that we do not thus reject traditionary evidence and assistance; but, Shall we advance their traditions to equal or superior authority with the scriptures themselves? The Papists do not venture to impugn the authority of scripture; what they contend for is, to place it on the same level with certain traditions, of which they say that their church has always been the repository; which traditions, they maintain, afford the genuine sense of scripture, and throw light on the whole economy of the Christian revelation. This is the amount of their position: now let us see how they make it out.

It is indispensably necessary for them to make out the supremacy and infallibility of the papal chair, the oracle which decides concerning their traditions, and all their peculiar rites and doctrines; and in order to this, to deduce this supremacy and infallibility from the apostle Peter, whom our Saviour is held to have intrusted with the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and with the charge and custody of his people. This they must do; for if there be nowhere some supreme and infallible guide, who is visible to our eyes and palpable to all our senses, their oral communications must rest precisely on their own peculiar evidence, and reach no higher estimation than their intrinsic value carries along with them. The pope's supremacy and infallibility, accordingly, form the corner stone of their system; and it is of such vital importance to it, that if it is not supported on its high, exalted, and pre-eminent place, the system itself must fall to the ground, like the arch when its keystone is removed. Indeed, if the civil and spiritual power of the pope were deprived of these attributes, it would crumble into nothing, and along with it bring down the whole fabric of papal delusion. Indeed, his supremacy is so essentially important to the existence of the system, that if once set aside and abandoned, there would not be one tongue to move in defence of these abominations and absurdities that have been palmed on the world under the name of legendary traditions. Now the argument adduced by this truly eminent critic against the supremacy of the pope, as derived from the apostle Peter, is this:Saint Peter, it is allowed on all hands, suffered martyrdom under the persecution of Nero, about the year of our Lord 66. It is enough for us at present to assume, that the Papists, from what they hold to be infallible authority, receive this to have been the time of his death. We know, moreover, and scripture testifies the fact, that the beloved apostle John, to whom our blessed Redeemer committed the charge of his mother, lived about forty years beyond this period, having, during his banishment, under Domitian, to Patmos, written the Apocalypse; and probably, at or near the same time, his gospel and epistles. Whence it appears, that this eminent apostle not only survived Peter many years, but was most actively and beneficially exercised during that period in the service of the church of Christ. A question thereupon occurs, How did it come to pass that this great apostle did not succeed to the supremacy of the church at the death of Peter, in place of Clement, or Linus, or Cletus, or Anacletus?-Why, seeing his fellow-labourer, with whom he so often and so frequently exerted himself side by side, was removed from the earthly state of things, did not John take up the mantle that was dropped from him, and exercise that supremacy and infallibility on which the main stress of Christian belief was in all ages to depend? Why was he to submit to Pope Clement, and Pore

Linus, and Pope Cletus, in the great articles of supremacy and infalli bility? Did his high apostolic authority, derived immediately and directly from our only Lord and Saviour, indeed succumb to these orderly, supreme pontiffs, or was there during his life an eclipse of the papal power? Whatever answer may be attempted to these questions, one thing is most evidently and prominently certain, that the apostle John was eminently qualified to have exercised the great offices attributed to the successors of Peter; and if their offices were so necessary in the church, as Papists say they are, it is wonderful, it is unaccountable, how he should not have been appointed to exercise them, now that Peter was out of the way, and he so well prepared for discharging them with equal or superior influence.

But the force of the argument is not spent here. If it was necessary for the apostle John to submit to Pope Clement, or Pope Linus, why did he not manfully defend their authority, enforce the infallibility and supremacy of the new establishment, and give efficacy and force to its dictates by his apostolic power and authority, confirming the same by miracles, and illustrating its efficacy by the accompaniment of gifts and graces, conformably to the original destination of such power and authority? Most certainly such confirmation was much wanted, if popedom was necessary to give influence to the whole progress of Christian belief. But does the holy apostle thus lend his name or authority to the popedom and their system of traditions? Does he in his writings, received by all of us as the dictates of inspiration, take no interest in this new yet permanent accession to the Christian church? Does this wonderful establishment, which is to bear legal sway for so many ages, derive no adequate support from his pen, either in the way of reconciling men's minds and feelings to it, or through his stating circumstances to render it congruous with the Christian scheme as already promulgated? Have Papists any tradition to account for that entire neglect of, and disrespect for, their system of supremacy and infallibility which this scheme indicates? Alas! if they could but think and feel rationally, they would hide their faces with shame; for they are not only destitute of this holy apostle's support, but have his whole authority in full array against them.

As Papists now write and reason, and appeal to scripture and to common sense in their defences, I will venture to push this whole argument one step farther. The apostle John affords us not only negative but positive proof against the supremacy and infallibility of the popedom and its traditionary legends.

In the first place, he shows that the Christian faith gives light, and life, and joy-that its essence is spiritual, and that it is independent of all earthly and secular considerations. Our Saviour's discourses,

recorded by him,-his answer to Pilate, his frequent appeals to the spirituality of his kingdom, and to the gift of the Holy Ghost, whose influences are to renew and sanctify the soul, abstractly from all external objects; these are delicate, but, to sincere lovers of the truth, cogent and irresistible reasonings against the papacy, inasmuch as they attack its vital parts, while they allow its carcass to fall to pieces by its own weight. But the apostle proceeds farther to depict the grand deceit then going on, or beginning to emerge. He uses the figure of a debauched woman, which he contradistinguishes from one whose love

has been purified, and gives birth to the man child who is to rule the nations; and he at the same time informs us in so many words, that this debauched woman is the great city which rules over the earth, thereby furnishing us with an unerring clue to distinguish at once her seat and her character.-J. E."

I regret that want of room obliges me to omit the sequel of this sensible letter.

CHAPTER CXCV.

UNION AMONG PROTESTANTS GREATER THAN IN THE CHURCH OF ROME. REASONS WHY THEY ARE NOT ENTIRELY UNITED. STILL THEIR VIEWS OF THE METHOD OF SALVATION THE SAME. REFERENCE TO THIS WORK, AND ITS FAVOUR WITH ALL SECTS OF PROTESTANTS. JESUITS IN FRANCE; AND DISTURBANCES IN IRELAND. EXTRACT FROM DR. OWEN. REFERENCE TO THE CATHOLIC VINDICATOR AS INDICATIVE OF WANT OF UNION AMONG PAPISTS. SCHISMS IN THE CHURCH OF ROME. THREE POPES. QUESTION CONCERNING THE LEGITIMACY OF THE PRESENT POPISH CLERGY.

SATURDAY, April 6th, 1822.

It is one of the arts of the Romish church to claim for herself with the greatest confidence those good qualities of which she is most notoriously destitute. By bold assertion and incessant repetition she prevails upon her own members at least, to believe that she is what she calls herself, at the expense of refusing the evidence of their own senses. This applies to the article of her unity as well as that of her sanctity or holiness; for no man, who witnesses the evil practices of Papists, can, without discrediting his own senses, believe that she is a holy church; no more can any one, who knows her present state and ancient history, believe that she possesses the quality of union. This Dr. Milner lays down as the first mark of the true church, and he challenges the possession of it for his church alone. Now, union by itself is no mark of a true church, for many confederacies of wicked men are very firmly united; for instance, the insurgents in Ireland seem to have but one heart and soul in carrying on their work of massacre and plunder. But I admit that a church destitute of union is not a true church, at least not a church in a Christian-like state; and this applies to the church of Rome above all other churches; for, as I showed in my last number, she is not united in the acknowledgment of one head; and as for the members, they are no more united in sentiment or affection than any other portion of the human race, whether heathen or Mahometan.

A degree of union pervades all Protestant churches; I mean union in the acknowledgment of divine truth, and the observance of divine ordinances. This union is not dependant on the organization and connexion of any number of congregations in one representative assembly, or under one patriarch or pope. In the New Testament we read of many churches which were not so united; and yet they were united, in the sense in which church union ought always to exist. There was throughout them all but one Lord, one faith, one baptism; and this is the case in most Protestant churches at this day;-I should say, in all

who have any right to the name of Protestant: and this union appears not merely in their public creeds and formularies,-though it does appear there, but in what I consider far more important, namely, the union of many thousands of individuals to Jesus Christ and to one another, as members of his body, by the belief of the gospel which is preached among them. Perhaps this cannot be credibly affirmed of all the members of any Protestant church; but among all the churches, "the Lord knoweth them that are his," and who are thus united to himself and to one another; and it is only union in this sense that is of any real permanent value.

In the churches planted by the apostles, I suppose the proportion of members so united to one another and to their common head, was much greater than it has ever been since in any church; and indeed, so far as appears, none were received, or allowed to continue members, who did not give credible evidence of being such; or if in some cases it was otherwise, the churches themselves were subjected to apostolic rebuke. This perhaps accounts for the fact, that these churches, though quite distinct assemblies, were all of one communion, and thus they were more united than Protestant churches are. This was because they were more united in love of the truth, and in affection to one another; not because they were all of one opinion in every thing that they could think and speak about; not because they all practised the very same things, for the Jews observed circumcision and other rites, which the Gentiles did not.

If I shall be asked, why Protestant churches are not all of one communion, as the primitive churches were? I answer, without hesitationit is because there is a fault somewhere among them; and perhaps it is a fault that pervades them all. I am not like Papists, obliged to defend my sect as infallible, at all hazards, and "against all deadly." It is one of the privileges arising out of the reformation, that no man is obliged to approve of all things even in the reformation itself; but every man is at liberty to express his mind, and to point out errors and mistakes in his own brethren, without giving just cause of offence. I believe the principal reason why Protestants are not all of one communion is, because they have not followed out their own fundamental principle of the Bible, and the Bible alone, as the religion of Protestants. When they have all done this, they will be all of one communion, as Christians were at first, without the necessity of being all of one mind about every thing, or all observing precisely the same things, any more than the primitive churches were; and yet they may approach more nearly to union even in these things than the primitive Christians did, when things indifferent are left as the apostles left those things in which the kingdom of heaven does not consist. The best way to attain union on these points, is, to let their comparative unimportance be on all hands admitted. People will then cease to dispute about them; and controversies among serious Christians will cease from want of matter to dispute about.

But, without being yet all of one communion, it is a fact, that Protestants are more united in their confession of Christian doctrine than Papists are. In other words, there is more variety and contrariety in the doctrines maintained by different orders within the church of Rome, than there is among all Protestant sects. For the truth of this

assertion, I have only to refer to the furious controversies between the Dominicans and Franciscans;-the Jesuits and the Jansenists. I need not go into particulars; for the fact is known to every reader of church history; and surely it is more unseemly for the church that professes to be one holy and united body, to have such feuds within its bosom, than for Protestant churches to have controversies while they do not pretend to be so united.

I have adverted to the fact, that, in their creeds and public formularies, Protestant churches are agreed in the leading articles of Christian doctrine; so much so, that a work has been published, and is extant in two thick volumes, containing a collection of confessions, in which it is proved by the documents themselves, that the faith of the reformed churches, in different nations, is fundamentally and substantially the same, so far as relates to the Christian doctrine, or the way by which a sinner is saved, and taught to live to the glory of God, with the hope of happiness in his presence for ever. This is the sum and substance of Christian knowledge. In this Protestants are agreed. There, is therefore, more unity in their different communions, than there is in the church of Rome in her one communion; for on these fundamental points, the canons of councils and decrees of popes are so discordant, that the poor people do not know whether they are to be saved wholly by Christ, or partly by themselves, and by the merits of saints; and whether Christ has satisfied divine justice for them, or whether they must not satisfy for themselves, either in this world or in purgatory. Now she teaches one thing, and then another; and after all, it turns out that she teaches nothing that can be depended upon; for every man is bound to receive all doctrines from the lips of his priest, though he should know him to be a man neither wiser nor better than himself.

I shall be told that the creeds and formularies of churches are not a criterion by which we can ascertain the present state of religious belief; because in some instances a change has tacitly been effected, like that in the church of Geneva, as I mentioned in a late number. This is true as regards individuals in some Protestant churches; but I believe there is, notwithstanding this fact, as much agreement among Protestants as ever there was ;-I mean among Protestants who read the scriptures, who think for themselves, and who have received the love of the truth; and it is only the agreement of such that is worthy of the name of Christian union. For the truth of this I have only one humble document to refer to; and perhaps the evidence of it is the stronger, that it never pretended to be, and was never understood by any man to be, an exhibition of the religious belief of any one sect of Protestants;-I mean this same work, entitled, THE PROTESTANT. To my certain knowledge, it is read and approved of by not a few of the established church in England and Ireland, including some of the hierarchy; and by many more of the church of Scotland. Among Presbyterian dissenters of all denominations, it is generally read and approved; and Independents and Baptists of various classes regard me as a friend, and approve of my sentiments upon the whole, though I have made no account of their distinctive peculiarities. I have not pleaded the cause of any one of these sects; and I do not suppose that every sentiment which I have expressed is approved by all or any of