led by authority than unbelievers. A name, a reputation, acquired by science or by wit, although by science altogether unconnected with religious subjects, or by wit adverse to patient reasoning upon any subject whatever, is more than enough to decide the opinions of thousands who range themselves on the side of infidelity. It is well known how close and easy an intercourse is carried on between the higher classes of different countries, and that this intercourse often begins at an age, when every impression received from it sinks deep so that prejudices, which, in the countries where they originated had too much foundation in religious abuse and corruption, passed over into countries, where, without any part of the same reason, they would produce, when once formed, very much of the same effect.

Now, we would ask any dispassionate person,-can it be consistent with common prudence, to place on a level with the established religion of these realms, a superstition that must necessarily excite disgust in the minds of all who are able to distinguish rightly between the dogmata of the Popes, and the decrees of councils (which, saith the twenty-first article of religion, "may err, and have erred"), and vague traditions on one hand; and the pure word of God on the other? Smarting and writhing under the injuries inflicted on us by "a want of belief in the truth of the public religion," professed by the Popish Continental States, is this a time to talk of the propriety of taking off all remaining restraints from a religious system, the flagrant absurdities of which, have driven men into deism, avowed atheism, intolerance of all subordination, sedition, rebellion, and the perpetration of such deeds of horror, as have only been equalled by the Popish massacres of the Swiss Vaudois, the French Hugonots, and the Protestants in Ireland? Do the Romanists think that we are become dead and insensible to all the uses of history?

His lordship, in a charge delivered to the clergy of the diocese of Durham, in 1801, again takes up the same topic.

To Popery, to the errors and defects of Ropery, we cannot but impute, in a great degree, the origin of that revolutionary spirit, which has gone so far towards the subversion of the ancient establishments of religion and civil government. I should be sorry to give pain to any one of the unhappy victims of the French Revolution: I most truly sympathize with their sufferings; but we must not allow our charity to injure our priuci

ples, or pervert our judgment. The heavy blow which has been struck at the very existence of Christianity, must be charged, as I said, in a great degree, to many erroneous opinions, and some pernicious institutions of that form of religion, from which the wisdom of our ancestors separated our national church.

The maintenance of opinions unfounded on the authority of the Gospel, and inconsistent with its purity, has given occasion to minds, perhaps naturally averse to religion, to reject the most valuable evidences of Christianity. By the abuses of religion, such minds have been led into all the extravagancies of Deism and Atheism, of Revolution and Anarchy. They had not the discernment, or the candour, to distinguish between Christianity and its corruptions. The conspiracy against the religion of Christ, which originated in these delusions, burst on the devoted monarchy of France, and involved that unhappy country in such scenes of blood, rapine, and ungovernable excess, as revolt every principle of justice, every feeling of humanity.

In his celebrated charge of 1806, the Bishop of Durham commences with a reference to these observations, and whoever reads this charge will be delighted with the tolerant and truly Protestant spirit in which it is conceived, and struck with the decided and manly style in which it is composed. THE PROTESTANT ADVOCATE cannot do greater service to the cause which it defends than by inserting the following principal reasons-five in number, for separating from the church of Rome.

The reasons of our separation from the Church of Rome rest not in trifling concerns of external discipline, but on points essential to the parity of the Christian Faith, or highly important to the interests of morality, and the due advancement of religious knowledge. Our Church separated from the Romanists, because the doctrines and ordinances of their Church were derogatory,

1. From the honour of God the Father;

2. From the mediatorship of the Son; and,

3. From the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit;

4. Because, by authorising the sale of indulgences and pardons, they encouraged the most scandalous irregularities of life;

5. Because, both by performing the services of the Church in Latin, and by locking up the Scriptures in the same language, they violated the express command of Holy Writ, and obstructed the diffusion of Christian knowledge.

His lordship assumes these reasons as so many heads of his charge, and proves the truth of them, seriatim.

1. He mentions image-worship, and at the same time exposes the futility of the Romish apology for the introduction of images, and the scandalous garbling of Holy Scripture, by the suppression of the second commandment.

2. He states the dishonour done to the only Mediator between God and man, by praying to the blessed Virgin Mary, to angels, and to saints, as intercessors; and shews how "the imposition of penances as purchases of pardon, and remedies of past sin," is a virtual" denial of the efficacy of the great sacrifice which Christ made for us by his death."

3. He shews, that "the great stress which the Romish Church lays on external and ritual performances; while it magnifies the value of human means, in the same degree it derogates from the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit."

4. He points out the flagrant and notorious abuses, arising from the sale of indulgences and pardons.-This scandalous traffic, by the way, through that Divine Providence, which often brings good out of evil, became the immediate cause of the reformation effected by LUтher.

5. His lordship exhibits, in proper colours, the glaring absurdity of administering the public services of the Romish church in an unknown tongue. Here he very justly remarks upon the culpable conduct of that church, in keeping the scriptures themselves" concealed in the obscurity of an unknown language."

Thus were the great mass of mankind forbidden to have recourse to the oracles of God. Nor is this all. The extravagant authority attributed to the Latin translation has been, even among the educated classes, very detrimental to the study of the original languages of Scripture in countries subject to the jurisdiction of the Pope. If the originals are there ever resorted to, they are consulted rather to explain the Vulgate, than as supreme authorities, and criteria of truth. How little the Romish Church contributes to the cultivation of the original Scriptures, is evident from the depressed state of sacred and ancient literature in the Romish Universities; and from this especially, that almost the whole labour of editing and illustrating the Greek text of the New Testament has been confined to members of the Protestant Church,

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This last observation singularly became the Bishop of Durham, who has done so much to promulgate the knowledge of Holy Writ all over the world, particularly in the East. His lordship has ever been the promoter of learning, and the patron of men of letters. Few prelates have ever preferred more scholars; few have ever been surrounded by a more learned clergy. We trust that many of them will join in furthering the views of the PROTESTANT ADVOCATE.

We next recommend to our readers, the tract which occurs page 345, intituled, "The Grounds on which the Church of England separated from the Church of Rome," &c. embracing a view of the Romish doctrine of the eucharist, and an explanation of the manner in which the body and blood of Christ, are "taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's supper.' This most excellent tract is addressed by the Bishop to the clergy of the diocese of Durham, and is marked by peculiar justness of discrimination, and that logical precision, exactly calculated to destroy all the effects of papistical sophistry. The Romanists drew down upon themselves this castigation. In Keating's catalogue of Popish publications, annexed to the Ordo Recitandi, &c. for the year 1812, under the article Controversy, two pamphlets are enumerated, one containing Remarks on the Bishop of Durham's Grounds, &c.; and the other on his lordship's Charge. They acted unwisely in sending these remarks into the world. It has often astonished us, that the serpentine subtlety of the Romish clergy should thus provoke a spirit of controversy, in which, for centuries, they have been invariably worsted. This is owing to a vain presumption, arising out of the doctrine of infallibility claimed by their church. They have already received some severe rebuffs, and must submit to more. The Roman Catholic Question is prematurely moved. England is not yet prepared to concede it. Much must be done, and that by our adversaries themselves, before the legal disabilities still attaching on them, can be safely removed. They must cease to be Romanists, and must become Catholics. They must emancipate themselves from the domination of the Pope. They must divest themselves of that claim to an imperium in imperio,—an anomaly in government which cannot be allowed,-for no fo

reigner can, without a contradiction in terms, exercise, in this kingdom, powers independent of the imperial sovereignty of the British crown. They must-part with their superstitions; their fripperies and their frivolities; their unauthenticated traditions, and lying legends; they must celebrate the rites of the Christian religion in a language intelligible to their congregations; they must put the Bible into the hands of their people; and, as a preliminary step, they must acquire a charitable feeling for those ⚫ who differ from them in the forms of religion; they must shew that they themselves possess principles of toleration, and have abandoned the anti-catholic, the unchristian doctrine, of exclusive salvation. Till these important changes shall have taken place, they must not presume to contend in argument with such a champion in the Protestant cause as the Bishop of Durham; they must not expect that further concessions will be made.-These observations conduct us naturally to the last article in the volume under consideration, denominated, "The Grounds of Union between the Churches of England and Rome, considered; in a Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham, in the year 1810.". The Bishop, in his opening, says,

The events which have taken place in the course of the last four years, especially the Addresses poured into the office of the Secretary of State " from all parts of Great Britain" on one occasion, and the late decision in both Houses of Parliament on the Roman Claims, abundantly show "the indisposition of the minds of the British nation," (I quote the words of a learned and candid Roman Catholic) "respecting those "claims as connected with the laws of England."*

If such was the general feeling, allowed by the Roman Catholics themselves, of this nation, in 1810, we would ask,-what has taken place since that time, which has altered the public feeling in 1812, to such a degree, as to have led certain people to take such steps, both in and out of Parliament, as have alarmed many well-wishers to the Protestant religion, and the Protestant succession to the throne? The Roman Catholics have not given up an iota of those principles and persuasions which rendered them

SA Letter to Edward Jerningham, Esq. Bath," printed but not published. It has since been published.

VOL. I. [Prot. Adv. Oct. 1812.]

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