call was rejected, another, still more powerful and dreadful, was raised, of " DESTRUCTION!" The Holiness of the Church became the first object of general attack; and, unfortunately for herself, that which should have been her strongest hold, was the most vulnerable part in the whole fortress. This taken, nothing was left really worth contending for. Her Unity, Catholicity, and Apostolicity, could make but a poor defence, seeing she exhibited so miserable a stand on the once boasted ground of her Holiness. In those states wherein the Church may be said to have fallen, it is fair to remark, that she fell, in a manner, by her own hand. The prophet's reproach may justly be applied to her:"O Israel! thou hast destroyed thyself!" It is with communities as with individuals: little "can harm them whilst they are followers of that which is good." As "Charity hides a multitude of sins," so does much active goodness conceal from the view a thousand errors of opinion, and many superstitions of worship. The subsequent ridicule and indecent abuse about the "wafer god," would, doubtless, have been spared had the Catholic clergy but minded, as they ought, by a life of devotion and obedience," to honour and serve that God," whom they believed to be present in the consecrated elements of which the wafer was composed. The outcry was not against the Host, but against him by whom it was elevated. Holy images, pictures, reliques, and shrines, were never despised till they were

ábused and profaned by those to whose custody they had been piously consigned. Let not, then, the present adherents to the Catholic religion complain of us Protestants, that the vices of their ancestors have opened our eyes, that some of us now disregard and abjure, as monstrous errors, those doctrines, under the profession of which so much mischief has been perpetrated. We were first alarmed, then scandalized, then disgusted, and at length, enlightened. We trembled for the safety of the ark of the Lord. We touched it, somewhat rudely I grant, and it fell, and in its fall it broke; and, to our utter surprise, we discovered its contents to be of a very different character from that which we had ever been taught. The "Tables of Testimony" turned out to be, at least in our estimation, the weak and contradictory traditions of fallible, sometimes wicked, men. The writings on these tables did not appear to us to have any traces of the Finger of God. We awoke from a sleep of many centuries; during which our senses had been imposed upon by delusions about infallibility, indefectibility, pious pilgrimages, miracles, mysteries, saints, and devotions, and "behold it was a dream!"

But it will be asked, that, seeing the depravity of the Roman clergy was a principal cause of revolt, now that the necessary reformation has taken place, and Catholic ministers, as a body, no longer dishonour their profession, why do not

Protestants return to the bosom of the church, and conform to her discipline? This question I profess myself not fully competent to answer. It must be left, as in other cases, to Protestant episcopalians of the established Church. To those who allow that "The church hath power to decree rites and ceremonies,*-who have implicit faith in the Fathers,-who admit mysteries as articles of belief,-who yield their judgment and prostrate their reason at the shrine of the Three Creeds, and still retain the damnatory Clauses, to all such this question must, I should conceive, prove rather knotty and provoking; and to them and theirs I gladly consign it.‡

* Vide the XXth Article of Religion, in the Book of Common Prayer. It is of small purpose now to assert the fact, that this singular passage is a forgery, foisted into the article by some designing person. It is now believed and acted upon.

+ "Whoever would be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the CATHOLIC faith; which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly."

*

"And the CATHOLIC faith is this:

*

*

"This is the CATHOLIC faith; which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost!" Vide "The Creed of Saint Athanasius," as, upon certain occasions, it is " appointed to be said or sung at the morning prayer, by the minister and people standing,"

I have read the Bishop of Durham's " Grounds on

II. The growing pride of the court of Rome, naturally engendered by the union of church and state, was one of the strong symptoms of approaching revolt. Corrupt princes may boast of the divine stability of their thrones, and even persecute and destroy those who forewarn them of their danger; but, under God, the fountain of power is in the people: from them it originally emanates, and to them it must ultimately revert, whenever those to whom they have delegated any portion of it shall refuse to listen to their just complaints, or become wicked beyond a certain extent. Dreadful are those convulsions, and inconceivably alarming their consequences, which are produced by popular fury, roused into action by the rejection of reason, and the pride and stubbornness of wicked governors. "But the Reformation was an affair of religion and morals, and not a political convulsion." It was both yet the origin of the tumult was political, and in many cases it was conducted upon political principles. If the revolters at length entered the temples of religion, it was because the pride, the arrogance, and the domineering spirit of the ministers of truth had led them to incorporate the mysteries of faith with the speculations of worldly aggrandizement; and we often

which the Church of England separated from that of Rome:" but I have also read "Remarks" on those " Grounds," by the Author of " Remarks on the Bishop of Durham's Charge;" sold by Booker, and Keating and Co.

find, that the same storm which casts down the throne, makes the holy altars tremble to their base.

When proud men in power are hard pressed. with the arguments or the complaints of their inferiors, there are only two methods, as they suppose, of parrying the ignoble thrusts of the adversary: they must either crush by authority their troublesome opponents; or, shrouding themselves in a delusive security, treat the reasoning of their humble but powerful enemies with "silent contempt:" often the miserable subterfuge of the cowardly and the vanquished. This was. the conduct of the Roman court. The remonstrances of the wise and good were listened to, but disregarded; the satires and lampoons of the poets were laughed at, and forgotten; and, for a long time, the innovating zeal of Luther," an obscure monk, in a corner of Germany," was treated with what was mistakenly deemed, a merited disregard.

Perhaps, it may be said, and truly, that the love of ease, refinement, and polite literature, rather than the pride, of Leo the Tenth, operated to the prejudice of the church, and collaterally strengthened the cause of the reformers. But it was those very feelings, swelling into disdain for the remonstrances and homely vulgarities of the real friends of religion and public virtue, that preyed like a canker on the papal power; and,