| 613 ecclesiastical power when wielded by men of ingenuity? What has been a greater source of protection to great Britian [Britain], Denmark, and many other powers of Europe, that the ecclesiastical powers of the church united with state? But witness with pain, and indignity the internal effects. Men become the votaries of a religion, and are pacified and made to believe that all is well, while under the severest yoke of oppression, tyranny, bondage, and despotism; but on the other hand bishops, vicars and men of authority, roll in luxury, wealth, and aggrandizement. Break the bands that holds church and state together, and free the inhabitants from priest craft, and such awful despotism, that they may be free men indeed, and those kingdoms that hold men in such bondage will shake from their very base, and at last fall to ruin; and the kingdom of God take their place. From what we have already seen of Catholicism, and the works of the Protestants we are led to conclude that millions of years might roll around, and the work of God that the stone of the mountain represents, would be no nearer accomplished than what it is now; unless there should be a great change for the better. But enough is said upon this part of the subject: for we discover that if the stone commenced to roll in the days of the apostles, it finally was transformed into a popish hierachy [hierarchy]; and we know what they together with the Protestants have done.
It is also said, that this stone as it rolls shall increase in magnitude till it fills the whole earth. Many sects have sprung up since the commencement of the Christian era, and many have fallen; and indeed, it cannot be said that any have lasted through all ages, and increased in magnitude, but the Mother Church. It is true, since the days of the reformation the Protestants have increased in number; but they, as we have before shown, do not answer Daniel's description of the kingdom of God. "It (the kingdom of God) shall never be destroyed," that is, it shall never be overcome, or disorganized; but the kingdom that was established in the first century has been disorganized and overcome, or in other words the saints overcome, as we have before proved by the predictions of the prophets. "And the kingdom shall not be left to other people;" none shall have power or authority over the spiritual affairs of the kingdom but those whom God appoints: and again, its laws, and ordinances shall not be changed; but remain invariably the same for ever.-This cannot be said of the Christian church in all ages past; for it is well known that on several occasions, kings and emperors, have taken the ecclesiastical power into their own hands: for instance, Henry the VIII of England, and many others. It is also well known that there has been a great changing of the laws and ordinances of the church. However, we do not wish to be understood that it is in the power of man to revoke a decree of the Great God; but at the time of the establishment of Popery, new ordinances were substituted; consequently God withdrew his Spirit, and took away the holy priesthood, and thus left the Mother Church just what Daniel described her to be: "And there came up another little horn (or another power) having eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things; I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came and judgement [judgment] was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." It has been a characteristic of the Mother Church to persecute the saints that would not concede to her foolish doctrines when there was no law of the land to restrain her from it.
From the foregoing remarks we trust that the reader will readily discover the impropriety of dating the time of the commencement of the kingdom of God, represented by the stone that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, at the beginning of the Christian era; and no one in his sober senses will pretend to say, that it commenced when Popery was set up-consequently it is a work of the latter-days. This is what Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar: "But there is a God in heaven that maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter-days."
Indeed, this is the kingdom that the Lord will establish for the millennium, and when all the kingdoms of this world are done away, then will be fulfilled the saying of Daniel in the vii chapter: "But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for
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