It is very evident that the authority of administering in Gospel ordinances has been lost for many centuries; for no man can have this authority, except he receive it by direct revelation--either by the voice of God, as Moses did, or by the ministering of angels, as John the Baptist received his message, or by the gift of prophecy, as Paul and Barnabas received theirs.--Acts xiii. 2. Now, it is plain that men have denied immediate revelation for many hundred years past, consequently have not received it, and therefore could not have been sent of God to administer in the fulness of the Gospel. God never sends a man on business, except He reveal himself to that man--never sends a man with a message (in other words), unless he reveal that message to him in a direct manner. The church established by the apostles gradually fell away, wandered into the wilderness, and lost her authority (her priesthood), and, departing from the order of God, she lost, also, her gifts and graces; she transgressed the laws, and changed the ordinances of the Gospel; changed immersion into sprinkling, and quite neglected laying on of hands; despised prophecy, and disbelieved in signs following.--(Rev. xii. 6, Isaiah xxiv. 5.) In consequence of this, the Gentiles have been cut off from the fulness of Gospel privileges, as Paul said to them in Rom. xi. 22--"If you continue not in the goodness of God, you also shall be cut off." John, in his Revelations, having seen and spoken of the wandering of the church into darkness, and the beast, the Gentiles making war against the Saints and overcoming them (xiii. 7), speaks, in chap. xiv. 6, 7, of the restoration of the Gospel--"I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth." So it is evident that prophecy was to be fulfilled at some time previous to our Savior's second advent.