skill, amidst the waves and storms of every clime; but this is not the experience which the inquiring religionist demands of her-he seeks that she should know the way of religion-he looks for experience in the strait gate, the narrow way, which leads to life eternal, and will judge of her according to her competency in this particular respect. She may also proclaim her honesty, and her learning, her numbers, her security of principle and consistency, but these recommendations, however subsidiary they may be in inviting confidence, will not answer as compensations for a want of the essential, fundamental knowledge of the right way.

Now, how are we to judge of a Church's knowledge of the right way? The answer is obvious, By their fruits ye shall know them. This then being the sure test, it is obvious also that the Church of Rome cannot be such a guide as the religionist would require. For she has perverted and corrupted those very doctrines which she is appointed to deliver, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. She has obscured the merits of the Redeemer by introducing her grace of cons dignity, and her works of supererogation and her sacramental justification; his mediating efficacy, by her association of mediator-angels and saints-she has undermined the doctrine of repentance by her indulgences, her penances, her purgatory; she has corrupted the sacrifice of prayer by her incense and her vain oblations, bowing down to images in the worship of God, and identifying the creature with the Creator in the ceremony of the mass; she has rendered the public service of God an unintelligible form to the generality, by her liturgy in an unknown tongue; by her doctrine of Papal supremacy, she has exalted human nature to the prerogative of God; by her false legends and miracles she has thrown discredit on the real miracles and inspired narratives of the Gospel ;-these and other delinquencies which we have not leisure now to enumerate, plainly indicate to unprejudiced judgments that the guide we seek is not to be found within the precincts of Rome. Whether the Church of England does not, by its simplicity of doctrine and worship, declare more evidently her knowledge of the right way; whether there is not a pledge, in her straightforward unadorned manner of proceeding in all her acts, of her teaching the way of life in sincerity and truth, those will judge, who can duly appreciate the value of candour over a perplexed policy, and who have just views of the riches of that wisdom which is learned from the lips of the Holy Spirit, and of the majesty of that worship which approaches God at once with the bended knee and the voice of praise, without the intervention of an operose machinery of human art and contrivance. That monstrous apotheosis of errors which the Roman Church exhibits,

must prove at any rate, that she is not a guide that shews the straight and direct path.

Which system it would again be very properly asked by the inquirer, has produced the most morality in its followers? Let us look to Rome, the focus itself of Popery, and judge what its tendency is, from observing its actions and influence, where its energies are concentrated, as it may be reasonably supposed, in all their vitality. What do we find there but the grossest immoralities, a vassal people walking contentedly in their chains of spiritual as well as civil subjection, and consigning their all, their hopes and their fears, with a reckless insensibility, to the vicarious righteousness of external forms and ceremonies. Let us look to England, on the other side, as the focus of Protestantism, and judge whether the system of the reformers is not more favourable to the cause of virtue. It has leavened the mass of the people. There is no longer that ground of complaint among us which existed at the time when the reformation first began to diffuse its benefits, of profligacy spread amongst all orders of men. There is still, it is to be deeply lamented, too much of iniquity amongst us; the corruption of human nature still displays its malignant influence in counteracting the spirit of our pure religion, but we may confidently say, that the "head and front of our offending," have been crushed; the things which ought to be our shame, are no longer countenanced and encouraged, but held in just abhorrence by the generality. And the Papist in this country has derived the benefit of the change. He is become with us the practical disciple of a better creed, though he will not agree with us in ascribing his improvement to the reformed system.

If we are intitled then to judge of a guide from his apparent knowledge of the right way, there seems to be little room for doubt which of the two Churches would be preferred.

The particulars however alleged by Dr. Baines in favour of his Church may now be examined.

As to honesty, we have nothing to say against the Clergy of the Roman Church on this score, if the term be applied to them individually so far we willingly accept Dr. Baines's profession of their sincerity. It is not to be supposed, but that there are many individuals among them worthy to be called honest men in the fullest sense of the term, and whom their most sturdy opponents cannot but cordially respect. But the argument from this circumstance is neutralized by honesty on the other side also. There are with us also at least as honest men as are to be found in the Roman Communion; men who require not the obligations of" severe hardships and privations," to which the author pathetically recurs as so binding on the "Catholic Clergy," to keep them firm to their principles.

As to learning, here again we have little inclination to raise any objection to his vindication of his brethren, because we could afford to make large allowances without impugning our own claims to literary pre-eminence. But really Dr. Baines injures his own cause when he carries us back into the dark ages, and tries to persuade us, that the Monks of those times were men of learning and scriptural knowledge. Let him recollect, that the only learned body among the monastic fraternities, was the Society of Jesuits, and that these had not their origin until after the reformation had begun to dawn upon the world. These indeed boast among their number many eminent mathematicians, antiquaries, critics, orators. Yet it has been observed of them, with all their acquirements and their profound erudition, such has been the effect of the religion of the cloister in debasing the faculties and disqualifying the mind for taking any enlarged view of life and conduct, that "the order has never produced one man, whose mind was so much enlightened with sound knowledge, as to merit the name of a philosopher." And even that learning which the Jesuits possessed, was not exercised without the jealous supervision of the Roman Pontiff. The edition of Newton's Principia, published by two of that order, may attest this, for the Editors have themselves recorded the Papal antipathy to the advancement of learning, by prefixing a notice to the third book, intimating, that though they had stated the revolution of the earth according to Newton's Theory, yet it was only so stated by way of supposition, as otherwise the demonstrations could not be explained, and that they were obsequious to the decrees of the Pope against the motion of the earth. Did Dr. Baines moreover forget, that the Church, whose love of literature he proclaims; proscribed Galileo?-When he talks of the literary exertions of the Fathers of the first four centuries, we must put in a demurrer to his claims. They no more belong exclusively to the Roman, than they do to the English Church. They are the common property of all Christendom. They must, therefore, be cast out of the scale of comparison. Again, when he endeavours to disparage the "religious information" possessed by our Clergy, we must ascribe all he says to his faulty mode of arguing from the exception, instead of taking the general fact into his consideration, and look with a venial eye at his mistake; though we cannot help laughing when he reckons up the sum total of learning in his Church, by the number of heads which she can bring to the muster. He will excuse us if we suggest to him, that negative quantities ought to be subtracted, and as it may be concluded also, that the Roman

Church, from her greater supposed numbers, has more blockheads than the Church of England; the amount of her wise men ought to appear proportionably diminished by a heavy off-set of her unwise. For our part, however, we are content to leave the decision as to the point of superior learning, to a simple comparison of Dr. Baines's productions, and those of the author against whom his present attack is directed.

As to experience, here again Dr. Baines spreads all his canvass to the wind, and bears down upon us with the triremes and quinquiremes, and the heavy-armed, of antiquity, pressed into his service. We are quite at issue with him both as to the nature of that experience which his Church has had, and as to the degree of it. We deny that she has had that proper experience which would entitle her to confidence from the world. Experience in government she has enjoyed. Of this the world gives full evidence. But as to any experience in guiding men to salvation through Christ, we deny that she has given that proof of herself which is implied in a continued experience of successive ages. With respect to the comparative period during which the two Churches have subsisted, on which he lays so great a stress-this is a capital point in the dispute between them, and therefore ought not to be admitted as a premise in the argument. The assumption indeed of the continuance of the present Roman Church for eighteen centuries, is a notorious fallacy or play upon the word Catholic, a kind of serious pun, to which the author is much addicted. As well might the people of the United States, because they happen to be called "The Americans," apply to themselves, particularly, all the attributes and characteristics which belong to the whole American continent collectively. If the truth were fairly stated, the present Church of Rome is younger than the Reformation, for it had its birth in the Council of Trent, which beginning in 1545, concluded in 1563, whereas Luther commenced his labours in 1520. The complaints and remonstrances (to which Dr. Baines alludes) of the Clergy of the Church of England, at the lukewarmness and defection of many of her members, are no more arguments against the truth and value of the Church, than the expostulation of the Prophets of Israel is an argument against the divine origin and utility of the Jewish Church. The counsels of God stand fast, while particular institutions appointed for their furtherance fade away and "are changed like a vesture." The religion of Christ will be preserved, we are sure, as an inextinguishable lamp of God, however the altars which have been kindled with it may be rent and their aşhes scattered. Israel and Judah were carried away captive, and with their civil freedom, their religion also seemed to have died away. But it lived through

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that day of darkness, and revived in its glory at the restoration from the captivity, while at the same time the major part of the Church itself, which had once fully participated in the light of the religion, was merged in unredeemable desolation. So also have disappeared the once illustrious Churches of Asia, to whom St. John addresses himself in the Apocalypse, while the religion which they professed has survived their ruin. Judging then from the analogy of God's dealings, the Church of England ventures not to promise herself any personal perpetuity, independently of her preservation of the faith. Wisely, therefore, do her ministers exhort one another and their flocks to continue stedfast in those things which they have believed, wisely do they recall them to their attachment to that Church, in which the true faith is purely taught-wisely do they remonstrate at secession from that community of Christians which they consider the strongest safeguard of the faith once delivered to the Saints. If our Church should unhappily apostatize from the true religion, we have no wish to see her any longer the established Church of the land. But the Church of Rome in her infatuation and pride confounds the indefectibility of the faith with the perpetuity of a particular communion, and supposes that if a given Church ceases to be visible, religion must cease to exist. This is much the same as supposing that, when the bodily functions are suspended by death, the soul also is suspended as to its living powers. As we only lose the visible proofs of life in the latter case, so it is to be concluded that the visibility of the Church may be lost while the essential Church subsists.

A comparison of numbers is next instituted. On this head we should be content to leave the advocate of Popery to his self-gratulation at his numerical importance, but for the misrepresentations with which his statistics are blended. We never thought that numbers were any test of a true Church. They shew power, which ought to be mistrusted rather than implicitly received, lest haply we be only found to be following a multitude to do evil. The Church of England does not reckon up her members, as Xerxes did his army at Doriscus, by the ten thousands which can be successively brought within a certain enclosure. We are content to be esteemed a little flock, so long as we know that Christ disdained not to own as his a little flock. We would rather be enrolled among the small remnant -among the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal-than among the myriads of the apostasy. We know of whom the Poet tells, that he,

" with lies,

Drew after him the third part of Heaven's host;"

and we are not ambitious to be his imitators in this respect more