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"If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."-Isaiah viii. 20.

No. 59.

FEBRUARY, 1845.

VOL. VI.

A FEW WORDS OF EXHORTATION was willing once again to be entangled in

то

OUR OPERATIVE READERS. We are glad in these eventful times to see our operative friends and readers not ashamed to be called the sons of the Reformation.

Scarcely an event more glorious is recorded in the pages of history.-If the Israelites had cause for unceasing gratitude to the Almighty, for his miraculously delivering them from the cruel bondage of taskmasters set over them by Pharaoh, and from Egyptian darkness,-surely we also ought unceasingly to rejoice that our ancestors, and we in them, have been thus delivered from the taskmasters of the Pope, and brought out from a worse than Egyptian darkness into the glorious light and liberty of the Gospel of Christ Jesus.

We would exhort them therefore to hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering; to provoke one another to love and to good works; to use what influence they have-and every one has some-to maintain the civil and religious privileges. which their ancestors procured for them, which they, our operative friends, yet enjoy, but which others are determined, if possible, to wrest from them and their posterity. Alas! it appears as if Protestant England

the same yoke of bondage as bound her in the dark ages. Courting an alliance with the Pope for the purpose of governing Popery the better, there are to be found too many who wish to see what are termed friendly relations established between the Court of St. James, and the Vatican; and certainly when public opinion shall be sufficiently in favor of such a disastrous step, it will, we have little reason to doubt, be taken, or at least attempted. We therefore desire that each Protestant should do his utmost to influence his own circle and public opinion, by gaining and imparting information where needed, and setting forward the urgent necessity of acting upon sound Protestant, Constitutional, Christian, principles. The present is a time in which more than in any other Protestant England expects that every man will do his duty.

TRACTARIANISM.

Petition adopted by the Committee of the Protestant Association to the Queen. Our columns are too small to allow us, however briefly, to touch upon all the leading topics of the day. We have scarcely space to notice the great topics which are

now agitating more and more deeply both the theological and political world.

Tractarianism pursues its course with varied success; and the fearful leaven of Popery brought in by the disturbers of our church, works, and will continue to work a deadly mischief, long after those who introduced it may have closed their earthly ca

reer.

The proceedings in the diocese of Exeter have created a not unjust alarm; and though a truce to hostilities exists now for a little while, and in consequence of a pastoral address from the Archbishop of Canterbury, some requirements have been withdrawn, and a temporary peace seems restored-yet the tenor of that address has not given satistion.

On the subject of that address, a Dublin journal remarks, and very justly "But there is one lack in this as in all the other similar documents which have appeared, and which is striking. We mean the powerful pointed allusion that might or ought to be made to doctrine as the prominent essential business of the clergy, prelacy, and church of England. The salvation of souls is the end for which the ecclesiastical constitution exists. If men were in earnest here, there would be no room or leisure for such trifling. If the Archbishop of Canterbury would urge this in the style and with the vigour of a Paul, and rebuke the original disturbers on such grounds, he would soon produce uniformity without specifically ordering it."

We feel it the duty of the laity to exert themselves as far as possible, and notwithstanding the difficulties which surround the case, still to shew themselves with mild but

determined confidence, in a humble, prayerful, but faithful spirit, resolved to a man not to aid in the introduction of Popish observances to look to the animus, the motives of those who bring them in-and never to connive at, or sanction, what they believe to be dangerous, because Popish innovations.

The Committee of the Protestant Association have adopted the following petition to the Queen, on the subject of the erroneous teaching and innovations in church forms and ceremonials, revived, introduced, or sanctioned by Tractarian innovators.

"May it please your Majesty,

"We, the undersigned, deeply regret the strife and discord which now distract our Church, occasioned by the efforts of the Tractarian party to revive obsolete ceremonies and the observance of disused portions of the Rubrics, whereby they have dimi

nished her usefulness, and done serious injury to the advancement of true religion among all classes of your Majesty's subjects.

"We cannot but regard such changes and innovations, connected as they evidently are with erroneous teaching, as most in judicious, and as having a manifest tendency to impair the spirituality of our Church services, and to assimilate them to the superstitious practices of the Church of Rome, thereby driving thousands into dissent, and alienating the affections of the people from their appointed pastors.

"We therefore humbly implore your Majesty with the advice of your Council, to take these matters into your royal consideration, and to devise such measures as may tend, by the blessing of God, to restore harmony and peace amongst us, and to secure the preaching of the glorious doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ, as carried out at the Reformation, in all their fulness and simplicity thoughout your Majesty's dominions.

"And your petitioners will ever pray."

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DRAGOONING.

The method of dragooning the French Pro-
testants after the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, under Louis XIV., taken from a
French account translated in the year 1686.
"The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."

THE troopers, soldiers, and dragoons went
into the Protestants' houses, where they
marred and defaced their household stuff,
broke their looking glasses and other utensils
and ornaments, let their wine run about
their cellars, and threw about their corn and
spoiled it.
And as to those things which
they could not destroy in this manner, such
as furniture of beds, hangings, tapestry,
linen, wearing apparel, plate, and things of
the like nature, they carried them to the
market place, and sold them to the Jesuits
and other Papists. By these means the
Protestants in Montauban alone were, in
four or five days, stripped of above a million
of money.
But this was not the worst.
They turned the dining rooms of gentlemen
into stables for their horses, and used the
Protestants in person with the greatest in-
dignity and cruelty. Sometimes the sol-
diers took the persons of the houses where
they quartered, and walked them up and
down in a room, tickling and tossing them
like a ball from one to another, without
giving them the least intermission for three
days and nights together, without meat,
drink, or sleep. And when they were
wearied almost to death by these means,
they laid them on a bed, continuing to tickle
and torment them as before, and when they
thought them somewhat recovered, made
them rise and walk about afresh, sometimes
tickling and other times lashing them with
rods to keep them from sleeping. And
when one party of their tormentors were
weary, they were relieved by another, who
practised the same violence, insomuch that
many of the poor Protestants were distracted,
and others become stupid and mopish, and
remained so.

At Negreplisse, a town near Montaubon, they hung up Isaac Favin, a Protestant citizen of that place, by his arm pits, and tormented him a whole night by pinching and tearing off his flesh with pincers. They made a great fire round about a boy of about ten years old, who, with hands and eyes lift up to heaven, cried out, "My God, help And when they saw the lad resolved to die rather than renounce his religion, they snatched him from the fire just as he was upon the point of being burnt.

me.

In several places the soldiers applied red

hot irons to the hands and feet of men, and the breasts of women. At Nantes they hung up several women by their feet, and others by their arm pits, and thus exposed them to public view. They bound mothers to posts, and let their sucking infants lie languishing in their sight without letting them be suckled for several days, but leaving them crying, moaning, gasping for life, and dying for thirst and hunger. They took children of four or five years old, and when they had kept them so long as that they were dying for hunger, brought them to their parents, and with horrible imprecations and oaths assured them, that except they would turn they should see their children die in their presence. Some they bound before a great fire, and being half roasted, let them go. Some, both men and women, they beat in the most outrageous manner, and others they tormented night and day, dragging, beating, and tossing them about without intermission-which was the ordinary mode of conversion practised by these military apostles of the Popish Church. In the mean time they were prohibited from departing the kingdom (a cruelty never practised by Nero or Diocletian) upon pain of confiscation of effects, the galleys, the lash, and perpetual imprisonment; insomuch that the prisons of the sea-port towns were crammed with men, women, boys, and girls, who endeavoured to save themselves by flight from their dreadful persecution. With these scenes of desolation and horror the Popish clergy feasted their eyes, and made only a matter of laughter and sport of them. And though my heart aches whilst I am relating these barbarities, yet for a perpetual memorial of the infernal cruelty practised by these monsters, I beg the reader's patience to lay before him two other instances, which, if he hath a heart like mine, he will not be able to read without watering these sheets with his tears.

The first is of a young woman, who being brought before the council, upon refusing to abjure her religion, was ordered to prison. (The cruelties practised upon her, motives of delicacy prevent our bringing forward.)

The other is of a man, in whose house were quartered some of these missionary dragoons. One day having drunk plentifully of wine, and broken their glasses with every health, they filled the floor of the room where they were drinking with the fragments, and by often walking over them and treading on them, reduced them to still smaller pieces. On this, in the insolence of their mirth, they resolved on a dance, and told their Protestant host that he must be one of their company, but withal, that he

must dance quite barefoot, to move more nimbly. And thus barefoot, they forced him to dance upon the sharp points of glass. And when they had kept him thus dancing as long as he was able to stand, they laid him on a bed, and after some time, that he might come to himself, stripped him naked and rolled his body from one end of the room to the other, till his skin was stuck full of the fragments of the glass. Then they laid him on his bed, and sent for a surgeon to cut out the pieces of glass from his body, which put him to the most exquisite and horrible pains.

These, fellow Protestants, were the methods used by the most Christian King's Apostolic Dragoons, to convert his heretical subjects to the Popish faith! These, and many others of the like nature, were the torments to which Louis XIV. delivered them over, to bring them to his own Church. And as Popery is unchangeably the same, these are the tortures prepared for you, if ever that religion should be permitted to become settled amongst you. And as the attempt is now openly made to introduce it, awake, arise, Britons, in defence of your Protestant Queen, her family, your religion, and your liberties. Your souls, your bodies, your estates, your wives and children, all demand your immediate care. The agents of Rome are just ready to seize and worry you. Seize the present moment, before the dreadful destruction overwhelms you, in order to prevent it. Let every heart and hand unite. The ruin that threatens you is universal. The toil you are called to is great but glorious. Strengthen yourselves, therefore, and be of good courage, and be have valiantly for your people, for your Queen, and for the cities of your God; and may He who is the great disposer of victory, and holds the fates of nations in His hand, crown you with success, and make you triumph over all your enemies.

THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH.

WHEN We would define, in its fullest and most enlarged sense, the holy Catholic Church of Christ upon earth, resisting the encroachments of Rome on the one hand, and yet preserving the apostolical order and discipline of episcopacy upon the other; we are constrained to abandon all restrictions or qualifications, excepting those which we expressly find in the scriptural portraiture of that "chosen generation," that "royal priesthood," that "holy nation," that "peculiar people," from among whom the Church

was first incorporated upon earth. However various be the forms of Church government, however multiform the modes of Church discipline, which exist among those who bear the name of Christ, we must, as did the Apostle, recognise the working of grace in all who "love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity;" all whose doctrine is Gospel truth, whose practice apostolical fellowship, whose bond of membership with Christ is the sacraments ordained by Him, and whose bond of membership with each other the Lord's day assemblage for associated prayer.

The holy Catholic Church of Christ upon earth, is the blessed company of all those, known to Him alone, who are at any one time in a state of salvation, under whatever circumstances and through whatever instrumentality. The visible Church of Christ upon earth comprehends any and every one of those communities, among whom may be discerned the four notes or marks, stated in the context; although, like our brethren of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, or some of the Reformed Confessions on the Continent, they may administer the power of the Episcopate through the medium of a consistory or a synod, or even, like some denominations of Dissenters among ourselves, may exhibit nothing at all correspondent with the episcopal function and office-that office which is, according to our apprehension, so clearly defined in Scripture, and which has been, according to our experience, so conducive to the order and unity of the Church in every age. We would that they received this mark or note of the Church; but we cannot so draw the line as to exclude them because they do not. And our reason for coming to this conclusion is simply this. After the first indication of the Church, as manifestly identified by certain notes or marks, which must distinguish it everywhere, at all times, and in every individual member, we find communities springing up in various places, which while they exhibit the common marks, are equally named Churches. Thus in the eighth chapter of the book of Acts, we read of "the Church which was at Jerusalem," as distinguished from Churches in other places; and in the ninth chapter, the same thing is directly affirmed Then had the Churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria, and were edified; and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied." Now, though the Holy Catholic Church, the mystical and invisible Church of Christ, was then, and ever will be, "one body," animated by "one spirit," "even as we are

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called in one hope of our calling;" though there is, and ever will be, " one Lord, one faith, one baptism;" yet it is very far from manifest, that even in those early times there was one and the same standard of ecclesiastical regulations, for the internal administration of every particular Church. Generally, the apostle Paul inscribes his Epistles "To the Church that is at Corinth ""To the Church of the Thessalonians," and the like; but he departs from this form in the case of the Galatians, where he addresses himself to all "the Churches," and at Philippi, where alone he makes explicit mention of the orders of the ministry -"the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons."

As, therefore, the orders of the Christian ministry, as existing among ourselves, were not fully developed and drawn out at the time when" the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved," it is clear, that the visible Church must now be taken to be just what it was in the days of the Apostles. Wherever there are the marks or notes originally imprinted by the finger of the Spirit of God-apostolical doctrine, apostolical practice, apostolical sacraments, and apostolical prayer-there we must confess a community of Christian men; there we must have fellowship one with another in "the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanseth from all sin;" there, putting out of sight the points of discipline on which we differ, we may hold sweet spiritual communion with those, who are like minded on the points of doctrine concerning which we agree; and we may rejoice, we ought to rejoice, in the anticipation of that day, when the Church shall be one even as its Lord; when there shall be "one fold" even as there is "one Shepherd," and all minor blots or blemishes, which arise out of the natural frailty or infirmity of man, shall be lost for ever, in the contemplation of "the glory that excelleth," "the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."

Such we believe to be the mind of our own Church; and because it is her mind, and because it is the mind of holy Scripture, therefore we love her, we trust her, we cleave to her, we cling to her.

THE FRENCH GUNNER AND
THE BIBLE.

The following interesting circumstance, which is connected with the extensive evangelical awakening now taking place among the Roman Catholics in many parts of

France, is extracted from the half-yearly circular of the Evangelical Society of Geneva.

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"A gunner belonging to the garrison of T-, had several conversations with one of our evangelists about the salvation of his soul. After their separation they continued to correspond. The letters of the gunner show how the work of Divine grace progresses and ripens and fructifies, little by little, in the soul which has received religious impressions. He writes thus to our evangelist on the 22nd August last :find your letters so interesting that I wish to receive one every day. My eyes are opened, and I value more and more each day those good things that I never did before. I now see that all those pleasures which we seek after with so much avidity are only ephemeral, and that we ought to aspire after the possession of those which are more stable and can never end. Behold, Sir, the new sentiments which animate me since I resolved to abandon my impious and profane reading, and to give myself up entirely to reflection and to the important business of salvation. I shall never forget the six days that I passed at T-, for it was there that Providence willed I should meet with you.'

"On the 3rd of October, adds our evangelist, he wrote to me again :-'I entreat you to send me immediately by the post a copy of that most excellent book the Bible, which affords the best nourishment for the soul.' I hastened to send him a Bible by one of our brethren, to whom the gunner wrote testifying his gratitude, 'In my letter to Mr. -,' said he, I shall inform him how quickly you have delivered to me the delightful book for which I asked. Having much spare time, I hope to derive a great deal of instruction from the perusal of it, and shall preserve it as a precious remembrance of Christians of the reformed faith. Although born of Roman Catholic parents, and myself a Roman Catholic, I delight to attend your religious meetings, for I feel much edified by them.' We know not what may be the effect of this reading upon the heart of the gunner; but when we thus see a sinner become serious and attentive to the voice of God, renouncing his evil reading in order that he may attach himself to the Bible, we may hope that the Lord will continue to enlighten his mind, for He will not allow any to seek him in vain."

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