has been purified, and gives birth to the man child who is to rule the nations; and he at the same time informs us in so many words, that this debauched woman is the great city which rules over the earth, thereby furnishing us with an unerring clue to distinguish at once her seat and her character.-J. E." I regret that want of room obliges me to omit the sequel of this sensible letter. CHAPTER CXCV. REASONS WHY UNION AMONG PROTESTANTS GREATER THAN IN THE CHURCH OF ROME. SATURDAY, April 6th, 1822. It is one of the arts of the Romish church to claim for herself with the greatest confidence those good qualities of which she is most notoriously destitute. By bold assertion and incessant repetition she prevails upon her own members at least, to believe that she is what she calls herself, at the expense of refusing the evidence of their own senses. This applies to the article of her unity as well as that of her sanctity or holiness; for no man, who witnesses the evil practices of Papists, can, without discrediting his own senses, believe that she is a holy church; no more can any one, who knows her present state and ancient history, believe that she possesses the quality of union. This Dr. Milner lays down as the first mark of the true church, and he challenges the possession of it for his church alone. Now, union by itself is no mark of a true church, for many confederacies of wicked men are very firmly united; for instance, the insurgents in Ireland seem to have but one heart and soul in carrying on their work of massacre and plunder. But I admit that a church destitute of union is not a true church, at least not a church in a Christian-like state; and this applies to the church of Rome above all other churches; for, as I showed in my last number, she is not united in the acknowledgment of one head; and as for the members, they are no more united in sentiment or affection than any other portion of the human race, whether heathen or Mahometan. A degree of union pervades all Protestant churches; I mean union in the acknowledgment of divine truth, and the observance of divine ordinances. This union is not dependant on the organization and connexion of any number of congregations in one representative assembly, or under one patriarch or pope. In the New Testament we read of many churches which were not so united; and yet they were united, in the sense in which church union ought always to exist. There was throughout them all but one Lord, one faith, one baptism; and this is the case in most Protestant churches at this day;-I should say, in all who have any right to the name of Protestant: and this union appears not merely in their public creeds and formularies,-though it does appear there, but in what I consider far more important, namely, the union of many thousands of individuals to Jesus Christ and to one another, as members of his body, by the belief of the gospel which is preached among them. Perhaps this cannot be credibly affirmed of all the members of any Protestant church; but among all the churches, "the Lord knoweth them that are his," and who are thus united to himself and to one another; and it is only union in this sense that is of any real permanent value. In the churches planted by the apostles, I suppose the proportion of members so united to one another and to their common head, was much greater than it has ever been since in any church; and indeed, so far as appears, none were received, or allowed to continue members, who did not give credible evidence of being such; or if in some cases it was otherwise, the churches themselves were subjected to apostolic rebuke. This perhaps accounts for the fact, that these churches, though quite distinct assemblies, were all of one communion, and thus they were more united than Protestant churches are. was because they were more united in love of the truth, and in affection to one another; not because they were all of one opinion in every thing that they could think and speak about; not because they all practised the very same things, for the Jews observed circumcision and other rites, which the Gentiles did not. This If I shall be asked, why Protestant churches are not all of one communion, as the primitive churches were? I answer, without hesitation— it is because there is a fault somewhere among them; and perhaps it is a fault that pervades them all. I am not like Papists, obliged to defend my sect as infallible, at all hazards, and "against all deadly." It is one of the privileges arising out of the reformation, that no man is obliged to approve of all things even in the reformation itself; but every man is at liberty to express his mind, and to point out errors and mistakes in his own brethren, without giving just cause of offence. I believe the principal reason why Protestants are not all of one communion is, because they have not followed out their own fundamental principle of the Bible, and the Bible alone, as the religion of Protes tants. When they have all done this, they will be all of one communion, as Christians were at first, without the necessity of being all of one mind about every thing, or all observing precisely the same things, any more than the primitive churches were; and yet they may approach more nearly to union even in these things than the primitive Christians did, when things indifferent are left as the apostles left those things in which the kingdom of heaven does not consist. The best way to attain union on these points, is, to let their comparative unimportance be on all hands admitted. People will then cease to dispute about them; and controversies among serious Christians will cease from want of matter to dispute about. But, without being yet all of one communion, it is a fact, that Protestants are more united in their confession of Christian doctrine than Papists are. In other words, there is more variety and contrariety in the doctrines maintained by different orders within the church of Rome, than there is among all Protestant sects. For the truth of this assertion, I have only to refer to the furious controversies between the Dominicans and Franciscans;-the Jesuits and the Jansenists. I need not go into particulars; for the fact is known to every reader of church history; and surely it is more unseemly for the church that professes to be one holy and united body, to have such feuds within its bosom, than for Protestant churches to have controversies while they do not pretend to be so united. I have adverted to the fact, that, in their creeds and public formularies, Protestant churches are agreed in the leading articles of Christian doctrine; so much so, that a work has been published, and is extant in two thick volumes, containing a collection of confessions, in which it is proved by the documents themselves, that the faith of the reformed churches, in different nations, is fundamentally and substantially the same, so far as relates to the Christian doctrine, or the way by which a sinner is saved, and taught to live to the glory of God, with the hope of happiness in his presence for ever. This is the sum and substance of Christian knowledge. In this Protestants are agreed. There, is therefore, more unity in their different communions, than there is in the church of Rome in her one communion; for on these fundamental points, the canons of councils and decrees of popes are so discordant, that the poor people do not know whether they are to be saved wholly by Christ, or partly by themselves, and by the merits of saints; and whether Christ has satisfied divine justice for them, or whether they must not satisfy for themselves, either in this world or in purgatory. Now she teaches one thing, and then another; and after all, it turns out that she teaches nothing that can be depended upon; for every man is bound to receive all doctrines from the lips of his priest, though he should know him to be a man neither wiser nor better than himself. I shall be told that the creeds and formularies of churches are not a criterion by which we can ascertain the present state of religious belief; because in some instances a change has tacitly been effected, like that in the church of Geneva, as I mentioned in a late number. This is true as regards individuals in some Protestant churches; but I believe there is, notwithstanding this fact, as much agreement among Protestants as ever there was;-I mean among Protestants who read the scriptures, who think for themselves, and who have received the love of the truth; and it is only the agreement of such that is worthy of the name of Christian union. For the truth of this I have only one humble document to refer to; and perhaps the evidence of it is the stronger, that it never pretended to be, and was never understood by any man to be, an exhibition of the religious belief of any one sect of Protestants; I mean this same work, entitled, THE PROTESTANT. To my certain knowledge, it is read and approved of by not a few of the established church in England and Ireland, including some of the hierarchy; and by many more of the church of Scotland. Among Presbyterian dissenters of all denominations, it is generally read and approved; and Independents and Baptists of various classes regard me as a friend, and approve of my sentiments upon the whole, though I have made no account of their distinctive peculiarities. I have not pleaded the cause of any one of these sects; and I do not suppose that every sentiment which I have expressed is approved by all or any of them; but so far as I know, I have not written a sentence which any of them regard as fundamentally erroneous, or inconsistent with the doctrine that Christ and his apostles taught. Nay, from individuals of all these communions I have letters positively expressing approbation of the principles which I have been maintaining throughout my work; which proves the fact, that thinking religious Protestants are more united in religious belief than they know themselves to be; and the fact leads me to infer, that if serious Christians of all denominations were to meet on the neutral ground of the Bible alone, they would find that there was scarcely any difference of sentiment among them. And I strongly suspect they will ere long find it necessary to meet on this common ground, for mutual defence against the common enemy. Popery is making more rapid strides towards ascendency than most people are aware of. Witness the laborious efforts of the Jesuits in France, under the name of missionaries, for they have assumed this as a more popular designation, and less liable to excite suspicion, than the odious, and, for a time, proscribed name of Jesuit. Witness also the present popish rebellion in the south of Ireland. I call it popish, for not a single Protestant has appeared active in the horrid transactions of the last six months. The Dublin_newspaper, "The Antidote," lately published a challenge to the world to name one Protestant who had been implicated, and they have heard of not so much as one. This rebellion will no doubt be put down. The empire is too powerful, and happily too much united, to suffer the enemy to prevail; but when it is put down, Catholic emancipation will be again brought forward, and urged as the most effectual means of preventing the recurrence of such outrages. If we may form an opinion from what we hear drop from gentlemen in many companies, and from what is boldly advanced by some of the most popular conductors of the public press, the bait will take. To please the Papists, seeing nothing else will please them, we must break down every barrier that prevents them from acquiring ascendency in Ireland at least: and so, just from a fear of being murdered by them, we will admit them to such power in the state, that it will be at their own discretion whether death, or banishment, or conversion, shall be the lot of all the Protestants in the kingdom. With such things in prospect, and what man who studies the signs of the times will say there is not a prospect of such things?—every Protestant ought to be ready to unite with every other, for common defence. I am not recommending an armament for the purpose of defence in a military conflict; but the union of all sound Protestants for the defence of the truth in opposition to error, by prayer to God, by propagating the gospel, by education, and circulating every kind of useful knowledge. These are weapons by which the reign of darkness must fall;-by which men will by degrees be withdrawn from the It is right to mention here, that I have two correspondents who complain that I have erred exceedingly:-one, because I deny the right of the civil magistrate to punish idolatry; the other, because I admit the lawfulness of eating blood and things strangled, at least have shown a leaning to that side of the question ;-but I do not know to what sect either of my correspondents belongs. This, so far as I know, is the sum total of my delinquencies in the esteem of Protestants. ranks of popery; and by means of which the system will ultimately be overthrown. On this subject I am happy to have the concurrence of an author of the first eminence, namely, Dr. Owen, in a small tract, republished in the present year, by the bishop of St. David's, and by him dedicated to Mr. Wilberforce, and strongly recommended to the attention of that eminent philanthropist, whose great and amiable mind is strangely warped on the subject of Catholic emancipation. This tract was written a short time before the revolution, when there was a great tendency towards popery; and the following is suggested as one of the means for preserving the Protestant religion:-"It is also necessary hereunto, that all those who sincerely own this religion, and make it the rule of their living unto God, in hopes of the eternal enjoyment of him in another world, do depose the consideration of the lesser differences amongst themselves, and unite in one common design and interest to oppose the entrances and growth of popery among us. And it is an hard thing to persuade rational men, that they are in earnest for its opposition and exclusion, who are not willing so to do." A Brief and Impartial Account of the Nature of the Protestant Religion, its present State in the world, its Strength and its Weakness, &c. By John Owen, D. D. Having had the vanity or presumption, call it what you will, to adduce my own work as an evidence of union of sentiment among Protestants, I shall, by way of balancing accounts, adduce the work of my great opponent, as an evidence of the disunion and discord that exists among Papists. I began to write upon my own sole responsibility; and it would not have been surprising if, instead of being generally approved by all sects of Protestants, I had provoked the hostility of all; for this has happened to some authors of great zeal and acuteness, in consequence of their confining their views to some narrow sectarian point. But Mr. Andrews, The Catholic Vindicator, was chosen and deputed by persons of his own body, as one qualified to advocate the cause of popery, and to write down THE PROTESTANT. They had good reason for their choice, for he was highly commended by Dr. Milner, whose patronage he seemed to enjoy, and who certifies the orthodoxy and general excellence of some of his writings, particularly his school book. Surely then it might have been expected that all Papists would approve the sentiments of such a writer. But what was the fact? Bishop Cameron declared upon oath, that his writings were not approved by the more respectable of his brethren in Scotland; and as for the bishop's own opinion, he declares he approved “of nothing from that man." He declares also his conviction that Mr. Scott did not approve of his writings; and yet it is proved on oath that he exhorted his people in his chapel to buy them. Next, Mr. Andrews is introduced as deponing that Mr. Scott, as he was informed, first approved, and afterwards disapproved of his work; and further, that it "was approved by respectable English Catholics," but not "encouraged, as it did not succeed." See Jury Trial, &c. Among other sects there would be no importance attached to these differences of opinion about any human writings; but in the church of Rome they are of importance, as showing that she does not possess the union to which she pretends. There the faith of one is declared to be the faith of all; and |