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superstructure of man's devising, no adornment or trickery of his wisdom: it asks its votaries to give their affections to God, and their services to their fellow-men: it asks an exemplification of its purity and power in their lives and conversation.

HOW THE GREAT LAW OF CHARITY HAS BEEN CARRIED OUT BY PROTESTANTS.

WE have already adverted to the fact that the reformers of the sixteenth century addressed themselves mainly to the task of rescuing Holy Writ from the utter disuse to which it had been doomed, and the truth from that mire of traditions, superstitions, and unmeaning ceremonies in which it had been for so many ages sunk and lost. Their first inquiries, as we have seen, were, since we discard this mass of error and priestly trash which has so long been heaping up in the

church of Rome, what shall we believe, and what shall constitute the outline of reformed doctrines? (The whole subject of charity had become odious to those who had long been contemplating the abuses of their church, and especially the frauds and atrocities perpetrated under the cloak of that Christian grace. Many heavy yokes had been placed upon the necks of the people by that church, and by no means the lightest were those imposed under the specious pretences of charity. The reformers, in carrying out their work, in the ardour of a conflict in which none but men of surpassing energy could engage, soon forgot every consideration and dropped every semblance of charity-a virtue so long distorted before their eyes. Their cry was for freedom of opinion and worship, for truth, for sound doctrine. They may have supposed that, the truth once re-established and freely proclaimed, the practical duties of religion would be fulfilled, not only with increase of intelligence, but of zeal. They carried on their great work until Pro

testantism stood up clearly revealed and defined before the world. The contest by which this was accomplished, both physical and intellectual, was one of the most remarkable for interest, fierceness, and endurance, which the world has ever witnessed. Rome did not permit this affront to her supremacy without exerting all her power and all the unscrupu lous wickedness of interested dignitaries. The vigour of youthful liberty and free opinions overpowered a church in its dotage. In this contest charity had no part. Unhappily, the reformers not only scouted the Romish abuse of charity, but they neglected to give this divine grace that place in their system which it occupies in the New Testament, which it claims in every Christian's heart, and without which all forms of religion must be incomplete, if not false. In none of the formulas of the Reformation, in none of its creeds, confessions, catechisms, did the subject of charity figure according to that precedency which is given to it in the teachings of Christ and his

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apostles; and in many instances it was lost sight of altogether. The doctrine of human depravity, imputed righteousness, justification by faith, repentance, regeneration, the headship of Christ, the freeness of God's grace, among very many others, were brought to light and vindicated as truths of the gospel: innumerable errors of Romish doctrine and belief were singled out, refuted, and held up to ridicule or public detestation. All this was done; but all reformers have found it more easy to pull down than to build up. Men can seldom glory over their own work. They dragged Romanism from the horse, and in attempting to mount, they went clear over to the other side. The priests of Rome preached charity as a mode of enriching the church; and while streams of charity flowed from their people to the poor, many of the rich continued to make the church and its officers the depositaries of their wealth, in confidence that it would be applied to the relief of the needy. These streams of bounty they swelled with all

the skill and all the means in their power. The subject was never forgotten, but kept constantly before the minds of the people. However unfaithful the priest, the bishop, or the monk may have been to their trust, yet how many were moved, by such constant appeals to their kindness, to the regular and faithful distribution of alms! How many were in consequence visited in prison! how many of the naked were clothed! how many of the sick were visited! to how many of the thirsty was the cup of cold water administered. many did all this without any clear conception of scriptural charity; but the exercise of such kindness must more or less cultivate the true grace it represents.

True,

The reformers took the Bible in their hands, reared the standard of truth, swept off the rubbish of Romanism, and erected the fabric of Protestantism, but overlooked, in their readings of the New Testament, its imperative injunctions of brotherly kindness. Their building was massy, of noble and severe

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