foundation of catholic religion, being grafted on the ruins of
superstition. The absurd doctrines, and legendary tales of popery, may
have been credited in the dark ages, when many of the clergy were
unable to write their names, or so much as read their alphabet; but
the belief of them is utterly inconsistent with the light everywhere
diffused since the revival of literature.

++ Tormented them. This language is remarkable. It intimates that the
pains occasioned in the wicked, by the warnings of the faithful are
the same, in kind, as those of the damned, and that they are often
severe. This accounts for the mad joy of infidelity--for the frantic
triumphs of those who have persuaded themselves that religion is a
fable. It accounts for the representation here given of the conduct of
an unbelieving world, when infidelity shall have become universal, and
the dead body of religion lie exposed to public scorn. Such is the
time here foretold--a time when the age of atheism may be vauntingly
termed "the age of reason."

* * * * *

God's witnesses testify not only against antichristian errors, but
also against infidelity and the immorality it occasions. When he
ceases to have witnesses there will be none to testify against either
the one or the other. The world must _then_ be deluged in infidelity
and atheism. This agrees with the representation given by the apostle;
who describes the enemies of God as refusing graves to his slaughtered
witnesses, and causing their dead bodies to lie exposed to public
view, that they may rejoice over them, and congratulate one another on
their deliverance from the company of those who had disturbed them in
their sinful indulgences; and such as continuing to be the state of