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Church which God set up at Jerusalem 1800 years since, but anew Church which was set up by men only 300 years ago." This is a statement which might be expected to be made by a man to whom the New Testament was unknown, and who had only read in the missal or the breviary, those essentials of a Church which was to be the direct opposite and antagonist of the Church of Christ and of His Apostles. Any first-class Sunday scholar could answer such a false statement with the most abundant weight of Scripture refutation, while with Mr. Wilberforce it is the merest assumption, based only upon the fact, that what we Protestants ascribe to the inward work and efficacy of the Holy Spirit, he sees as wrought by the means of a system and its agents, which had their beginning in days when error began to take the place of primitive truth. Mr. Wilberforce must have lost all his reason, and any real knowledge of Divine truth he ever possessed, before he could string together such a mass of rubbish as that we are about to extract.

"1. Observe, then, in the first place, I know that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Church, because she is the only Church that was set up by God Himself. She began 1800 years ago, when our Lord sent out the Apostles to teach in His name; and she has gone on ever since. But all other churches have begun at some time since. For instance, the Established Church is a great deal the oldest Protestant body in this country. But the Established Church began only 300 years ago, when the Catholic Church had already gone on for almost 1550 years; the Church of England is nearly 1550 years younger than the Catholic Church. Before that time there was not one Church of England man in the world. All the other sects are much younger than the Church of England. Now, any plain man may see from this very thing, that neither the Church of England, nor the Baptists, nor the Independents, nor the Methodists, nor any other sect, can be the true Church of God; for there were no Church-of- England people, no Baptists, no Independents, no Protestants at all in the world 400 years ago. All the Protestant sects have been set up by men who, from time to time, thought that they could make a new church better than the old Church

which had been from the beginning, and more like what Scripture says the Church ought to be. For this reason, the people who made these sects called themselves Reformers. A reformer means, a man who changes things from worse to better. These men were not content with the old Church, which had been from the beginning; they said, 'We will make a change; we will have a new Church, which shall be a deal better:' and, indeed, they tried their hands at it, Each one of these reformers wished every body else to be content with his own new church. As soon

as he had made his reformation, he said, 'Now we have had quite change enough: let every thing stay now just as it is. We need no more reformation.' But other

people said, 'No; why should not I I can make things better than they have made them.' And in this way one new church and sect keeps springing up after another. The Church-of-England man reformed the Catholic Church, and the Presbyterian reformed the Church of England, and the Independent reformed the Presbyterian, and the Baptist reformed the Independent, and the Quaker reformed the Baptist; and now we have reformed Quakers, till it seems like enough we shall have pretty near as many sects as there are people. But in the middle of all these sects there is one old Church, which has gone on for 1850 years-hundreds of years before any of them were thought of, and before the men who made them were born. This is the Catholic Church. Go back a few hundred years, and all Christians were Catholics: all the new churches and sects were begun by different men. the Catholic Church was begun by Jesus Christ and His Apostles. This shews that it is right, and they are all wrong."

make a reformation as well as another?

But

The known answers,-quoted also by Bishop Burgess,-to the Romish question, Where was your Church before the Reformation? are: first, In the New Testament, where yours never was; and the second, the homely but apposite question, by way of response, Where was your face before it was washed? These answers are sufficient to repel the false and arrogant claims of Rome, that in her alone is found the true Church. As for Mr. Wilberforce's triumphant statement about the numerous sects among Protestants, let him look at home. Infallible Rome has more than once been riven by its sects, and if it now

REVIEWS-PSHAWLAND.

enjoy the aspect of perfect unity, it is the unbroken surface of the foul and stagnant pool; while our differing shades of opinion,—at least those acknowledged by real christian men,meet in the acknowledgment of those grand truths of Christianity, the acceptance of which the Bible teaches as necessary to the attainment of eternal salvation.

If Mr. Wilberforce can see in the outset, in the Church of Rome of present as well as of past days, such distinctive and exclusive marks of the true Church of Christ, it is not worth a moment's trouble to dissect his arguments why we Protestants should believe the heap of absurdities it puts forth in counsels of perfection, virginity, poverty, and obedience. The stubborn facts of history upset the claims of the first, in a Church whose monasteries and nunneries have for the most part been scenes of foul licentiousness and crimes of the deepest dye. The vows of poverty may have been kept and honoured by some few amongst a host of luxurious idlers and lazy mendicants, whose odour of sanctity has been sadly profaned by the filth which accompanied it. And as to "the counsel of obedience," it is the inculcation of that obedience to man, and his commandments and traditions, which has been in perpetual opposition to the written word of God, and that slavish submission to an authority whose only object it is, and ever has been, to ag. grandize itself at the expense of every branch of the real Church of God.

Led by the ignis fatuus of "Church principles," Mr. Wilberforce began by treading the slippery paths of Tractarianism, and his pamphlet declares that he is now in the natural terminus of such a road, the quagmire of Rome.

PSHAWLAND: being the Account which an Old Inhabitant gave, after he had been led to quit that strange land, by one who met with him there. By C. B. TAYLER, M.A. 12mo. pp. 40. Religious Tract Society.

We gladly acknowledge the debt of gratitude we owe to the Religious

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Tract Society, for having scattered its millions of little winged gospel messengers throughout this and other countries. The acceptance, or the picking up of a dropped tract, will be found to have been the means of gathering many a soul from the midst of a world of wickedness and woe, safe into an eternity of bliss; and we are therefore very glad to see from this and other recent tracts, that the Tract Society is calling forth fresh and interesting matter for this, the most important branch of its operations. The very title PSHAWLAND, will gain for this tract admittance where others which bear a directly religious meaning would be unhesitatingly refused, and, with but a single exception, we think that its contents are admirably adapted for the class of our labouring population to whose ideas and principles it is peculiarly addressed.

The whole burden of the old man Palmer's narrative, which he addresses to his work-fellows, is the exhibition of this world of our's under the description of an imaginary country, to which he gives the name of "Pshawland." The character of the inhabitants, and their doings, are made to correspond pretty accurately with the character and actions of the men of whom his hearers were fair representatives. Man's natural lawlessness, discontent, and fancied wisdom in reconstructing society, and the re-division of all property, with the necessary and miserable disappointment of such schemes, are admirably pourtrayed; while the only bond of social union and lasting basis of temporal blessings, are powerfully set forth under the same guise of an imaginary prince, kingdom, and laws,

The style which the writer of this tract has adopted, is one in which it is difficult to preserve all the consistencies of the subject it is sought to introduce, and we think that in one part of this tract, Mr. Tayler has rather erred in bringing into such close juxta-position, the events of the last French Revolution with the solemn realities of the life, mission, and crucifixion of our blessed Lord. (See pages 10, 11, &c.) This incongruous anachronism might afford scope for

unhappy remarks at the hands of some shrewd demagogue with infidel tendencies, and we venture to hope, that in future issues some correction may be made, to prevent what is almost all good and useful being by any possibility used for a mischievous purpose.

Apart from this objection, we have been much pleased with a tract which must rivet the attention of its readers, and which, under the blessing of God, may imperceptibly lead them to discover that, although they may long have been citizens, yet that they will cease to remain inhabitants of " Pshawland."

Entelligence.

THE CANONRY OF ST. PAUL'S. We believe it may be considered settled that Mr. Champneys, the Rector of the immense parish of St. Mary's, Whitechapel, succeeds to the Canonry void by the death of Mr. Tyler. While we cannot but congratulate our readers, that this appointment should have been conferred on such a hard working and thoroughly evangelical clergyman as Mr. Champneys, and although we thankfully appreciate the motives of Lord John Russell in its bestowal, yet we cannot but regard the constant violation of the statutes relative to these preferments as in one respect mischievous to the interests of the Church. By these statutes it is provided that those Canonries should be given to men of high learning and talent, who, being in any way incompetent for the pastoral office, might, from the shelter and learned leisure of these situations, send forth works of high character in defence both of Protestant Christianity and of the Church in whose bounty they participate.

DR. NEWMAN AND THE BISHOP OF NORWICH.

A correspondence has taken place between the eminent persons whose names we have given above, on the subject of a statement by the latter, having reference to Dr. Newman's declaration that "legends have a claim to belief equally with the word of God, which relates the miracles of our God, as recorded in the Gospel, and that the authority of the one is as the authority of the other, the credibility of the one based on a foundation no less sure than the credibility of the other." Now on the platform of a

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My friends, I have heard,-and I am sure all of you who have heard of it will share with me in the disgust, as well as the surprise with which I have heard of it, that there is a publication circulated through this land, the strong hold of Bible Christianity,-a publication issuing from that Church against which we are protesting, and which is, on the other hand, the strong-hold of human authority,-a publication issuing from

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one of the most learned of its members, a man who, by his zeal as a convert, and by his position and acceptance with that Church, speaks to the authority of the Church itself, and represents its doctrines and feelings,-a publication, as I have heard with dismay, read, admired, circulated, which maintains that the legendary stories of those puerile miracles, which I believe until now few Protestants thought that the Roman Catholics themselves believed, that these legends have a claim to belief equally with that word of God which relates the miracles of our God, as recorded in the Gospel, and that the authority of the one is as the authority of the other, the credibility of the one based on a foundation no less sure than the credibility of the other."

Dr. Newman read these words, and a correspondence ensued of a description which we can only characterize as deeply humiliating to the Church of which the Bishop of Norwich is so eminent a member. We deeply regret that in our present number we cannot make room for it, but just as we were preparing to condense it for publication, the following admirable

THE BISHOP OF NORWICH.

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"The Bishop of Norwich, in the light in which he has exhibited himself, is an adversary, so easily conquered, as to deprive the victory of any value. He quietly permits Dr. Newman to remain in possession of the field, which he had invaded with the monstrous proposition, that scriptural narratives and legendary miracles, having an equal antecedent credibility,' are of equal authenticity; and, finally, as if he did not clearly see the drift of Dr. Newman's mystified letter, his lordship is glad to find that he had mistaken his 'dear Newman's' sentiments, and that his assertions do not tend to infidelity. Dr. Newman thereupon writes a last letter, crowing over the Bishop, as well he may; and then publishes the Bishop's unaccountable acknowledgment of defeat, and the evidences of his own-what shall we call it?

"If we admit Dr. Newman's proposition, either in his own cloudy terms, or stripped of its artful veil, as we have given it, there is no other course left for us than to burn both Bible and legend. And so far Dr. Newman has overargued himself, like logicians, who prove too much. For if, in his opinion, Scripture be no more credible than legend, the unbeliever has nothing more to do, in order to destroy belief in Scripture, than to show that the legend is an impudent and bungling lie, -an operation which has been performed hundreds of times by both Catholics and Protestants. Even in this respect, well known as the fact is in literary history, the Bishop of Norwich allows Dr. Newman to affirm, uncontradicted, that Protestants are inconsistent and one-sided in refusing to go into evidence for ecclesiastical miracles.' What Protestant, having overcome his disgust at shallow and brazened imposture, ever manifested reluctance to go into evidence for past or present 'ecclesiastical miracles?' Dr. Conyers Middleton formally investigated the whole of the miracles alleged to have been wrought by the Church for several centuries after the apostolic age. He examined all the evidence for and against them.

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Books have been published in answer to the celebrated Essay on Miracles; but the evidence collected in that work, from both sides, remains unaltered. Soon after Middleton, M. de Missy, a learned French Protestant, then residing in this country, examined the evidence for the miracle of Polycarp's pigeon, and ended by proving the whole of the miraculous circumstances of his execution to be the forgeries of an age long after the event. He also investigated several other ecclesiastical miracles with the same result. We know not whether M. Lennoir and M. Eusebe Salverte be Protestants or not; but the former demolished a number of legends and miracles, in the second volume of the Memoirs of the Celtic Academy in France; and the latter, after showing the fabulous origin of the legends of Saints Marcel, Romanus, Pol, Bie, or Bienheureux, Martha Clement, Bertrand, Martial, and it matters not how many more, in a memoir inserted in the Magasin Encyclopedique explained the optical, pharmaceutical, chemical, and mechanical contrivances, by which some hundreds of miracles, accredited by the faithful,' were, and are still, accomplished. We might mention other writers, chiefly Protestant, who have taken the same sort of pains, no doubt finding the sport of the thing their reward. For, certainly, there can be few employments more amusing than to trace the religious miracle of the present age back to the fairy, or witch, tale of the nursery, and that again to the fables and tricks of mythological priests, at a very remote antiquity. All this has been done over and over again by the Protestant writers of England and Germany; and yet the Bishop of Norwich suffers Dr. Newman to deny that they are willing to go into the evidence for ecclesiastical miracles.

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Again, does Dr. Newman produce the miracles of St. Januarius's blood, and St. Raymund's cloak. They seem to be his favourites. He either deems them the least assailable, or, he adduces thein as examples for testing his proposition, that scriptural and legendary authority are equal. With respect to these miracles, that of the liquefying blood, was shown by Salverti to be performed with spermaceti, tinctured to the colour of blood with archil. The composition remains in a congealed state until held in the hand, or near a candle. When the French Republican army occupied Naples, the clergy and monks were highly indignant. On the day of St. Januarius, the saint, to manifest his displeasure at the intruders, refused to liquefy his blood.

The people became furious, and a public disturbance was apprehended. When the French commander understood the cause of the commotion, he dispatched an officer to the priest, with the message that if the miracle were not performed in less than five minutes, he would hang him in front of the cathedral. Of course the blood very soon liquefied, and the besotted people then considered it to be a miraculous interposition of the saint to save the priest's life. The whole of the anecdote will be found in the work of Lady Morgan, or Lady Blessington, on Italy.

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'Precisely the same miracle was performed in Misson's time with spermaceti, but not coloured like blood. It then represented the milk of the Blessed Virgin, which had been preserved, and which became liquid at all her festivals. Misson, a traveller, and as respectable in all points as Dr. Newman, saw the liquefaction at the beginning of the last century; and the cheat appears to have been practised in the time of Erasmus, who, in his Inquisitio de Fide, asks the question, 'Cumque sic quidam ostentent sanguinem, aut preputium Christi, et lac matris virginis, quid credis ?' Let Dr. Newman answer his own churchman. As to the blood of Janarius, the miracle is so easily performed, that it is triplicate. The blood of St. John, preserved in the church of S. Maria Donna Romita, boils during the mass, on the festival of the beheading of that saint; and in the Church of the Incarnation at Madrid, there is a phial filled with the blood of St. Pantaleon, which on that day liquefies, and afterwards remains congealed.' Misson did not see the latter, but takes a Spanish book for his authority. Dare the Church of Rome allow a Protestant to 'go into the evidence for this ecclesiastical miracle,' by allowing him to examine the substance in the phial? Most certainly, it no more dare do that, than allow the reading of Scripture. With regard to the miracle of the cloak, we have already shown that it existed many ages ago in India; but forgot to state, that the fable originates in Egyptian mythology: Isis went on the Nile in search of Osiris, on a raft of papyrus, as we are told by Plutarch, in his treatise on those deities.

"The visitation of monasteries in the sixteenth century was a going into the evidence for ecclesiastical miracles very different from the preceding, which are of a literary character, but this was purely practical. Remarkable, and as well known as the results are, yet the Bishop of Norwich allows Dr. Newman to triumph over the Protestant. On that oc

casion, in churches and monasteries all over England and Scotland, there were found images that bled, images that wept, images that winked, and crucifixes that bled, wept, and bowed the head, to the great edification of their worshippers, and the greater augmentation of the ecclesiastical treasury. Unfortunately for the trade in holy imposture, the Protestant visitants were neither so 'inconsistent,' nor so 'one-sided,' as to refuse to go into the evidence; for they did so in the most straightforward manner. They took the images in pieces, and inspected the construction in every part. They found the secret strings, by which the eyes were made to roll in the head, and the eyelids to open and shut; the strings by which the head was made to bow, and the springs by which it was moved back again. They found the little holes in the wounds on the crucifix, through which, by the pressure of a spring connected with a pull-string, blood flowed from a sponge fitted to the inside at the pleasure of the ecclesiastical showinan. They found the very simple machinery by which legs and arms were moved, and which is, in some measure, copied in the harlequin toy for children, where, on pulling a string between the legs, all the limbs are set in ludicrous motion. They found the secret tubes by which images were made to speak. Many more things they found, and exhibited them all to the people at the market places. We call that going into evidence with something like effect. Now, there is not one of these things that was not equally done in the pagan temples of Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Syria, Whence it follows, that the pagan and the ecclesiastical miracles rest on equal authority. And if they do not, will Dr. Newman please to tell the public in what respect the evidence for ecclesiastical miracles is superior in credibility to the Mormonite and the Budhist miracles, both of which are performed at the present moment, in the presence of large concourses of people? We hope in another article entirely to have done with this correspondence, into the consideration of which we have entered from the political bearing of Popery. If a bishop can complacently surrender the cause of enlightened Protestantism to a mere dealer in Popish humbugs, when he might, with little charge to his learning, expose his sophistry, and upset his facts and arguments, we are not disposed to follow his dignified example."

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