body of evidence) concerning the condition of the ancient church, have hitherto served to screen this untenable middle ground, and have excused the illusion of those who so fondly desire to save themselves from consistent protestantism, without surrendering their faith, unconditionally, to Rome.

The view taken of church history by the romanist is consistent with itself, and is, in a sense, consoling and satisfactory; but then it involves suppositions which are utterly at variance with the spirit of christianity; and moreover it stands directly opposed to every prophetic indication of what was to happen in the aftertimes of the Church. On the other hand, the protestant view of the same series of events, while it saves the honour and purity of the Gospel, and corresponds, in the most exact manner, with the inspired predictions, cannot be entertained without some distress of mind; nor is it to be so brought into perspective, as to afford any tranquil satisfaction to the eye. Our concern however is with truth, not immediate comfort; nor dare we cherish illusions, however agreeable. In the present instance, truth has to be followed over rugged ground.

In the preceding numbers I have undertaken the ungracious task of dissipating inveterate illusions, felt to be agreeable, and believed by many to be sacred. It now remains to pursue an inquiry demanding not less resolution in the writer, or ingenuousness in the reader; and yet nothing can be clearer than is the necessity for advancing. The fast ripening controversy with Rome, to which her renovated endeavours in all parts of the world are giving the most serious importance, warns, or should warn, the protestant community to look anew to its first principles or even if no such vital question were at issue, the very same course has become indispensable, in relation to the present character of infidelity (we must now call it atheism). Nothing can be more perilous to ourselves and to others, than to encounter either romanism or atheism, on any ground which we shall be compelled to abandon. The incidental disgrace of a retreat from a false position, is likely to involve the fatal consequences of a real defeat, to ourselves-to our opponents—and to the spectators of the conflict.

Unless protestants speedily look better to their standing than

they have been used to do, very many, watching the course of controversy, will silently come to the belief that there is no alternative between romanism and atheism. To this very feeling the church of Rome has, in fact, been indebted for more than a few recent conversions. Christianity must be allowed to take to itself all the advantage to which it is entitled, of having clearly foreshown a course of events which, at the first aspect of them, seem the most irreconcilable with the supposition of its truth. The very same argument therefore, by means of which this advantage for the religion of Christ is claimed and made good, destroys, on the one hand, popery (with all its cognates) and on the other hand, infidelity. There can be no conclusive dealing with the one of these forms of error, while our secret purpose is to save the other. That is to say, a protestant can never reply to the infidel, with any effect, if he means to reserve his deference toward the principles which romanism embodied. Church principles,' as at present professed, indulge men with a degree of liberty of inquiry which the romish church consistently, and mercifully, as well as absolutely, prohibits. But if any room be left for freedom of thought and inquiry, intelligent men, looking to the general and uniform tenor of history, can come to no other conclusion than that christianity, if it is to be understood as the advocates of church principles do understand it, must always be, as it ever has been, the nurse of superstition, the guardian of ignorance, the sister of despotism, and the instigator of cruelty. Nothing can exempt the religion of Christ from these fatal reproaches if those doctrines are really part and parcel of it which the papacy did but amplify and realize. Infidels may confidently say- If the early and nicene church did truly interpret the Gospel, then the popery of the middle ages is what we have to look to, as the final resting place to which it will lead us. If we are not to think at all, in matters of religion, we had better at once take refuge in the bosom of the church of Rome; but if we are permitted to inquire concerning the tendency of religious systems, then it is manifest that christianity, in the sense of the church of the fourth century, is little better than a scheme of superstition, fanaticism, and spiritual tyranny; and that it corrupts the morals of the mass of men, not less than it shocks the reason of the few.'

How did Pascal fare, mighty as he was in mind, and eminently holy, and possessing as he did the advantage of the loftiest reputation in the scientific world, how did he fare, when he undertook to maintain christianity, from the ground of romanism? Pascal's Thoughts are indeed convincing to those who, as they follow his cogent argument, from page to page, set off from it the entire body of the writer's romanism; but these same reasonings have proved to be altogether inefficient, in relation to the religious opinions of the mass of his countrymen, who have not learned to think of the religion of Christ otherwise than as it is offered to them by the church of Rome. Nothing can be more instructive than to contemplate Pascal, in the hands of Condorcet, and Voltaire, who, not choosing to admit any distinction between christianity and popery, feel perfectly at their ease, in presence even of the most cogent reasoning in behalf of the former, so long as the argument is made to embrace, and must share the fate of, the follies and enormities of the latter. Had Pascal stood forward to defend CHRISTIANITY, and nothing else, not one of the encyclopedists would have dared to touch him, much less to put him forward, aided with their comments and commendations. As it is, they well felt that nothing could be so fatal to the credit and influence of christianity, in the end, as to hold it up, defended in the ablest manner, and under the advocacy of the greatest mind of his age, and yet, with the absurdities of romanism included. They clearly foresaw that, under these conditions, the reasoning which must fail to carry romanism, would, by all but the most discriminating, be held to have failed also to carry christianity.

And such has been the actual consequence. Pascal, gloried in and read, as the father of French literature, and allowed to have triumphed in his controversy with the Jesuits, is held in sheer contempt as the advocate of christianity. And let a greater than Pascal arise, at the present moment, undertaking to deal with infidelity on the ground of nicene church principles, and the result must be the same :-that is to say, provided the doctrines, usages, and real condition of the nicene church are truly understood on all sides. A fictitious statement might indeed be presented concerning the primitive ages, such as would, for a moment, seem to secure an advantage; but only let candour, and historic truth be

duly regarded, and then the endeavour to bind up the nicene church with christianity, must end just as every attempt has ended to compromise the Gospel of Christ with the foolish superstitions and the tyranny of Rome.

Men of intelligence, not already wedded to an ecclesiastical theory, will never be persuaded that the incidental differences which distinguish the religious system of the fourth century from that of the seventh or the tenth, are such as to afford ground for a philosophic distinction; as if, while the latter (and the later) must be condemned, the former (and the earlier) should be respected. If, therefore, when urged to submit themselves to the Gospel, they are told that what is meant is nicene christianity, they must (if well informed in church history) regard such a proposal as involving the utter prostration of the understanding. What then! we are to believe with Jerome -with Ambrosewith Palladius! We are to dote with Cassian, and are to cringe at the feet of Basil, when required to listen to Christ, to Paul, to Peter!'

There is then, as I venture to affirm, an urgent necessity, in regard to the new and more ominous form of unbelief, for disengaging our faith in the Scriptures from all entanglement with the folly, hypocrisy, and superstition of the nicene age.

This consideration, weighty as it may be, is however incidental to my argument. What is essential to it, is to insist upon the serious importance, to every individual christian, and to religious communities, of our regarding the papacy, and its precursive forms, in the light in which it, and they, were regarded by our Lord and the Apostles, when they looked onward through the course of time. In other words, that we should, individually and collectively, be found standing on the Lord's side,' in relation to the stupendous ecclesiastical system which has called itself' THE CHURCH' through so many centuries.

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A persuasion is strong in many minds, that the destined overthrow of popery is an event not now very remote. The present renovation of its power, and its rapid spread in all parts of the world, favour the belief that the last hour' of the satanic delusion is at hand; as if the Lord would arise to smite his adversary, not while he sleeps, or is prostrate, but when he finds him awake,

and on his feet. I will profess no opinion on a question of this kind; and yet surely every religious mind may see reason enough in the colour of events, for entertaining a solemn caution, which should regulate his feelings, and his public conduct too, in regard to romanism.

But the hour of popery-its dismay and fall, will also be the fatal hour of whatever has had the same origin, and of whatever breathes the same spirit, and of whatever is substantially of the same quality and tendency, and of whatever holds to it, by any kind of vital connexion. By the fall of popery (if protestants rightly interpret prophecy) can we think nothing more to be intended than a quiet restoration of the cup to the laity—a little decency observed in the adoration of images—a caution imposed upon the invocation of the virgin and the saints-a prohibition of the open sale of pardons—a more discreet doctrine of purgatory— a narrower boundary line drawn around the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome, and a new border given to the 'States of the Church? Are changes and modifications such as these, all that was foreseen by the exile of Patmos, when he proclaimed, in loud exultation, as if it had been then transacted, the confusion of the woman clothed in scarlet, and the fall of Babylon?

The fall of the mystic Babylon, we may confidently assume, will be nothing less than the sweeping from the face of the earth that great and ancient delusion which, springing at the first from the banks of the Euphrates, the Indus, and the Ganges, has oppressed and supplanted the doctrine of Christ, from age to age, and which even now is renewing its youth as the eagle. The only contention, then, among christian communities, at the present moment, should be-Who shall stand the furthest from the brink of the pit into which popery is to plunge.

But we return to our question-What order of events, connected with christianity, would a devout and intelligent reader of the New Testament be led to look for, as having filled the course of time, from the apostolic age to the present? In gathering the evidence which bears upon this question, I shall collect such scattered and incidental indications as occur, relating to the extent and condition of the earliest christian societies. The general result of this inquiry will, as I believe, serve to bring