Our friends will recollect that petitions to the house of lords must be entitled: "To the Right Honourable the Lords spiritual and temporal in Parliament assembled"; and they must designate the place from which they emanate. We may also repeat, petitions if they be left open at the ends, and if the words "Petition to Parliament " be written on the cover, will pass through the Post Office free to any member of either house of parliament. THE operations of God, as revealed in the harmonious mechanism of his visible works are marvellous alike in the uniformity of the process, and the diversity of its results. As seeds deposited beneath earth's surface undergo a similar change; and in circumstances pecisely similar, perhaps within exactly the same portion of time; each corrupts, then vivifies, strikes a series of delicate fibres downwards, and shoots a graceful stem upwards, until it breaks the covering soil, and meeting the light derives substance, form, growth, colouring and stability from the same elements, affecting each in precisely the same manner. Yet how strangely different the use and properties of these twin productions! In the one we hail, perhaps the majestic oak, overshadowing with its broad arms the flocks and herds of our pastures, yielding abundant produce for food and for increase, beautifying the soil that bears it, and containing within its substance the material for future precious and durable works. The other tree may attain an equal height, may throw out its prolific branches over a still wider extent of territory, and flourish in vegetation more luxuriantly rich; but its natural property is to scatter destruction around; its broad leaves taint with death the breeze that fans them, and no creature can find shelter beneath its umbrage and live. The sunbeam, the shower, the air of heaven and the moisture of earth are alike the elements of their existence; but that which the oak converts to generous nutriment, distils from the upas tree in poison. And thus it is with two systems, both having for their ostensible object the welfare of mankind. There may be many things common to both in their original constitution and in the external means applied to sustain them; but by its fruits is each known, and to those fruits we appeal for guidance in separating the precious from the vile. Popery assumes the name, the form, the position of a christian church, while her deeds evidence a direct opposition to all that Christ has set forth as characterizing his pure spouse, and though the process by which she extends her influence over mankind may be outwardly similar to those divinely appointed, yet the individuals engaged in that work, the means by them adopted, and the issue of their labours all stand out in a contrast more fearful than that of the upas beside the oak. Christianity, exerting a beneficial influence over man by directing and sanctifying the current of his best natural affections, places her ministers within the range of all those ties that awaken the gentlest sympathies, and bind him to his fellows as a sharer in their joys, their sorrows and solicitudes. Popery, on the other hand, isolates her priests, commands the outgoing affections of his heart back to their unsocial home, or leaves them to wander into forbidden paths where only guilt and shame can yield their blighting companionship. She withers the germ of generous feeling, and nourishes that of an envious misanthropy as best adapted to the work for which she designs him. She fetters him with vows incompatible even with freedom of thought, and then employs him, by a system of crafty espionage and open tyranny, to wind the chain of her despotism around the victims whom he holds in trust for her. Debarred from all that God has appointed as a means to counteract the natural selfishness of man, his order is to him wife, children and friends. The aggrandisement of his church is the one object at which he is taught to aim, connected as it must be with his personal advancement: while the unsoftened asperity of a mind so enchained and so situated overflows in enmity against all who question her right to universal dominion. His very devotions, if he be devoutly inclined, are a hindrance and a bane: they consist in a miserable skeleton of such duties as God never enjoined; voluntary humility, creature worship, and the study of delusions wherewith he must persist in deceiving others, however impossible he may find it to beguile his own reason, or to tutor himself into a belief of such palpable lies. It boots not here to dwell on the fearful demoralization to which some branches of their appointed studies necessarily lead these blind guides: but we trace in the universal blighting of our species wheresoever the Romish system prevails; the fruits of the tree; and we cannot deny that it is indeed a deadly upas which flings its shadow and sheds its noxious dews alike over the glittering pomp of the imperial city, the wretched spectacle of moral, physical and national degradation in Portugal, the ensanguined fields of Spain, drenched in the blood of her children beneath the fury of an unnatural civil warfare, and the green plains of our own sister isle, where at this time the priesthood of Rome are urging on the credulous people to deeds no less atrocious in their character, though as yet restrained by an overruling power within comparatively narrow limits. And is England removed to a safe distance from the poison tree? Does she still repose in peaceful serenity beneath the sheltering oak which the right hand of the Lord planted to be her glory and her beauty? Far from it: she is suffering the branches of her guardian tree to fall beneath the axe on every side, and at the same time permits the neighbouring upas to thrust its arms into the vacant space until its breath contaminates, and its venom corrodes her. She gives ear to seducing spirits, and is persuaded to believe, in defiance of reason, history, experience, and divine revelation too, that little difference exists between the plants, where so much of similarity may be traced in the outer framework. She looks on while, step by step, the feller proceeds in his destructive work, lopping away the boughs, prepared to lay his axe to the root of the tree, and bent on leaving her shelterless, exposed to the fate of all who wantonly fling away the blessings that God has bestowed on them. There is a work in progress, of which the object is destruction to protestantism in Ireland; woe to every one who withholds his hand from an effort to stay that work! The evil will return to our own bosoms seven fold; and we shall be compelled to drink the cup of divine retribution and to perish beneath the poisonous influence that we refused to check on behalf of our brethren. POPERY AND PROTESTANTISM. TO THE EDITOR OF THE PROTESTANT MAGAZINE. Mr. EDITOR, In your last number, page 24, you state, among other aids to Popery is that "of those who are unsettling the minds of protestants by softening the difference between truth and error." Be assured, sir, there is nothing in the present day more advantageous to the Church of Rome than this: there is nothing she seeks more than this; and if not one of her most formidable, it is one of her deadly weapons, and one which she uses with the utmost avidity and adroitness whenever needful, or an opportunity offers. I much fear, even the most strenuous friends of Truth and Protestantism (for they are one) are not sufficiently alive to the importance of constantly keeping up before the public eye, and that both through the pulpit and the press, these grand distinctions; to one of which I now beg to invite your attention. That while the church of Rome professes to worship the God revealed in the new testament, she is constantly holding up as the object of worship to her votaries a deity which has no place in that inspired volume. The God worshipped by the Roman-catholic, is not God as revealed and made known by the Son in the gospel. It is here we have one of the grand fundamental, one of the all-important distinctions between popery and protestantism. The catholic worshipping a god to be reconciled. Superstition, always founded on fear, represents man to himself in such despicable colours, that he necessarily fears to approach an offended deity, and naturally, as a consequence, has recourse to another and some supposed more favoured of the deity for this important purpose, and through whose intercession he seeks to make himself accepted, or seeks the propitiation he feels he needs. Hence the necessity to the catholic of prayers to the virgin-the invocation of saints -the mass-the works of supererogation-the power of the church, and the priest, and his confessional-the parade of alms deeds, and every other means employed by them to propitiate an offended deity. Hence the doctrine of justification by faith, the grand fundamental doctrine of the new testament and of protestantism, is excluded from the creed of the Romish church. The God we as protestants worship is "God reconciled in Christ" -not God to be reconciled. That this is the doctrine of the blessed Saviour, hear his own words: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me."2 "Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he will give it you-ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. For the Father him self loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God."3 "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me.' 994 That this is the doctrine of the apostles, we prove from their declarations and writings: "Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified." "The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. The righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe. Being justified truly by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth, a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins."6 "To him that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Righteousness for us also to whom it shall be imparted, if we believe in him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead-who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.” 1 John, iii. 16. 2 Ibid. xiv. 9, 11. 3 Ibid. xvi. 23, 24, 27; xvii. 23. 5 Rom. i. 17. 6 Ibid. iii. 22, 24. 7 Rom. iv. 5, 24, 25. "The Gentiles have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith." "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Much more, then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him; and not only so, but we also joy in God though our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement, (or at one ment a reconciliation)." "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. Who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you to be reconciled to God, for he hath made him to be sin (or a sin offering) for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." "We have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ. Received ye the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith." "The righteousness which is of God by faith."5 "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time."6 "Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."7 "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls, that your faith and hope might be in God." "To them who have obtained like precious faith with us." "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins." 10 That this is the doctrine of the church of England, the champion of protestantism, will be seen from the following extracts from her articles: "We are accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith." "Wherefore that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort." "Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins." "Yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith." "For holy scripture doth set unto us only the name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved." "The offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual, and there is none other satisfaction for sin but that alone." I have thus endeavoured to shew the distinction between Rom. ix. 30. 2 Ibid. v. 1, 9, 11. 32 Cor. v. 18, 19, 20, 21. 4 Gal. ii, 16; iii. 2. 5 Phil. iii. 9. 61 Tim. ii. 5, 6. 7 Heb. vii. 25. 8 1 Pet. i. 9, 21. 9 2 Pet. i. 1. 10 1 John, ii. 1, 2. |