichrist is described as coming "with the clouds of heaven." This event is more like Christ's final coming to judgment than any of the previous events that are similarly described, for two reasons.

(1) This event is so much greater and more universal in scope, making it more like the day of judgment, which concerns the entire world.

(2) Because of the great spiritual resurrection of the church of God that will accompany it — more closely resembling the general resurrection at the end of the world than any previous event. This spiritual resurrection is the one described as accompanied by judgment in Revelation 20:4.

(3) Because of the terrible judgments and fearful destruction that will be executed on God's enemies at that time. Without doubt, this event will be accompanied by a visible and awesome display of God's power against blasphemers, Deists, hardened heretics, and other enemies of Christ — destroying them with striking tokens of divine wrath and judgment. In particular, this event will be accompanied by terrible judgments on Antichrist, and the cruel persecutors connected to the Roman church will be destroyed in the most solemn and awful manner — compared in Daniel 7:11 to casting Antichrist into the burning flame, and in Revelation 19:20 to casting him alive into the lake burning with fire and brimstone.

Then that cruel, persecuting church will suffer judgments from God far more dreadful than the cruelest persecutions she inflicted on the saints, in keeping with Revelation 18:6-7. The judgments God will execute on the enemies of the church are so severe that they are compared to God raining enormous hailstones from heaven on them, each weighing about a talent, as described with the pouring out of the seventh bowl in Revelation 16:21: "And huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe." Now will come the treading of the wine press spoken of in Revelation 14:19-20.

(4) This event will put an end to the church's suffering state and will be accompanied by glorious and joyful praise. The church's afflicted condition has been long — continuing, with only brief interruptions, from the resurrection of Christ to this point. But now a final end will be put to her suffering state. After this, near the end of the world, the church will face a severe threat — but Revelation 20:3 says it will be only for a short time. Just as the church's periods of rest before the long day of affliction ends are brief, whatever suffering she experiences after this will be very brief. In every other sense, the day of the church's affliction and persecution will come to a final end. Scripture speaks of this time in many places as the end of the church's suffering state. Isaiah 51:22 records God saying to His church about this time: "Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling, the chalice of My anger; you will never drink it again." Then the proclamation of Isaiah 40:1-2 will go out to the church: "Comfort, O comfort My people, says your God. Speak kindly to Jerusalem; and call out to her, that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed, that she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Isaiah 54:8-9 also speaks of this time. So does Isaiah 60:20: "The Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning will be over." And Zephaniah 3:15: "The Lord has taken away His judgments against you, He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you will fear disaster no more."

The time before this had been the church's sowing season — when she sowed in tears and in blood. But now is her harvest, when she will come again rejoicing, carrying her sheaves with her. Now the long labor of the woman clothed with the sun has come to an end. She has brought forth her son — for this glorious establishment of Christ's kingdom throughout the world is what the church had been in labor for, through such terrible suffering across so many ages. As Isaiah 26:17 says: "As the pregnant woman approaches the time to give birth, she writhes and cries out in her labor pains, thus were we before You, O Lord." See also Isaiah 60:20 and Isaiah 61:10-11. Now the church will forget her sorrow, for a son has been born into the world. Now her joyful praise and triumph will follow. Her praises will rise to God from every part of the earth, as Isaiah 42:10-12 describes. And praise will fill not only the earth but also heaven. The church on earth and the church in heaven will both rejoice and praise God gloriously, as with one heart. Without doubt it will be a time of extraordinary joy and praise among the holy prophets and apostles and all the saints in heaven. Revelation 18:20: "Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced judgment for you against her." See how universal these praises will be in Isaiah 44:23: "Shout for joy, O heavens, for the Lord has done it! Shout joyfully, you lower parts of the earth; break forth into a shout of joy, you mountains, O forest, and every tree in it; for the Lord has redeemed Jacob and in Israel He shows forth His glory." See also the great joyful praises sung to God on this occasion by the universal church in heaven and on earth in the opening of Revelation 19.

(5) This event is more like Christ's coming to judgment than any before it, because it so thoroughly ends the former state of the world and introduces the everlasting kingdom of Christ. Satan's visible kingdom — which has stood since the building of Babel — will be overthrown. The old heavens and old earth will pass away to a greater extent than ever before, and the new heavens and new earth will be established in far greater glory than at any prior time.

I have now shown how the success of Christ's purchase was carried forward through the afflicted state of the Christian church, from Christ's resurrection until Antichrist falls and Satan's visible kingdom on earth is overthrown. I now turn to the second part.

Second, I will show how the success of redemption will be carried forward through the period when the Christian church will for the most part be in a state of peace and prosperity. To do this, I will:

1. Describe the prosperous state of the church through most of this period.

2. Describe the great apostasy that will occur near the end of it, and how the church will be severely threatened by her enemies for a brief time.

I. I will first speak of the prosperous state of the church through most of this period. In doing so, I will: (1) describe this prosperous state of the church, and (2) say something about its duration.

First, I will describe the prosperous state the church will be in.

In general, I want to note two things.

1. This period is most properly the time of the kingdom of heaven on earth. Though the kingdom of heaven was established in some measure after Christ's resurrection, and more fully in the time of Constantine, and though the Christian church in every age is called the kingdom of heaven — still, the period we are discussing is the primary fulfillment of the kingdom of heaven on earth. It is the time the prophecies of Daniel are mainly pointing to when they speak of the kingdom of heaven, and it is from these prophecies that the Jews drew the phrase "kingdom of heaven."

2. This is also the primary fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies that speak of the glorious age of the Gospel in the latter days. Though those prophecies have already seen glorious fulfillment in the time of the apostles and in the time of Constantine, the language used is too elevated to be fully satisfied by anything other than what will follow the fall of Antichrist. This period is most properly the glorious day of the Gospel. All previous periods are only forerunners and preparation for this one. Previous times were the sowing season; this is the harvest. But more specifically:

(1) It will be a time of great light and knowledge. Our present day is dark by comparison. The light of that glorious time will be so great that it is portrayed as a day with no night — no evening, no darkness. Zechariah 14:6-7: "In that day there will be no light; the luminaries will dwindle. For it will be a unique day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but it will come about that at evening time there will be light." It is further described as though God would give His church such light that it would so far surpass the glory of the sun and moon that those luminaries would themselves be put to shame. Isaiah 24:23: "Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and His glory will be before His elders."

A kind of veil is now cast over most of the world, keeping people in darkness — but then that veil will be destroyed. Isaiah 25:7: "And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, even the veil which is stretched over all nations." Then all countries and nations — even those that are now most ignorant — will be filled with light and knowledge. Great knowledge will prevail everywhere. It may well be hoped that many people of African and Native American descent will then be theologians, and that excellent books will be published in Africa, in Ethiopia, in Tartary, and other places now considered remote or uneducated. And not only scholars, but people of ordinary education will be very knowledgeable in religious things. Isaiah 32:3-4: "Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, and the ears of those who hear will listen. The mind of the hasty will discern the truth." Knowledge will then be widespread among all kinds of people, in keeping with Jeremiah 31:34: "They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them."

There will then be a wonderful untangling of the difficult doctrines of religion and a clearing up of apparent contradictions. Crooked things will be made straight, rough places will be made smooth, and darkness will become light before God's people. Difficulties in Scripture will be resolved, and wonderful things will be discovered in the word of God that were never seen before. This great unveiling of previously hidden things in religion seems to be compared to removing the veil and revealing the ark of the covenant to the people — which previously was kept in the most hidden part of the temple and was never seen by them. So when the seventh angel sounds and it is proclaimed "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ," it adds that "the temple of God which is in heaven was opened; and the ark of His covenant appeared in His temple." So great will be the increase of knowledge in this time that heaven will be as it were opened to the church of God on earth.

(2) It will be a time of great holiness. Genuine, living faith will prevail and flourish everywhere. Religion will not be the empty profession it mostly is today — instead, holiness of heart and life will be abundant. Those times will be an exception to what Christ says about the ordinary state of the church — that few will be saved — for now holiness will become widespread. Isaiah 60:21: "Then all your people will be righteous." This does not mean there will be no one remaining outside of Christ — but visible wickedness will be suppressed everywhere, and genuine holiness will become the norm, though not absolute. It will be a remarkable time not only for the sheer number of godly people, but for the depth of their grace. Isaiah 65:20: "No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days; for the youth will die at the age of one hundred, and the one who does not reach the age of one hundred will be thought accursed." And Zechariah 12:8: "In that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them." Holiness will be written, as it were, on everything — on all people's ordinary work and daily activities, and on the common things of life. All will be dedicated to God and used for holy purposes. Everything will be done to the glory of God. Isaiah 23:18: "Her profit and her pay will be set apart to the Lord." And Zechariah 14:20-21. As God's people will be outstanding in holiness of heart, so they will also be outstanding in holiness of life and practice.

(3) It will be a time when religion is supreme in every respect in the world. It will be held in great honor and esteem. The saints have for the most part been kept down throughout history, with wicked people holding the reins of power — but now the saints will be on top. "Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of all the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One" (Daniel 7:27). "And they will reign upon the earth" (Revelation 5:10). "And they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years" (Revelation 20:4). In that day, people of genuine piety and faith will be the ones chiefly elevated to positions of trust and authority. Living faith will take possession of kings, palaces, and thrones, and those who hold the highest positions will be holy men. Isaiah 49:23: "Kings will be your guardians, and their princesses your nurses." Kings will devote all their power, glory, and wealth to advancing the honor of Christ and the good of His church. Isaiah 60:16: "You will also nurse at the breast of kings." The great people of the world, wealthy merchants, and others of influence will devote everything to Christ and His church. Psalm 45:12: "The daughter of Tyre will come with a gift; the rich among the people will seek your favor."

(4) Those will be times of great peace and love. There will be universal peace and goodwill among the nations of the world, in place of the confusion, wars, and bloodshed that have filled every age until now. Isaiah 2:4: "And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war." All the instruments of war are pictured as having become useless. Psalm 46:9: "He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire." See also Zechariah 9:10. Then all nations will dwell quietly and safely, without fear of any enemy. Isaiah 32:18: "Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation, and in secure dwellings and in undisturbed resting places." Also Zechariah 8:10-11.

Then malice, envy, hatred, and revenge will be suppressed everywhere, and peace and love will prevail between people — which is most beautifully described in Isaiah 11:6-10. Peace and love will flourish between rulers and those they govern. Rulers will love their people and do everything in their power to seek their greatest good, while the people will love their rulers, joyfully submit to them, and give them the honor they deserve. There will be a wonderful love between pastors and their people as well. Malachi 4:6: "He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers." The Christian virtues of gentleness, forgiveness, patience, joy, kindness, and brotherly love — those excellent fruits of the Spirit — will flourish in a remarkable way. People's character and disposition will be like that of the Lamb of God, the lovely Jesus. The body will be conformed to its Head.

Then all the world will be united in one harmonious society. All nations in every part of the earth, on every side of the globe, will be bound together in sweet harmony. All parts of God's church will encourage and advance the spiritual good of one another. A connection will be maintained between all parts of the world for that purpose, and the art of navigation — which is now used so largely to serve human greed and pride, and is so often practiced by morally corrupt people — will be dedicated to God and used for holy purposes, as Isaiah 60:5-9 describes. It will be a time when people will express their love for one another abundantly, not only in words but in acts of generosity, as we learn from Isaiah 32:5: "No longer will the fool be called noble, or the rogue be spoken of as generous" — and verse 8: "But the noble man devises noble plans; and by noble plans he stands."

(5) It will be a time of excellent order in the church of Christ. The true governance and discipline of the church will be established and practiced. The entire world will be as one church — one orderly, well-organized, beautiful society. As the body is one, so the members will be in beautiful proportion to each other. Psalm 122:3 will be fulfilled: "Jerusalem is built as a city that is compact together."

(6) The church of God will be beautiful and glorious on all these counts — indeed it will appear in perfect beauty. Isaiah 60:1: "Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." Isaiah 61:10: "He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." For all these reasons, the church will then be the greatest image of heaven itself.

(7) That will be a time of the greatest earthly prosperity. Such a spiritual state as described has a natural tendency to produce temporal blessing: it promotes health and long life. Zechariah 8:4 confirms this will actually be the case: "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age.'" It also naturally produces ease, quietness, joy, and cheerfulness, along with wealth and a great increase of children — as is suggested in Zechariah 8:5: "And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets." Beyond this, the earthly prosperity of God's people will also be enriched by a remarkable blessing from heaven. Isaiah 65:21: "They will build houses and inhabit them; they will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit." And Micah 4:4: "Each of them will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid." Zechariah 8:12: "For there will be peace for the seed: the vine will yield its fruit, the land will yield its produce, and the heavens will give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things." See also Jeremiah 31:12-13 and Amos 9:13. They will also receive every kind of sign of God's presence, acceptance, and favor. Jeremiah 33:9: "It will be to Me a name of joy, praise and glory before all the nations of the earth which will hear of all the good that I do for them, and they will fear and tremble because of all the good and all the peace that I make for it." Even the days of Solomon were only a faint image of those days in terms of the earthly prosperity that will prevail.

(8) It will also be a time of great rejoicing. Isaiah 35:10: "And the ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away." Isaiah 55:12: "For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you." Isaiah 66:11: "That you may nurse and be satisfied with her comforting breasts, that you may suck deeply and be delighted with her bountiful bosom." Isaiah 12:3: "Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation." That will be the church's glorious wedding day — as far as her wedding with Christ is ever celebrated on earth. Revelation 19:7: "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready." Verse 9: "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb." But I now turn to the second part.

Second, I will say something about how long this prosperous state of the church will last. I will be brief on this point. Scripture consistently portrays it as an extended period. The earlier times of rest and prosperity, as noted before, are represented as brief — but the descriptions of this state are quite different. Revelation 20:4: "And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus — and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years." Isaiah 60:15: "Whereas you have been forsaken and hated with no one passing through, I will make you an everlasting pride, a joy from generation to generation."

This is sufficient regarding the prosperous state of the church through most of the period from the destruction of Satan's visible kingdom in the world to Christ's appearing in the clouds of heaven to judgment.

2. I now turn to speak of the great apostasy that will occur near the end of this period, and how severely the church will be threatened for a short time by her enemies. I will address this under three points.

1. Shortly before the end of the world, there will be a very great apostasy in which a large part of the world will fall away from Christ and His church. Revelation 20:3 says that Satan will be cast into the bottomless pit, shut up, and sealed so that he could no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed — and that after that he must be released for a short time. Accordingly, verses 7-8 tell us that when the thousand years end, Satan will be released from prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog. This suggests the apostasy will be very widespread. The nations of the four corners of the earth will be deceived, and the number of those who will then turn against Christ will be immense — pictured in Ezekiel as the army of Gog and Magog, and described in Revelation 20:8 as being as numerous as the sand of the sea, going up over the breadth of the earth as though their army stretched from one end of it to the other.

So after such a happy and glorious era — a day of light and holiness, of love, peace, and joy — it will once again become a dark time. Satan will begin to reestablish his dominion in the world. The world will once again become a scene of darkness and wickedness. The bottomless pit of hell will be opened, and evil forces will rise up out of it again, and a dreadful darkness will spread to obscure the world. The church of Christ, instead of covering the entire world as it did before, will be reduced to narrow boundaries again. Humanity, having lived so long in such great prosperity, will begin to abuse that prosperity to serve their sinful desires. This we learn from Luke 17:26 and following.

2. These apostates will mount fierce opposition against the church of God. The church will appear on the verge of a sudden and complete overthrow. Scripture says Satan will gather them together for battle, as numerous as sand on the seashore, and they will go up over the breadth of the earth and surround the camp of the saints and the beloved city. That beloved city will seem on the verge of being swallowed up — for her enemies will not merely threaten her, but will actually have gathered against her. More than that, they will have besieged her and surrounded her on every side.

Nothing in the prophecy suggests that the church will actually fall into their hands the way the church fell into the hands of Antichrist, to whom it was given to make war with the saints and overcome them. God will never allow that to happen again after the fall of Antichrist, for then the day of her mourning will be ended. But the church will appear to be under the most imminent threat of sudden and complete destruction.

3. At this point the state of things will most compellingly call for Christ's immediate appearance to judgment. The world will be filled with more extreme wickedness than it has ever known. By far the greater part of the world will have become openly and visibly wicked — avowed enemies of Christ — and their wickedness will be terribly compounded by their apostasy. Before the fall of Antichrist, most of the world was also full of visibly wicked people — but most of those were poor pagans who had never received the light of the Gospel, or others who had been raised in the darkness of Islam or Roman Catholicism. These people will be different: they will have apostatized from the Christian church and the visible kingdom of Christ, in which they had enjoyed the great light and privileges of the glorious age of the church — privileges that will be incomparably greater than what the church of God enjoys today. This apostasy will be more like the apostasy of the fallen angels than any that has come before. The angels fell and became enemies of Christ though they had enjoyed the light of heaven — and these people will fall away and become His enemies though they enjoyed the light and privileges of the church's most glorious age. That such people would turn into open, avowed enemies of Christ and seek the destruction of His church will cry out for the immediate vengeance that was executed on the demons when they fell.

The wickedness of the world will loudly call for Christ's immediate appearing in flaming fire to take vengeance, because of how that wickedness will manifest — particularly in mocking and blaspheming Christ and His holy religion. They will scoff at the idea of Christ's coming to judgment, which the church will be expecting and warning them about. For then will surely come another fulfillment — and the greatest fulfillment — of 2 Peter 3:3-4: "Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.'" They will have no expectation of Christ coming to judgment and will laugh at the very idea. They will trample such things underfoot and give themselves over to their passions — eating and drinking and wallowing in sensual pleasures as though they will live here forever. They will despise the church's warnings about the coming of Christ to judgment, just as the people of the ancient world despised what Noah told them about the approaching flood, and just as the people of Sodom did when Lot said to them, "The Lord will destroy this city." Their wickedness on this account will cry out to heaven for Christ to appear in flaming fire to take vengeance on His enemies. Another way their wickedness will show itself will be in the violent wicked plot and assault they will attempt against the holy city of God — that city where for so long, and so recently, so much of the religion of Christ had been visible. They will be on the verge of carrying out the most terrible design against that church.

The sheer number of the wicked at that time will also especially call for Christ's coming. The world will no doubt be extremely populous by then, having continued so long in such great prosperity, without the devastating plagues of war, disease, and similar catastrophes that normally reduce population. Most of that teeming world will be wicked, contemptuous apostates from God. Without question that will be a day when the world is far more filled with wickedness than at any point since creation. If the wickedness of the ancient world — when people were multiplying on the earth — called for its destruction by a flood of water, this wickedness will equally call for its destruction by a flood of fire.

Furthermore, the circumstances of the church at that time will also urgently call for Christ's immediate appearing, as she will be surrounded by blasphemous and murderous enemies on the verge of being swallowed up. It will be a time of extreme distress for the church — the only comfort being the hope of deliverance from God — for all other help will appear to have failed. The situation will have reached its final extremity, and there will be an immediate need for Christ to come to their rescue. Even though the church will be under such a severe threat, God's providence will so arrange things that she will be preserved until Christ appears in His immediate presence, coming in the glory of His Father with all His holy angels. Then will come the time when all the elect are gathered in. The work of conversion that has been carried on since the beginning of the church after the fall through all those ages will come to an end. Not one more soul will ever be converted. Every one of those many millions whose names were written in the book of life before the foundation of the world will have been brought in — not one soul will be lost. The mystical body of Christ, which has been growing since it first began in the days of Adam, will be complete, with every single member in place. In this respect, the work of redemption will now be finished. The purpose for which the means of grace were established will have been fully achieved. All the effect that was intended to be accomplished through them will now have been accomplished.