VERSES, Written upon reading page 120 of "The New Evangelical Church of BLOW the loud trumpet! Sound the quick alarm! O'er Church and State the threatening standard shake? Monarch rever'd! who rul'st these sea-girt Isles, Securely thron'd, while Heaven, approving, smiles; What tho' thine impious foes should gather 'round, And tarnish o'er the lustre of thy fame? The mourning Church, points to her goodly towers, "Where can we look ? to whom now have recourse? ! "Hath not the foe, already, aimed his dart, The cruel sport of papal tyranny ? Shall we, 'round whom truth's sunbeams brightly shine, Nor point to HIM, who, by ONE offering made, Ah! Ireland's friends with her worst foes combine, There are, to Baal, those who bow the knee Whose frequent turnings serve but to declare With biting scorn, unto the clouds of Heaven! Let Erin's Sons, ev'n in the gasp of death, Receive their English Brethren's favouring breath ! While their best heart's blood flow'd, a living stream, OVER HALL, 12th August, 1833. c 2 MRS. WM. BAILEY. ESSAY I. The present state and future prospects of that primitive and Apostolic branch of the Holy Catholic Church-the Church of England, briefly considered. Ir is the duty of every member of the social system, who happily may be raised above the passions of the swinish multitude, to contemplate all the circumstances of Religion, with that entire intensity of seriousness, which a subject of such momentous interest imperatively demands. The sceptical libertine, who is hurried onward in his career of unprincipled looseness; yet, notwithstanding all the diabolical impulses of his "evil heart of unbelief," and though his heart cannot feel what his head dictates, still the paramount importance of Religion attracts his attention and commands his awe, wherever he may cast his jealous and malicious look. He feels too that the curb, which the laws of Heaven have imposed in some way or other on the rampant indulgence of his private lusts, acts in a manner salutary to the public weal, though not perhaps subservient to his individual views. The more extensive the general recognition of, and obedience to, [Continued from Note, p. 206.] We have enlarged very much, in our remarks, upon that sound and golden rule, furnished to us by Vincentius Lirinensis, that those doctrines only are to be received as Catholic, and consequently as infallibly true, which answer to the test of having been believed— "At all times-in all places-and by all the faithful." This foundation of Concurrent Antiquity, Universality, and Unanimous Consent, is that, upon which are grounded all those doctrines of divine faith and government, against which, the combined powers of infernal darkness, or diabolical rage, will never wage a successful warfare. Such was the rule, that our illustrious Reformers strictly kept in view, when in the face of multiplied persecution, they removed the hideous and unseemly deformities of the Papacy, from the Protestant revival and exposition of the ancient Faith and Discipline; and restored to the Church, the pristine beauty of God's ever blessed Word, disencumbered of those degrading institutions and unhallowed usur this salutary law of restraint, is found to be, the more invigorated must necessarily be the tone of public morals, and the more innoxious the machinations of the enemies of God and man. Hence it is, that infidels however they may be disguised, or under whatever mask they may hide their infernal plots; whether they may plie their engines under the guise or even the warmest profession of the truth, or beneath the decorated exterior of our modern liberalism, or take shelter on that dangerous quicksand of all religion and morality-expediency; still their operations, however diversified in their working, are unique in their designs, pations, which the increasing darkness and credulity of every succeding age, so powerfully contributed to foster and accelerate, until at length the power of dread Omnipotence, interposed with a mighty uplifted arm-unloosing the chains of dungeons, wherein Religion so long lay bound; so that her everlasting Truths, even like their Divine Founder, burst at once from the awful darkness of the tomb of ages, and shone throughout the land, with the softened splendours of unfading, heavenly brilliancy. With truth did the great and eloquent Bishop Jewel declare even in his day, when as yet, the papal Moloch of bloody superstition, had not quite run its bloodstained round, and when he himself had hardly recovered from the bitter effects of his persecution and exile, that-"The powerful influence which the Papists had acquired by their crafty impostures, has long since begun to decay and vanish before the appearance and light of the Gospel; even as the Bird of Night retires at the approach of the rising Sun and although the Fabric of their Idolatry has been exalted even up to heaven; yet in a moment of time, without any visible cause, it hasteneth to decay and becometh as nought" (Jewel's Apology). Our immortal Reformers, proceeding upon such unerring principles, and shielded from the wrath of man, by the direct guidance and overshadowing protection of Heaven, brought about that mighty epoch in the history of the world, which, next to the glorious manifestation of our Divine Lord in the flesh, claims our most devoted, lasting, and grateful remembrance. In contemplating the innumerable blessings, that now for centuries have ceaselessly emanated from the Reformation, we may apply to that wonderful event, the following striking lines of the Poet, which refer with as much truth to the effects then produced, as to what the writer of them had immediately in view "And Thou, Religion, through fire and flood |