be detected. To be accurate on such a point is, however, no ambition of mine. In common with most persons fond of reading, I have looked through what are called dictionaries of all religions, and have had quite enough of the kind of information they affect to furnish. In earlier life, we think it of high importance-and I do not now deny its relative utility—to know about the Gnostics, Montanists, Monothelites, Patropassians, and a thousand other sects, whose insignificance is hidden under fine names; and they who continue to value such learning may find plenty of it, if they will only submit to the trouble of turning over the incredible heaps of ecclesiastical rubbish accumulated, during the lapse of time, by human fatuity. There is yet all the difference between the occasional and the permanent heresies of the Christian church. The former are important only to the generation immediately concerned with them. The latter vex and disturb the faithful-using that term discriminately—in every age; and are, in effect, the tares suffered to grow together with the wheat, till the final harvest of souls. Every division of these indestructible forms of error will, sooner or later, be found to arrange itself under the banners of Antinomianism, and of Self-righteousness. CHAP. XIV.-Papal Hostility to the Scriptures-The Suggestions to real Christians ....... Page. 209 Ecclesiastical 229 250 266 CHAP. XVI.-Antichrist in the Religious World CHAP. XVII.-Conclusion ANTICHRIST, PAPAL, PROTESTANT, AND INFIDEL. INTRODUCTION. I do confidently believe, that all the particular national churches, throughout the whole Christian world, are no other than sisters, daughters of the same Father, God; of the same mother, the spiritual Jerusalem which is from above: some of them are elder sisters, others younger; some more tall and large spread, others of less stature; some fairer in respect of holiness of life and orthodoxy of judgment, others fouler in respect of corruptions, both of doctrine and manners; still sisters; and if any of them shall usurp a mistress-ship over the rest, or make herself a queen over them, and make them subjects and slaves to her; or a motherhood to the rest (otherwise than in a priority, and aid of conversion), and make them but daughters and punies to her, she shall be guilty of an high arrogance and presumption, against Christ and his dear spouse the church; since, with the just and holy God, there is no respect of persons or places, but in all nations those that serve him best are most accepted of him.-BISHOP HALL'S Shaking of the Olive Tree. 1660. 407. THE principal aim of the author, in the following sheets, is to do something towards supplying what he considers to be a strange deficiency, on the part of Protestant writers engaged in the current controversy. A subject B In the mean time, it is obvious that the two schemes are, in one view, utterly contrary to each other. The man who refuses to keep the Divine law is at the same moment jealous of his reputation for practical goodness. His character is that of an obedient rebel-of a virtuous libertine. Upon such inconsistencies are the children of the Fall precipitated by their own blindness! But what has this to do with the object of this treatise? The Papal superstition, I answer, is, according to my estimation, nothing else than a magnificent vehicle for the two current heresies I mean, as distinct from its endeavours to gain universal power. This will be developed hereafter. We will only observe at present, that Catholicity, like any other vast and complicated machine, must be contemplated in its actual operations. To a novice, indeed, in the ways of men, and especially of men who meddle with religion, the creed and ritual of the Latin church might appear absurd, yet perfectly innocent; and he might express surprise, in the common language of many wiser men than himself, that any very serious evil could lurk under periods so harmless as the decrees of the Council of Trent. What those decrees are, I, for one, never knew, except at second hand, from divines employed in exposing or in covering their real character. But, at any rate, they are only parts of an engine which we must examine when at work; as we judge of the power of gunpowder, not as though it were an innocuous heap of black dust, but by its propelling force and explosions. What, then, has the Church of Rome done? what is it doing? Its creed is of no sort of consequence: we are asking about its practice. Whatever be its doctrine, the great secret of its influence is, that it is so constructed as to suit all imaginable tastes. According to the eloquent and profound philosophy of Sir Edwin Sandys, "the particular ways they" (the Papists) "hold to RAVISH ALL AFFECTIONS AND TO FIT EACH HUMOUR (which their jurisdiction and power, being but persuasive and voluntary, they principally regard), are well-nigh infinite; there being not any thing either sacred or profane, no virtue nor vice almost, no things of how contrary condition soever, which they make not in some sort to serve that turn; that each fancy may be satisfied, and each appetite find what to feed on. Whatsoever either wealth can sway with the lovers of voluntary poverty, with the despisers of the world; what honour with the ambitious; what obedience with the |