"The Gentiles turned away their ears from the truth, and were turned unto fables. "The Gentiles would not endure sound doctrine, but heaped to themselves teachers. "The Gentiles maintained a form of godliness without its miracles and powers. "The Gentiles were '_full of names of blasphemy_,' and mystery was written as a frontispiece on all their institutions. "The Gentiles deceived all nations, and drew kings and great men into the wake of their mysterious abominations and religious mummeries. "The Gentiles continue to bear rule by these means till the judgments of the Almighty sweep them from the earth, and put an end to their dominion; and God restores Israel and Jerusalem, and gives the dominion to his Saints. "How often the Lord may have restored the priesthood and ordinances, the true Church and its gifts to the earth, among the humble, is not known. But this much we know, there would be no peace nor security for men professing such institutions; they would be either hunted down and destroyed, or driven to the necessity of secluding themselves in the most secret recesses, where their history would never come down to us. As _Protestants_, we can make no pretenses to a successive line of apostleship; for this would imply that we were never Roman Catholics; therefore, what need of protestation or dissent from that to which we never had belonged? Nothing short of a new dispensation--a new revelation to commission apostles as at the first, could give any religious body a claim, or a shadow of claim, to be the Church of Jesus Christ, or entitle them to the spiritual gifts. "Such, my friends, is the deplorable picture of Gentile Christianity as presented before us, whether we look with the naked eye on facts around us, or, aided by the glass of prophecy and history, review the dim vista of successive generations in the mighty past. Yet in the midst of the reign of error and blood there have always been many individuals who desired to know and serve the Lord. They have desired to see the triumph of truth; but the time had not come; they died without the sight; but they will arise again to enjoy the triumph; they with us will rejoice when error is overthrown and the Saints possess the kingdom. "I have now reviewed the past, my friends, and have shown by what means the Jews and Gentiles have lost the peculiar blessings which characterize the Church of God. I have detained you long, and am, as yet, only on the threshold of the great subject before me. In another discourse I might draw a brighter picture by setting before you the great and precious promises which ensure to the world a new dispensation in which all these things will be restored, and the Church of the Saints grow, flourish and triumph in the earth. "I must now close by blessing this people who have opened their hearts to listen with such attention. May the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ and his spirit rest upon you, that you may receive and know the truth. Amen."