princes. Alas! such is the change, that it
scarcely affords ground for triumph. The kingdom of our God and his Christ
is become a kingdom of this world, and the church of Jesus reduced to a
mere worldly sanctuary. The glory is departed, the gold is become dim, and
the fine gold is changed.

"Indeed prelatical pride had been rising very high for a century before
this. The pastors had forgotten their Master's instruction. 'Be ye not
called Rabbi: for ye are brethren.' Lord bishops and archbishops and all
the spirit of such distinction had been long enough upon the advance to
congratulate such an emperor as Constantine. The materials for a hierarchy
having been prepared it was no difficult thing for a set of worldly-minded
bishops, countenanced by a prince, to put them together. Under all these
circumstances, real religion was not likely to be bettered by such a
reverse in external affairs, and so the event proved. The ancient contest,
which was for the faith once delivered unto the saints, declined apace,
and a strife for worldly honor, fleshly gratification, and spiritual
dominion substituted in its stead."

Such was the true condition of things in the year 311. Surely there had
been a change, the kingdom of God had become the kingdom of the world, the
glory was gone, strivings for worldly honor, fleshly gratification, and
spiritual dominion had taken the place of "striving for the faith once
delivered to the saints." What a change from the humble, self-denying,
flesh crucifying days of Christ and the apostles. Truly we can say
sometime before this the morning light had dimmed and died, and darkness
intervened. The historian does not fix this date (311) as the beginning of
the dark noonday. (The reader already begins to see, no doubt, why it was
dark at the noontime.) He says in a preceding chapter, "About A.D. 264, a
considerable stir was made by Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch. 'Great
was the falling off in this church since the renowned Ignatius. The
principles of Paul were exceedingly loose, and his practise was
correspondent.' He rejected the divinity of the Son and substituted his
own reason for the light of the Spirit. The way in which he lived fully
proved that he was a man of the world."

The historian proceeds to tell more of this bishop's wicked life. The
Scriptural qualifications of a bishop are, blamelessness, the husband of
one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to
tea