not required to believe any thing about it. I may have one opinion today, and another to-morrow, without indicating any doubt or uncertainty about any fact or doctrine of divine revelation. The same remarks will apply to other passages of scripture; especially with regard to the meaning of prophecies not yet accomplished; and because Protestants are not all of one mind with regard to such things, and because individuals may see cause to change their opinion, and give one answer to a question now, and a different one a month hence, Dr. Milner, in his profound wisdom, comes to the certain conclusion that no Protestant can be sure of what he believes.

I grant that among Protestants there are differences of opinion upon very important subjects; and that even among those who are agreed in their views of Christian doctrine, worship, and practice, there are various degrees of clearness of apprehension of divine truth, as well as of steadfastness in maintaining, and zeal in propagating it; yet all who believe the divine truth on the footing of the divine testimony, are substantially of the same mind with regard to it; for as it is one in itself, it is uniform in its effects. It produces peace of mind, love to God and man, and holiness of heart and life, whatever be the external form of the church or churches to which they belong. I do not say, that in this respect Protestant churches are all alike agreeable to the word of God; or that the order and worship of all are alike calculated to edify, and promote the other ends of Christian fellowship; but differences in this respect do not break the spiritual union of all who believe in Christ, in different churches, any more than difference of temper, and different degrees of knowledge, break the union of individuals in the same church. In short, all who receive the truth as revealed in the Bible, speak of it in the same manner; it teaches them to pray for the same things; with regard to the essence of Christianity they are perfectly of one mind; and they are so in consequence of every one's own personal conviction of the truth which has brought salvation to himself in particular. Thus, to use the language of the New Testament, they are all one in Christ; which is certainly a more glorious union than that of Papists, which, by their own account, is merely being one in the church. Theirs is not a union in faith from a conviction of the truth of Christ's word; but a mere carnal image of unity in the implicit belief of what the church teaches, without any more personal conviction of the truth of what they believe, than if they had no personal interest in it.

But, after all, the thinking and reasoning part of the church of Rome have not even this carnal image of union. It is only the ignorant vulgar that enjoy this happy privilege; for the learned are as little agreed in sentiment as the same class in any other communion; of which the most abundant evidence is to be found in the long continued warfare between the Franciscans and Dominicans, and the Jansenists and Jesuits; besides the endless skirmishing of innumerable smaller bands; and it was part of the cunning policy of the court of Rome to encourage and keep alive dissensions among the principal orders, that no one might gain so much strength as to be able to contend with the "head of catholic unity," who connived at every species of hostility among his children, provided they maintained their allegiance to him.

On this subject, I shall adduce an authority, which, I am sure, Dr. Milner will not reject; that is, the authority of his own great self, in

reference to what may fairly be considered a fundamental article of popish belief; namely, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. The church," says he, "does not decide the controversy concerning the conception of the blessed virgin, and several other disputed points, because she sees nothing absolutely clear and certain concerning them, either in the written or the unwritten word; and therefore leaves her children to form their own opinions concerning them." Letter XII. p. 129. Here it is admitted, that, notwithstanding the infallibility of the church, there are several disputed points which she cannot determine. What advantage then has she over other churches who lay no claim to infallibility? But what I advert to here is an article of vital importance, which Dr. Milner tells us the church cannot, at least does not, decide; that is, "the conception of the blessed virgin." Now, surely, if the church has the power of deciding any thing, it ought to be a matter of such immense importance. It is well known that the Virgin Mary is an object of worship throughout the whole church of Rome, next to the sacred Trinity. There are several devotional writers that place her upon an equality at least with Jesus Christ, and some that exalt her above him; but I shall not ground my remarks upon the horrible and impious extravagances of certain "holy saints," whom even Dr. Milner would blush to acknowledge. I shall state his own faith on this subject; and then show how cruel a mother the church of Rome is, seeing she leaves so dutiful a son in a state of uncertainty with regard to the original purity of this object of his devout invocation. Addressing his intended convert, James Brown, Esq., he says, "You believe also, that, among the saints of God, there is one of supereminent purity and sanctity, pronounced by an archangel* to be, not only gracious, but full of grace; the chosen instrument of God in the incarnation of his Son, and the intercessor with this her Son, in obtaining his first miracle, that of turning water into wine, at a time, when his time for appearing in the world by miracles was not yet come. John iii. 4. It is impossible, as one of the fathers says, to love the Son without loving the mother; beg then of her, with affection and confidence, to intercede with Jesus, as the poor Canaanites did, to change the tears of your distress into the wine of gladness, by affording you the light and grace you so much want. You cannot refuse to join with me in the angelic salutation, 'Hail full of grace, our Lord is with thee;' nor in the subsequent address of the inspired Elizabeth: 'Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.' Luke i. 42. Cast aside, then, I beseech you, dear sir, prejudices which are not only groundless, but also hurtful, and devoutly conclude with me, in the words of the whole Catholic church upon earth: holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." Amen. Letter XXXIII.

Here Dr. Milner tells us enough to let us see that he believes the Virgin Mary to be omnipresent and omniscient, seeing the whole Catholic church address prayers to her, which prayers she hears and answers,

I suspect Dr. Milner is here guilty of falling into an error in which he has the countenance of many Protestants. Where does he find in scripture that the heavenly messenger who came to Mary is called an archangel? or where does he find this title given to any creature? There is only one to whom the title is given; and he is styled emphatically THE Archangel; meaning, no doubt, the Lord of angels. The "voice of the Archangel" is evidently the same thing as "the trump of God." 1 Thes. iv. 16.

and procures the tears of distress to be turned into the wine of gladness to those who devoutly call upon her. Yet he says the church has not determined the question of the conception of this one who hears prayer from all the ends of the earth; that is, whether she was really born in sin like other women; or whether she was not favoured with a special exception from the moral pollution which attaches to the rest of the human race. Now it is certain, that a great part of the church of Rome believe, and stoutly maintain, that she was born without sin, as really as Jesus was; and that in order to her bearing him without sin, it was absolutely necessary that the same should have happened to herself. This is a fundamental article of faith with the Franciscans, though denied by the Dominicans. The original Jesuits agreed with the Franciscans; but their faith in general is what suits them best to avow where they happen to reside; and where it is not convenient to make an explicit declaration of what they believe on this point, they escape by saying, like Dr. Milner, the church has not determined it.

But why has she not? It is surely a matter of more importance than fifty things which she has determined. If the Franciscan doctrine be true, it leads to some very strange consequences. If, in order to bearing the Saviour without sin, it was necessary that Mary should have been also born without sin, then, in order to the bearing of her, it was necessary that her mother should have had the same privilege; and indeed the worshippers of St. Ann are not far from asserting this; (see Prot. Vol. I. Chap. XXXIX.) and then the mother of Ann must also have been born without sin; and thus we shall get up to Eve herself, and arrive at the conclusion, that before she committed sin, she had a daughter who was the mother of a race of sinless women from whom the holy virgin descended. Thus the doctrine goes to set aside the whole scriptures; and yet Dr. Milner gravely tells us, that the church "sees nothing absolutely clear and certain" on this point, "either in the written or unwritten word of God,” and therefore she has determined nothing about it. It is time then that she had done with the boasted certainty and unity of her faith, when she cannot so much as tell, whether the object of the daily prayers of her devout children, was or was not born in sin like themselves.

Among the mendicants in Spain and Portugal, the immaculate conception is believed more firmly than any article of divine revelation. They have a book of three folio volumes on the subject, said to have been written by a nun, mother Mary of Agreda, to whom the virgin appeared almost every night, and told some story of her own history, of which her immaculate conception, of course bears a prominent place. "This book," says the author from whom I quote, "is still looked upon by the natives of both Spain and Portugal, as an immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and I have heard them call it a thousand times, un libro divino."" I have seen it, and even undergone the drudgery of reading it quite through."-" As I was reading these heavenly visions, a Dominician friar of my acquaintance chanced to enter the room: I asked his opinion of them, though I pretty well knew beforehand what answer he would give; he replied, with indignation in his countenance, that they were nothing but a heap of old wives' tales; and advised me as a friend not to waste my time in reading such trash. Now you must not imagine from these expressions, that the

Dominicans are less bigots, or less adorers of our lady, than the Franciscans, except in the point of her immaculate conception, which happens to clash with the sentiment of their angelical doctor, Aquinas; for, as to the rest, they maintain that she was as free from actual sin as Christ himself."-"Not long after this, a Franciscan chanced to pay me a visit, and found me in the same employment. The moment he cast his eyes on the book, he ran to it and gave it a most devout kiss; assuring me that every word in it was as true as the gospel; to which he added, with a heavy sigh, that the Dominicans were a pack of wicked wretches, for attempting to depreciate so inestimable a treasure." A fine specimen of the unity that exists in the "one holy Catholic church!"

"When these divine revelations made their first appearance at Rome, they were judged by the pope to be so excessively absurd and ridiculous, that he published a decree to prohibit the reading of them. This put the Spanish mendicants in such an uproar, that they stirred up the whole kingdom, and prevailed so far by their clamours and remonstrances, that the king himself was induced to interpose in favour of a book they had spent so many years in composing (for it was they who had inspired the nun.) At this prince's request the pope suspended his decree and though he did not think it prudent to confirm these visions by his apostolic authority, yet by a second decree, he permitted the faithful to read them for their private edification; which concession the people of Spain and Portugal have made so good use of, that few families are to be found without them." See Authentic Memoirs concerning the Portuguese Inquisition, Letter XII. London, 1761.

CHAPTER CLXXXVIII.

FURTHER REMARKS ON THE FALSE PRETENCES IN THE ROMISH CHURCH TO UNITY AND CERTAINTY. DEATH-BED CONVERSIONS TO POPERY. DECEPTION PRACTISED ON THE IGNORANT AND VICIOUS. BOASTED CASE OF THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK. HIS FOLLY AND IMPIETY.

SATURDAY, February 16th, 1822. DR. MILNER argues, that while Protestants must ever be agitated with doubts with regard to the truth of their religion, Papists are perfectly at ease, because they rest with implicit confidence in the truth of what the church teaches. In my last number, I endeavoured to show that this was a vain boast;—that while all who really believe the word of God are certain of what they believe, and substantially of the same mind with regard to it, those who implicitly believe the church, without a personal conviction of the truth of what is told them, possess no more than a dead image of union and certainty; and that the learned among them do not possess even so much; for there are as many disputes among them as among Protestants. This is a fact known to all the world, though perhaps Dr. Milner would have denied it, if he had not found it convenient to tell the English Papists, that whatever their brethren in Spain believed about the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, they were at liberty to believe what they pleased. Nay,

though the Bible tells us plainly, that of the race of Adam, born in the ordinary course of nature, there is none righteous, no, not one; that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; the church of Rome, clear sighted as she is, cannot see any thing in the written or unwritten word of God to determine, whether or not the Virgin Mary was born in sin. They admit that she died; but whether she died on account of sin, or on some other account, the holy and infallible church cannot tell! There is not a Protestant child who has received the first lessons of religious instruction that could not answer this question, which has baffled the pope, and cardinals, and Dr. Milner himself; and yet they are the people who alone possess the prerogative of being infallibly certain of every article of faith!

But it is time to proceed to Dr. Milner's concluding and strongest argument, to prove how certain Papists are of the truth of their religion, while we have no certainty with regard to ours. It is at the conclusion of his ninth letter; and it runs thus:-" There can be no doubt, sir, but those who entertain doubts concerning the truth of their religion, in the course of their lives, must experience the same, with redoubled anxiety, at the approach of death. Accordingly, there are, I believe, few of our catholic priests, in an extensive ministry, who have not been frequently called in to receive dying Protestants into the Catholic church, while not a single instance can be produced, of a Catholic wishing to die in another communion than his own. O death, thou great enlightener! O truth telling death, how powerful art thou in confuting the blasphemies, and dissipating the prejudices of the enemies of God's church" Part I. p. 79. There are two otes appended to this paragraph, containing many great names, said to have been converts from Protestantism to popery, among w om we find Anthony Ulric, Duke of Brunswick.

In his eleventh letter, Dr. Milner treats us with more to the same purpose: "The same method which God has appointed to keep peace in his church, he has also appointed to preserve it in the breasts of her several children. Hence, while other Christians, who have no rule of faith but their own fluctuating opinions, are carried about by every wind of doctrine, and are agitated by dreadful doubts and fears, as to the safety of the road they are in; Catholics, being moored to the rock of Christ's church, never experience any apprehension whatsoever on this head. The truth of this may be ascertained by questioning pious Catholics, and particularly those who have been seriously converted from any species of Protestantism. Such persons are generally found to speak in raptures of the peace and security they enjoy in the communion of the Catholic church, compared with their doubts and fears before they embraced it. Still the death-bed is evidently the best situation for making the inquiry. I have mentioned in a former letter," &c. referring to the quotation given above, a challenge" to the whole world, to name a single Catholic, who, at the hour of death, expressed a wish to die in any other communion than his own." Page 115.

The above extracts excite a number of reflections which will occupy the remainder of this number. It seems there are few priests of the Romish church "in an extensive ministry, who have not been frequently called in to receive dying Protestants into the Catholic church." On this subject, my doubts are stronger than my faith; and I call