FULGENTIUS. Fulgentius was a protester against the corruptions of the Church of Rome, for which he lost his life. He was a Minorite, and one of the seven divines that were associated with Paolo Sarpi, to oppose the Pope and his conclave in the business of the interdict. He was induced to trust himself into the Pontif''s hands, and fell a victim to his credulity. He was, by the Pope's nuncio enticed to Rome with promise of a safe conduct; when there, he was first favoured and feasted, and soon after burnt to ashes in the field of Flora. Bishop Bedell used to tell an anecdote of this Fulgentius, as follows: -"He was preaching at Florence, and Bishop Bedell 66 was present. He took for his text these words of Christ,' Have ye not read?' Have ye not read? 'No,' said Fulgentius; 'for they are not suffered to do it.' And then he began with great zeal to speak againt the restraint put on the use of the Scriptures by the See of Rome." Another similar anecdote is told of this same man:-"He was preaching once on Pilate's question-'What is Truth?' and he told the people that after many searches, he had at length found out what it was: upon which, holding out a New Testament, he exclaimed, Here it is in my hand;' then putting it coolly into his pocket, he said coldly, but the Book is prohibited;' which was so suited to the Italian genius, that it took mightily with his audience." POETRY. THE CRUCIFIXION AND THE VIRGIN MARY. For Him whose death redeem'd her soul from Hell. Her blissful soul has left its house of clay, And cast her crown with rapture at his feet. What tears would fall, if ransom'd souls could weep,- To mark the sinful homage to her paid: To see the prostrate soul before her fall, To hear the dying sinner on her call Save, Queen of Heaven, my guilty soul-oh save, From pain, eternal pain, beyond the grave. Ah, hapless victims of a cruel Creed, For you each faithful Christian's soul should bleed That Saviour whom their hearts supremely love. INTELLIGENCE. "PRAY WITHOUT CEASING."—1 Thess. v. 17. A meeting of the members and friends of the South London, and of the Southwark Operative Protestant Association, took place yesterday evening (Tuesday, 2d September), in the National and Parochial School-room, Borough-road, for the purpose of "considering how far the views of Mr. Jeremiah Pilcher with regard to the Maynooth Endowment Bill, and to Protestantism in general, would entitle him to their support at the ensuing election." The following placards were hung round the room :"Pilcher and Protestantism," Pilcher, the friend of the poor." Shortly after seven o'clock the chair was taken by Mr. E. PALMER, who said that they had met to consider whether Protestantism in all its glory was to prevail, or whether it was to be superseded by the dark and seductive arts of Popery-a religion which was alike opposed to the British constitution and to the circulation of the Word of God. (Cheers.) In Italy, notwithstanding the fertility of the country and the beauty of the climate, they found the people sunk in poverty and degradation. In Spain, another Catholic country, the Queen, as was to be observed by the public prints, had recently attended an exhibition of a most revolting character, and while she looked on the work of cruelty, her confessor sat by her side. It was said that those who were opposed to the late grant to Maynooth were opposed to education, but that was not the fact. Their objection to Maynooth was, that the system of education pursued by it was not such as enlightened men could desire to see carried out. In his conviction it was maintained for the purpose of perpetuating a particular line of policy as regarded politics, rather than for the promotion of religion (hear, hear); for of all the priests, the native priests of Ireland were the most opposed to conciliation, and to the union of those sentiments that ought to exist between the two countries. (Cheers.) Mr. PILCHER then came forward, and Published under THE PROTESTANT At F. BAISLER'S 124, Oxford-street; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & Co. W. DAVY & SON,] very briefly addressed the Meeting. He stated, that in the Roman Catholic religion he found many excellent and worthy men, men of great worth and charity. It was not, however, with them, but with the system that he found fault. He hoped that by that and other such meetings they would open the eyes of those men in order that they might see the error of their ways. (Cheers.) If he had been in Parliament he should have strenuously opposed the grant to Maynooth. (Loud Cheers.) Should he be sent to Parliament, and, from the promises he had received, both on the right hand and on the left, he had no doubt of it(cheers) he should feel it his duty to vote that that grant be rescinded. (Cheers.) He thought that religion should be free, that every man should exercise it in a free and Godlike spirit, and be allowed to worship under his own vine and fig-tree. (Hear, hear.) He thought that the grant to Maynooth was the first step towards larger concessions, the final extent of which it was impossible to contemplate. (Hear, hear.) Maynooth was a College of Jesuits, who issued from it like swarms of wasps, whose injuries would not be limited to the popula tion of Ireland, but extend to the people of this country. (Hear, hear.) The Jesuits of France had been expelled in consequence of the mischievous influence they were exer cising over the people; and yet, at such a moment was it that the British Government had chosen to give their countenance and support to the College of Maynooth. (Hear.) He felt that they were in duty bound to support the Protestant faith in general (cheers), and that the present was one of those occasions upon which they ought to make a stand against Popery and its baneful influence, more particularly when they looked to the proceedings of the Puseyite clergymen, who were taking money from the Church of England under false pretences, and who thereby left themselves open to an indictment. The Hon. Candidate concluded by repeating his adherence to Protestantism, and his determination, if returned to Parliament, to do every thing in his power uphold it. (Cheers.) Seven Shillings per Hundred, for Distribution. to [Gilbert-street. "If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."-Isaiah viii. 20. MANUAL OF THE TRUE Or, Short Answers of a Disciple of the Bible to the principal questions of the Romish controversy. By Dr. Cæsar Malan, of Geneva. (Translated from the French.) SECOND CONTROVERSY-THE CHURCH. (Continued from p. 74.) Stranger. Tell me now of the Church, if you please. Disciple.-The Church, says the Bible, is the pillar and ground of the Truth. (1 Tim. iii. 15.) Stranger. Is it of the Romish Church that it says this? Disciple. It is of the House of God, and not of that of the Pope. The first is founded on the Rock, which is Christ; and the other is only on the sand of tradition. This is the House of the glory of God which is immoveable, and which God glorifies. (Isaiah lx. 7.) Stranger. But is it not said somewhere, "that out of the Church Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman, there is no salvation"? Disciple. That is declared in the Profession of Faith of Rome, published in 1564 by Pope Pius IV., in support of the Council of Trent; and it is repeated by every Romish Catechism, carefully adding that "if any VOL. VI. one hears not the Church, he is only an heathen man and a publican." But the Bible speaks very differently; first when it declares that it is, not the Romish Church, but the Name of Jesus Christ, out of which no salvation is made known to man; and after when it says, that it is the Church of believers which the members ought to hear, and that, (observe) when there is a dispute among them; but not to receive a doctrine or a command. (Acts iv. 12; Matt. xviii. 17.) Stranger. Nevertheless, the priest says, the Church of Rome being the Mother Church Disciple.-The Mother Church!! - The Bible makes mention of two mothers: one, which is that of harlots, or the great Babylon, is a woman sitting, arrayed in purple and scarlet colours, on seven mountains. (Rev. xvii.) The other mother, is Jerusalem which is above, the mother of all the faithful, says an Apostle; for salvation is of the Jews. (Gal. iv. 26; John iv. 22.) This second mother is not then the Romish Church; for it is not from her that salvation comes. But the garments of purple and scarlet, and the seven mountains, do they not point out the Church, the Cardinals of which are clothed in red, and the principal city of which is seated, literally, on seven hills? Stranger. Has not Rome, however, the marks of the True Church? Disciple. What marks has the priest alluded to? Stranger. For example, being visible, numerous, and powerful. Is not the Church of Rome all this? certain papers have cried out, insulted, and recriminated; but no answer yet exists. If your priest desires it, I will transcribe some pages, or narrate to him in a summary manner, the infamous debauches and wickednesses of many of those who are called Holy Fathers. Stranger.-Are these notorious facts? Disciple.-At least the Church of God was not, when it was all contained in the Disciple.-So much so, that there is the Ark. It was but little, when it was with Bishop Salvian, Gregory the Great, the Abraham under the tents, or with Israel chronicler Baronius, the Cardinal Geneoppressed in Egypt, or with the 7000 un- brard, the theologian Honorius, the honest known, in the time of Elijah, or with the Abbé de Clairvaux, the Pope Innocent III., little flock of Jesus, or the small number who there are Gerson, Muratori, Du Pin, Labbé, find the straight gate, or with the two or Mézerai, and many other such witnesses, three who meet together in his name, or who write, "that there no longer remains lastly, with those of whom the world was not anything at Rome that binds it to the worthy, and who wandered in deserts, or who Church; that the abomination is in the were put to death by the wicked. (Heb. xi.) holy place; that her court is a pit of feroWhat an insult then is offered to the Holy cious beasts; that lewdness and corruption Spirit, to deny that his presence is not where infest even the Vatican, and that those who there is neither multitude nor éclat! And ought to be the pillars of the Church, are also to regard numbers and power as a proof those even who ravage and prostitute it." of the truth, is it not to say that the religions Grant that if this testimony certifies unity, of the Grand-Lama or Mahomet are true, it overthrows holiness. since they are extended and opulent? Stranger. But the priest said, do not the unity and holiness of the Romish Church shew her superiority over the ten thousand sects, and all the disorders of Protestants? Disciple.-Softly, I pray you for great words are not of so much value as reason. Thus, first let us lay it down that unity is not truth. Where is there more unity to be found than between the Grand Lama and his 50,000 priests; the Jesuits and their General; the robbers and their chief; or the Devil and wicked spirits? If then it is in error that Rome is one, that unity is an unhappy compact: it is only the unity of a scourge always the same. Now, in what other history in the world do we find, as in that of the Popes and Councils of Rome, that accumulation and that fixity of pride, violence, avarice, simony, perfidy, luxury, and impurity, and of which the language may be, as says the Bible, like to that of "an adulterous woman who eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness"? (Prov. xxx. 20.) In this, I acknowledge, the Church of Rome, and especially her Court, shews an astonishing unity. Stranger.-Do you speak seriously? Disciple.-I do so the more, since the works published by a Basnage, a Renoult, a Du Moulin, an Edgar, and a Townsend, on the Variations, the Novelty, the Abuses, and the Impostures of Romanism, have never received an answer. Certain mouths and Stranger. But, at least, is not Rome one in her rule of faith? Disciple. Say that she is uniform in her hatred to the Bible, and in her domination over consciences; and in that respect you may safely compare her to the unity of Islamism. But if you tell me that she is one in her faith, I will answer you : For instance, are there not the interminable contests of the Scotists and the Thomists, of the Franciscans and the Dominicans, of the Jesuits and the Jansenists, the Gallicans and the Ultramontanes? Witness again the councils which contradict and give the lie the one to the other; sometimes on a doctrine, sometimes on a practice. Witness also the Arian, Monothelite, Pelagian, and even Atheist Popes. Witness besides all this, the Creed of Pope Pius IV., which did not appear until 1564, after the excommunication pronounced, in 1546, by the Council of Trent, against him who should ever introduce a new Confessson of Faith into the Church. Witness last, the present catechisms of the various Romish dioceses, which, even on the Law of God, on the Ten Commandments, (as I have already remarked,) positively disagree with their chief catechism, that of the Council of Trent. Certainly, if the priest who speaks to you, calls all this unity of faith, ask him what he calls disagreement and contradictions. Stranger. He tells me there are sects without number among the Protestants. Disciple.-First, let me tell you that many of these sects, for example, that of the Unitarians, or that of the Rationalists, if they are not Romanists, neither are they Protestants. Next, believe me, when I tell you, that I love the seven beautiful varieties of the rainbow, better than the black unity of night. And last, that you may know that the Protestant rainbow, varied as it may appear, is nevertheless one and the same biblical phenomenon, I will tell you, that all evangelical Protestants, under all circumstances and everywhere, have only one and the same principle of faith, of which also they make but one and the same application. Stranger. And what is that principle, I pray you? Disciple. It is this: "MAN IS JUSTIFIED BEFORE GOD BY FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, AND NOT BY HIS OWN WORKS. This is the Protestant principle, always and everywhere the same; and the following is an invariable consequence: HOLINESS IS THE MANIFESTATION OF FAITH IN THE JUSTIFIED MAN. Here is, I think, unity. Stranger. Nevertheless, there are, the priest tells me, sects among the readers of the Bible. Disciple. Here again the priest shews his ignorance of the history of the Church, which if he had read, he would have known that the Confessions of Faith of the Paulicians (so basely calumniated), the Cathares, the Vaudois and the Albigeois, the Lollards and the Hussites, as also those of the primitive Churches of Asia, and in particular, of the farther part of India,—all agree to gether as to the principle of which I have spoken to you, equally with the twelve Confessions of the Protestant Churches of the Reformation, in all which there is only one and the same profession of this invariable principle: Man is justified by faith. Stranger. The priest tells me that you pass by the infallibility, the antiquity, the miracles, and the triumphs of the Church of Rome. Disciple. O that he had rather said, "Let us forget them, and never speak of them." Let us ascertain the facts. What becomes then of infallibility ?— Truth, says the Bible, is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. (Isaiah lix. 14.) Thus you see how the pretensions of the Church of Rome are taken away. From the first, it has not been found in any of the Popes. And here, I wish you to observe, I do not speak of individuals, nor of the manners, nor of the personal character of these men, who have so often trodden under foot the scripture declaration: A bishop must be blameless. (1 Tim. iii. 2.) The proof of their fallibility is contained in their own history. A seminarist in our own day, who wrote in defence of Rome, says at the outset of his writings, "The Popes have been but men, and many of them were infamous. It is then with reference to their charge and to their office, that I say infallibility is not to be found, when, for example, a Pope (Gregory the Great), as Pope, declared that "whoever calls himself Universal Bishop, or desires to be so called, in the pride of his heart, is the forerunner of Antichrist," and another Pope nevertheless, and always as Pope, takes to himself this title, and transmits it to its successors. When one Pope says to the Church, "Christ is God," but another Pope replies; “No, he is only a creature." When one Pope writes, "Infants are born in sin," and another preached, "they are innocent and without blemish." When one Pope said to the people, "Read the Bible,” which all the others prohibited. When one Pope described the taking away of the cup from the laity as sacrilege, and all the other Popes decreed it; &c. &c. You will see then whether the Popes, as such, sitting in the Chair of St. Peter, have been infallible. Were the Councils of Rome any better, when one decreed that the worship of Images was idolatry, and another established it as agreeable to God?-When one decreed that the cup of the Eucharist belonged to the people, and another took it away ? &c. And last, the Colleges, the Universities, the Congregations, the Societies, the Chapters, or the Convents of Rome, when their divisions, their quarrels, and their mutual insults, rendered them the laughing stock of all Europe? (To be continued.) PURGATORY. Luke xxiii. 43. HAVE you ever stood by the bedside of a dying believer,-ever watched the decaying strength of some dear object of your fondest |