Daily Bread. FRIDAY. "The world is crucified to me.”—GAL. vi. 14. Let all our actions tend To thee, their source: thy love the guide- Crucify your sins, that have crucified your Saviour. "They that are Christ's," saith St Paul, "have crucified the flesh, with the lusts thereof." Did the rocks rend when Christ died for our sins, and shall not our hearts rend that have lived in our sins? Oh! the nails that pierced his hands should now pierce our hearts. They should wound themselves with their sorrows, who have wounded him with their sins! That they have grieved his Spirit, it should grieve their spirits.-Dyer. SATURDAY. "The glory that excelleth."-2 Cor. iii. 10. Inscribing with the city's name, Who would not work for glory with the greatest diligence, and wait for glory with the greatest patience? Oh! what glories are there in glory! Thrones of glory, crowns of glory, vessels of glory, a weight of glory, a kingdom of glory. Here Christ puts his grace upon his spouse, but there he puts his glory upon his spouse; in heaven the crown is made for them, and in heaven the crown shall be worn by them; in this life believers have some good things, but the rest and best are reserved for the life to come.-Ibid. SABBATH. "Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great."-Ps. xxv. 11. Is it the greatness and the heinous nature of thy sins that afflict thee? Possibly thou mightst think I flatter thee, to tell thee thou shouldst gather ground of hope rather than of despair; for thou hast now a plea for pardon. See how the Prophet David urgeth this as an argument with God for the forgiveness of them: "For thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity." Why? It may be they are so great that they cannot in justice be pardoned: yea, " O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great." It is a very strange argument, one would think, thus to plead with men: "Pray, pardon me, because I have done you a great injury;" and yet, with God, whose thoughts are not as the thoughts of men, and whose ways are not as the ways of men, this strange argument is very forcible and prevalent: "Lord, pardon me, because I have sinned greatly:" thou speakest more reason by far, than if thou shouldst say, My sins are great and heinous, and therefore there is no hope of pardon for them.-Hopkins. MONDAY. "The god of this world hath blinded their minds." 2 Cor. iv. 4. Wretches, who cleave to earthly things But are not rich to God, Their dying hour is full of stings, And bell their dark abode. As those that work in deep mines see not the sun, and know not how the day passeth away; so those earth-worms that toil and drudge to load themselves with thick clay out of the bowels of the earth, never consider how far their day is spent, nor how near their sun is to setting; never consider once how the day goes over their heads, but still work deeper and deeper, till they have opened a passage through earth into hell, into which at last they fall headlong.Ibid. TUESDAY. "They shall look on me whom they have pierced, and shail mourn."-ZECH. xii. 10. Vouchsafe us eyes of faith to see To know thee, who thou art. And break my stubborn heart. evil of sin? Behold this sacrifice by faith, and try what efficacy there is in it to make sin for ever bitter as death to thy soul. Suppose thine own father had been stabbed to the heart with a knife, and his blood were upon it, wouldst thou delight to see, or endure to use that knife any more? Sin is the knife that stabbed Christ to the heart-this shed his blood. Surely, you can never make light of that which lay so heavy upon the soul and body of Jesus Christ.— Flavel. Art thou too little touched and affected with the WEDNESDAY. "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils."— ISA. ii. 22. Commit thou all thy griefs And ways into God's hands- Who earth and heaven commands. There are two things that should deter us from dependence upon any man, viz., his falseness and his frailty. It was the saying of a philosopher when he heard how merchants lost great estates at sea in a │ moment, "I love not the happiness which hangs upon a rope." But all the happiness of many men hangs upon a far weaker thing than a rope, even the perishing breath of a creature. The best way to continue your friends to your comfort, is to give God, and not them, your dependence; and the best way to secure yourselves against the rage of enemies, is to give God your fear, and not them.-Itid. THURSDAY. "Him hath God exalted to be a Prince."-ACTS v. 31. All the heavenly hosts adore thee, Who can conceive the happiness of the saints in the presence-chamber of the great King, where he sits in his chair of state, making his glory eminently to appear in the man Christ? His gracious presence makes a mighty change upon the saints in this world: his glorious presence in heaven, then, must elevate their graces to their perfection, and enlarge their capacities. The saints do now experience that the presence of God with them, in his grace, can make a little heaven of a sort of hell; how great, then, must the glory of heaven be by his presence there in his glory! If a candle, in some sort, beautifies a cottage or prison, how will the shining sun beautify a palace or paradise ?--Boston. THE CHRISTIAN TREASURY. LOOKING TO OUR WAYS. BY THE REV. JOHN FAIRBAIRN, ALLANTON. "My Memory tracks each several way, Since Reason did begin Over my actions her first sway; And teacheth me, that each new day "Poor bankrupt Conscience! where are those As no rent-day should be." HABINGTON. THAT is a good resolution of David's in the 39th Psalm: "I said I will take heed to my ways." May the Lord give us grace to take heed to our ways! There is hope of a man when, from true conviction of sin, and a sincere desire to escape from it, he resolves in his heart, with the help of God, to take heed to his ways. there be that go in thereat." You may think you say, You think there is no way like this. You are greatly taken with it. It falls in, to an hair's breadth, with your desires. "There is nothing," "of Methodistic preciseness here-no stiff-necked formality-no sad-featured hypocrisy. It is a pleasant way to travel. What merry-making is there amongst the glad hearted multitudes that crowd along it! Out upon the fear of death, and the fear of judg ment! Eternity is yet a good way off. These we will think of in good time. Meanwhile we will not disturb ourselves with such gloomy meditations. Why spoil all by looking upon It is all covered with You may look to your ways from two points. such a death's-head? See how invitingly the You are to do so. You are to look back-you path winds along. are to look forward. When a traveller comes flowers. There is singing of birds on every side." to a hill top, he can take his breath there, and True-in one sense, it is all true; but, as you look back upon the track over which he has love your souls, be not deceived. The company journeyed. It lies like a chart stretched out at is great, but it is a company of hardened sinThese flowers, these blossoming lusts, his feet, and invites his perusal. Do you, who ners. are life's pilgrims, stop for a few minutes, and, are set with thorns; and would you have your as from a favourable eminence, look back upon souls stuck full of them? These songs shall Broad and pleasant as the way your past ways. There is much to reflect upon. soon be changed into wringing of hands and To aid your reflections, recollect that eter- bitter curses. nity is the end of your journey. You are get- now appears, it is a bad way; it leads to deting towards it. Each week, day, hour, brings struction. It is the way along which Satan you nearer it. You have not thought suffi- drives this world; and you know where the ciently on this. You were thinking, it is likely, end of his journey lies. What shall be said to on no such matter-supposing that all things you, if, on looking back, you find that this is were standing still, and you standing still in the way you have been travelling up till this the midst of them. To-day is so like yester-hour? But you have yet to look forward; for day, you thought there was no moving for- there is much in that direction also to think wards. Standing still! There is no standing upon. still; at least in this world there is none. You were once little helpless children. See How far time has brought what you are now. you on your life-journey! You started when you first discovered a grey hair in your head. You could scarce believe it. With some of you a black hair is as great a rarity as a grey You are getting near to eter one once was. nity. What have you to say or think when you look back upon your ways? By what path have you been posting on all this while? According to the course of this world? Are you still in that way!-sailing with the stream? Matters are not well with you. Are you living without the knowledge of God-the fear of God the love of God! You are as yet in "the broad way." It leads to perdition. Our Saviour describes it: "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many No. 28. You must be reminded that your natural eyesight-the eye of a carnal heart-will not carry you so far as it is needful you should look. If you look no farther than it will carry you, you had almost as well not look at all. It will carry you no farther than to that dim boundary where eternity touches upon time. You may see the length of the border-land, and the river of death which flows between this world It is not only as far and the world to come. as eternity you are to look-you must look into eternity. You must do so through the Word of God. If you are in the way of the world, take the Word of God, and see where that way leads; whither it will inevitably conduct you, if you persevere in travelling along "There is no peace to the wicked." Would it. you but look forward, and see where it is you are going! Surely it would startle some to see how near they are to the pit-on its verge. No impenitent, unconverted sinner is far from 245 September 5, 1845. destruction. How very near to destruction are are the sins of your past life. They have some! Not merely within sight of it-at it, if heaped upon your soul all this mountain-load they could only see - within hearing of its of guilt. Can you for a moment think that horrid cries, if only they could hear. At the there is pardon for such a one as you? Can you very edge of it-yet asleep! Surely the mise-reasonably entertain any hope of salvation! rable groaning of those already in it might Thou art beyond the reach of mercy—thy case warn you from the like misery. They are cry- is hopeless." ing out to you to beware. What a calling out is there to warn sinners to flee from the wrath to come! God is speaking to them out of heaven. Christ is beseeching them. The Holy Spirit is striving with them. Ministers are crying out to them. Nay, the very lost souls in hell are imploring them to flee from the wrath to come. Did not “the rich man," being in hell, earnestly entreat that one might be sent from the dead to warn his brethren upon earth, who, to their own destruction, were walking in his footsteps? inore. Have some pity upon yourselves. Look back on your past ways. Look forward, also, whither you are hastening. Are you in "the broad way?" Continue not in it an hour longer. Why should you linger till the avenger of blood be upon you? Were you but crying out "What shall we do to be saved?" Salvation is not far off. It is near at hand, if only sinners were in downright earnest. It is near at hand; but it must be sought after. It must be sought earnestly, prayerfully-with much diligence. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." There are two things there. The gate is strait -those that would enter must strice. The gate is strait; not so strait, however, but that ye may enter, with God's help. You may enter, soul and body; but there is entrance for nothing The devil, the world, and the flesh, must be renounced. What a crowding would there be, might men enter with their sins! This cannot be; therefore they pass on. But the second thing is the striving. What a struggle has the awakened sinner in entering "the strait gate!" Manifold are the elements of this struggle. What a hold, for example, have the lusts of the flesh, worldly-mindedness, the pride of life, upon him! Look at some poor bird entangled in the snare of the fowler. It flutters and beats its wings-from pure exhaustion it must give up; having gathered again a little strength, it again flutters and beats its wings. Even so the sinner at the gate of life. These cursed sins have woven their meshes round his soul. They pull him down. He thinks he has escaped; he is still entangled. Awakened, struggling sinner, look unto Jesus; take hold of his omnipotent right hand, stretched down to thee. Hold fast by his gracious promises. He struggles on. And being thus engaged between life and death, Satan comes up like a roaring lion; and with Satan he has also to contend with his own sins, and Satan stirring them up. The enemy knows what the sinner has his eye upon, when the struggle is to enter at the strait gate. He will not lose him if he can help it. "What! thinkest thou thus to give me the slip? There You must not only look at your own ways, but also at the ways of God. The doubts and difficulties of a truly awakened soul are else | unanswerable and insuperable. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Christ "is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him." The question of your salvation is not a question about your merits and deservings. What are your sins, that the blood of Christ should not be able to wash them out? The Father has declared his satisfaction with the work of Christ, and has set Christ forth to be a propitiation for sin; and surely you may be satisfied. But you do not doubt Christ's ability to save you: it is about his willingness that you are concerned. And no wonder. Conscious of your utter depravity, your innumerable and grievously aggra vated sins, you are cast down with the thought that there can be no mercy in Christ for such as you. Consider what the revealed will of God concerning you is; for it is with it that you have mainly to do. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel!” The sinner little knows the thoughts that are in Christ's heart, when he supposes that he may be unwilling. Add not to all your other sins that of questioning the willingness of Christ to save you. When he takes such pains to tell you how willing, nay, how anxious he is, take not the word out his mouth and deny it. Christ is dishonoured by the doubts of sinners as to his willingness to save them. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Awake, my soul, and praise All thought of thine. Couldst thou soar to heaven ?"Tis higher-steeper; Couldst thou pierce the abyss ?'Tis deeper-far deeper. Away with the sun, In his dazzling flight, From his rising at morn, To his setting at night LITERARY DISHONESTY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. From the orient gate, To the western star, The earth around thee, In that infinite love. "My sins' prison walls Behold it shine That love divine! "My sins have plunged me Is deeper than this. He waiteth for thee. "I have slighted his love"- He striveth with thec. "The divine wrath is kindled "I have crowned him with thorns; "Ah, love! divine love! But can it be mine?"Receive Him, poor outcast, And Jesus is thine. LITERARY DISHONESTY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. WE extract the following particulars from Dr Cunningham's Preface to Stillingfleet's Reply to Gother -a singularly able and useful work, which is now very scarce; and of which, we are happy to learn, that the respected editor is engaged in superintending a new edition through the press. Bishop Stillingfleet was perhaps the most learned and able of all the many opponents of Popery whom the seventeenth century produced; and his answer to Gother, with Dr Cunningham's Preface and valuable Notes, presents, perhaps, the best summary of the Protestant argument, in short compass, which is to be found in the language. The Notes will be found, in one respect, particularly advantageous to students, as furnishing them with references to the principal works on the various branches of the controversy :During the sixteenth century, Popish controver 327 sialists seldom complained of being misrepresented, but endeavoured to defend their real doctrines as well as they could. They succeeded, however, so ill in this work, that they soon found it expedient to allege that the Protestants misunderstood and misrepresented their tenets, and, at the same time, attempted to soften their absurdity by subtle and insidious explanations. One of the first attempts of this kind with which we are acquainted, is to be found in a work published in 1634, entitled, "Deus, Natura, Gratia," &c., by Franciscus a Santa Clara, who was a professor in the University of Louvaine, but had resided a long time in England. One object of his book is to show that there is no very material difference in doctrine between Protestants and Papists; and with this view he goes over the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, endeavouring to show, in regard to those of them which are plainly levelled against Popish tenets, but where Popery is not expressly mentioned, that the Popish doctrine, when rightly understoodthat is, by the help of his subtle glosses and Jesuitical explanations-did not substantially differ from that of the Church of England: and in regard to those of them in which Popish doctrines are expressly condemned by name, that the compilers of the Articles did not correctly understand what the doctrine of the Church of Rome on these points was; that they condemned only an imagination of their own; and that, if they had known the true Popish doctrines upon these topics, they would have characterized them in a different way. Bishop Hall, in his "Censure of Travel," gives a very striking and graphic account of the fraud and manoeuvring employed by Popish priests to entrap Englishmen whom they found travelling upon the Continent. It appears, from his statement, that the art of softening and modifying the offensive tenets of Popery had not yet found its way into Popish books, but was extensively employed in conversation. He tells us that "Popery spoken and written are two things," and "that in discourse nothing is more ordinary than to disclaim some of their received positions, and to blanch (whitewash) others, and to allege that it is the malice of an enemy that misreports them." "They deliver," he says, "the opinion of their Church with such mitigation and favour as those that care to please, not to inform; forming the voice of the Church to the liking of the hearer-not the judgment of the hearer to the voice of the Church. Resolved to outface all evidence, they make fair weather of their foulest opinions, and inveigh against nothing so much as the spitefulness of our slanders. It is not possible that any wise stranger should be in love with the face of the Church, if they might see her in her own likeness; and, therefore, they have cunningly masked one part of it, and painted another." The arts which, in Bishop Hall's time, were employed only in conversation, have been since extensively introduced by the Papists into their writings; and his description, above quoted, applies with singular accuracy to many of their productions in more modern times, and especially in the present day. Perhaps the most celebrated Popish work directed to the object of representing Popish doctrines in a fraudulent and insidious way, is Bossuet's “Exposition of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church in Matters of Controversy;" and probably we could not produce a more striking illustration of the dishonesty of Papists in representing their doctrines than by mentioning some facts in the history of this celebrated production. But before proceeding to this instructive and melancholy narrative, it may be proper to mention the light in which modern Papists regard Bossuet's Exposition. dentially had procured a copy of it when he was chaplain to the British ambassador at Paris, and submitted it to the public inspection. Bossuet then asserted that it had been printed without his knowledge; but Wake produced unquestionable evidence that this, too, was falsehood. He at the same time convicted Bossuet of two other deliberate lies; one, an assertion that he did not know of a book of Father Crasset's, in which his doctrine about the worship of the Virgin Mary was censured; and the other, a statement in his pastoral letter to the new converts of his diocese, in which he told them, that "not one of them had suffered violence, either in his person or h's goods," although he knew well that they had been subjected to severe persecution, which he supported both in theory and in practice. The fact that Bossuet's Exposition was recommended by the Pope was adduced by the Doctors of the Sorbonne in 1717, as a proof that a diversity of opinion upon some points is tolerated in the Church of Rome. Such is the history of the book which Butler, who has published a life of Bossuet, and who must have known many of these facts, tells us "all Roman Catholics, without exception, acknowledge, as a full and faultless exposition of the doctrines of their Church." Such was the man to whom Dr Murray refers us for an honest and authentic statement of Popish doctrine. EXCURSION TO ARRAN. LAMLASH. Mr Butler, in his Book of the Roman Catholic Church (p. 10), mentions Bossuet's Exposition as a book in which a correct and authentic statement of Popish doctrine is to be found; and in his Vindication of the preceding work (p. 8), he makes the following assertion in regard to it:-" Roman Catholics have but one opinion of it-all, without exception, acknowledge it to be a full and faultless exposition of the doctrines of their Church. I could not, therefore, have referred Protestants to a more authentic exposition of the Catholic creed." Dr Murray, the Popish Archbishop of Dublin, in his famous letter to his beloved fellow-Christians, the Protestants of Great Britain," in regard to " Dens' Theology," thus addressed them:-"Take the trouble of making your selves acquainted, through authentic sources, with the real differences between us and you. You will find them in a little book which I pray you to read over; it is a short explanation of the Roman Catholic faith, by Bossuet." Let us attend, then, to some of the circumstances connected with this "full and faultless exposition" of the creed of Popery, derived chiefly from the prefaces to Archbishop Wake's Exposition of the Doctrines of the Church of England," and to his two Defences of it, where they are established by incontrovertible evidence. Bossuet's Exposition was published in 1671, when great efforts were making to convert the Protestants in France. It had the approving attestation of eleven bishops, and when it was fully printed, and just about to issue from the press, its author sent a copy of it to the Faculty of the Sorbonne, who, instead of approving it, marked for correction not a few passages, in which the author, with the view of softening the harsh tenets of Popery, had misrepresented the real doctrines of the Church. Bossuet immediately suppressed this edition, and in a few months published another, in which he availed himself, to some extent, of the censure of the Sorbonne; although even this he could never prevail on that learned body to approve. Many Papists disapproved of the book, as an unfaithful statement of Popish doctrine, and as going too far in the way of accommodation of Protestant prejudices. The reigning Pope, Clement X., positively refused to sanction it, though importuned to do so for a period of five years; and it was not till after three years of reiterated importunity that his successor, Pope Innocent XI., was at last prevailed upon, in 1679, to recommend it "as eminently fitted to promote the Catholic faith, on account of its doctrine, method, and prudence," while, on the very same day, his Holiness issued another brief, approving a book which taught a different and opposite doctrine from that of Bossuet and the Gallican Church on the subject of Papal authority. Imbert, a Doctor of Divinity in Bourdeaux, was accused of heresy in 1683, and although he proved that his doctrine upon the point was exactly the same as that contained in Bossuet's Exposition, he was condemned and imprisoned for it by his archbishop. Witt, a Popish priest in Mechlin, was also accused of heresy in 1685,ing the storm, and casting anchor under the shelter of and though he supported his opinion by the authority this mighty breakwater, have said: "Thanks be to of Bossuet, in his Exposition, yet the Faculty of God, we are in Lamlash Bay!" Had Virgil ever been Louvaine condemned it as scandalous and pernicious.in Britain, we would have thought that he had LamCardinal Capisucchi, Master of the Sacred Palace, lash in his eye when he wrote the following descripand Cardinal Bona, whose recommendations of the Exposition are prefixed to the later editions of it, taught, in their own works, published about the same time, doctrines on the worship of saints and images opposed to that of the book which they recommended, and more in accordance with the tenets of the Church of Rome. When these facts were published by Wake, Bossuet came forward, and publicly denied the existence of any edition which had been censured by the Sorbonne, and suppressed by himself. Wake provi THOUGH Lamlash has not all the beauty and grandeur of Brodick, it is very far from being devoid of interest. Nature has done much for it. The noble bay, forming a semicircle, is about three miles in length from north to south. In the mouth of the bay stands the Holy Isle-a magnificent cone, nearly a thousand feet in height. On each side of the isle there is a convenient entrance into the bay, which it protects and adorns; and within there is excellent anchorageground, of sufficient depth for the largest vessels, and capable of containing a whole navy. What s magnificent breakwater does the Holy Isle form! We read with wonder, as an astonishing achievement of science, of a breakwater being formed by innumerable beams, seventy or eighty feet in length, being driven through earth and rock by the tremendous power of the steam-hammer; but what is this but as the work of insects, compared with the stupendous might which must have been exercised when this gigantic mole was pushed up through rock, and earth, and water, and the elevated sandstone overflowed by and the goodness of God! How many, after weathera stream of melted porphyry? Behold the power tion: "Est in secessu longo locus; insula portum While it reminds the classical scholar of the stately |