The shock of the Reformation awaked and roused up the mind of western Europe, and brought new antagonist influences into operation, which, by recalling attention to the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, by giving prominence to the cardinal doctrines of redemption, and by a revival of learning, threatened wholly to subvert the dominion of Popish superstition and imposture. This aspect of his affairs required a new course of tactics on the part of the great Adversary, by which the tendencies, intellectual, speculative, philosophical, scientific, which were rising and spreading, might be so perverted as to counteract the objects of the Reformation, and, in place of the former outward and vulgar superstition, to give sway to infidelity; a course of tactics adapted to the intellects of men, stimulated to inquiry and earnest in the pursuit of knowledge; a course by which the peculiar doctrines of the Scriptures and of the Reformation, and the reality of inspiration and of miracles, might be explained away, and by which, in effect, the arrogations of the Arch-deceiver and the Pope, of lordship over men's minds, and over the province of theological dogma, together with an ascendency of influence in the seats of intellectual and physical science, might be imputed and transferred to HUMAN REASON. REASON, thus deified and installed as in a pontifical chair, _progressively developed_ its hierarchs and suffragans in the seats of learning, secular and sacred, in every part of the Protestant world. Witness the rise, progress and results of this course of tactics in Germany itself. Witness the infidel and atheistic fruits of this homage of reason, in the departments of German metaphysics, theology, criticism, physical science, &c. Witness the stealthy, insidious, infectious inculcation and progress of this infidelity, in the same departments, on this side of the Atlantic,--in some universities and colleges under cover of the principles and discoveries of natural science; in some theological schools, in the name of the science of criticism, interpretation, &c. in lyceums and halls of popular resort, by scientific lectures; and at the doors and in the face of all, by the ceaseless issues of the press.