on sorrow from a lower motive called attrition-a horribly unholy doctrine-forgiveness quieting the conscience without purifying the heart, but the forgiven man having still to satisfy an exacting God for his sins, unless this temporal penalty, too, be excused by an indulgence. Then, when dying, other sacraments, no less than three, to quiet his conscience again; and then he must go to purgatory to pay and satisfy God still. And all this if a man is in grace forgiven, sanctified, and justified! It is not Christianity, whatever else it may be.

James. Well, how little one knows what Romanism is. I could never have thought it; but all these Fathers! I thought they were such holy people, all teaching as nobody else could. Why, they only make everything dark I think: the word of God is clearer and surer too. I see that plainly now, and then one has the words of the Apostles and of the blessed Lord Himself, and we are sure they are right. Oh! what a comfort for one's poor soul that is.

Mrs. J. But I do not know, sir, why one should trouble oneself with all these books and mazes of uncertain teaching when one has the Word of God. They are beyond poor folks like us, and if knowing the truth depended on reading them we should be in a bad way, while with my bible and the words of my blessed Saviour all is simple and full of grace just suited to simple people: and then they are His own.

N*. Just so, Mrs. J.; they are His own. Oh! what a thought that is. They come with power, they come with authority, and that is what no man's words can do; and then they come in grace to the heart-God's grace. Mrs. J. They do, sir.

N*. When God has become a man-when He can say, If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given-when the High and Holy One has come so low to be with sinners, the moment I believe it, I can have confidence in Him. I have much to learn; but to learn from one who loves us. If we reject His grace we have a debt we never can pay at all; but if we have Him we have one whoVOL. II.-New Series. 17.

blessed be His name has paid the last farthing for us. There is not the smallest need of your knowing the fathers. They may be interesting as a matter of history to shew what went on in those days for those who make research, and they are so; and in a very few indeed we see marks of piety and true grace, as in Irenæus of the more voluminous, and others I need not name here; but it is not in the books of those times you get the highest parts of Christianity. They were almost all corrupted by heathenism and philosophical reasonings. I do not think you would find as much rubbish and false interpretation in any quantity of serious books of the same size nowadays. But men suffered then for Christ, and so did some of these very men. As to their consent in doctrines, it is all a fable. There never was more disputing and confusion about doctrine than in those days. They were holding councils on councils to try and settle it, and often the Emperors managed the matter their own wayby their power, by the banishment of those whose opinions they did not like, etc. In one great council they had, the prelates of one party beat the old Archbishop of Constantinople so that he died of it. And some of the other councils were not a great deal better, though not so violent.

Bill M. But I do not want you to read the fathers, but to hear the Church. I cannot answer as to all these fathers because I have not read their books: the priest would answer all, I am sure.

James. But you used to talk about the holy fathers to me, Bill, and how they all agreed from the beginning in one doctrine, and one Church, and all that.

Bill M. And so they did, I am sure.

N*. You cannot, M., speak of the fathers, nor do I blame you for that, unless it is speaking of them without examining; but Dr. Milner has read them, and though I own Scripture alone for an authority, we agreed to take his book as you had given it, and we were bound, as he had quoted them, to examine what he said. Nor can I acquit Dr. Milner of dishonesty on this subject. As to the Scripture (1 Pet. iii. 19): there is no preaching in purgatory we well know: Abraham's bosom, Augustine

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even assures us, cannot mean purgatory. As to 1 Cor. iii. not only Augustine says it is most difficult; but Bellarmine declares it cannot apply to purgatory, for there all are to go into the fire. But as to the fathers it is worse, because he knows that prayers for the dead cannot be reconciled with the Romish purgatory, for all were prayed for, even the Virgin Mary. This he must have known; so that to quote the fathers who speak of it as proving purgatory, is utterly dishonest, and to say intermediate state which we call purgatory." He knew very well it was not what they call purgatory. His statement as to the Greek Church is equally false: it holds neither purgatory nor indulgences. They do hold prayers for the dead, as in the earlier centuries; but reject wholly purgatory. Neither was "from the beginning, and we must have that or what is false. We have examined these fathers on the subject of purgatory pretty much at length, and we may leave it. You, I know, would like to take up the question of the Church which you think settles everything.

Bill M. Yes, it is no good arguing; we must get some authority to decide. And the Church, the is that authority, and tells us to hear it. say against the Lord's own words?

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Lord declares, What can you

N. Well, M., we will take your own subject up next. It is fair you should have your turn; but for the present I think we have had enough. The Lord willing, we will take that up when we meet again; only remember, as far as we have gone, we have had all your friend, Dr. Milner, has to say for your doctrine. It is not taking a person who cannot be expected to know much of the fathers, and seeking to confound him. I can add, that I have looked into a more famous man still of your party, and that is Bellarmine; but it is the same in substance, and I do not see that he adds anything material. He says, St. Chrysostom is quite wrong in his view of 1 Cor. iii., for on this interpretation all would be saved. I do not know how he manages about the consent of the fathers. I suppose he was not thinking of it just then, yet this is their pet text on this subject. Bellarmine prefers Gregory which I have given you. For my own

part what I see is this the real source of purgatory is heathenism and Judaism, which were associated at Alexandria, where the first great doctors of the Church lived. At first it took the shape of purifying all completely in eternal fire. Still this was not generally accepted. It then took the form of prayers for all, because they had not fully the sense of Christ's having so atoned for believers' sins, that they were white as snow for God. They apportioned, therefore, to all some punishment at the least the punishment of loss, not seeing God; or at any rate were uncertain and prayed for all, even for the Virgin Mary, with a view to their speedily seeing the face of God; but the idea of the purging process survived through, and in Augustine's time was a question as to which he doubted-Jerome speaking with such uncertainty that he is accused of denying eternal punishment. This was in the fifth century: in the end of the sixth Gregory specifies the purifying very light sins; but doubts still. With Schoolmen it was like other things formed into an elaborate system; but all this last part was only in Western Christendom. Greek or Eastern Christendom has never received the doctrine. I conclude: Scripture is positively and clearly against it, as destructive of Christ's work. The fathers are one mass of confusion as to it; its true source being heathenism and Judaism, and the oldest half of Christendom rejects it to this day. Yet it is practically the great doctrine of Romanism in connection with the Mass. It is to get people out of it that masses are constantly said. The poverty of the system is shewn, and the character it gives to God, in that it proceeds on the ground of God's exacting the last farthing (an interpretation denied by Augustine and Jerome), and that after the use of all the means the Roman system has at its disposal-absolution, the viaticum, and extreme unction which wipes off the remains of sin-so utterly unprofitable are they (by their own confession) that the faithful have to go to purgatory to get these remains burned out by the relentless and exacting hand of God.

Oh, what a difference from that holy grace of God that saves, cleanses, and gives life!

N*.

A FEW LEADING THOUGHTS AS TO THE

BOOK OF PSALMS.

A. Most of the Psalms are expressions afore-prepared by the Supreme Being for His earthly people-expressions of sentiments produced in their hearts, in and by circumstances through which they have to pass.

Among His people I include here the Messiah Him

self.a

These expressions give us, in truth, the part which the Spirit takes, as working in the hearts of saints for the earth, amid their sorrows and exercises, and even in their human infirmities and failures, of which, of course, the Messiah had none; and He thus gives, beforehand, the thoughts of faith, and the truth suited to all that happens.

B. Observe here, 1st. These expressions belong to the godly remnant in Judah and Israel in the last days. 2ndly. It is the spirit of Messiah-the spirit of prophecy which so speaks.b

3rdly. While the sins of the people would morally hinder their having confidence in God amid their distresses, yet He alone can deliver them, and to Him they must look in integrity of heart.

In sum, then, the Psalms are the expression of the spirit of the Anointed One, either in the Jewish remnant, or in saints in Israel, or in His own person as suffering for them, in view of the counsels of Elohim with respect to His elect earthly people.

See Heb. v. 7-9. "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered," etc.

bIt is always the spirit of Messiah (1 Pet. i. 11), that speaks as Himself taking part in the affliction and grief of His people, whether it is by His spirit in them, or Himself for them as the alone means in presence of the just judgment of Jehovah, of delivering a beloved though guilty people'... 'Hence the intimacy of feeling and peculiar interest of the Psalms. They are as the beating of the heart of Him, the history of whose circumstances, the embodying of whose life, in relationship both with Jehovah and man, whose external presentation in a word, and all Elohim's ways in respect of it, are found n the rest of Scripture.'