could devise. It was truly "looking to Egypt for help," (that is, consulting human wisdom and obeying its dictates,) instead of looking to God to deliver His Church, and to guide her in her difficulties. It was altogether of the earth, earthy, and has produced corresponding fruit; as men said, "We will flee upon horses," God said, "Therefore shall ye flee:" that is, since you will guide the Church by human wisdom, you shall see to what a state you will bring it. However wise it was, still it was not of God's appointment, and therefore it has produced ultimately as much evil as good. In the beginning it drove back innumerable heresies, which the lively imagination of the Greeks, the imagery of their poetry, and the subtlety of their philosophy, were continually engendering, or, at least, nurturing if produced of heathen parentage. It is to Rome that we owe the orthodoxy of the Western Church; and it is possible that she yet may make the only effectual stand against the neology of Protestant Germany, and the revolutionary teachings of British professors of theology, who inculcate that men know more of God now than they did of old; that therefore the old forms and Creeds of the Church are useless; and that new formularies of faith should be drawn up commensurate with this superior intelligence. Certain it is, that, unless Rome make her stand against

this abomination, there is no other body in Christendom recognized by a state that is able to do so.

There is a great cry amongst illiterate masses of operatives that union is strength, but this is true only as far as union produces unity. The materials of which a substance is composed may be in union, yet it be no stronger than so many grains of sand; they must enter into chemical combination and become a unity before the mass has any strength. All the clergy and people of the Roman sect are in union; but they are more than this: they are under one head, whom they obey in their various gradations of cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, so that they are a unity also; and, being a unity in government, are a unity in doctrine, a unity in design, and a unity for action, by which they can effect great ends. The bishops, priests, and people of the Church of England are in union together, but they are not a unity. They obey no common head, have no unity in government, no unity in doctrine, no unity in design, no unity in action, and must therefore sooner or later fall to pieces. Rome alone of all Christian sects has preserved not only the theory, but the truth and essence of unity. She is truly one; but she is not Catholic.

This excellent principle of unity the priests of Rome have ever endeavoured to enforce by violence.

In this all other sects have followed their example, in proportion as they could command the assistance of the civil power; the clergy of every sect, when encouraged and supported by a state, have committed the same faults. The history of the Greek, Anglican, and Scottish sects furnishes abundant proof of the justice of this remark. This iniquity began very soon in the history of Christendom, even in the times of the heathen emperors, and shews at what an early period the true principle of God's mode of building and governing the Church had been obliterated from men's minds. Unity was the end aimed at; the conversion of the souls of the offenders, and the safety of other members of the communion was quite another consideration: the exemplary punishment of those who had sinned by renouncing the true faith was called for by the clergy and administered by the civil power. Of the horrors of the so-called Holy Office, a clerical tribunal in more recent times, it is not my purpose now to speak. But I repeat that the principle was right, while the means adopted for realizing it were most iniquitous. It is hardly possible that men could have fallen into such errors if they had been attentive and habitual students of God's word. The sects the most opposed to Rome-such, for example, as the disciples of John Knox in Scotland, of Crom

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well in England, and of Calvin in Switzerland— fell as deeply into this sin as the Papacy itself; and every priest must fall into it wherever secular advantage is connected with the profession of a Creed, and power of the secular arm is placed at his disposal. The early Christians all knew and believed that salvation from eternal misery was only to be obtained through the knowledge of and reliance on the vicarious sacrifice of Christ. They had also some less accurately defined ideas about the blessedness to be enjoyed hereafter by all who were members of the Church. Thus their anxiety for the souls of men would lead them to make every exertion to draw men into the Church, and still more to prevent their deliberately leaving it when once admitted, and thereby renouncing their hope, and pouring contempt on the person and work of the Son of God. It cannot be a matter of surprise, to any who will put themselves into the situation of men so circumstanced, that they should resort to every means which they possessed to enforce obedience to the laws and rules of the Church. We see the same spirit active everywhere in the present day; not only is it rampant in Spain and Italy, under the guidance of popish priests, but in every private family. Instances are continually recurring of parents and other relations exercising the utmost cruelty towards

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their children and dependents on account of religious differences. In Protestant countries the civil power lends no assistance to such. ill-advised tyranny; but, if this were a fitting time and place, instances might be narrated of domestic cruelty exercised by husbands over wives, (particularly by the new converts to popery,) by other relatives where the husband did not interfere, and by parents over children, which want nothing of the spirit and malignity of the blackest instances which could be quoted from the Middle Ages. Only this year have many come forward in Scotland to justify and praise the murder of Archbishop Sharp.* Similar persecutions are experienced from infidels and others who live in open violation of God's word and command. ment, where the persons subjected to them are desirous of serving God according to their ability. In all these cases, except the last, it is a good motive which prompts the evil act; and it is continued with

*The Univers, a journal conducted by French priests, regretted that there had not been faith enough at the Reformation to burn Calvin. Another journal of the parti prêtre, at Lyons, praised the dragonades which occurred, at the instigation of the priests, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Archbishops Wiseman and Cullen have united with the Mahometans and heathen Sepoys, in joy at the attacks in India on the Protestant power of England. And the Irish popish papers openly declare that all attachment to the Sovereign and country of England is as nothing when there is a question of the interests of the Bishop of Rome.