succeeded in establishing wherever she could; for, acting upon the command of Christ, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," she went forth to establish her gospel; not the " pure and undefiled religion" of the Son of God, but his gospel and his religion in conjunction with a host of ceremonies and observances, partly borrowed from the Jewish law and partly received from the heathen mythology, together with a multitude of superstitious doctrines, which she professed to receive from the age of the apostles, by tradition or hearsay, but of which the Scriptures contain not a particle of information. The chief of these doctrines and observances, which constitute the main difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, may be briefly enumerated under the following heads :— The merit of good works; the use of holy water; celibacy; monasticism; extreme unction; invocation to the Virgin Mary and saints; canonization of saints; confession and absolution as plenary, not precatory; the Latin mass, a performance of divine service in the Latin language; the doctrine of purgatory; transubstantiation; use of pictures and images, as indirect means of worship; elevation of the host; the daily sacrifice of Christ; the baptism of bells; the power of the Bishop of Rome to grant indulgences and dispensations to break the rules of the Church; the inquisition; the excommunication of all who do not acknowledge these things, as heretics; the denial of the cup to the laity at the sacrament; the introduction of seven sacraments, instead of two; the assertion that there is no salvation out of the pale of the Church of Rome, assuming that "the Church of Rome" is another name for "the Church of Christ;" the assumption of human reason over the faith of the gospel, dictating what is, and what is not to be believed; the mutilation of the Scriptures, as in the instance of the ten commandments, to serve the purpose of Romanists; the establishment of tradition over Scripture, or the word of man over the word of God; and lastly, but not least,-nay, the very source of all these errors and absurdities,-the keeping the Scriptures in a language with which the people are not familiar, the keeping them in darkness as to what the word of God really declares. There are some other points of difference which might be mentioned, but being rather the results of those which have been stated than independent of the former, we may pass them over, as our present purpose is confined to a defence of ourselves, and not extended to a captious criticism of others. The greater part of these doctrines and rites were introduced before the close of the thirteenth century.

About the middle of the fifteenth century, it pleased the Almighty to put into the ingenuity of man to discover the art of printing, before which period every book, nay, every copy of the Scriptures, was written out by the hand. That this discovery was one of those wonderful and mysterious events by which God has always been pleased to make man the agent of his will, none but an infidel can refuse to allow. The consequence of the discovery proved this at once; for immediately all kinds of learning and science became spread abroad, copies of the Scriptures were multiplied, and the public mind was by this means opened so as to perceive, that men had been denied access to the truth, and that error had been taught instead. By degrees these opinions

spread far and wide; the members of the Church began to doubt as to their propriety of professing such a creed as they had been taught; they compared the traditions of the Church with the word of God, and they found no trace of the former in the latter. In various countries of Europe there arose up men who, seeing that the only way to counteract darkness was to introduce light, buckled on the armour of christian warriors, and set to work like champions determined to conquer or die. It is impossible here to trace the progress of the events which they assisted in bringing to pass. Suffice it to say, that Germany took the lead, aided by the labours of Wickliffe, who translated the Bible into English about the year 1380; they who read his writings were here and elsewhere miserably put to death. Truth thus sown soon sprung up, and bore fruit, and, being nourished by the blood of its confessors, produced an abundant and a glorious harvest.

At this time commenced the ungodly traffic in indulgences, which was established by the Pope, Leo X. in the beginning of the sixteenth century, as a means of raising funds to carry on his architectural undertakings. Luther, a professor in the University of Wirtemburg, struck with the enormity of selling permission to commit sin, was one of the first to awaken from the dream of popery; the Scriptures led him to see its enormity, and on Sept. 30, 1517, he published a list of the doctrines and opinions which he proved that the Church of Rome professed, in direct contradiction to the word of God. Luther was

summoned to Rome by a bull, or decree of the pope; but instead of obeying, he burnt the document, and appealed to the people. In the year 1521, he attended the diet which the Emperor Charles V. assembled at Worms, and there manfully defended his opinions. Seized on his return, he was confined in prison, from which he issued those writings which produced the first great change in Germany. In 1522 he published a German version of the New Testament, and before 1532 the Old Testament, translated from the original Hebrew. In 1530, Charles V. assembled the Diet at Augsburg; and it was there that Luther and his friends presented the articles of faith which are denominated "The Confession of Augsburg," which henceforth became the summary of the belief of Protestantism in Germany. Those princes of Europe who, by this gradual dawn of truth, had become sufficiently enlightened to renounce the authority and the errors of the Church of Rome, then met to debate measures for their common safety, for it must not be supposed that the Church of Rome was indifferent to what was going on; on the contrary, they assembled council after council, and decreed all kinds of horror, excommunication, and death, against those that had presumed to think for themselves. To the assembly of the Protestant champions, the kings of England, France, and Denmark were invited to send in their adherence. A new pope succeeded to the Bishopric of Rome, in 1534, who after many years of delay succeeded in assembling a Council of Bishops and other dignitaries of the Church of Rome, at the town of Trent, in the year 1542, where the matter in dispute was discussed, but partially, though every opinion now held by Protestants was publicly stated there in the course of the debates; the result being, that that council, which was the last ever held by the Church of Rome, was determined to be binding on the members of that

Church, and as that council has never been revoked, and yet remains in all its force, it is from the decisions of that council that we are able to learn, notwithstanding what any Romanist may allege to the contrary, what is the faith, and what is the doctrine which the Church of Rome yet holds as necessary to salvation. It is from those decisions that the Church of Rome has made herself responsible for ever for the doctrines, and rites, and ceremonies, which I have enumerated above.

The first result of this council was, that those princes who had embraced Protestantism, in other words, who had renounced the errors of those who still belonged to the Church of Rome, protested formally against the decisions of this council. This led to an attack upon them by the Emperor of Germany, who was the temporal chief of what was called "The Holy Roman Empire," and after much fighting, peace was concluded in 1552, leaving the Protestants in the free exercise of their religion, and altogether emancipated from the yoke of Rome.

I have been thus particular as relates to Germany, because our own Church is much indebted to Luther for his exertions and assistance. There were, however, other reformers also at work, and in the interval between 1516 and 1535, Switzerland became emancipated. In 1526, Sweden and Denmark embraced the reformed doctrines; whilst Hungary, Prussia, and France, acknowledged them in 1523. In 1598, Protestantism was acknowledged there by the Edict of Nantes. England, which has since maintained the doc rines of the Reformed religion in greater purity than every other nation, was not behind in this glorious work. An overruling Providence made use of an ambitious sovereign to serve the ends of truth. Henry VIII. (who from having written a book against the Reformers was called by the pope "THE DEFENDER OF THE FAITH," a title which his successor William IV. bears to this very day,) not favoured by the pope, whose assistance he afterwards demanded to bring to pass a dissolution of the first of his many marriages, sought occasion of offence, and being aided by Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was a friend of Luther's, on March 20, 1534, by his consent, an act of parliament was passed renouncing allegiance to the pope, and restoring the authority of the king of England "in all causes, civil and religious, within these dominions supreme." In 1526, a version of the New Testament had been completed by Tindal, but the then Bishop of London had the whole impression burnt; in 1527 and 1528 two other editions were published; and in 1530 a third, accompanied by a translation of the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, was published also. Five years afterwards, on October 4, 1535, three hundred years ago, the first edition of the whole Scriptures was published by Myles Coverdale, at Zurich, in Switzerland, on account of which Edward VI. appointed him to be Bishop of Exeter.

In 1541, the English Bible was first read publicly in our churches, during the reign of Henry VIII. who, nevertheless, being "a doubleminded man, and unstable in all his ways," yet persecuted the Protestants, though he renounced the pope's temporal authority: in 1552, a book of Common Prayer was framed; and a code of Articles, or Confession of Faith, was first composed, the basis of those thirty-nine articles which now contain the sum and substance of what we as mem

bers of the Church of England profess. On the death of Edward VI. succeeded to the throne the popish queen, whom history denominates the bloody Mary, during whose short and sinful career nearly 1000 persons were burnt for their adherence to the Protestant faith, amongst whom were Cranmer, and Latimer, and Ridley, and Hooper, who had been foremost in bringing about the glorious Reformation in these realms. To Mary succeeded Elizabeth, and it was in her reign, during which the reformed religion was firmly established, that the Spanish king undertook to subdue Old England, and sent against us that formidable fleet which is known in history as the Spanish Armada, a fleet which came loaded with instruments of torture, many of which are yet preserved in the Tower of London, but which the Almighty signally defeated and dispersed in a series of tempests off the coast of Britain, in the year 1588. From that time to this, there has been a struggle between the opposing powers of Romanism and Christianity; and English history details with what varied endeavour, but how, under the guardian care of a superintending Providence, with what little success, the corrupted worship of the Church of Rome, and the unscriptural authority of the Bishop of Rome, have been attempted to be foisted upon the altar and the throne of this Protestant kingdom.

In the present day, the Romanists are making great and increased exertions to reduce us to subjection to their rule and government; and, since they come to us with arguments as specious as they are insincere, that they have relaxed from their ancient strictness, and have abjured many of their most obnoxious principles of faith and practice, it cannot be otherwise than the duty of every Protestant to proclaim, as far as his voice can reach or his influence may extend, that the moment the Church of Rome relaxes from her strictness, or abjures her principles of faith and practice, she ceases to exist; for the chief ground upon which she builds her claim, is infallibility-or the impossibility to do wrong, claiming thereby a privilege and a power which belong to God alone; and since the Church of Rome, or the Bishop of Rome, has never cancelled or revoked the decrees of the Council of Trent, notwithstanding what any individual members of the Church of Rome may say, the great body of Romanists never have, and never can be otherwise than what they are, and have been, since Romanism commenced, but enemies to all free and candid inquiries into the words of holy Scripture. There cannot be necessity for us to enter into a long detail of proofs upon this point; but once for all, we may quote a few words from the circular letter published by the Archbishop of Paris, in the year 1825, only eleven years since: "You are not ignorant, my brethren, that a society, commonly called the Bible Society, is spreading itself most audaciously over all the earth; and that in spite of the traditions of the holy fathers, and against the celebrated decrees of the Council of Trent, it endeavours by all means, and with all its powers, to corrupt the holy Gospels in the vulgar tongues of all the nations of the earth; which gives us just cause of fear, that that will happen in all other translations which has happened in those which are known, viz. that people will find, through a bad interpretation, instead of the gospel of Christ, the gospel of man, or what is worse, the gospel of the devil!!" (Vide CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER, 1830, p. 384.)

Such was the language of the Church of Rome eleven years ago; such it is now, and such it will ever be. For you know what our Master has said, "Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved," (John iii. 20.) The Church of Rome knows well, that so long as the light of truth, the light of God's word, is shut out, so long as its disciples are kept in darkness, her evil deeds will never be discovered. But seeing that the Spirit of God has brooded over the darkness of pagan superstition and popish deception; seeing that the spiritual fiat has commanded, "Let there be light-and there is light," it cunningly employs its power to abuse that which it cannot prevent; and, therefore, it says the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue are not the Scriptures of God, but the scriptures of the devil! Oh, what a delusion! what an impudence and effrontery is this! Truly this is the language of him, who under the form of the wily and deceiving serpent, tried and succeeded in the attempt to betray and ruin Eve in Paradise! But we affirm that not only does our translation of the English Scriptures approach as nearly as possible to the meaning of the original, but that it is the Church of Rome herself which has used, and uses still, a bad interpretation; and instead of the pure and unsophisticated gospel of Christ, gives to its deluded followers the gospel so mixed up with traditions, that it is in truth the gospel of men.

There is no doctrine contained in the Scriptures, whether of the Old or New Testament, which is necessary to salvation, that does not find in our English version a full, clear, true, and perfect translation; and we can defy the whole world to prove, that the translators have added to, or taken from, the words of God's holy book, either in spirit or in letter.

The possession of these Scriptures in the language which all understand, is not only the boast of the Protestant Church, but the greatest blessing which God can bestow. And surely it requires no great logical acuteness to perceive, that when the gospel commands all men to "search the Scriptures," that command cannot be obeyed unless the Scriptures be put into the hands of all. There are, we know, many arguments employed by Romanists, to the effect that great dangers have arisen from the exercise of that liberty of searching, reading, and expounding the Scriptures, which Protestants enjoy; but, allowing this, which cannot be denied, what does the objection amount to,-that because one man is a drunkard, therefore every other man is not to be allowed to quench his thirst,-because men have invented noxious liquors from the grain which God has given us for food, therefore bread, which is the staff of life, is not to be eaten by any! Need we refute such an argument?

Again, say the Romanists, you are schismatics, you are heretics, you have separated from us! It is certainly true, that we have separated from the Church of Rome, but that does not make us heretics. If, indeed, we had separated from the Church of Christ, that would have been another matter. But we have not so separated. We have in our Church every scriptural doctrine which the Church of Rome has; we have all the sacraments which Christ instituted, though we reject the five which the Romanists have invented; we have the same