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 scaffolds; of that devotion to the dictates of conscience that shrunk from no sacrifice, however severe;—but even in the instance of the noblest of those noble martyrs, it would be self-delusion for us to suppose that they had sprung from the depth of darkness to perfect light at one leap; that they rose instantaneously from gross ignorance of Christian truths, to the perfection of knowledge; that they had miraculously cast off at one effort all slavery of spirit, and the dimness of intellectual vision, which were the work of ages. They had regained the wish and the will to explore the regions of truth; they had made some splendid advances, and shewn that they descried some of the most prominent features of the genuine faith: but they were, the best of them, but babes in Christ. To become full-grown men required the natural lapse of time; and to expect them to start up into the full standard of Christian stature, was to expect an impossibility. And if the brightest and most intrepid, and most honest intellects were thus circumstanced, what was the condition of the mass? That may be known by calling to mind how readily Protestants fell into the spirit of persecution, and into all the cruelties and outrages of their Popish predecessors. Ages upon ages were required, to clear away the dusty cobwebs of error, with which a spurious faith had involved them; and to raise again the Christian world to the height of Christian knowledge. We are yet far and very far from having escaped from the one, or risen to the other. There are yet Christian truths, of the highest import to humanity, that are treated as fables and fanatic dreams by the mass of the Christian world; and we shall see as we proceed,