you faith? If so, you will pity and weep over unbelievers; and sometimes you will be lost in surprise, that, since your Saviour is so lovely and so able to save, all mankind do not embrace him. The object of the above fragment is to convince nominal Christians of damning unbelief," and, by describing a real conversion and a truly Christian character, to demonstrate how miserable are the pretensions of thousands who wear the name and ape the appearance of religion, but never felt its power. O reader! go to thy closet, and pray God to change thy heart and make thee feel the powers of the world to come; and never deem thyself safe, never assume the Christian name, until you know that you have passed from death unto life. "Marvel not that I said unto you, Yê must be born again." Consider what thy Judge saith unto thee. May the Lord give thee understanding in this matter! October 9, 1846. Amen. HENRY. THE HABIT OF PRAYER. THAT prayer is one of the urgent duties and rich privileges of every man who would walk with God and go to heaven, is a proposition which needs no proof. Who, then, are the men that most devoutly love the exercise of prayer, and most fully possess the power and spirit of prayer? Your minds have reached the answer more rapidly than my words-they are the men who pray the most. In their experience there is a glorious combination of action and reaction. By praying they learn to love the duty; and, loving it, they are led frequently to repeat it. They grow stronger in this exercise; accustomed to it, they learn how to approach the eternal throne with an ardour, simplicity, and confidence peculiarly their own; they plead the promises as though they believed them, and procure Heaven's benedictions upon themselves and their fellow-men. They are free from that vapid and arid stupor so characteristic of the man who seldom prays. Prayers that have floated over con gealed sensibility, or have been bleached of all their power in passing the intellectual region, are not the prayers they make. When they pray, the auditor feels that there is a moral contact of the finite and the Infinite. They can maintain the spirit and also the proprieties of prayer without the aid of liturgical suggestions. How is it with you, my brethren, on this subject? Is it well with you? Have you a place and season for secret prayer? Those of you who are heads of families, do you pray in those families? Are you willing to unite with other Christians in social prayer-not simply hearing and silently praying, but yourselves openly and vocally leading at proper times? Say not that you have no talent to perform the duty of prayer. This sentiment would pain you and mortify your pride should it come from the lips of others. If it were true, it would prove a truth more serious and awful than itself—it would prove tha you have not sufficient talent to become Christians. It is not true; all that you need is the powerfully developing influence of exercise and action. This is able to make you princes, prevalent in prayer-a blessing to yourselves and the world. own, LEGAL REASONINGS REMOVED. SAY not, I am a sinner, and I must stay till I turn from sin before I meddle with a promise; indeed, if you think you can turn from sin before you come to Christ to turn you, you do not know the power of sin, nor the office of Christ as a Saviour to save from sin. Beware of ignorant misinterpretation of Scripture texts concerning turning to the Lord; for example, that text, Isaiah lix. 20, "The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord." I sirs, I have sometimes been kept in bondage by such scriptures as that, while misunderstood; and, perhaps, some may mistake them the same way, saying, "Oh, there is no benefit to be expected from Christ till I turn from my transgressions; and yet I can no more turn aright from sin than I can turn the sun in the firmament that is going west and make it turn back and go east. And what shall I do?" Indeed, sirs, if I were of their opinion that make gospel repentance and turning from sin to be before faith, I could preach no relief to you in that case; but I know and believe otherwise from God's word; therefore I only desire you to remember to take that text, and such like, in the gospel sense of it. "Why," say you, "what is the gospel sense of it?" Indeed, I shall not gloss it to you out of my own head, for then you needed little regard it; but see the gospel gloss that the apostle, or rather the Spirit of God, gives of it, Rom, xi. 26, " There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." Why, the meaning of the prophet's words, " He will come to them that turn" is this, he will come and turn them, and turn away ungodliness from them. O sinner, how like you that gloss? Is there not a door of hope open here? Cannot the Lord Jesus, by virtue of his office, turn you, and according to his promise, which you are called to plead, saying, "Lord, turn me, and I shall be turned?" Why, then, for the Lord's sake, do not think, poor brat of old Adam, by nature without strength, able to do nothing-do not think to take Christ's work out of his hand, but put his own work into his own hand. Expect not salvation from him under the notion of saints, but of sinners. He will not save you upon any other terms, but as you are a sinner, and he a Saviour.-Ralph Erskine. POPERY: ITS ORIGIN AND PROGRESS. NO. VIII. BY THOMAS TIMPSON. In our former papers we have referred to many of the errors of Popery, and shown their origin, at various times, to serve the crafty policy of the Romish priesthood. They were, however, only just noticed; and it may be a subject of inquiry, whether those errors are still held by the Papists? It will, therefore, be peculiarly proper to state some of those false principles, and especially to show how pernicious they are to the souls of men, contrary to the interests of society, and opposed to the peace and prosperity of mankind. Our limits will not allow of reference to more than a few of the principal of those false saving grace to the living and the dydoctrines; but these will appear in ing; and thus he directs, with awfully their antichristian character, and clear-inviolable secresy, the affairs of family indicate that they have arisen from an evil spirit, the predicted "mystery of iniquity," and that they must be highly offensive to God. lies, by means of the "Confessional." Hence, in the antichristian claims of the priests, in a numerous and dreadful hierarchy, with the great archpriest, "His Holiness," at its head, arises all the degradation under priestly domination of the nations of Italy, Austria, Spain, and Portugal. 2. THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY. While the word of God declares "marriage is honourable in all," the Romish priests are bound by an unnatural law not to marry. From this shocking pro hibition arises innumerable evils and crimes which cannot be expressed in this place to be made public. In no country and in no age have the Romish priests been those sacred, chaste persons that their vow requires them to be. Besides, the influence of that sacerdotal body is 1. THE INSTITUTION OF A MINISTERIAL PRIESTHOOD. "No man ever fell into the error of a priesthood," as Dr. Arnold truly states, "by reading the New Testament." But this is the first, and chief, and masterpiece of all the popish errors. This, in a vast, graduated hierarchy, is the monstrous engine of the domination of Antichrist. No office of this kind was ever instituted by our blessed Saviour or his Apostles. The Apostles themselves were not priests; they possessed not anything of a priestly character; they never made the least pretence to it, nor to confer it upon others. They were all special messengers of Christ-most injurious to society by their wily missionaries to all nations, preachers to all mankind of the glorious doctrines of reconciliation with God and eternal life, through the mediation and triumphs of their crucified, but risen and exalted Lord and Saviour. extortions, in return for granting spiritual favours to the superstitious, in sickness, and in death, in popish countries. 3. AURICULAR CONFESSION WITH ABSOLUTION. This degrading institution of confessing sins to the priest is also a part of the wicked policy of Antichrist, as the means of bringing the people completely under the domination of that usurpation. In the earlier This antichristian invention is the pretended foundation of all the Romish claims, and of all their impositions in spiritual tyranny over the consciences and fortunes of their adherents. By virtue of this master-false-ages, before this system was matured, hood, this "fabricated imposture," as Dean Waddington justly calls it, the Romish priest pretends to other acts, involving gross falsehoods, as to grant absolution to the people from their sins; to consecrate bread and wine, so as to be transubstantiated into the very body and blood of Christ; to administer various sacraments, so as to convey professors of Christianity, in connection with Rome, were required to confess their sins publicly; but, under the influence of superstition and remorse, disclosures were sometimes made of the most dreadful kind. Crimes of the greatest enormity were acknowledged before the people, leading to many evil consequences; when pope Leo the Those who would learn the dreadfully pernicious influence of this system of "confession," as practised by the Roman priesthood, should read the recent publication of Michelet, the Catholic professor of history at Paris, called, "Priests, Women, and Families." Great, about AD. 450, allowed secret | your offences. You who profoundly confession to be made to any priest in sleep in sin, awake, rouse yourselves private; and at the same time public from that fatal lethargy into which penances were partially, as they were you have been so long plunged. The afterwards generally, abandoned, proud ministers of Jesus Christ, invested with penitents refusing to submit to public his authority, animated with his Spirit, shame, as prescribed by the priests. expect you, with a holy impatience, Private auricular confession rapidly ready to ease you of that burden of sin prevailed: it relieved the sinner's im- under which you have so long laboured. penitent remorse, gratified the prurient Were your sins as red as scarlet, by the curiosity of the "confessor," and mag- grace of absolution, and application of nified the office of the priest, minister- this plenary indulgence, your souls shall ing to his dreaded power. It was de- become white as snow!" creed in 1216, by pope Innocent III., that every person should go to confess to his own parish priest at least once a-year. Various laws and rules were made regarding confession and penance, and tables of fees for the pardon of gross crimes were published by the priesthood. Adultery, incest, and murder, were included in the list of crimes to be pardoned thus after confession and payment of the fees to the priests! Confession to a priest, with his pardon, is still the established doctrine and practice of the Romish church, and the abominations arising from it in popish countries are inexpressible: they are so even in the British Isles. On occasion of obtaining large sums of money for grand purposes special appeals have been commonly made to the people, with promises of full pardon, called by the priests "Plenary Indulgences." Thus, on completing the cathedral chapel of Cork, Dr. Moylar, the bishop, published, November 2, 1813, the rule of pope Pius to that effect, and he appeals in these terms: "You to whom the Almighty has given of the dew of heaven, and of the fat of the land, redeem your sins with alms, and your iniquities with works of mercy to the poor, and, perhaps, God would forgive 4. ABSOLUTION, or FORGIVENESS OF SINS. Power to forgive sins is claimed in the fullest sense for every Roman Catholic priest; and this is believed, of course, by the deluded people, as the reason of their going to confession. That such is the fact will be manifest from decrees of the Council of Trent, which are the standard laws of the Romish church. That council decreed, in relation to confession of sins and their pardon by the priest, as follows: "Canon 8. If any one shall say, that confession of all sins, such as the church preserves, is impossible, and a human tradition, to be abolished by the pious; or that all and singular the faithful of Christ of each sex are not bound to observe it, according to the great council of Lateran, once a-year, and, therefore, that the faithful of Christ are not to be persuaded to confess in time of Lent: let him be accursed. "Session xiv. chap. vi. canon 9. If any one shall say that sacramental ab solution is not the judicial act of the priest, but a bare ministry of pronouncing and declaring that sins are remitted to him who confesses them, provided only he believes himself to be absolved; or should the priest absolve him, not in earnest, but in jest; or if any one shall say that there is not required the confession of the penitent, so that the priest may be able to absolve him: let him be accursed." How far all this cursing spirit is from the amiable and tender spirit of the apostles and true ministers of Christ need not be argued; its malignity and unscriptural character are clearly manifest it is worthy, in this respect, of the hateful Antichrist. Absolution, in the church of Rome, is here declared to be "not ministerial," but "judicial"—a “judicial act of the priest, in which sentence is pronounced by him as a judge." And, accordingly, the priesthood further tell us in the Tridentine Catechism, that "in the minister of God, as his legitimate judge, the sincere penitent venerates the power and person of our Lord Jesus Christ; for in the administration of this, as in the other sacraments, the priest represents the character and discharges the functions of Jesus Christ." Such unscriptural doctrines imposed upon the ignorant or superstitious must be most pernicious and immoral in their influence. But they are the most convenient of anything conceivable to serve the purposes of priestcraft. 5. SACRIFICE OF THE MASS. The Romish hierarchy pretend that in the communion the priest offers up Christ as a sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead. This is one of their favourite doctrines, as being one of their chief engines of drawing the wealth of their blinded followers, especially in times of sickness and at death, to enrich themselves. This doctrine of the mass was denounced by the Reformers as a "blasphemous and dangerous deceit;" but the Council of Trent decreed, "Canon 1. If any one shall say that in the mass there is not offered to God a true and proper sacrifice, or that the offering is nothing else than Christ is given us to eat: let him be accursed." Ordinary masses are commonly said for the Christian's soul, as ordained by the Romish hierarchy; and they are pretended to fetch him out of purgatory, or at least to ease him there. Whoever has his salvation at heart must never forget this, as he is taught by his priest; and that he must leave a necessary sum of money to be paid by his executors to the curate, to rescue him from the everlasting pains he has merited. King Henry VII. ordered that ten thousand masses should be said for the repose of his soul; and they were said, according to his order, within a month of his decease, in the monastery in London. In Catholic countries this system of priestcraft is carried on to a prodigious extent. "In Spain, Portugal, and Italy, it often happens," as Dr. Hook states, "that the souls of thei faithful are the first heirs of the wealth | they leave behind them in this world. The dying man sometimes bequeaths twenty or thirty thousand masses to his soul, charging the pastor in whom he confides most to remit this stock to him in the other world immediately after his departure out of this. There are likewise private masses said for strayed or stolen goods, or cattle; for health, for travellers, for returning God |