virtually decided before a word of the argument has been heard. But the more honest seeker after truth will not contend for victory, but will look for satisfaction. We can have no difficulty in picturing to ourselves such an one. Take the man whose life has been spent in various parts of the world, whether in commercial pursuits, or in the service of his country. He has lived among all religions, and yet has, from that very circumstance, attached himself to none. Various warnings suggest to him the shortness and uncertainty of life, and he feels that, as yet, all beyond the present scene is a matter of dread uncertainty. He therefore begins to inquire, in earnest, which is the way of salvation. But here he is beset by the various claims of the various churches and sects, and feels bewildered amidst the different schemes which are presented to his notice.

Thus far, however, he has advanced, and that so carefully as to be thoroughly settled in the conviction, That it is wholly absurd and irrational to suppose that the world or its inhabitants came into existence by chance, or that the human race originated itself: That the Creator of the visible universe must be a being of inconceivable power, wisdom, and benevolence, and that it is most improbable that, having made mankind, he would cast them loose to follow their own devices, without any further care about their fate or their conduct: That something within warns him of the existence of a principle, which the sleep of the body does not cause to slumber, and which it is not conceivable that the dissolution of the body will destroy: That a secret consciousness of the difference between good and evil, and an impression of a future retribution, connected with the previous observations, convince him of the great probability, at least, of an hereafter; in which he will have to know the Author of his being, and, what is still more important, will be called to account by him for all the actions of his life.

But this train of thought carries him forward, at once, to the most interesting question which can

possibly present itself to the human mind, namely, on the supposition that there is an hereafter, and possibly a judgment at the very commencement of that hereafter; how shall a human being prepare himself for that awful scrutiny? By what rule, according to what directory shall he regulate his conduct, or frame his plea? How shall he learn the character and requirements of his judge, and the best mode in which to approach his presence and propitiate his favour? Nothing can exceed the essential importance of these questions, or the interest which they are calculated to awaken in the mind of the serious and earnest seeker after truth.

Now the answer of a Protestant to these inquiries will be both simple and straightforward. He will say,

"For my own part, I must confess myself a poor, fallible, erring human creature like yourself; and when I speak to you of the concerns of God and eternity, I dare not give you any surmises or notions of my own, or any views or principles learnt of other human beings. But I am able to refer you to a guide which cannot mislead or misinform you, to a book, in short, which has been given to man by that very God before whose judgment-seat we must all stand, as the guide and directory, both of his belief and of his practice. Knowing it to be his gift, and bestowed upon man for this very object, I dare not direct your view to any inferior source of knowledge.

"Nor is it necessary. For in the Bible, and there alone, we find 'shallows in which a lamb may wade, and yet at the same time, depths in which an elephant may swim.' There alone, we find truth without any mixture of error,' and 'certainty without any alloy of doubt."

But the moment this reply is given, we may assure ourselves of the instant and total oppositon of the Romish party. An open and unshackled Bible, exalted, too, to be the sole judge and arbiter in all matters relating to our faith, cannot co-exist with Romanism. And thus it happens, that in one shape

or other, either open or covert warfare is constantly waged against the Bible by the votaries of Rome.

In the palmy days of the apostate church, her mandates against the use of the Scriptures were issued without the least disguise or qualification. "We strictly forbid," says the council of Toulouse, "the laity to have the books of the Old and New Testament in the vulgar tongue." "If any one shall presume to read or possess them," says the council of Trent," without permission of his priest or confessor, in writing, he shall not receive absolution of his sins, except he first deliver them up."* And in like manner, at the present day, in Spain, Italy, or other Popish countries, copies of the Scriptures, if discovered by the police, are seized and destroyed, as contraband or unlawful articles.

In the midst of a Protestant population, however, and in a land where pretensions of this kind would be instantly spurned, Popery alters its tone. Here no objection is offered to the use of the Scriptures, but only to their paramount authority. "The Catholic rule of faith," says Dr. Milner, "is not merely the written word of God, but the whole word of God, both written or unwritten; in other words, scripture and tradition, and these propounded and explained by the Catholic church. This implies that we have a two-fold rule or law, and that we have an interpreter or judge to explain it, and to decide upon it in all doubtful points."+

This device, however, only differs from open warfare with the Bible, in its greater insidiousness. To put Scripture wholly out of sight, is, perhaps, the simplest and most effectual course; but, when this cannot be attempted, it answers nearly the same purpose to reduce the written word into subjection to the church's decisions. Chillingworth has well said, that "He that would usurp an absolute lordship and tyranny over any people, need not put himself to the

* De libris prohibitis, reg. iv.

† Milner's End of Controversy, page 116.

trouble and difficulty of abrogating and disannulling the laws made to maintain the common liberty; for he may frustrate their intent, and compass his own design as well, if he can get the power and authority to interpret them as he pleases, and to have his interpretations and additions stand for laws; if he can rule his people by his laws, and his laws by his lawyers. So the church of Rome, to establish her tyranny over men's consciences, needed not either to abolish or corrupt the Holy Scriptures, the pillars and supporters of Christian liberty. But the more expedite way, and therefore the more likely to be the successful, was to gain the opinion and esteem of being the public and authorized interpreter of them, and the authority of adding to them what doctrine she pleased, under the title of traditions or definitions. For by this means, she might both serve herself of all those clauses of Scripture which might be drawn to cast a favourable countenance upon her ambitious pretences,-which, had the Scriptures been abolished, she could not have done; and yet be secure enough of having neither her power limited, nor her corruptions and abuses reformed by them; this being once settled in the minds of men, that unwritten doctrines, if proposed by her, were to be received with equal reverence to those that were written; and that the sense of Scripture was not that which it seemed, to reason and understanding to be, but that which the church of Rome should declare it, though it seem never so unreasonable and incongruous.

But we are often met, in this stage of the argument, by assertions of the expediency and even the absolute necesssity of some authoritative interpreter. A very fallacious analogy is introduced, between divine and human legislation. Dr. Milner remarks that " in this kingdom we have the common or unwritten law, and the statute or written law, both of them binding, but the former necessarily preceding the latter."+ Nothing, however, can be more irrational, or more *Chillingworths' Works, fol. p. 40. + End of Controversy, p. 117.

presumptuous, than this method of prescribing a certain course as a fit and necessary one to be taken by the all-wise Creator, merely because some of his short-sighted creatures have found it needful under their perpetual errors and imperfections. Two reasons may be adduced for the existence and validity of our common or unwritten law -1. The imperfection attending all man's works, which makes it impossible for any parliament to construct a perfect code, and thus renders the rectifying hand of the judges often needful. 2. The fact, that we had judges in England centuries before we had parliaments, from which it naturally followed that their decisions, recorded and handed down, became a sort of code, long before acts of parliament came into use among us. But neither of these reasons applies in the least to the dealings of God with his creatures; nor can any rational ground be assigned, why that divine Being who has vouchsafed us a revelation of His mind and will in the Scriptures, should have left it in such obscurity as to need the perpetual interpretations of a number of human creatures like ourselves; still less, that He should have purposely kept back half of that reve lation, in order to entrust it to a mere vivá voce preservation, under the name of tradition.

The next objection waxes bolder, and adopts a tone which is almost profane. It runs thus, "Jesus Christ wrote no part of the New Testament himself, and gave no orders to his apostles to write it, nor did he intend it to be, together with the Old Testament, the sole rule of religion."* "The Almighty did not send a book, the New Testament, to Christians, and without so much as establishing the authority of that book, leave them to interpret it, till the end of time, each one according to his own opinions or prejudices. But our blessed Master and Legislator, Jesus Christ, having first established his own divine legation from his heavenly Father by undeniable miracles, commissioned his chosen apostles, by word of mouth, to

End of Controversy, p. 97.