ago, suffered a most dreadful persecution merely because of their religion, are too fresh a proof and instance of the persecuting spirit of Popery to suffer it to be believed among us, that the Church of Rome, though dressed up in sheep's clothing, is any other than a ravenous wolf. Our ancestors felt the dreadful effects of their persecuting spirit, and experienced their "tender mercies" to be very "cruel." Nay, we ourselves were in imminent danger. But by a remarkable interposition of the divine providence, the snare was broken, and we have escaped. Yet all pious and benevolent persons are daily mourning over this antichristian corruption and tyranny; and ready to say, "How long, O Lord, holy, just, and true: wilt thou not deliver thine elect that cry unto thee day and night?" Christianity is a religion reasonable in itself, promotes the purest virtue, was at first planted by miracles and great plenty of spiritual gifts. And here is a remarkable prophecy, which (after so many hundred years) is exactly verified by a notorious event. What evidences would be sufficient where all these are rejected? 3. "We ought not to be shocked at the present state of the Christian church, because such did the Apostles of our Lord prophesy that it would be." Though the best of things are liable to corruption, yet one would hardly have thought it possible that so great, so notorious a corruption, could (by any pretence) have sprung out of the Christian religion. Look into the New Testament, which contains the religion of Jesus, and look into the polity and constitution of the Church of Rome, and you may easily perceive that light and darkness are not more unlike. The Gospel every where requires the greatest virtue and purity, and this wicked Church (which schismatically calls herself the Catholic and only true Church*) has invented so many arts to make men very religious without any virtue or goodness at all, that (wherever it is established and prevails) it encourages almost all manner of wickedness and abominations. Daniel prophesied + that the God of heaven would erect a kingdom which should be subject to the Son of man; and we say, " that this kingdom of righteousness was actually erected by our Lord Jesus Christ." Now, upon looking abroad into a great part of Christendom, it is natural to inquire, " Is this kingdom prophesied of?" No! To prevent the anxiety which might arise in the minds of true Christians from such a difficulty, it was also prophesied, that out of this spiritual kingdom there should arise one of the greatest apostasies and corruptions that ever appeared in the world, though true Christianity, as contained in the Scriptures, hath all along been invariably the same. • See the Appendix to the Popish Catechism, sect. 3. + Dan. ii. 44; and vii, 13, 14. 4. "How ought we to rejoice that this tyrannical and unrighteous power shall come to an end, and think ourselves obliged (from a sense of our duty to God, and out of benevolence to mankind) to do every thing in our power towards bringing about so happy an event!" Blessed be God that we are delivered from this worse than Egyptian darkness and slavery. Particularly let us reflect with gratitude upon our narrow escape under the auspicious conduct of the glorious Prince of Orange, King William, of immortal memory, who (by the favour of a kind Providence) laid the foundation for a later escape, when, by means of a persecuted and bigoted faction, a Popish Pretender was ready to ascend the throne. Then it was that King William's noble legacy took place by the coming in of the illustrious House of Hanover; a family who were amongst the first Protesters against Popery, and who have ever since continued Protestants. And (which hath been in a distinguishing manner the glory of that illustrious house, and attended with the greatest and most diffusive blessings) they have, upon many occasions, been strenuous asserters of liberty, both civil and religious. The happy effects of this they themselves saw and experienced during the rebellion, 1745, when persons of all ranks and orders, and of almost all sects and parties, so zealously united against a Popish abjured Pretender and his Highland banditti, and in supporting our Protestant Royal Family in the possession of the British crown. Blessed be God for such a Royal Family; and let all the people say, "Amen!" May they and their descendants continue friends to mankind throughout all coming generations, and experience the joys and ample blessings which attend the sincere love of truth, virtue, religion, and liberty! It is said that this corrupt and persecuting religion still gains ground in this free and Protestant nation; and even in a day of light and liberty. But what madness must possess such as would bring us back again into this spiritual Egypt, when all wise men would avoid her crimes for fear of at last partaking in her plagues ! It is the duty of all Protestants to give up whatever absurd doctrines or imposing principles they may have hitherto mixed with what is truly reasonable and Christian. Till then it must be expected that Popery will always get footing among us. Thanks be to God that we have the Scriptures so common, and in our own language; that we are allowed the liberty of private judgment, and blessed with so many and such excellent helps to understand our Bible; that such a spirit of liberty and free inquiry hath in this last age gone out into the land. May Heaven diffuse this happy spirit, and grant it to the longest continuance ! It is not three hundred years since our ancestors were required to believe the grossest absurdities, and to practise the most flagrant idolatry, and that upon pain of forfeiting all that was dear to them in this world, and of being sentenced to eternal damnation in the world to come. Though the first Reformers made a glorious stand, and went great lengths in a little time, yet they could not shake off one of the worst parts of Popery, viz., the spirit of infallibility and persecution. And a race of tyrannical Kings, supported by covetous and ambitious Priests, continued to practise upon Protestants that cruelty, which all Protestants had so much and so justly exclaimed against, when practised by the Papists upon themselves. By these means it has come to pass that true liberty and free inquiry are but of yesterday. A blessing reserved by Providence for us! The most acceptable way of testifying our gratitude to Almighty God, for so great, so unspeakable a blessing, is to study the Scriptures with care, and to form our temper and practice accordingly; to allow others that liberty of private judgment, which we ourselves so ardently desire; to avoid uncharitableness towards such as differ from us, and to show our good-will to the persons of the Papists, whilst we so much and so justly abhor their religion. Let us ever take care to watch against a persecuting spirit in all the branches and degrees of it, and to lay the great stress of religion where the Scriptures of the New Testament have laid it, (not in abstruse notions and unintelligible subtleties; not in forms and ceremonies, nor in an empty profession of the purest and best religion, but) upon the sincere love of God and one another; upon a due governing our passions and sensual appetites, and the habitual practice of universal holiness. For what signifieth it what church any man belongs to, what profession of religion he makes, or what advantages he enjoys, if he doth not love God and keep his commandments? if he abuses his liberty to licentiousness, and in the midst of such marvellous light, shows that he prefers darkness, by leading a scandalous and wicked life; which, of all others, is the blackest heresy, and the most flagrant and most notorious corruption and apostasy. GOD'S CARE OF HIS PEOPLE IN TROUBLE. GOD is the saints' hiding-place, their shield, their buckler, their rock. He hath a constant care over them to preserve and save them; but especially in a time of trouble. The mariner is never so careful of the ship as under a storm, and God is never so careful of his church and people as under affliction. Jeremiah is in the dungeon, now God saves him; Daniel is in the den, now God saves him; the three children are in the fire, now God saves them; Peter is in prison, now God saves him. The mother never tends the child so carefully, as when the child is sick; and Providence is never so tender to the people of God, as when they are in a suffering condition. - Dr. Jacomb. LUTHER. FROM "STEBBING'S CONTINUATION OF MILNER'S HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. LUTHER, though robust in frame, and capable of enduring the heaviest labour, had suffered from early years the attacks of acute disease. The intense occupation of his mind, his anxious care for the prosperity of the church, and the continued excitements which thence arose, rendered him every year more susceptible to these inroads of disease; and the strong expressions with which his letters abound, are the audible sighs of a mighty spirit yielding unwillingly to the force of agony. Had his course been one of security and peace, it would yet have exhibited those wonders which mark the progress only of the best and noblest of our kind. Germany, with a loving gratitude, willingly ascribes to him the moulding of her language into the forms which manly sense and sublime thought rejoice to find ready for their purposes. The first great original thinker, for many centuries, that dared to think for mankind at large, and might venture, both from the sterling worth of his reasonings, and the end for which he wrote, to address the world, Luther cast aside the trammels of artificial scholarship, and ventured to try the worth of all he did by its ap. plication to the general necessity. Were this the only proof of his greatness, it would be sufficient to place him in the highest rank of noble minds. But it was not by any sudden pouring out of thought that Luther won the admiration of his countrymen, or performed the task which now renders him dear to the world. He made discoveries, but he made them as one who, discovering where • We insert this article not only for its intrinsic worth, but as a specimen of a work which, if continued through the remaining volumes with the power exhibited in the first, (just published,) will not be an unworthy companion to that left us by the Milners. gold is hidden, has to dig deep down into the earth before the treasure can be all brought to light. The labour of Luther as a preacher and expositor was one of the grandest tests of the sincerity of his profession, and of the power of his mind. To the Bible he had pointed from the beginning as the source of the knowledge which made him despise the errors of Rome; and by the Bible he remained till death terminated his course. Patient and meditative in all that concerned the word of God, he was willing to remain as a child, gathering light according as the divine Spirit might be pleased to bestow it. The Preacher who held forth the Gospel as the bread of life had first fed upon it himself, and knew experimentally that it was endowed with strength-giving virtue. A devout examination of the whole system of revelation was the safeguard of Luther personally; and the feeling which prompted him to give a permanent form to his meditations, gave him the highest claim to the veneration of his followers. Protestants thence became more distinguished for the love of truthpure, simple, direct, scriptural truth than for names or systems. An impulse was given to inquiry, which has never ceased; and had it always been under the influence which characterized its first advances, the homes of Protestants, as well as their creeds and churches, would have shone with the light of knowledge and spiritual religion. re The mind of Luther was originally constituted to receive and tain whatever is best calculated to It seized with an eager and tenacious strengthen the powers of thought. dom which lay scattered around at grasp the fragments of ancient wisits first outset upon the paths of inquiry. The more precious treasures of Christian tradition, hitherto sought but for purposes of ostentation, and squandered, almost as soon as found, in wanton and wasteful controversy, were viewed by Luther with the admiration of a man who knows the value of wealth, but knows also that its worth depends on the wisdom with which it is used. A student in scholastic divinity, a devout follower of Augustine, versed in the traditionary rules of asceticism, and applying to his mind and conscience the whole force of the educational system to which he was thus subjected, the Church of Rome never sent from its schools a pupil that did more honour to its discipline. It was when his charaeter had been placed under the strong compressive power, first of its scholastic and then of its monastical institutions, that he became a student of the Bible. The effects of early education may be traced in many points of his character, and often in the tone of his writings. However we may lament the corruptions which existed in the times of Luther's youth, it would be unjust to deny that there were circumstances in the scholastic discipline of the Church of that period to which minds of the highest order might acknowledge themselves indebted. It was a discipline which taught men to be earnest in their calling, and kept pretension from raising its head above real worth and genius. Erroneous as were some of the principles which it inculcated as of prime importance, it yet fixed deep in the heart many of the rules most essential to the successful pursuit of study. Were a minute inquiry to be made into this matter, it would be found that the deficiencies of the old system consisted almost solely in the want of biblical knowledge; and that had it possessed this great requisite to solid instruction, it would have produced a long succession of those mighty men who graced, both in Germany and England, the earlier annals of Protestant literature. Luther was prepared for the study of the Bible by retirement: his mind had learned in the cell of the Augustine convent to practise self-examination; and, surrounded by the religious associations of such a retreat, while his thoughts were quickened, though his questionings were not answered, by strange minglings of philosophy and theology, he every day became better acquainted with his wants, and gathered strength in the strivings of his soul for clearer illumination. A new era was begun in the life of Luther when he commenced the study of the Scriptures. But his character was already formed; and he sat down to the perusal of the sacred volume with a mind and heart, the chief feature of which was intense earnestness. Nothing that could be of importance to the glory of God, or the salvation of men's souls, lost any part of its worth when measured by his feelings of responsibility. He discovered in the Bible first the confirmation of whatever was valuable in the principles of his earlier studies, and then the means of knowledge and power for all mankind; a new foundation, as it were, for the whole structure of society, and the blessings which truth offers, with open hand, to every creature that is capable of receiving intelligence from heaven. Luther felt, in his own case, that the Bible was a discovery; and, with the instinctive sense of duty which belongs to minds like his, with the grandeur of self-devotion that mingles, without confounding itself, with the desire of happiness, he had no sooner learned the value of the Bible in his own case, than he resolved to make it the means of regenerating mankind. From this period his life became an offering to the Christian church; and he adopted maxims as his rule of conduct which would have made him a reformer had indulgences never been preached, or had the Church of Rome offered no provocatives to the direct exercise of his zeal. The character of Luther was not formed on the principles which lead a man to take pleasure in agitation. He delighted in the steady contemplation of truth, and at no period exhibited volatility of thought, but passed slowly and with difficulty from one grade of opinion to another. It was not with theories that he had to do. His highest flights of specu |