DIVINITY AND DIVINES.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

IT is frequently asked with a triumphant sneer, by the popish enemies of the Church of England, ..where was your religion, before the time of Luther, and where was your Church before Henry the Eighth. As if the religion of the reformed Church were totally new, and the Church of England were indebted for its rights, and independence of the see of Rome, solely to the will of king Henry the Eighth. But from the time that the papal hierarchy first became conspicuous, not for its zealous emulation of the Apostolic virtues, but for its neglect of them, from the time that it was first attempted to set aside the Gospel, to make way for the precepts of men, from the period at which the Christian church was

first profaned with idols of the various saints, and rites were introduced not less absurd than those of paganism-there never was an age in which some pious men did not oppose the tyranny of superstition, and complain of the factitious spiritual darkness, which their utmost efforts were unable to enlighten-it was not till the commencement of the sixteenth century, that the concurrent force of various causes rendered the supporters of Christianity successful against the domineering encroachments of the see of Rome, and enabled them to illumine the world with the light of true religion. Consequently that any opposition to popery was first made in the sixteenth century is totally destitute of truth, although it was assuredly at that time, that an attempt at reformation was first enabled to prosper.

We shall enter into a few details, to show that the religion of the reformers was the religion of the primitive Christians, and that the church of England which has always been distinguished for her fearless intrepidity, having produced some of the earliest and most able defenders of Christianity, approaches at the present time more nearly to the state in which the congregations of Christians were left by the apostles, than does any other church whatsoever. From the highly valuable writings of Dr. Buchanan, it appears

that in the essential parts of doctrine, her service and form of government, the church of England bears a close resemblance to that of the Syrians on the coast of Malabar, the Christian church of St. Thomas, as, after the lapse of ages, it still existed in its purity at the arrival of the Portuguese; a church consequently coeval with, and founded, if not, as there is reason to believe, by an apostle of our Lord, at least by some of the primitive disciples, coming from the place where the followers of Christ were first denominated Christians.

In continuation of this subject we now present our readers with the following extract from Mr. Gilly's Narrative of an excursion to the mountains of Piedmont, and researches amongst the Vandois or Waldenses, the Protestant inhabitants of the Cottonian Alps, who still adhere to their ancient faith, and are distinguished for the simplicity of their manners, no less than for that heroic valour, which through so many centuries has enabled them to defend themselves against the cruel persecutions of their enemies. Their number altogether is about twenty thousand, occupying these Alpine valleys on the frontier of France and Savoy; but subject to the latter country, whose sovereign, for more than a century, has assumed the title of king of Sardinia. Mr. Gilly proceeded to Pomaretto,

and visited Mr. Rodolph Peyrani, the Moderator, For Primate of the thirteen pastors of the Walden»sian church. "I cannot forget, nor must lomit, (says Mr. G.) to notice the evident satisfaction M. Peyrani felt in explaining how closely the -doctrines of the Vaudois church assimulated to those of the church of England. He pointed to the works of Tillotson, Barrow, and Taylor, which still enriched his bookcase, and declared that every time he had read them, he was more and more gratified by the light which these English divines had thrown upon truths, for their -adherence to which, his poor brethren had *been often obliged to conceal themselves in their mountain fortresses. But remember,' said the old man, with conscious and becoming pride: * remember, that your are indebted to us for your emancipation from papal thraldom. We led the way. We stood in the front rank, and against us the first thunderbolts of Rome were fulminated. The baying of the blood hounds of the Inquisition were heard in our valleys before you knew its name. They hunted down some of our ancestors, and pursued others from glen to glen, and over rock and mountain, till they obliged them to take refuge in foreign countries. A few of these wanderers penetrated as far as Provence and Languedoc, and from them were

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