On shall be found no more at all." Rev. xviii. 21. the word of God then I stand, and with all ardour of love, and with all the tenderness of Christian compassion, I feel it my duty to warn Protestants of their danger, and to call to those who are under the delusions of Babylon, "Come out of her! my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues!" It is a most grievous mistake to think that Popery will die a natural death, and that kind treatment and increasing intelligence will gradually put an end to it. Kind treatment is indeed most justly due to every human being, and especially to those most diseased with error. But that is a mistaken kindness, which leaves the patient to perish under a disease, rather than undertake the self-denying and distressing duty of applying a painful remedy. God's kindness to those he loves is of a different character; it is a kind severity, even in his severest reproofs and punishments, producing thereby enduring good; and this is the kindness which we should copy. Increasing intelligence, unsanctified and unaccompanied by the light of God's truth, and the believing reception of his holy love, may only be increasing the means of wickedness. The father of lies is full of subtilty and intelligence. It is painful, indeed, to see that beloved Christian brethren can be so far misled by the amiableness of their natural disposition, and the kindness of their affection, as to rejoice in the outward splendour and increase of Roman Catholic places of worship; and to think that as this prosperity indicates wealth, and wealth brings education, education must destroy priestcraft. Surely a simple faith in the word of prophecy would preserve us from this snare! Read the 18th chapter of Revelation: mark the description of her merchandize, (v. 12, 13.) what extraordinary wealth precedes her destruction! what priestcraft! when souls of men are numbered among her merchandize! Let us be faithful to our God and Saviour, and faithful to the souls of men, though we have to go through obloquy and reproach, and are charged with a bitter and an hostile spirit, even when our hearts are fullest of love. God's servants will soon learn to distinguish between true, faithful, and zealous love, and a mere party spirit, either of this world's politics or of zealotry and proselytism. And should all men. condemn, the period is at hand which will make our just dealing as clear as the noonday. EDWARD BICKERSTETH. WATTON RECTORY, HERTS. ENGLISH MARTYROLOGY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION-PROGRESS OF POPERY-ADRIAN'S BULL-WALDENSIAN PROTEST-PAPAL ARROGANCE-JOHN-THE INTERDICT-GROSTHEADVARIOUS TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE ROMISH CHURCH-PRAYER OF THE PLOUGHMAN. WHO does not love, at the calm still hour of evening, to pace around some venerable church, marking the dents and fissures in its old grey stone-work, which tell how many an age it has withstood the shocks of time; to gaze upon the outline of its antique tower, or tapering spire, as they rise towards heaven-a lively type of hope resting on faith's foundation-and then to glance upon the neighbouring yew or elm, coeval in date with its hallowed companion? There is that in the fashion of our old churches, and the scenery generally surrounding them, which appeals alike to devotional and national feeling; and could we withdraw from these venerable piles the oblivious veil cast over their history by the supine thanklessness of successive generations, we should view in each of them an emphatic memorial, a victorious trophy of the war waged by popery against the Lamb: of the might whereby He who is King of kings and Lord of lords overcame his blasphemous assailant; and of the deeds of his called, and chosen, and faithful followers, whose voice from within those walls sent forth the sound of the gospel trumpet, through the length and breadth of the land. They watched, perchance, the young growth of those trees, with prayerful aspirations that they might wave, as now they do, over a remote generation of peaceful worshippers. From these very trees, it may be, a sprouting twig was snatched, to serve as a torch for kindling the flames of their martyrdom. The Bible sets before us a system, delineated with marvellous exactness: now presented to us in the person of its chief ruler, as "The man of Sin, the son of Perdition""That Wicked:" then in the character of its soul-destroying doctrines, as “Antichrist:" and again in the fearful plenitude of its wily, treacherous, and sanguinary usurpation, assuming to be the Church, the immaculate Spouse of Christ, yet drunken with the blood of his saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus:—a woman gorgeously arrayed, bearing on her forehead the awful inscription, "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT; THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." Our fathers studied the word of God; they compared these declarations with the character and conduct of the Romish church, then practising and prospering around them: they believed the testimony; saw its fulfilment; denounced that church as the branded enemy of Christ and his gospel, and were slain by her cruel hand, in further confirmation of the truth which they had proclaimed concerning her. The English church had maintained a perfect independence of Rome, until the establishment of Augustine and his mission in 597. Fiercely persecuted by the Saxons, it had been driven into the mountain fastnesses of Wales, and there subsisted in considerable strength; two thousand ecclesiastics finding refuge in the monastery of Bangor. One half of these were slaughtered by Ethelfrid, king of Northumberland, and Augustine has been accused of instigating this savage massacre. No other grounds appear for the charge than the warm dissensions occurring between him and the British bishops, who long and firmly resisted the inroads of the foreign delegate on their national independence, refusing submission to the Romish see: though the Mystery of iniquity was still far from having revealed itself in the full proportions of its antichristian deformity. Like a coiled serpent, it lay; fold after fold being cautiously developed, in gradual progression. Six Italians had indeed successively occupied the see of Canterbury, but it was not until about A. D. 673, when Theodore arrived from Rome to assume the metropolitan mitre, that Britain beheld a popish ecclesiastic playing the king on her shores, fully exercising the delegated prerogatives of the sovereign pontiff, placing and displacing bishops at his pleasure, and lording it over God's heritage after the genuine pattern of the Man of Sin. Image-worship, and clerical celibacy, being firmly established at Rome, the first was readily received in England, but the latter gave rise to a long and vehement contention. The crowning heresy of transubstantiation was as yet little recognized, nor had it been authoritatively adopted or enforced by the Roman see. About the year 946, monkery began to flourish in this country under the famous Dunstan, who, as abbot of Glastonbury, became so noted as to be unquestionably the most influential man in the kingdom, long before his elevation to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The tissue of gross frauds, and incredible miracles, by which this crafty monk attained to more than regal power, shows to what a depth of superstitious ignorance the church had fallen in his day. Patronized by him, the ecclesiastics of his own order, called monks, or regulars, acquired considerable predominance over the seculars, or ordinary parish priests; which they maintained during more than two centuries. The minds of the people then became alienated from them, through their luxurious and scandalous abuse of the enormous wealth which their power had enabled them to amass. The papacy, observant of their declining influence, and ever watchful to retain its own sure footing in the land, then planted another and far more mischievous engine of destruction, to further its evil devices: for, about A. D. 1220, the two great orders of mendicant friars, Franciscan and Dominican, came hither; prepared, as in other countries, to destroy the people of God, who were for a long season delivered into their unrighteous hands. By this time the skeleton, which had been slowly filling up with muscle, flesh, and artery, was become a perfect body: every feature was complete, every limb instinct with life. Babylon the Great, the Mother of harlots, stood forth, grasping the golden cup of her abominations, and already reeling under the intoxication of sanguinary power. The measure of doctrinal iniquity appeared full; the attributes of Deity were unblushingly usurped. Authority to crown, to depose, and to degrade the sovereigns of earth had been wrested from Him by whom kings reign. Marriage was forbidden to that class concerning whom the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of Paul, had directed that each should be the husband of one wife: a cake of dough had been invested with the incommunicable glories of Jehovah, and it was death to withhold from it the homage of idolatrous prostration. The divine prerogative of forgiving sins, and remitting the punishment of iniquity both in this world and in |