divine, because the lives and systems of its professed friends, in a great multitude of cases, fail to agree with the standard and teaching of the sacred book? Shall the gospel be rejected because of the perversions of it by imperfect and by wicked men? On the contrary these very perversions ought to be, and to the candid, sincere inquirer will be an additional proof of the divinity of the original. That the inconsistencies of professed believers in Christianity may be turned into proofs of its divinity, may appear a paradoxical proposition, but to us nothing on earth is more obvious, and we do not hesitate to charge it upon skeptics that had they exercised the honesty, care and candor which they profess, they would have acknowledged it rather than have sought to use these inconsistencies as weapons with which to assail the gospel.

That the ideal Christian character of the New Testament is perfect will not be questioned by any one whose study of it has been sufficient to entitle him to an opinion, and that the embodiment of such character, we have presented us in the record of the life of Jesus, we all know.

It is equally true that the moral teachings of the New Testament are free from every vicious tendency and embody every virtue and every excellence. The departures from this perfect ideal and this high standard, which we observe in the lives and systems of professing Christians we know to have been the work of men, many of whom were false in heart, but to multitudes of whom, we must in candor attribute honesty of desire and purpose to realize the truth in belief and practice. If then man, with all the light of the sacred Word shining on him and aiding him, has formed such evil or imperfect systems and allowed such evil or imperfect conduct, how could he be the author of so pure and holy a system as the Christianity of the New Testament? Let it be borne in mind ever that the gospel most positively claims to be of divine origin, and then the more minute and detailed the examination of the various errors in doctrine and practice, which have assumed the Christian name, the stronger will grow the conviction, by the comparison of the false and the true, that while these errors are recognized as the work of man, the words of the apostles and prophets, are "not

THE PERVERSIONS OF THE ROMAN CHURCH.

'o examine them with any thoroughness would requi ame, we may only briefly note some of the main feat see then a church professedly Christian which for centu 1 wide sway in the civilized world. Its doctrines it have been fully exhibited, and can be studied in the his many generations.

Ve cannot nor are we disposed to deny that in her creed sented many evangelical doctrines, or that within and through ‍her ministry a vast amount of moral and spi good has been effected, but with this we have not now to look upon the darker side of her history. We see 1 ming to be supreme upon earth, to hold exclusively the ke neaven and hell and to have within her fold all that are to ed. In her priesthood, beginning with the lowest priest a wards through the ascending grades to bishops, arch-bishop linals and pope, resides the power to grant absolution ners, on confession, or for reasons which seem to them fittin vithhold the favor and consign to eternal perdition. Th d of this hierarchy, the Pope, is Christ's Vice-gerent on eart is infallible. He can remit sins or permit them, and h dons and indulgences have been purchased with money. Thus, through this consecrated line of apostolic successes i priesthood, grace comes to man as a sinner. Those wh d assent to this system and seek salvation within the fold o church, are promised life, but if any refuse, the church claims right to coerce to conformity, or to deliver the rebellious into

the hand of the tormentor or executioner. History teaches to what extent this right has been exercised. The swords of the faithful have reeked with the blood of heretics, the scaffolds; the flames, the dungeons and galleys, and the secret chambers and vaults of the Inquisition, have received thousands and tens of thousands of the incorrigible.

But how has the church instructed those that have acknowledged her authority? She has taught them to look to her priesthood alone for spiritual knowledge. She has shut the Bible and forbidden them to read, lest they be destroyed by heresy, and then has fed them on such doctrines as transubstantiation, auricurlar confession,priestly absolution,penance for sin, and purgatorial purification, and has taught them to adore the Virgin, to pray to saints, to reverence relics, to acquire merit by repetition of pater-nosters, to observe fasts and holy days, and cross themselves with holy water. If in these things they are faithful, common vices and immoralities of life, venial sins, do not hinder them from being good Christians. Such are some of the marked characteristics of the Roman Church. And though better doctrines and teachings and lives have been known within her communion, yet her history for centuries abundantly verifies the description given. The skeptic studies this history as did Voltaire, and exclaims, Is this system of priestly power and ambition, this tyranny, intolerance and cruelty, this merchandise of sin, this mass of superstition and ignorance, Christianity? Then I reject with scorn such a gospel.

But we call on the skeptic to pause. We put into his hand the New Testament and bid him study Christianity as Jesus has taught it and as it appeared in the apostolic age, and compare it with this perversion of Rome. What a contrast does he behold! In the place of priestly power and ambition, a fraternity of humble men, bound together by a common love to Christ and his truth, all equal in the sight of heaven, and all priests unto God; in the place of tyranny, intolerance and cruelty, mutual service, kind instruction, patient persuasion, gentleness and love; instead of the traffic in sin, the most severe purity of heart and life demanded as service to God; instead of a superstitious worship of the Virgin, the invocation of saints and adoration of

been wise men, and Christian men, we witness as the re a degeneration from a perfect system of truth and wors Le system of popery, we cannot avoid the conviction, system itself, the pure and holy gospel of Jesus, establis 1 age and among a people of greatest corruption of doct manners, must have been conceived by higher than hun om and human virtue. To the same conclusion shall ed, if we contrast with the pure gospel, the perversions Greek church and the other Eastern churches. The y us what are the gospels which man's wisdom and goo have framed even from such materials as the New Tes thas put into his hand, and prove him incapable of or ng the gospel.

et us now turn our attention in an opposite direction, - the perversions of Christianity by

MAN PHILOSOPHERS AND PHILOSOPHY AND THEIR FELLO THINKERS AND WRITERS OF OTHER LANDS.

hese are men of highly cultivated minds, who claim to nest removed from superstition. They have undertake emodel Christianity, to free it from errors and cruditie ch they have discovered in it as at first delivered. An t have they given us ? systems which, for their greater sim ty, sublime truth, and purer morals, command our read nt as improvements on the gospel? Far from it. On the rary, the more they have diverged from the simple gospel less worthy of respect have their emendations become till for

fancifulness and absurdity they equal the dreams of a sleeper. We find them attempting to explain the miracles of Christ on natural principles, or resolving his power into that of a mesmerist and conjurer, or reducing his history to a mere myth, or allegorical fiction, in which the church embodied their ideas moral and spiritual. We find them teaching Christianity to be a development of human reason, which progresses from age to age, and they hesitate not to lay aside many of the teachings of Christ and his apostles respecting the character and destiny of man and the method of redemption. They loosen the bonds of morality, make little or nothing of faith and repentance and prayer, and substitute some general philosophical ideas of the beautiful and the true for the holy, and the cultivation of the intellect for the piety of the heart. And these systems, a combination of philosophical speculation, literary criticism, fanciful theories, with some elements of religious truth, they denominate Christianity, but they are utterly powerless to affect the hearts or renovate the characters of men.

the

The gospel of Christ is emphatically a religion for every class, poor, the ignorant and the savage, as well as the rich, the wise and the enlightened, but these amended gospels of philosophers, either require a life of philosophical study to apprehend them, or are so fanciful and puerile as to cause a smile of derision when announced to any man of good sense, whose mind has not been sophisticated by philosophical speculations. There is nothing in them, which has power over the spirit of man, which has grasp upon his conscience, and with authoritative words direct him to duty.

From these perversions, it is a relief to turn to the pure gospel, and after viewing these fruits of human wisdom, it is with an increased conviction that they are not of man, that we study the pure and holy teachings of revelation. Is it not a proof of its divine origin, that when learned men, with the teachings and experience of eighteen centuries before them, undertake to improve upon the gospel, as given in the New Testament, they do so invariably fall into puerilities, or plunge into monstrosities, or float off into wild vagaries and transcendental theories?

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