faith. Popery. POPISH ERRORS. I. That there is a twofold rule of In this kind of teaching we may see a fulfilment of the inspired words, "They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables," 2 Tim. iv. 4. The Romish Church maintains that traditions, or unwritten communications delivered from age to age, are of equal authority with the Bible. 1. This doctrine is contrary to the plain and express declarations of the Scriptures. 2. In practice the Romish Church sets aside the Bible. It has ever been its policy to restrict or suppress the reading of God's word, and its circulation is regarded with jealousy. It is everywhere seized and prohibited in the city of Rome. In Italy, Austria, Spain, and other Popish countries, not only "the common people," but even the wealthy and learned are without the Bible. In Ireland and elsewhere it has often been burned by Romish priests. 3. The advocates for tradition dishonour the Scriptures, and introduce dangerous heresies, as did the Pharisees of old, and for which they were severely reproved by our Lord and his Apostles. 4. Nearly all the traditions now received in the Romish Church had their rise in the Dark Ages, from A.D. 500 to A.D. 1200, when ignorance and superstition prevailed throughout Europe. It cannot be proved that there exists a single apostolical tradition. Many of the traditions taught to the people are absurd and blasphemous fables, dangerous deceits, and idle tales. II. That there are many Mediators. The doctrine of the Church of Rome is, that prayer should be offered to the Virgin Mary and departed saints, that by their merits and intercession grace and mercy may be shown to sinners. 1. The Virgin Mary. The Romish Breviary, or Prayer-book, contains many prayers addressed to her, in which she is called "the queen of heaven,"" the gate of heaven," "the refuge of sinners," "the only hope of sinners." In a Romish book of devotion it is said, "She saves by her mercy those to whom the Son in justice cannot show mercy!" Other passages in such books are also awfully profane, and would lead their readers to believe that the Lord Jesus is unwilling and even unable to save, and that the love of a creature is more tender and influential than the love of the Son of God. The Scriptures give no countenance to such dangerous and souldestroying doctrine. During our Lord's ministry on earth his mother was not allowed to interfere in any way with his work. See Luke ii. 48, 49; John ii. 4; Matt. xii. 46-50. After the resurrection she is only once mentioned, and that simply as "the mother of Jesus." She is not noticed by one of the Apostles in HOW their various Epistles. 2. The Romish Missal, or Massbook, contains many prayers addressed to different saints; but they are equally vain, unscriptural, and superstitious. All kinds of religious worship offered to saints and angels are contrary to Scripture. III. That there are many ways of obtaining remission of sins, and acceptance with God. While the Church of Rome professes to believe in the merits of Christ's death as a way of acceptance with God, it makes such additions to it as in fact to destroy or impair its value and effect. 1. It profanely asserts that sinful men can do good works which will be meritorious in the sight of God, and available for justification; which is contrary to the word of God: Rom. iv. 2-8; Gal. v. 4, 6; Acts xiii. 39. 2. It maintains that "in the mass is offered unto God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead;" which is contrary to Heb. ix. 28; x. 10, 12, 14; 1 Pet. iii. 18. 3. It declares that penances and pilgrimages are a satisfaction for sin; which is contrary to the whole scope and spirit of the Gospel. See Titus iii. 5-7. 4. It teaches that there is a purgatory, or place of suffering, in which satisfaction is made for sin, and that "souls there detained are relieved by the suffrages or prayers of the faithful, but more especially by the acceptable service of the mass;" which is contrary to Heb. i.3; Rom. viii. 1; 1 John i. 7. CONFESSIONS ARE OBTAINED IN ITALY. THE unhappy prisoners were systematically weakened by insufficient startled from their sleep at night by and unhealthy food. They were appalling and lugubrious sounds. Voices called out under their windows, "One of your companions has been shot to-day, and to-morrow it will be your turn!" When their physical strength had thus been reduced, and their imagination wrought upon, they were either suddenly brought up for examination, or a daughter, a sister, or a mother in tears, was admitted. Sometimes cells, and permitted to communicate two friends were placed in contiguous with one another. Several days would elapse, during which certain ill-boding hints would be dropped impress concerning the impending to the one whom it was wished to fate of his friend and fellow-prisoner. Shortly afterwards the door of the neighbouring cell would be noisily opened, a sound of steps would be heard, followed by a death-like silence, and presently a discharge of musketry in the court of the prison. By such means was it that avowals or revelations, often false, were extorted. Francesco Miglio, a sergeant of the pioneers in the regiment of the guards, had eluded, by his firminsidious inquisitorial attempts to ness and presence of mind, all the which he had been subjected. He was then shut up with a pretended with tears his participation in the fellow-prisoner, who confided to him sect, and the terror he was in. Miglio was struck with pity, and a certain friendship sprang up between him and the new comer. A few days afterwards, this new friend assured Miglio that he had a means of correspondence with some of his self to be induced to intrust him with own relations. Miglio allowed hima note for one of his friends. There being no ink, he opened a vein, and wrote a few lines with his blood. against him, and decided his fate. scrap of paper was produced Poor Miglio was shot. This CHRISTIANITY. THE DIFFERENCE BE- mediator, without that power which TWEEN POPERY AND calls itself the Church, a free access to the great gift of everlasting life made by God to man-such is Christianity and the Reformation. Popery (and so Puseyism) interposes the Church between God and man. Christianity and the Reformation bring God and man together, face to face. Popery separates, the Gospel unites them.-D'Aubigné. THE institution of a caste, which was to mediate between God and man, and the bargaining away for works, penances, and value in money, of the salvation given by God-such is Popery (and such is Puseyism). The opening up for all men by Jesus Christ, without any human The Letter Bor. MAN'S RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS BELIEF. THE following letter, on Man's Responsibility for his Belief," is from the correspondence of Dr. Chalmers, recently published: "My dear Madam,-Lord Byron's assertion that' man is not responsible for his belief,' —an assertion repeated by Mr. Brougham and several others, seems to have proceeded from the imagination that belief is in no case voluntary. Now it is very true that we are only responsible for what is voluntary; and it is also true, that we cannot believe without evidence. But then it is a very possible thing that a doctrine may possess the most abundant evidence, and yet the evidence not be attended to. Grant that belief is not a voluntary act-it is quite enough for the refutation of Mr. Brougham's principle if attention be a voluntary act. One attends to a subject because he so chooses, or he does not attend because he so chooses. It is the fact of the attention being given or withheld which forms the thing that is to be morally reckoned with. And if the attention has been withheld when it ought to have been given, for this we are the subjects of rightful condemnation. "It is enough to make unbelief a thing of choice, and a thing of affection, that we have power over the direction of our noticing and investigating faculties. You are not to blame if you have not, found some valuable article that you have lost in an apartment of the thickest darkness; but you are to blame if you might have opened the shutters, or lighted a candle, so as to have admitted enough of light for the discovery. Neither are you to blame if you do not find the hidden treasure of the Gospel, provided it is placed beyond the reach of all our strenuousness, and of every expedient that can be used for its discovery; but you are to blame if you have not gone in quest of it, or if you have wilfully and determinedly shut your eyes against it, or if you have have not stirred up those powers of your mind over which the mind has a voluntary control, to the inquiring after it. The Discerner of the heart will see where the lurking deficiency lies, and make it manifest to all who remain in the darkness that they loved the darkness,-of all who have not come to Christ, that they were not willing to come. "Christianity lays no unreasonable service on men, and far less that service which were most unreasonable of all, the homage of your belief, without affirming such evidence as, if attended to, will constrain the belief. Our religion has its proofs, and it also has its probabilities. Its proofs can only be got at by patient and laborious inquiry, and when gotten, they carry the belief along with them. Its probabilities again may, some of them, be seen at first sight, and though not enough to compel our belief, yet they form a sufficient claim upon our attention. They form that sort of precognition which entitles Christianity at least to a full and fair trial; and if not worthy all at once of a place in our creed, it is worthy of a further hearing. Now all I want is, that that hearing shall be given, that the evidences of Christianity shall be studied, that the Bible shall be read with patience and prayer, and moral earnestness; and, on the principle that he who seeketh findeth, I have no apprehension of such a course not terminating in a full and steadfast conviction that the Bible is an authentic message from heaven to earth, and contains in it the record of God's will for man's salvation. I am, dear madam, yours truly, "THOMAS CHALMERS." TO-DAY, NOT TO-MORROW! TO YOUNG MEN. AMONG those whose eye will fall on this article are some who are distinguished by the fear of God in their youth; some Isaacs, who prefer an evening walk to meditate to the crowded avenues of dissipation; some Josephs, whose image is a fruitful bough by a well;" some Davids, who love the harps of Sion, and have no ear for the " song of the drunkard" or the "mouth of fools;" some Timothys, who "from childhood have known the Scriptures, which are able to make them wise unto salvation." And I hail you on your early escape from the paths of the destroyer, in your early separation from a world which attracts only to show its emptiness, and elevates only to depress; on your early union with the wise and good. Go forth in all "the beauties of holiness;" honour God, and serve your generation according to his will. Religiously occupy the stations which you are to ennoble, and form the connections which you are to bless. Adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things. Earnestly pursue the glorious course which you have begun; "be not weary in well-doing;" "grow in grace" as you advance in years; "abound more in knowledge and all judgment;""approve the things that are excellent;" and be "sincere and without offence till the day of Christ." And what hinders any of you, my young friends, from joining yourself to the Lord? Weigh the reasonings which you have heard, suspend for awhile the influence of your passions, and endeavour to feel the force of the motives which have been adduced. Deliberate, or rather decide, for there is no time for hesitation: "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." The language of the Redeemer is, "Today," and will you say, "To-morrow?" Every delay will leave you more remote from the God you have to seek; every delay will place more barriers between you and heaven; every delay will increase your crimes, your passions, your aversions; every delay will diminish the efficacy of means, the period of Divine patience, the time of your probation. While you hesitate, you die. While you promise yourselves years, perhaps you have not days. Perhaps the shuttle has passed the loom that wove thy winding-sheet. Perhaps in yonder shop lies rolled up, and ready to be served off, the piece of cloth destined to be thy shroud. Perhaps the feet of them that have buried thy companion are at the door to carry thee out. The Counsel Chamber. HOLY AND UNHOLY AMBITION. THAT youthful poet and eminent scholar, Henry Kirke White, toiled hard for fame. His ambition was, that his name might not be forgotten; that among the claimants for earthly honours he might be recognized, and his genius acknowledged. It was this that made him mournfully inquire, "Fifty years hence, and who will hear of Henry?" Under this impulse he sacrificed health, and even life. He trimmed the midnight lamp with a hand tremulous and bony, and scanned the classic page with an eye almost drowsy in death. Having received, according to his aims, the highest honours of the University, he exclaimed, respecting these laurels, which he had so hardly won, and which, as the sequel proved, he was so soon to relinquish, sionary, stood relatively in the grade of University honours where Kirke White had stood. But a higher impulse than earthly ambition had taken possession of him. "I hear," said he, "the voice of suffering humanity calling from the dark places of the earth for relief. What but the Gospel can afford it? I hear at the same time the voice of my risen Saviour, saying,' Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' Shall I stay at home, and enjoy the learned leisure of a fellowship? Shall I compose eloquent sermons, and preach them in crowded cathedrals? Or shall I lay my honours at the feet of Jesus, and consecrate my being to the enlightenment of pagan nations?" and Martyn's name and memory The question was soon settled; are embalmed in the hearts of thousands, turned "from darkness to light" by the force of his example, and the labours of his short but con "What are ye now, But thorns about my bleeding brow?" In sacrificing health to fame, how-secrated life. ever, Henry Kirke White saw his error in time to reach that higher, purer motive, which combines with feelings of regret and sorrow the hopes and aspirations of the Christian. Another Henry toiled in the same path of greatness, but with an eye more steadily fixed on a higher prize. Martyn, the sainted mis Napoleon and Henry Martyn! Behold in one the soldier of ambition, and in the other the soldier of the cross! The one sacrifices myriads to obtain imperial honours; the other sacrifices his own life to place the crown immortal upon ransomed pagans. Napoleon lives in the praises of his countrymen, in the glory of France, in the pleasing |