Essays towards a Right Interpretation of the last Prophecy of our Lord concerning the Destruction of Jerusalem, and the End of the Present World. By the Rev. H. Highton, M.A.

The Siege of Granada, a Dramatic Poem.

Pictorial Shakspere. Macbeth. Part 31.

What is the Meaning of Subscription? By the Rev. C. N. Wodehouse. Pictorial History of Palestine. Part 19.

Truth and Love, a Sermon Preached before the University of Oxford. By the Rev. J. E. Riddle, M.A.

The Life of Luther. By a Protestant.

Exercises in Orthography and Composition on an entirely New Plan, containing much valuable information on various subjects. By Henry Hopkins. Fox's Book of Martyrs. Part 2. Edited by the Rev. J. A. Cumming, M.A. The Works of Josephus. Part 10.

The Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland Illustrated. Part 2.
Canadian Scenery Illustrated. Part 11.

Ashantee and the Gold Trade. By John Beecham.
Philosophic Nuts. By Edward Johnson, Esq. Part 4.

Sermons on the First Principles of the Oracles of God. By Henry Erskine Head, M.A., Rector of Feniton, Devon. Second Edition.

The Calvinism of the Church of England, as contained in her Formularies. A Manual on the Bowels, and the Treatment of their Principal Disorders from Infancy to Old Age. By James Black, M.D.

The Widow directed to the Widow's God. By John Angell James. Biblical Cabinet-The Revelation of God in his Word, shown in a Graphic Delineation of Holy Scripture; for its Friends and Enemies. From the German of Dr. T. W. Gess. By W. Brown, A.M.

Popular Cyclopædia of Natural Science-Vegetable Physiology.

The Apostasy Predicted by St. Paul. By Mortimer O'Sullivan, D.D. Mammon, or Covetousness the Sin of the Christian Church. By John Harris, D.D. Thirty-first Thousand.

Summer Morning, a Poem. By Thomas Miller.

The Satisfactory Results of Emigration to Upper Canada; compiled for the Guidance of Emigrants.

Bells and Pomegranates. No. I. Pippa Passes. By Robert Browning. Anti-Idolatry Connexion Publications. No. VI. British Connexion with

Idolatry at the Presidency of Madras.

Leicester Gaol. By A. Balance, Esq., of the Middle Temple.

Agrippa; or the Nominal Christian Invited to Consideration and Decision. By Thomas Jefferson.

Ward's Library-Notes on the Book of Genesis. By George Bush. The Best Pew in the Church, by One who sits in it; a Tract for the Times.

Pocahontas and other Poems. By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney.

Poems, Religious and Elegiac. By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney.

Connexion and Harmony of the Old and New Testaments; being an Inquiry into the Relation, Literary and Doctrinal, in which these two parts of the Sacred Volume stand to each other. By W. Lindsay Alexander, M.A., Edinburgh.

A Peep into Number Ninety. By Charlotte Elizabeth.

Oxford Divinity Compared with that of the Romish and Anglican Churches, with a Special View of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith. By Charles P. McIlvaine, D.D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese

of Ohio.

A Faithful Warning to Christian Congregations against the Oxford Heresy. By an aged Presbyter of the Church of England.

Supplement to the New and Improved Edition of Mr. Wade's British History, chronologically arranged.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR JUNE, 1841.

Art. I. 1. Advice on the Formation of Protestant Associations. Hatchard and Son.

2. Jezebel, a Type of Popery, with Notes. By the Rev. HUGH M'NEILE. Liverpool: Henry Perris.

3. The Novelties of Romanism: or Popery refuted by Tradition. A Sermon. By W. F. HOOK, D.D. T. C. and J. Rivington.

POPERY is a strange thing. It seems intended by God to

show how far good may be abused; it presents to the universe an evidence of the power and subtlety of wickedness to convert even a system of divine truth and grace into an engine of error and injury. It is a constant and melancholy illustration of the fact, and the manner of the fact, that nothing is too holy to be perverted, and that the perversion of a holy thing is pernicious in the proportion of its holiness. It is thus that popery is to be regarded. It is an evil within, and not without, the visible church. It is not a denial of the truth, but its admixture with error. It does not present the Christian system denuded of its essential principles, but surrounded with human additions. There is no truth which it does not admit, there is no truth which it does not imprison and pollute. The true sayings of God are its essence, but they are enveloped in such a mass of human imaginations as greatly to deprive it of its beauty and its force. Christianity, in its popish form, is a strong man not armed but bound-is a light shining through a cloud. Throughout the whole compass of revealed religion, we know not a principle of which popery is not the verbal acknow

VOL. IX.

2 T

ledgment and the spiritual rejection. It holds the deity of Christ, but it holds also the conversion of bread and wine into his body and blood; it holds divine influence, but it holds also physical grace; it holds justification by faith, but it holds also justification by works; it holds Christ's atonement, but it holds also works of supererogatory merit; it holds the worship of God, but it holds also the worship of creatures; it adds the intercession of saints and angels to that of Christ, the apocrypha to the Scriptures, purgatory to hell; it converts a moral ministry into a sacrificial priesthood, and makes seven saving sacraments out of two simple and symbolic institutions. Such a system may do some good, but it must do much damage, to the souls of men. It cannot offer the full freedom of the gospel, even if it impart its life. The men it quickens will for the most part, like Lazarus, 'come forth' indeed, but bound hand and foot with grave clothes.' Nor can its influences, other than religious, be greatly good. A system which so assiduously courts the senses as to be called, not inaptly nor untruly, the religion of the five senses,' and yet in its most essential dogma contradicts their plainest testimony; which sets the letter of Scripture in opposition to its spirit, and yet degrades it by the addition of what God has never spoken; which makes that a sacrament in one class which it denounces as a sin in another; which asserts the infallibility of one or more men, and denies the right to judge of all the rest: such a system must grievously affect the sources of individual selfrespect, intellectual enlargement, and social liberty. It must restrain, if it do not quench, the elements of all vigor and healthfulness in men and nations. Under it, the soul must be cramped and crippled, its fruits must be weak and puny. It must have in it the roots of persecution. The spirit of persecution is the spirit of human nature, but especially when nurtured and regulated by popish faith. An infallible religion must be a persecuting one. It may not persecute, but such a circumstance is the effect of what is without, not what is within it.

This system is spreading. It is increasing in extent as well as in vigor; it is 'lengthening it cords' as well as 'strengthening 'its stakes.' Ten years ago it was customary to deny this, and perhaps there was not so much reason then to admit it, but we have witnessed the gradual alteration of opinion until all who know or care anything upon the subject acknowledge and bewail the fact, that the increase of popery is regular and rapid. We speak not of other countries, we speak not even of Ireland, although they do not, as we think, form any exception to the statement. We speak of Great Britain. Its Catholic population has multiplied at a faster rate than can be accounted for by any influx of the Irish or natural increase of the English.

This appears from their own statistics,* and the testimony of all whose observation qualifies them to testify on the matter. Proselytism, in its most literal sense, has been going on. Mixed marriages have been an especial means of conversion to popery, for whereas the conjugal connexion between a Protestant and a Papist has seldom led to the conversion of the latter, it has in a vast multitude of instances occasioned that of the former. And what has been may yet be. There is nothing in the present or the probable state of things to induce the persuasion that popery will not continue to spread. As to its ultimate destiny we say nothing; we have views of our own upon that point. But the signs of the times present a combination of circumstances on which it is scarcely possible to look without some anxiety. When we remember the strong and skilful adaptation of popery to the infirmities and corruptions of the human heart; the tendency of the mind to pass from one extreme to another, and the natural relapse from scepticism to implicit faith; the character and conduct of the public press, one portion of which is doing by its loose and licentious liberalism what another is doing by its rancor and ferocity; the partial restoration of Catholics to the enjoyment of civil rights; the amazing spread of Puseyism, alias high-churchism, in the English Establishment; and the singularly unfortunate nature and results of various efforts to promote Protestantism, when we remember these things, we confess that our prospect is not so bright as we desire. The question occurs, what is to be done? Are Protestants quietly to look on while a system progresses which Scripture denounces as injurious to the spiritual interests of men, and all history proves to be pernicious to their temporal interests? Should any direct and specific means be employed to avert the evil, and if so, what means? Is it possible for Protestants of various denominations to unite their energies

Within the last twenty-four years, the Catholics have increased six-fold in Great Britain. Their present state is as follows: chapels, 540; colleges, 10; convents, 19; missionary priests, 642. In Scotland, besides the chapels, there are 20 stations where divine service is performed.

In a note to his sermon on the Novelties of Romanism, Dr. Hook makes the following remarks, The question as to the proper manner of opposing Romanism is one of great importance. I can state it on high authority, that the papists always calculate on twenty or thirty converts to their system, after a meeting in any place of the so-called Reformation Society. The declamatory violence at these meetings disgusts some persons; in others doubts are suggested while weak arguments are used to answer them, and recourse is eventually had, under the plea of hearing both sides, to the Romish priest for their solution. To support a good cause with bad arguments is the best aid that can be given to those whose cause is bad.' The reasons assigned are as satisfactory as the fact itself is indisputable.

against popery, and if possible, is it desirable? These questions we do not assay to answer, but commend them to the grave consideration of the Protestant intellect of this country.

It may be easier to point out what should not be done, than to suggest what should be, and to object to existing plans than to originate others. This at least is our present purpose. We select one mode in which the Protestant spirit has expressed itself, that we may represent our views and feelings in relation to it. The time has come for doing so, and we shall do it coolly and candidly.

A portion of the members of the Established Church, constituting a sect within a sect, have formed various societies in fancied harmony with the exigencies of the times, called 'Protestant Associations,' the object of which is to uphold the connexion of the state with Episcopalian and Presbyterian Protestantism.* It is by no means our intention to blame them for having taken this step. We believe they have acted, with however questionable a judgment; from sincere conviction and religious zeal. But they have not confined themselves to the doing of what they consider right, they have frequently cast a look and a reproof upon those who have not joined them. In the discussion of all great questions, irrelevant matter is almost necessarily introduced, and they who are themselves intensely interested have seldom the calmness or the candor to ascertain and appreciate the indifference or opposition of others. So has it been with the members and advocates of Protestant Associations. They have sometimes complained of, and sometimes

*The following are the fundamental resolutions of the parent association, and are recommended for general adoption in the Advice.'

I. That the influence of true religion over a people forms the best security for their individual rights, and the surest basis of national prosperity.

II. That the British constitution acknowledges in its principles and laws the sovereignty of Almighty God, and the supreme authority of his holy word, and has provided for the scriptural instruction of the people by its religious establishments.

III. That in opposition to this principle of the constitution, doctrines have of late been propagated, that religion is unconnected with the duties of legislation (?), that in the eye of the state all religions are alike, and that support should be equally given or denied to all.

IV. That under cover of these doctrines, the members of the church of Rome are zealously exerting themselves to destroy the Protestant character of the constitution, and that the first object to which they direct their efforts, is the overthrow of the Established Churches, as forming the main obstacle to their ulterior designs.

V. That to counteract these efforts, all who venerate the word of God, and value the British institutions, should be called on to cooperate in pointing out to the people the peculiar dangers of the present time, and in taking measures to inspire them with a just sense of the blessings and benefits of the Protestant constitution.