of free will; for the hostility to which doctrine, entertained by the first Reformers, they are

vantages, derived to the literature and civilization of Christendom, from religious houses, as depositaries of the remains of ancient learning, the author thus proceeds." If the Churchmen preserved in this manner the faint tradition of knowledge, it must, at the same time, be acknowledged, that in their hands it more than once became dangerous, and was converted by its guardians to pernicious purposes. The domination of Rome, built upon a scaffolding of false historical proofs, had need of the assistance of those faithful auxiliaries, to employ on the one side their half knowledge to fascinate men's eyes, and on the other to prevent those eyes from perceiving the truth, and from becoming enlightened by the torch of criticism. The local usurpations of the Clergy, in several places, were founded on similar claims, and had need of similar means for their preservation. It followed, there fore, both that the little knowledge permitted should be mixed with error, and that the nations should be carefully maintained in profound ignorance, favourable to supersti tion. Learning, as far as possible, was rendered inacces. sible to the laity. The study of the ancient languages was represented as idolatrous and abominable. Above all, the reading of the holy Scriptures, that sacred inheritance of all Christians, was severely interdicted. To read the bible, without the permission of one's superiors, was a crime: to translate it into the vulgar tongue would have been a temerity worthy of the severest punishment. The Popes had indeed their reasons for preventing the word of Jesus Christ from reaching the people, and a direct communication from being established between the Gospel and the Christian. When it becomes necessary to keep in the shade objects as conspicuous as faith and public worship, it behoved the darkness to be universal and impenetrable." Villers's Essay on the Re

branded by these translators with the title of Manichees. (See the Doway Bible on Gen. iv. 7.)

formation of Luther, p. 88-90. The same writer in ano. ther place, thus contrasts the character of the Protestant and Romish Churches, as to their grounds of assent to sacred truths." The Church of Rome said, 'Submit, without examination, to authority? The Protestant Church, said, Examine, and submit only to thy own conviction. The one commanded men to believe blindly: the other taught them, with the Apostle, to reject the bad, and choose only that which is good:" Ibid. p. 294.-And when the Church of Rome was, at length, obliged by the necessities of self de. fence, to grant to her faithful sons the privilege of theological investigation, in what way does the same writer represent the system of studies permitted for this purpose? The theology of the Romanist, and that of the Protestant, he describes, as "two worlds in opposite hemispheres, which have nothing common except the name.". "The Catholic theology rests (says he) on the inflexible authority of the decisions of the Church, and therefore debars the man who studies it from all free exercise of his reason. It has preserved the jargon, and all the barbarous appendages of the Scholastic philo sophy. We perceive in it the work of darkness of the monks of the tenth century. In short, the happiest thing which can befal him who has unfortunately learnt it, is speedily to forget it. The Protestant theology, on the contrary, rests on a system of examination, on the unlimited use of reason. The most liberal exegesis opens for it the knowledge of sacred antiquity; criticism, that of the history of the Church; it regards the doctrinal part, reduced to purity and simplicity, as only the body of religion, the positive form which it requires; and it is supported by philosophy in the examina. tion of the laws of nature, of morality, and of the relations

To these Romish Doctors I leave a Romish Doctor to reply. Dr. Geddes, in his Critical Remarks, pp. 54, 55. has endeavoured to shew

of men to the Divine Being. Whoever wishes to be instructed in history, in classical literature, and philosophy, can choose nothing better than a course of Protestant theology."—Ibid. pp. 307, 308.-Such are the observations, contained in a work, which has been distinguished by a prize, conferred by the National Institute of France.

Perhaps, one of the most decisive proofs of the justice of this writer's remarks on the state of sacred literature in the Romish Church, has been supplied by the late re-publica tion, in this country, of that wretched specimen of Scripture criticism, Ward's Errata. This powerless offspring of a feeble parent, which was supposed to have perished when it first saw the light above a century ago, has lately upon signs of reanimation, been hailed in Ireland with shouts of joy. And the meagre abstract of Gregory Martin's Discovery of the manifold corruptions of the Holy Scriptures, a work which has itself lain for two hundred years overwhelmed by confutation, has been received by the Romanists of this part of the Empire, with a gratulation that might well become the darkest ages of the Church. A work, condemning the Protestant translation of the Bible for using the term messenger instead of angel, (in Mal. ii. 7. iii. 1. Mat. xi. 10. Luke vii. 27, &c.) by which the character of angel is withdrawn from the priesthood, and of a sacrament from orders :—for not rendering the words (in Hebr. xi. 21.) goσXUσ EПI To angov îns galde auT8, as the Rhemish does, adored the top of his rod, and thereby surreptitiously removing one of the principal Scripture arguments for image worship:--for ascribing to the word DD, in the second commandment, the meaning graven image, whilst the Rhemish renders it graven thing, which, with those who admit an image not to be a

that Jerome's version, or that of the Vulgate, cannot be maintained. He has not, however, adduced the arguments which bear most strongly against their interpretation; namely, those which

thing, will exempt images from the prohibition of the commandment :-for not giving to the words pravoia and pœnitentia, the sense of penance, but merely assigning to them their true interpretation, repentance, and thus doing wilful despite to the sacrament of penance:—a work, I say, condemning the Protestant translations of the Bible for these, and some other such errors; and in all cases demonstrating the error by one and the same irrefragable proof,-that the Romish version is the true one, and that the Protestant ver. sion which differs from it must consequently be false, is certainly not such a one, as might, in the nineteenth century, be expected to be raked up by the clergy of a widely extended communion, and exhibited triumphantly as a master, piece of critical erudition. In the opinion of many, this miserable performance did not deserve an answer; especially as every argument, which it contained, had been in former times repeatedly confuted, Perhaps however they judged more rightly, who thought, that even the weakest reasonings should be exposed lest they might be imagined to be strong, and that even the most hacknied arguments should be replied to lest they might be conceived to be new, Accordingly, this work received an answer from Dr, Ryan, whose zealous exertions in the cause of religious truth are well known, and is about to receive another from the Rev. Richard Grier of Middleton. These gentlemen, at all events, display courage in their enterprize, since the author whom they attack, backed by the whole council of Trent, has pronounced, that whoever shall not receive the books of Scripture, as they are read in the Catholic (Romish) Church, and as they are in the Vulgate` Latin edition, shall be ACCURSED. Errata, p. 37.

apply to the mistranslation of the concluding clause of the seventh verse, and to the violence offered even to that mistranslation in pronouncing that Cain having sinned should acquire dominion over his sinful desires, which is as much as to say that by yielding to sin a man acquires the power of controuling it. But too much has been said upon Romish exposition.*

* How little entitled the orthodox member of the Romish church is, at this day, to expect serious consideration in the walks of sacred criticism, may be inferred (in addition to what has been said in the last note) from the description given of him by a Doctor of his own communion. "The vulgar papist rests his faith on the supposed infallibility of his church, although he knows not where that infallibility is lodged, nor in what it properly consists: it is to him a general, vague, indefinite idea, which he never thinks of analysing. He reads in his catechism, or is told by his catechist, that the Church cannot err in what she teaches; and then he is told, that this unerring church is composed only of those who hold communion with the Bishop of Rome, and precisely believe as he, and the bishops who are in communion with him, believe. From that moment reason is set aside; authority usurps its place, and implicit faith is the necessary consequence. He dares not even advance to the first step of Des Cartes's logic; he dares not doubt: for in his table of sins, which he is obliged to confess, he finds doubting in matters of faith to be a grievous crime." Such is Dr. Geddes's account of him whom he is pleased to call the vulgar papist; under which title he in truth means to include, all who are sincere votaries of the Church of Rome, and whom that church would acknowledge as such: in other words he means by this term to designate all who are actually within the pale of Popery.