holds out a prospect of it, with money, or with toil, or with suffering. During the ascendency of passion, while conscience slumbers, human nature craves indulgence in divers transgressions, and will transgress, whatever the result may be.

A system professedly religious, which propounds no relief, or supposed relief, for the paroxysms of conscience, is not congenial to human nature as it is; and therefore infidelity can prosper only among those, comparatively few, whose consciences are seared, as the apostle expresses it, with a hot iron. A religious system which gives no indulgence at any time to any sinful passion, is not congenial to human nature as it is; and therefore true Christianity or Protestantism can prosper only among those, comparatively few, whose hearts are renewed.

But a religious system constructed to meet the alternate requirements of conscience and passion—a system at one time exacting penance, and promising relief thereby to the conscience; and at another time promoting worldliness and thereby extending indulgence to the passions-is congenial to human nature as it is; and therefore Romanism, with her black Lent and red Carnival, can prosper with the unconverted multitude. She gives or takes, smiles or frowns, according to circumstances. She is equally at home in the cell of discipline, and in the saloon of gaiety early at mass, and late at the opera. Her teaching is not in high principles of essential right; but in measures, and balances, and compensations; in liabilities incurred and liquidations effected; in bargainings for peace without purity; false peace purchased, or supposed to be purchased, by mortifications of the body, but wholly destitute of that constraining love which mortifies the deeds of the body.

In holy contrast with this, a characteristic of Protestantism, as developed in her teaching, is antagonism to human nature as it is, with the high and determined aim to renew it to conformity with God.

True holiness is moral similarity to the Holy One, and in

this consists true happiness. Escape from punishment does not of itself secure happiness; though it is indeed a necessary preliminary to that state of mind in which happiness commences.

So long as the question to be decided is pardon or no pardon, the root of the operations of the mind is selfishness. A mind so exercised cannot rise into any ennobling desires after God's glory. It is occupied with the great personal inquiry, Am I safe? And the aim of all its toils, however imposing in themselves, is to secure a favourable answer. All false religions, and all perversions of the true, by postponing the question of perfect pardon to the last, perpetuate a grovelling selfishness. They never answer, they never can satisfactorily answer, the question, Am I safe? and therefore they keep, and must always keep, their disciples outside of the door.

Protestantism alone, or, in other words, true Christianity, proclaims pardon first; pardon righteously procured by the sinner's Substitute, and graciously bestowed upon the sinner himself, that the mind, believing this, and entering into personal peace, may thenceforth be delivered from the bondage of selfish toil, and engaged in sanctifying communion and fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. Protestantism teaches that we have not received the spirit of bondage, again to fear; but the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

This newness of heart holds no truce with the rebellion of unconverted nature; but re-establishes conscience on the throne, and wages an exterminating war against every sinful passion. Instead of dealing with sin, any sin, as a thing for which man's merit or man's suffering can make satisfaction to God, Protestantism represents sin, every sin, as so essentially hateful and infinitely dishonouring to God, that nothing short of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ can stand between it and everlasting perdition.

Thus Protestantism teaches what the apostle calls "boldness

IS FORMED.

and access with confidence by the faith" of Jesus. Here the true Protestant has entrance into the holiest, nearness to God, consciousness of God's presence, and joy unspeakable and full of glory in the penetrating assurance of God's love. Being thus brought nigh, he then begins to hold spiritual communion with God. IT IS BY COMMUNION ENJOYED, THAT CHARACTER Beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, and delighting in the sight, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. Thus sanctification is progressively carried on, in a communion which is based upon a justification already perfected. And godly sorrow for sin-true penance-is secured by the love of God shed abroad in the heart, quickening holy shame, and self-abasement, and genuine brokenness of spirit, for having offended so loving a Father.

Romanism, on the contrary, denies a perfect present justification, making it to depend upon character produced, instead of righteousness imputed. And she denies a perfect present pardon, making pardon eventually to depend upon penances performed, and unbloody sacrifices offered in the immolation of bread and wine, which she declares to be transubstantiated into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the Son of God. Neither is she satisfied with exacting this continual sacrifice for the sinner during his life. She hangs uncertainty about his deathbed. For, even after the application of extreme unction, she proclaims the necessity of more prayers still to be offered, and more masses still to be purchased, for the departed spirits of the faithful, before they can be permitted to draw nigh unto God. Thus, Romanism can never produce godly sorrow. Her repentance to the last is selfish fear. She has no present security, no rock to stand on Now, no filial access to God, no sanctifying communion with God, no constraining love of an all-sufficient Saviour elevating her motives, and transforming her into the Divine image. She presents a mixture of terrorism,

self-righteousness, and superstition.

Terror held out against

the guilty conscience to keep the sinner in thraldom selfrighteousness encouraged in the supposed merit of the sinner's works of slavery and superstition cultivated in the required dependence upon masses and penances, and pilgrimages and charms; upon the prayers of dead men and women, and, last of all, upon the fabulous fires of purgatory.

3. Another characteristic of Romanism, as developed in her teaching, is ecclesiastical domination over the civil magistrate.

Romanism teaches that our Lord Jesus Christ has established an Institution in the earth, invested with a Divine right to govern the earth to act as Christ's vicar in appointing kings and deposing kings; in binding subjects to allegiance, and absolving subjects from allegiance. And that this Institution is under the management of officers, in indefeasible succession, who are and ought to be exempt from the jurisdiction of all temporal tribunals, and amenable only to their own commanderin-chief, who is declared to be the Bishop of Rome. To prove the justice and fairness of this representation, the canon law, the decretals, and the pages of authentic history might be, as they have been, very copiously cited.

The practical consequence of this is, that even where the civil ruler is a Romanist, Romanism is felt to be an imperium in imperio, demanding the jealous vigilance of the government to resist its usurpations and exactions. But where the civil power is Protestant, as in England, Romanism is essentially rebellion. When it ceases to be rebellion, it ceases to be bona fide honest Romanism. It may indeed, under adverse circumstances, and to gain some point, deny its hostility to heretics ; and even its most dignified ecclesiastics, who have sworn their accordance with the persecuting decretals, may swear their rejection of the same, and affect the utmost indignation at the libellous charge of believing Romanism proper, as she is stereotyped at Trent. But what then? Why then, Romanism, in

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stead of a rebellion, wears the aspect of a conspiracy. Truly the disguise is superficial; and any intelligent man who will take the trouble to look through the mask, will see with what justice we may apply here, what the Duke of Wellington is reported to have said of the openly illegal combinations of our French neighbours: On conspire sur la place. "They conspire in the public streets."

If Protestant statesmen be surprised by this feature of the Romanist system, when opportunity shall favour its unmasked action, they will have nothing to blame for it but their own wilful ignorance.

The following animated and powerful statement appeared some time ago in one of our daily journals:

"Romanism has seldom of late years been regarded steadily under its genuine and exclusive aspect, of an unappeasable foe to civil liberty. Romanism may be in many senses a cheat, but in every sense a tyrant. In vague and abstract terms, we allow, Romanism confines her jurisdiction to things spiritual; but in practice, by vigilant and subtle induction, by claims of relationship between things spiritual and things temporal, she brings all the affairs of this world within her constructive empire. In the council-room, in the confessional, in the closet, in the chamber, in the street,-ever watchful, ever menacing, ever exacting, ever calculating: where Romanism, through her minister, finds admission, there, there is no security nor confidence, no free agency, no free speech, no bold or independent thought; all is conscious, irretrievable, and unvarying bondage."

In peaceful contrast with this, a characteristic of Protestantism, as developed in her teaching, is, ecclesiastical submission to the civil ruler.

Protestantism teaches that our Lord Jesus Christ established an institution in the earth invested with a divine commission to preach the Gospel for the conversion of sinful man, and to inculcate his Divine rules for the holy and peaceful living of con