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in many places the cruelty, tyranny, simony, insatiable greediness, the errors, ignorance, darkness, vanities, hypocrisy, superstition, and idolatry, which have been brought into the Church, and used by Antichrist. These were the pillars, and strength, and glory of His kingdom.

he pretended that it was not the spiritual down holds." This sword hath hewn down grace which they made the people pay for, but only its administration. But I remarked to him, that the simple believer is not good logician enough to understand such distinctions, and that if the priest only pretended to sell his trouble, the people do not less believe that they buy the sacrament and salvation by him. I withdrew then, well persuaded of having said nothing but the pure truth in the Religion of Money.

Now, five years later, one of the most curious pieces has fallen into my hands. In the Religion of Money, the reader has only seen the public part of the Roman commerce; in that which is about to follow, he will see the private part. One can form an idea of the nature of a trade by the show of the warehouse: but in order to know it fully, one must penetrate into the back-shop, listen to the clerks, open the books, and unrol unto the end the merchandise. Now, the sample of the warehouse, is that which we have already read; the back-shop, is that which we are going to read. It is necessary that this fraud be unmasked, that this ecclesiastic traffic be overthrown, and that the house fall upon this infamous commerce which ruins souls in order to gain money. It is to this end that my efforts are tending, not for the pleasure of demolishing, but in order to facilitate the edifice that ought to follow. The throne cannot be occupied by two monarchs: the Pope and Jesus Christ. It is necessary that the Pope descend from it, and that Christ ascend it, for the system of the Romish Church is the deification of the clergy, as Paganism was the deification of the idol; and if I labour to overthrow the idol, it is in order to restore the pedestal to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to whom alone it belongs.

Just upon the point of commencing my subject, I experience an embarrassment. That which is about to follow is so strange, so enormous, that all my fear is that the reader will not believe this excess of monstruosity. What shall I do then, to persuade him? Here it is: I declare to him that I have in my possession, and that I can put the following original and authentic pieces at his disposal to read.—(Persons can apply to the Publisher, 2, Rue Bouchet, à Paris.) (To be continued.)

ROME ANTICHRISTIAN.

St. Paul saith, 2 Cor. x., "We do not war after the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are mighty, through God, to cast

And here mark the Apostle's speech; he saith not God shall convert Antichrist, or change his heart, that he may be saved; but he saith, Whom the Lord shall consume..... Such is the hardness and blindness of his heart, he will not receive the love of the truth, he will not believe the truth, that he might be saved; therefore destruction shall come upon him.

Hereby we are taught what to think or hope of reformation of the abuses and errors of the Church of Rome. They have been advertised of them, not only by the professors of the Gospel, but also many of themselves have spoken for reformation of sundry abuses; they have kept many councils and assemblies; they have promised redress; they have sat in consultation many years. What one thing have they reformed? See and look over their acts and sessions; they are abroad in print. Hitherto they have reformed nothing; no, not their pardons; no, not their stews; they have hardened their hearts, and set themselves against the Highest. Therefore shall the glory of the Lord show itself in their destruction; with the breath of his lips they shall be consumed, and brought to nothing.

Let us imagine a battle of two mighty Princes, both of great power, and of great courage; they meet together in the field, they join in battle; both sides encounter together; either part is bent to beat down the other....

Now let us by this make some resemblance of the battle between Christ and Antichrist; between Christ the Son of God, and Antichrist the son of the Devil; either of them is well prepared; they are both mighty, and have both of them soldiers and knights to attend upon them. Antichrist shall come from the earth, for all his glory is upon the earth; his power shall be the power of Satan. Christ shall come from the heaven above, even from the bosom of his Father....The ensign of Christ shall be everlasting truth; the ensign of Antichrist shall be falsehood, and vanity, and all deceitfulness. By these marks shall either be known.... Antichrist shall desire to maintain his own traditions. Christ shall maintain the holy Word of God; Christ shall procure the glory of His Father; Antichrist

shall maintain his own glory.... We have heard briefly of Christ and Antichrist, their states....what armour they shall bear, by what title they shall claim, what they shall seek, and where the fight shall be; that it shall be made in the consciences of the people. There shall Antichrist sit, there shall he be worshipped as God, there they shall call him the holy and most holy father; there shall be given to him the power of heaven and earth; there he himself shall rouse himself, and be settled, and shall say, I sit as a Prince, I shall never be removed, I cannot fall. But Christ shall blow him down with the breath of His mouth, and shall abolish him with the brightness of His coming. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give glory to Him, for she is fallen, she is fallen, Babylon, that great city, there she lieth, the mother of filth and fornication; there lieth Antichrist, the man of sin, the son of perdition, which is an adversary which hath sat in the Temple of God, and exalted himself above all that is called God; that wicked and lawless man lieth there....I have told that he should be a Reverend Father, and wear a mitre, and be a Bishop, and a Bishop of Bishops; so saith St. Gregory, so Jerome, so Augustine and Bernard, and others. And cannot we tell who it is, that calls himself a Universal Bishop, the Bishop of all Churches? Do we not hear of such a one? Do we not know him? Whatsoever he be, wheresoever he dwell, what countenance soever he bear, he is Antichrist.

Antichrist shall sit in Peter's chair, and Rome shall be the seat of his kingdom.... I told you he shall prevail by falsehood, and by feigned miracles; by bulls, by pardons, by purgatories, and by such other devices and shifts of Satan. I told you, he shall be contrary to Christ, in sacraments, in sacrifice, in prayers, in life, in doctrine, in religion, in the whole form and order of the Church. He shall shut that which Christ hath opened, he shall open that which Christ hath shut; he shall curse that which Christ hath blessed, and bless that which Christ hath cursed. No man shall be accounted faithful, no man Catholic, no man the son of the Church, no man may be saved without him, such credit and countenance shall he bear.

I told you, he shall be confounded and beaten down by the force and power of God's mighty Word. His Word is omnipotent; it shall disclose the works of darkness; it shall hew down idolatry, superstition, and the whole kingdom of Antichrist, as our eyes do see this day. Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, His mighty hand

hath wrought these things; He hath triumphed through the name of His Christ; He will bless the things He hath begun; He will overthrow the whole power of Antichrist by His presence, and by the glory of His coming. Then shall it appear who is the successor of Peter, who is the true Vicar of Christ, and who is Antichrist.-Bishop Jewell on 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.

THE PROSELYTE RECOVERED;
OR FACTS FOR YOUNG MEN.
(By the Rev. JOHN EAST, M.A., Rector of St.
Michael's, Bath.)

One

IN these days of Tractarian treachery and Romish activity, it is especially desirable that the people of England should be furnished with FACTS illustrative of the opposing systems of Popery and Protestantism. such may effect more good than many treatises upon abstract doctrines. Arguments may be evaded: but "facts are stubborn things." In an elegant brochure of 34 pages, the reader has here presented to him a narrative, possessing peculiar interest, and replete with the most salutary cautions; while the story rests not on hearsay evidence, but on the indisputable personal testimony of the Rev. writer himself. It is shortly this. About four years ago, a young man, who was known to the Author, left the Protestant communion for the Papal. He took this momentous step with lamentable precipitation: and then well nigh succeeded in proselyting another young man, who had "in great measure been led to adopt the doctrine of the Church of Rome respecting the Lord's Supper by reading the Tracts for the Times, which he found in a certain library in Bath, provided for the instruction of youth." After a time, he quitted his employment in that city. "By his new instructors he was deemed a fit person to be trained for the priesthood: and he was placed in a kind of monastic establishment [we presume, in Lancashire], with a view to his future office." After the lapse of three years, he returned to Bath, with ruined health; and, in the course of the two months which finished his earthly career, was, at his own particular desire, frequently visited by the Rev. narrator. At the interviews which took place between them, the dying man made various statements respecting his treatment and his experience during his noviceship. He also left behind him a manuscript, confirmatory of those statements, He described Romanism as a "system of tyranny for grinding down both the body and the

soul." And he regarded himself as a victim to the "self-willed austerities" which, under it, he had unhappily practiced. "This," says the Rev. writer," he told me distinctly and repeatedly." The Author continues

"Eleven months had not passed over W. H., when, disappointed and disgusted at the insight he had gained into the mechanical working of the Papal system, and worn down in mind and body by the part he had to take therein, he communicated to the superior his wish and purpose to quit the establishment at -. He did not avow his intention to quit the Romish Church: "Had I done so,' he said unto me with deep emotion, 'I do not think I should ever have again seen the outside of those walls!' Whether his fears on this point were well or ill founded, But it may be difficult for us to determine. the fact, resting on his own declaration to me, the fact that he had such fears, and that he therefore disguised his real purpose, speaks forcibly. What followed speaks as loudly in support of the claims of the ORDER, in which he had begun his novitiate, to the specious title of the Order of CHARITY:From the time that I made known my design to leave the house,' said he to me, 'the tone and conduct of all was greatly altered towards me. I became subject to such persecution as the circumstances and time allowed. The most awful denunciations were uttered or read from books, in my hearing, of the peril, and even the certain damnation, to which persons expose themselves who leave a religious order after having entered it. This was intended to frighten me; but I saw through it. I was very anxious,' he added to bring away with me the Rules of the Order: I should have liked to shew them to you. They were very numerous, minute, and severe. When packed up my box, I was putting in my own copy of the Rules: but was watched, and the copy was taken from me.'

"The world, generally, has an impression that a novice enters a novitiate upon trial, for the double purpose of being himself tried, as to his sincerity and competency for the high and solemn profession in contemplation, and also that he himself may make trial beforehand of what, if done, is to be an irrevocable act-a step for life. A novitiate for youth of either sex, before the taking of the veil, or the monastic and other vows, may seem to be not only a reasonable, but even a kind and humane arrangement, that the young and inexperienced may not be betrayed, by feeling and imagination, into a course afterwards to be regretted, but in vain. From the system of enticement or

alarm, alternately pursued, however, it is probable that, with few exceptions, these pitiable novices have relinquished every degree of judgment or choice, before they reach the close of their feigned probation. They take the final step, perceiving no possibility of retreat. Their position resembles that of the criminal condemned to walk the plank. It is, indeed, his own step onward that overbalances the instrument of his destruction, and he sinks to rise no more till 'the sea shall give up her dead,' at the voice of the Judge of all. But is that step voluntary! Is it not the act of sullen or terrified despair in both the criminal and the novice ?"

Referring to the religious establishment from which the young man had been emancipated, the writer says

66

"Did you study the Bible when in that establishment?' I asked. 'The Bible! Oh,

no! The Bible was treated as a book to be wholly laid aside. There was, I believe, a copy in the house, but I never saw it in any person's hands; and I never had the Scriptures to read till a few weeks before I came away, when I secretly bought and kept a copy for my own private use. My reading was chiefly confined to such books as would qualify me to go through the various services, and to the lives of saints.'"

Various other features of the Papal system are instructively developed in these pages: but we can make room for only one more extract. After detailing the circumstances of the young man's death, the writer adds―

"Thus W. H. died; a recent convert to Rome, but re-converted to the Protestant faith by the grace of God, through disgust at what he found behind the scenes upon the Popish stage. To him Popery proved to be like the fabled garment said to have been given to Hercules by Dejanira, which, when he put it on, infused a deadly poison into his whole frame, and destroyed his life."

The false step in religion which cost this young man so dear, may be traced mainly to two causes-his permitting himself to be led, "by curiosity," to attend a Roman Catholic chapel; and then hastily venturing to renounce the faith in which he had been brought up, without first conferring with persons competent to counsel and advise with him in so weighty a matter.-We earnestly commend this remarkable narrative to the early attention of our readers, not doubting that they will thank us for introducing it to their notice. Its circulation must prove very influential.

PROTESTANTISM A BLESSING

POPERY A CURSE.

"Oh how fervently do I pray for a blessing on dear Old England! God bless my country! She is a blessing indeed to many, may she never, never forget her privileges. You know not the happiness of your Protestant land and Protestant faith; here all is tumult and disorder and ferment, owing to Popery, just as it is in Ireland. I have learnt here practically, what I before believed theoretically, that Popery is unchanged-unchangeable. Thank God! there are still some faithful Protestant hearts, but it is a time of trial. As Mr. Hagard often tells them, "Be not firm merely from political motives.' There are so many Protestants of this description, who will cry 'Long live the Church and the Queen,' but alas! know not, or love not supremely the King of Kings! In consequence of Mr. Hagard putting in force the rules of the

Newfoundland School Society, requiring a prayer to be read previous to commencing, and that all the children should kneel, the Popish parents have withdrawn their children, and the Romish magistrate has summoned one of the teachers (Hood, of East Hemingford) to appear before him, charged with an assault upon one of the girls, the real cause being, his complying with Mr. Hagard's rule. This morning Hood came down to shew the summons and request of Mr. H. a line to Capt. Nisbett, to ask him to appear on his behalf. I was much pleased to hear, on my saying to him, Do you really believe that this is in consequence of the rule of the Society being put in force?' he said, I know it is, for Clancey (the magistrate's name) sent me word last week, that if I would excuse the children kneeling, he would withdraw the summons, but I told him that I would go to prison first.'"-Extract of a Letter from Therington, Lower Canada. May 6th, 1844.

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"Not outward magnificence, not state, not wealth, not favour of the mighty, but the presence of God in his ordinances, is the glory of Israel."BISHOP HALL.

ONE of the most striking situations for a reflective Protestant is, that of passing a solitary hour under the lofty vaults, among the superb arches and columns, of one of the splendid Cathedrals remaining at this day in our country. If he has sensibility and taste, the magnificence, the graceful union of so many diverse inventions of art, the mighty creation of genius that quitted the world

without leaving even a name, will come with magical impression on his mind, while it is contemplatively darkening into the awe of antiquity. But he will be recalled,-the sculptures, the inscriptions, the sanctuaries enclosed off for the special benefit, after death, of persons who during life cared not about their salvation, and various other insignia of the original character of the place, will help to recall him,-to the thought, that these proud piles were in fact raised to celebrate the conquest, and prolong the dominion, of the Power of darkness over the

souls of men. They were as triumphal arches, erected in memorial of the extermination of that truth which was given to be the life of the world.

As he looks round, and looks upwards, on the prodigy of design, and skill, and perseverence, he may imagine to himself the multitudes that, during successive ages, frequented this fane in the assured belief, that the idle ceremonies and impious superstitions, which they there performed or witnessed, were a service acceptible to heaven and to be repaid in blessings to the offerers. He may say to himself, On this floor, under that elevated and decorated vault, in a "dim religious light" like this, but with the darkness of the shadow of death in their souls, they prostrated themselves to their saints, or their " queen of heaven;" nay, to painted images and toys of wood or wax, to some ounce or two of bread and wine, to fragments of old bones, and rags of cast-off vestments. Hither they came, when conscience, in looking back or pointing forward, dismayed them, to purchase remissison with money or atoning penances, or to acquire the privilege of sinning with impunity in a certain manner, or for a certain time; and they went out at yonder door in the perfect confidence that the priest had secured, in the one case the suspension, in the other the satisfaction, of the divine law. Here they solemnly believed as they were taught, that, by gifts to the Church they delivered the souls of their departed sinful relations from their state of punishment; and such as had possessions went out at that door resolved to bequeath some portion of them, to operate another day in the same manner for themselves. Here they were convened to listen in reverence to some emissary from the Man of Sin, with new dictates of blasphemy or iniquity promulgated in the name of the Almighty; or to witness some trickery devised to cheat or fright them out of whatever remainder the former impositions might have left of sense, conscience, or property. Here, in short, there was never presented to their understanding, from their childhood to their death, a comprehensive honest declaration of the laws of duty, and the pure doctrines of salvation. To think! that they should have mistaken for the house of God, and the gate of heaven, a place where the Regent of hell had so short away to come from his dominions, and his agents and purchased slaves so short away to go thither. If we could imagine a momentary visit from Him who once entered the Jewish temple with a scourge,

because it was made the resort of a common traffic, with what aspect and voice, with what infliction but the "rebuke with flames of fire," would he have entered this mart of iniquity, assuming the name of his sanctuary, where the traffic was in delusions, crimes, and the souls of men?

CHURCH EDUCATION SOCIETY
FOR IRELAND.

SPECIAL ENDOWMENT FUND.

THE following letter on this important subject has been addressed by Col. J. R. Ward, to the Secretary of the Down and Connor and Dromore Diocesan Society.

"Tubbernacarrig, July 1, 1844. "Dear Sir,-Being deeply impressed with the importance of the education question, I think it right, while sending through you my contribution of 10l. towards the Special Endowment Fund of the Church Education Society, to state publicly my objections to the principles of the National Board, and to enter my protest against them.

"Whilst it seems evident that funds collected from individuals cannot hold out against the resources of the nation, still a protest goes for little if unaccompanied by some sacrifice.

"The unsound principle of the National Board having been so often and so unanswerably exposed, it now only remains for an individual like myself to enter his public protest against that establishment.

"I. As a national sin.

"II. As a national disgrace.

"It is a national sin-Because the board has been established in open violation of the first and plainest principles of our Protestantism, inasmuch as it recognises the right of a priest at home and a Pope abroad to grant or withhold the word of God from the people.

"It is a national disgrace-because it holds out a temptation to the ministers of the Gospel, and especially to those of the Established Church, to sell their people's birthright; and is, in fact, a Protestant dispensation to the Pope of Rome for the suppression the Bible.

"It is a suicidal blindness in rulers to submit the standard of a nation's faith, which is the Word of the living God, to the interpretation and control of those who are openly opposed and conscientiously determined against its free circulation, and who cannot, or who will not, understand it in any other sense than that in which a foreign potentate shall decree.

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