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from the people, or only garbled portions of them were permitted to be in circulation; and even those not always in a language generally understood. As in the days of apostate Judaism, before described, the inventions of men were substituted for the Word of God, and that Cimmerian darkness came on, which for centuries prevailed over Christian Europe;-which restored the ages of superstition, and plunged the Nations anew into the most abject and degraded condition of barbarism. Christians were nearly reduced to that hopeless state, which the Scriptures represent as being without God in the world!" We may rebuke the sneer of the Historian; but it is impossible to deny the truth of his statement, that "the Christians of the Seventeenth Century had insensibly relapsed into a semblance of Paganism. Their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the East. The throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of Martyrs, and Saints, and Angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian Heretics," (a Heresy carried by some women from Thrace into Arabia,) "invested the Virgin Mary with the name and honors of a Goddess."

It was during this long night, indeed, that the Light of Gospel truth was well nigh extinguished; and when the character of those dark ages is considered, surely we are justified in asserting of the Christian, that which was penitentially said of the apostate and fallen Church of Judaism,-" Shame hath devoured the labour of our Fathers,"-hath thrown a deep cloud of error over the pure and simple doctrines promulgated by the Apostles and primitive Ministers of the blessed Religion of Jesus Christ.

The transition from Heathenism to that peculiar system of Christianity upon which we have just remarked, was almost insensible. It may have been worldly policy to retain in the Christian service, as was done-many of the ceremonies of the barbarian conquerors of Italy; but the enlightened and Spiritual Christian must deeply deplore that sad departure from the true worship of GOD, which permitted idols to be erected in Christian Temples, and adopted the images of the Heathen for the representation of Saint Peter, and of the Virgin Mother of GOD. The Protestant Christian, we say, must deeply lament that so many of the Gentile Rites were incorporated into the system at that time established; and that

the worship of GOD, whom we are instructed by our SAVIOUR to "worship in Spirit, and in truth," should have been thus encumbered and degraded. It must be with sorrow, and pity, that he reads those pages of the history of his Religion, which successively disclose to him the various corruptions mixed up with the truths of Christianity,-the promulgation of doctrines unknown to the Gospel, as dictated by interest, or caprice,-the invocation of Saints!-the mediation of the Virgin Mary for mankind with her Son,-the canonization of sinful men, and their unscriptural elevation to the Divine Office of intercessors for their fellow-mortals with GOD,-to share with "the Lord of heaven and earth," the honour due only to His name; "not to speak of the sacred character with which the perishable remains of the departed were invested, and of the Religious veneration with which duplicity and ignorance alike regarded things denominated holy relics.

As we follow on in the course of the history of our Religion, we find the Christian world, at one time, disciplined into the acceptance, as articles of Faith,-of five additional Sacraments to the Two, [namely those of INFANT BAPTISM, and of the LORD'S SUPPER,] which were established by the Divine authority of our SAVIOUR. Then we

read of another new doctrine being imposed upon the Church, that is the conversion of "the beggarly elements of wine and water into the very body and blood of Christ." Hence arose the unscriptural practice of worshipping the HOST, or, as it is called, "the adoration of the Mass.' Subsequently, the Emblematic cup was withheld from the Laity, in direct contradiction to that command of Our SAVIOUR, which enjoined "all his disciples to drink of the cup to the New Testament in remembrance of HIM." Then was introduced the degrading tyranny of auricular confession;- and Priestly absolution from mortal sins was purchased with money or with lands. The Protestant's answer to the doctrine which propounds the continual Sacrifice of Christ in the Sacrament, is in perfect accordance with the Faith and teaching of the Apostles, that "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many,"-that "such a High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the Heavens; who needeth not daily, as those High Priests," (of the Levitical order,)" to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people; for this He did once, when He offered up himself." We next come to the doctrine of Purgatory. This was another innovation made upon the

simplicity and purity of the Christian Law ;upon the integrity of the Gospel. Contrary to all reason, and to the Word of GOD, this doctrine holds forth to the Christian an intermediate place of penance and suffering after death, for the reception of the souls of men. There, as is asserted, through the intercession of Saints, and human prayers, the amount of eternal punishment, due to mortal offences, is, in part, remitted, and the stains of human guilt are washed away in its expiatory fires; and so,-in this manner,after this process, the gate of heaven is "most infallibly" opened to the Sinner! The prayers offered up for the souls of the dead are also in direct opposition to common sense, as to the teaching of the Scriptures. In the language of our twenty second Article upon this class of innovations and corruptions:"it is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture; but rather repugnant to the Word of God."-Of Dispensations, and of Indulgences, the time will not admit of more being now said, than that the scandalous sales of both-for money-contributed, more than any other cause, to create doubts throughout Europe of the infallibility as. sumed by their Vendors; and ultimately to dissipate the delusions practised upon the