The second element introduced by the gospel, is TRUTH: men had no conception of this before, in matters of conscience and religion. Pilate enquired "what is truth?" as if it were some new and unheard of thing: for the teachers of heathenism and its general supporters, (like some heathenized Christians) never thought of truth, but custom and policy.

Priests and rulers, employed superstition as an engine of State; the respectable followed it from indifference and fashion; the ignorant from hereditary fear.

But the idea of truth, was left out altogether; and therefore this new element, would exercise, quicken, and enlarge the intellect, in a new and free enquiry into the most sublime and exalting questions. Religion was no longer to be regarded as the alliance of political and priestly power, exacting a blind faith, or politic obedience; but a matter of understanding and conscience in the sight of God. And thus would the Son make men free, by making them exalted above "the conversation received by tradition from their fathers;"-above the tyranny of priestcraft, law, custom, and ignorance.

All this moreover would give men power, and consequence; and SO uphold the THIRD element introduced by the gospel, namely RIghts. RIGHTS belonging not merely to the powerful and honoured, but to the weak and despised; for God by his gospel, threw a broad shield over such; his regards towards them, bring them into prominence, and true dignity.

We have heard of an officer who having risen by character and ability from the ranks, was unable to equal his brother officers in riotous expense; he was consequently exposed to every annoying insult, as if an inferior and intruder, until he petitioned his superior to be degraded from his unpleasant promotion. His general finding the true cause of this request to be the insolence of his companions, arising from his poverty and socalled low origin, promised to set the matter right.

Accordingly it was arranged that as the general passed, on the next review day the complaining officer was to step forward and address him. He was received with great affability in the presence of the assembled troops; the general offering his arm, and walking companionably with up and down the ranks. His brother officers seeing these attentions, ever afterwards treated him with respect and kindness.

him

So God in the person of Christ, came down, and took our arm, recognized the lowliest; that henceforth all even the outcast, should be sacred as his own dear purchase.

Hitherto rank and legal privilege, were the foundations of right; men appealed to the laws, as conferring their titles; God appeals to humanity as deciding what shall be the laws.

Privileges are no longer to be founded on laws, but on the native rights of our common humanity; or the purchased immunities of our Christian faith.

Whilst formerly men said, I am a citizen—a defence from which slaves and others were excluded-now we are to say, I am a man, even though a slave, and ought to be a citizen, for God has provided me a citizenship in heaven. Thus our Lord's assumption of humanity, rendered all men sacred, that we should " HONOUR ALL MEN;" and he defends the meanest

of his flock, with this cheering declaration,-" forasmuch as ye did it to the least of these my little ones, YE DID IT UNTO ME." It was this great truth, which elevated the run-away slave of Philemon, into a "brother beloved." (See Philemon 10-16.) The gospel did not directly disturb social arrangements, but introduced those principles which would first modify and then overthrow every injustice; hence the same Apostle gives directions to slaves.-(1 Cor. vii. 17-23.

Here Christ hath freed men from all obligations to circumcision, the entire ritual of Judaism; whilst he elevates social slaves, to a moral position, in which they cannot much longer be held in bondage.

Here are no commands against bettering their condition; "but if thou mayest be free, use it rather." Christ wants none of his servants to remain in bonds: and the constitution he has provided, is not such as politicians aim at,—what is suited to people now, till they are fit for a better;-his constitution is to make them better. And this will include social, political, and religious freedom: no Christian people can long be enslaved.

We thus become free, from the tyranny of arbitrary power; from the claims of encroaching priests; for if we have Christ—what do we want besides? We become free from the creeds and dogmas of men; all Church authorities; having Christ for our only Ruler; and therefore being above the dictation and intervention of men. We can walk to heaven along a road he opens, and which none can shut; "for if the Son make you free, then are ye free indeed."

We have none above us but Christ, who hath freed us from all others -that we should become his servants. Whilst our earthly masters, are themselves brought under authority, "knowing that their Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.”

But is not this slavery? that we should be absolutely under his dominion? No! It is slavery to be under ourselves; to have our conscience bound by our sins; our reason imprisoned by passion; our soul led captive by the Devil at his pleasure; this is slavery, to be sold under sin; because it is beneath the position to which this divine charter invites us.

A proper service is not opposed to freedom; it is servitude or slavery, a degrading service that is contrary to true freedom. EMANCIPATION, IS TO FIND OUR RIGHT MASTER;-to be made free from sin, and become the servants of righteousness.-(Rom. vi. 18.)

We cannot become altogether free from law, the most licentious obeys his own passions, and is thus enslaved.

The freest libertine and man of the world, is obedient to the law of honour and fashion; he is free from God, but not from obedience to

another kind of rule.

Law itself is not slavery, but good laws are the sanctuary of freedom. True liberty consists in having no laws or ruling influences which prevent the due development of an individuals character, or of a nation's

resources.

He is a slave who is under laws which are unfit for a man, that put him below his true place and stunt his growth. His emancipatiou consists in coming under laws suitable to a man, as a brother and an equal in God's universal family of mankind.

So of a people politically, freedom is not release from laws, but from injurious and oppressive laws.

Freedom in commerce is the absence of interfering agencies, of everything inconsistent with its nature and design; and the presence of its true regulators—the laws of God's providence.

So mental and spiritual freedom for man, is the absence or subjugation of inferior impulses; escape from the tyranny of evil habits; the law of the mind subduing the law of sin in our members;-the rule of God's higher and spiritual providence; in which the truth makes us free from false hopes and false fears, and the various chains of delusion.

It is to ascend from the rule of sense, to rule of thought, enlightened by the loftiest truths.

The most perfect liberty is obedience to the highest laws, not those of sense or earth, or of God's creatures, but of God himself; not priests, fashion, human authority, nor bodily appetites, but the direct and perfect will of God. All else, is being a SERVANT OF SERVANTS, which is slavery; while liberty is to be the servant of the Great King.

The nearer we come to the source of authority, the more freedom we enjoy; and the more we descend to obeying lower laws and authorities or obtrusive usurpations, the more we lose this advantage of nearness, live under a lower roof, instead of the dome of heaven which is the temple of God's law and man's liberty.

And from this we may learn that it is no slavery to be under Christ, because he is truly above us all ;-peerless in majesty and greatness of character, unequalled in the extent of the spiritual truths and privileges which he has made known in the gospel constitution.

The greatness of this master, prevents all cramping slavery and degradation, which result from submitting to an equal or an inferior. Here we find the rule of reason, not of brute force; thoughts and affections, not chains and prisons; for "God in Christ" rules the believer by the great motives and reasons of the gospel. There he reveals our immortal nature, and hopes and duties suitable to it.

We have here ample room to advance, and shall never outgrow our lesson; never feel like a caged eagle vainly beating against a narrow cage, since we have the free expanse of the firmament in which to move, and the glorious Sun of all intelligence to illuminate our course.

This greatness in our Ruler, and the extent of his laws, embracing the circumference of all that is noble and possible for man, form our security, that we cannot be slaves whilst under his dominion: and his sole authority, in all questions of thought, religion, and character, defends us from the oppressions and subletting of middlemen, who would parcel out and tithe God's own domain,-the wide common of human liberties.

II.

PRIEST'S RELIGION.

HUMAN AUTHORITY AND INVENTION versus CONSCIENCE AND THE BIBLE.

The Scriptures are the only standard of Christian faith and practice: every one is at liberty to examine them; but no one is at liberty to decline this examination: and though we may receive the help of others, we may not rest on their authority, (which is man-worship ;) nor receive as religion, what is not in the Scriptures, (which is willworship.)

ROME'S LOGIC: SCHEME THE FIRST.

"WITH ALL DECEIVABLENESS OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS."-2 Thess. ii. 10. NOTWITHSTANDING the diversity of opinion in politics and in religion, it is manifest that men's minds are cast in the same original mould; though by some peculiar fascination we are led to the most opposite conclusions. This cannot be entirely explained by the various motives of interest, partizanship, and ambition, though these have naturally a blinding influence.

There are however subtler and deeper principles at work,-fallacies of the understanding-false starting points, by which men become so influenced as firmly to believe, what others looking at the same doctrines directly and alone, feel to be inherently absurd, if not blasphemous. This does not result from any difference in general education, nor from any difference in general power of understanding; but partly from a difference of education on the particular points in question: one set of persons having been trained to judge for themselves, and so feeling a confidence as well as acquiring mastery and insight into that particular department. One has an implicit faith and follows, not judging whither; the other aims at an intelligent faith on each separate point, and so is individually a better judge of the road. One relinquishes the right, and therefore loses the power of private judgment, and so can sincerely believe, what those whose " senses are exercised to discern between good and evil," can scarcely regard as possible to be believed, by otherwise intelligent men.

This difference in procedure, leads us deeper into those questions on which men's minds are agitated, to find a sufficient explanation for these varieties of opinion. It is always of importance to understand our true foundations, in matters of such importance as belong to religion; and especially in times of fluctuation, change, and fear; when doctrines are caught by contagion and defended by prejudice; when priestcraft is

subtle and statecraft cruel, and men must make their choice in the din of contention, and maintain it in the face of derision.

To have a clear steady light for the wise and the simple, a sun walking in brightness and shining purely through the clouds of incense and smoking torches of a full grown superstition, and shaming the unlighted candles of a Protestant abortion-this is the great need of these and of all times. Thank God, this is provided for us in his own blessed word— a light unto our feet, and a lamp unto our paths; the beaming forth of him who is a sun and shield, the Father of lights, in whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning;-a being of undiminished glory and majesty, a sun that is never eclipsed.

They who come simply unto this marvellous light of the glorious gospel of the blessed God; find rest unto their souls.

But since so many persons are entangled by the network of superstition thrown around the Bible, by which its light becomes darkness; it is necessary to unravel these spiritual delusions, that men may no longer be bound down to the couch of indolence by the cobwebs of human authority.

Thus, finding wherein our great strength lieth-in the spirit of the Lord coming upon us mightily-(by the demonstration and power of his revealed truth,) we may burst "the green withs" of an effeminate superstition, that would bind us in slavery to the household gods "received by TRADITION from our fathers."

Our present enquiry is entered upon in order to contribute our share towards establishing such as are free men in Christ, and emancipating such as are enslaved to Anti-Christ.

We would at least aim at a true "Catholic Emancipation Act;" not only as emancipating as far as possible those called Catholics, but making our remedy itself Catholic by making it universal.

This can be done only by examining those starting points whence we diverge into opposite directions;-the principles of enquiry which lead to such contrary results.

And here let it be observed as an important distinction, that on no questions but on those of superstition and immediate self-interest, do men ever think of departing from the principles of common sense in explaining any documents. If a high churchman has to explain some article or a low churchman some service of the Church of England, both immediately take to evasions, and varieties of construction; seeking some method of distorting an unwilling sentence into some "charitable,' "hypothetical," "grammatical," "positive," or "non-natural” All these senses and constructions, and many more, are continually resorted to in such cases. Now, why is this? It is because men wish to reconcile conscience with interest and understanding;-to make the crooked appear straight: and the only way to do it, is to make conscience itself crooked, and acquire a twist in our spiritual vision.

sense.

In no other matters do men ask in what sense words are to be received: -an invitation to dinner, or an offer of promotion, is understood in English; the words in this case, have only one sense, only one possible

construction.

But when it is a question of this kind-can we believe what we do not