freely with God's plan of saving, elevating, purifying, and making man as happy as his powers and state will allow. For your kindness to us-if we may not occupy the proud elevation of stars in your unfading crown, which Christ, we feel sure will give you at that day-we will take care to keep those that shall be found there free from any clouds that may seek to obscure their eternal glories. That disciples are added to your number we rejoice, and sympathize with you on account of the rebellion of some from whom were hoped better things; that any who have known and loved the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, should turn away to old wives' fables; that after their minds had been illuminated by the clear light which shines through the great Christian system, as understood by our church, is matter of deep regret and astonishment. I am sometimes tempted to think that such either never loved the truth; and at other times, I have attributed the whole to that demon-begotten thing called sectarianism, which obscures the fairest light, which the philanthropy of a God has poured upon this world, which has withered the fairest fruits ever grown there, and sent tens of thousands laden with everlasting curses to the abodes of hades without hope! These are fearful truths, but they are nevertheless true. Who, then, would not wage an exterminating war with this monster, until he is driven to the depths of Tartarus, from whence he must have had his being? Go on dear brother, and clad in the armour of your king, fight his battles, and you shall come off more than conqueror, through him who has loved you. JAMES BEADMAN.

RANKE, THE HISTORIAN, AND THE PAPAL GOVERNMENT.

A FEW years ago we had almost profound repose in the world. There was a brooding stillness, so drear that to the reflective it was ominous of a tempest. And now the severe tranquillity has indeed been succeeded by a dreadful storm which sweeps through all lands with the strength and fury of the simoon. We need only glance at the veins and arteries of any body, political or moral, to discern how they throb with the fever of passion, and heave with the throes of

convulsion. One of the most prominent signs of the times is the present struggle of Romanism for the recovery of its pristine power. That trumpet-note of preparation which has startled into activity all the agencies of evil, has given to this old monster unwonted and terrific energy. She seems to be visited with a tide of new life and is half inclined to speak in the haughty language of yore. Her emissaries are multiplying in every land, reviving long exploded agencies, and toiling with astonishing and almost incredible perseverance.

There never was so complete and stupendous a system of iniquity. Cecil truly observed that, It was the masterpiece of satan. Its construction and development exhibit the marvellous intellectual grandeur of the fallen archangel, in alliance with the depth of his depravity; and which has the ascendancy it would scarcely be possible to determine. Its history is a striking illustration of the terse apothegm of Byron, that "Truth is stranger than fiction." The darkest and wildest imaginings of the poet and novelist in supernatural forest glooms, or caves and bells of witchcraft and sorcery, have never bodied forth phantoms so foul and hideous, as the actual forms that have swarmed from the swamps of the papacy. If we possessed power of invocation what a host might we animate to come before us,

"Like spectres trooping at the wizards call."

Brute force in all its stages from the ambitious struggle to the iron despotism-spiritual pride in all its gradations, from vainglorious complacency, to arrogant blasphemyintolerance in all its savage moods, from the first denunciation of free inquiry, to the damps of the heresy prison, and the flare of the sacrificial flame-licentiousness in all its aspects, from the spring of impure desire to the revolting spectacle of boundless sensuality-unbelief in all its anguish and darkness, from the torment of the first doubt, to the awful consolidation of confirmed and absolute atheism -if these shapes of old could live before us again, as they reigned

and revelled in the midnight of the dark ages, we might plaintively call on the angel of oblivion, to spread his dim immeasurable wings, and mantle them over for ever.

Now when the prevalence of Popery is very generally attracting the attention of men, and becoming one of the great topics of the day, there are two classes of speculators by whom we are much amused. The first class acknowledge the despotic and tyrannous character of olden Romanism, but contend that it has been modified and softened in the revolution of ages, and in consequence, might be safely trusted even with spiritual power. Alas, for such moon-struck infatuation! We know that when the dragon is surrounded with free institutions, it can speak with the voice of a lamb; but the genius of the system is essentially intolerant; for the radical principles on which it is founded, are broadly antagonistic to the expansion of the human mind, and the liberties of the human race. Popery is veiled in our land; if we would see the undisguised spirit and working of its principles, we must turn to Spain, Portugal, Austria, or indeed, any of the continental nations that yet recognise the dominion of the man of sin. There we shall find that whenever this system has scope for operation, that persecution, ignorance, superstition crime, and infidelity, are always generated in rank abundance, and liberty cannot strike its roots into such an accursed soil-cannot derive nourishment without the dews and sunshine of heaven-cannot shoot upward into an atmosphere so tainted with corrupting pestilence.

The second class imagine that Popery has to enjoy, not a transcient gale of favour, but a haven of permanent tranquillity. They think and declare that she is now laying the foundations of a perpetual dominion, universal in its range, glorious in its privileges, and eternal in its duration. Foolish dreamers! It is true that the system is arousing and concentrating every energy, but she has been led to it by a painful presentiment of calamity, by dark auguries of exposure, reprobation, and destruction. Its hectic flush is

VOL. VIII.

S

symptomatic of disease, and not of health or soundness; its warfare is carried on, not with the genial inspiration of hope, but the frantic energy of despair, and however deadly, the struggle, defeat, and annihilation, are equally certain. Sustained and animated by this confidence, we address ourselves to the following work, hoping that the result will be salutary and invigorating to those who choose to follow :

First. Notice the germs of the papacy which existed in the primitive church.

Second. The development of these germs in the production of ancient Catholicism.

Third. The ripening of ancient Catholicism into the maturity of Popery.

Fourth. The deadly wound of the beast in the sixteenth century.

Fifth. The incurable disease under which the monster has continued to labour.

Sixth. The prophecy of its character and doom considered in all its bearings.

Seventh. Conclude by some account of the character and genius of the work which has furnished a starting point for the series. G. GREENWELL.

(To be continued.)

THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

It is the leading fact of the gospel that "Christ died for our sins according to the [ancient] Scriptures." This astonishing event, productive of so many marvellous and glorious consequences, cannot be too reverently pondered, nor too closely examined. There is much more in it than at first strikes the attention. However simple in its enunciation, it is most extensive and various in its aspects, its tendencies, and its relations. However familiar in terms it is most strange in signification-deep, and large, and high, and full of meaning-the more frequently overlooked and unconsidered for the very reason that the fact itself is known to all.

Multitudes of men have died, but only one Christ. Others have died By sin, but only he FOR sin. The exalted character, then, which he possesses, no less than the object of his death, give to this subject an interest belonging to no other. Nor is the nature of the death which he suffered a point of less moment or of inferior import. It is upon this I invite the reader to meditate with me.

There are deaths of various kinds. No word, perhaps, in Scripture is more various in its application than the word death. I know of no one that requires more to be made the subject of a special essay. How interesting it would be to examine and unfold its various meanings by the light of the lamp of divine truth! At present, however, we have to seek its import only in relation to Christ, or to trace its meaning in such cases as are illustrative or explanatory.

Let me ask, then, Would it not follow that in whatever sense Christ died for his people, they should never die? Or I might vary the question thus, Would it not follow that in whatever sense Christians do not die, in that sense Christ died for them? It matters not here about the controversies respecting the extent of the atonement by the death of Christ, or respecting the substitution of Christ for the guilty. We are speaking now of his people only, of those who have truly an interest in his death; and of such it is conceded, whether upon the hypothesis of substitution or upon that of pardoning mercy only, that they are released from death, in whatever sense, and to whatever degree they are affected by his death at all. If he died for them they have died in him, and in this sense can therefore never die. If we can ascertain, then, the sense in which Christ's people are released from death, we shall have that in which Christ died for them; or, in other words, the nature or character of his death.

Perhaps, however, this may be more readily understood by inquiring first-in what sense or in what respect are Christians not delivered from death? It is evident that they are not delivered from what is called natural death. They die like other men. Christ, therefore, did not die a natural