poor." Although they cite St. Paul's address to the Church of Philippi, and his instructions to Timothy in support of their first allegation; yet in the very teeth of that authority they allege that a deacon must neither preach nor administer sacraments. In the kirk the deacons are wholly confined to the poor and the alms of the congregation; and they themselves are made inferior to lay-elders, an order of officials unknown to scripture and antiquity. The sacred order of deacons has been profaned and secularized by the kirk. At their appointment no prayer or imposition of hands is used. It is a mere servile employment to which literally the lowest of the people are entered barely by nomination. Deacons which in the primitive Church were admitted to general councils and synods, are not admitted even to presbyterian parochial sessions.

WE LEARN from the celebrated letters of L. S. E. to a dissenting minister that the nominal office of a deacon in the Dissenting Interest "is to serve tables-the table of the Lord, the table of the minister, and the table of the poor." It is also affirmed, that the table of the poor is the deacon's appropriate and exclusive duty, and that "their office is altogether of a secular nature." In the Presbyterian Interest the order of deacons is merely nominal and is now almost extinct; whereas in the English Dissenting Interest the deacons have become lords over the Interest, wolves in lay clothing. Hear Mr. James's account of them as cited by L. S. E. "What is the deacon of some of our dissenting communities? Not simply the laborious, indefatigable, tender-hearted dispenser of the bounty of the church-the inspector of the poor-the comforter of the distressed. No, but 'the BIBLE of the minister, the patron of the living, and the wOLF of the flock,' an individual who, thrusting himself into the seat of government, attempts to lord it over God's heritage, by dictating alike to the pastor and to the members, who thinks that in virtue of his office, his opinion is to be law in all matters of church government, whether temporal or spiritual, who upon the least symptom of opposition to his will, frowns like a tyrant upon the spirit of rising rebellion amongst his slaves! Such men there have been, whose spirit of domination in the church has produced a kind of Diaconophobia in the minds of many ministers who have suffered most wofully from their bite,

and have been led to do without them altogether, rather than be worried any more! Hence it is that in some case, the unscriptural plan of Committees has been resorted to, that the TYRANNY of lord deacons might be avoided."

THE MANNER of estimating the divine institution of the Order of Deacons in the Church and among the sects is a distinctive mark of the difference betwixt the true Church of God, and the sects and harlots that have sprung up outside the church. In the Church of England deacons are the ministers of God, and from whom all the qualifications are required previous to their ordination which St. Paul specifies to Timothy as being necessary for the office of a priest. They are promoted in due time to the orders of priests or presbyters, and of bishops.

IN THE SCOTCH KIRK and other sects they are tradesmen or mechanics, and still continue at their secular employments. In the former, although acknowledged to be a divine and therefore a perpetual office, yet it has been nearly jostled out of their system, and in large towns where it is still continued, the deacons are men of the lowest class of society and are made subordinate to lay-elders, and without any form of ordination. In the latter, they seem to occupy the same place and to perform the same offices that the lay-elders perform in the Scotch Kirk. And like them they are chosen on account of their wealth or influence, and by the confession of Mr. John Angel James, one of their ministers, they are wolves devouring the flocks and tyrants oppressing the ministers, dictating to them what and how to preach, and turning them out of their pulpits when they disobey the orders of these lordly deacons!

THEREFORE let us of the Church be sincerely thankful that scriptural and apostolic order is observed in it; and let us show our thankfulness, not so much with our lips as in our lives, by holiness and obedience, and by loving, reverencing, and obeying those that are set over us in the Lord.

THE WORD PROTESTANT.

A

IT HAS BEEN attempted within the last ten years or so to bring the word Protestant, as applied to the Church of England, into

disrepute, and some individuals have declared their determination to unprotestantize her. They found their objections ostensibly on the well-known fact, that the word protestant does not occur in the Liturgy, nor in any of the authorized formularies of our Church. But in the Litany of our first reformed Liturgy there was a petition to be delivered from the tyranny of the pope and from all his detestable enormities, which in fact amounts to a protest. The first German Reformers were called Protestants from the circumstance of their having protested at a second Diet at Spires, in the year 1529, against the revocation of a decree of a former Diet at the same place, in the year 1526. In consequence of the dangers with which the German empire was threatened by the Turks and other enemies, the Diet of 1526 resolved that all the German principalities should allow ecclesiastical affairs to remain as they then were, until a General Council should decide on the subjects in dispute betwixt the Church of Rome and the Reformers. The immediate danger having ceased, the Emperor Charles V. convened another Diet or parliament at Spires three years afterwards, in which he revoked the toleration which had been granted to the reformers, and laid them open to the tender mercies of the mother and MISTRESS of all Churches. The minority at this Diet consisting of six princes, and the representatives of fourteen imperial cities, solemnly PROTESTED against this their practical carrying out of the doctrine of keeping no faith with heretics. All the faithful Christians everywhere who obeyed the divine call to come out of the corrupt and idolatrous Church of Rome have been called Protestants ever since. Protestant became after that a generic name for all Churches and sects that withdrew from Communion with Rome, and also for all the sects that have separated from the protestant or reformed Catholic Church of England. In the popish catechisms the words protestant and heretic are synonymous.

THE REFORMERS did not protest against the religion or the faith of Rome; but only against the corruptions and the idolatries which Rome had engrafted on the Christian faith; in the fundamental articles of which, as they are contained in the Apostles' Creed, the Churches of England and of Rome are agreed. The protestantism of the Church of England sternly rejects the idolatry and apostacy of the Church of Rome,

which consists in image-worship, the worship of the Blessed Virgin and other saints, in the exaltation of her into a mediatrix betwixt God and man, instead of the Man Christ Jesus, who is the only mediator of the New Covenant-and in several other heretical tenets. Our Church, therefore, considered it absolutely necessary to come out from among them, to separate, and not to touch the unclean thing-popery7.

In

THE CHURCH OF ROME exercises a judgment of authority in matters of faith, which is blasphemous. The Church of England rejects this claim of authority, and protests against it. consequence, she rejects all the twelve articles of the Trent Creed. We believe all the articles of the Christian faith, on the evidence of the whole Church from the beginning, with whom the Sacred Scriptures were deposited for preservation and propagation. We do not believe any of the articles of our faith on the authority of the Church, because if she claimed such an authority, as the Church of Rome has done, she would be superior to Him who delivered THE faith to His apostles and the Church. The claim to this authority is blasphemy, of which the Church of Rome has been guilty by adding twelve articles to the Christian creed, which she requires her members to believe under pain of eternal condemnation. The great apostle of the Gentiles who was the founder of the Roman Church totally disclaims all such authority: " Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy; for by faith ye stand." And that apostle also whom they have set on high amongst his brethren says, "neither as being lords over God's heritage, [the Church] but being ensamples to the flock.” The authority of the Church is great; but her authority is not over Christ or the Scriptures, but over her own flock, who are commanded to be subject and obedient unto her. She has authority to preach the word to her flock, to sign and seal God's covenant with them in the sacraments, and to remit and retain sins. The keys of the kingdom of heaven were committed to her, under which she has authority to open and to shut, to bless and to curse, in the name of the Lord, who promised to ratify her sentence in heaven, when justly passed on earth. Whosoever despises this authority in the Church,

despises Christ who gave it to her. For the due and lawful exercise of this power of the keys, which was left entirely to her discretion, she will be answerable to her divine Head; but to no other power on earth. In this sense also she is the "Pillar and ground of the truth," both as the keeper, the administrator, and the dispenser of this sacred deposit, offering up the incense of the prayers of her people, and blessing them in the Lord's name.

IN THE FIRST article of the Creed we are taught by the Church to believe on her evidence, but not on her authority, that there is a God, the Creator of all things in the world, both visible and invisible. Of this we are convinced by our own reason, which is His gift, and by His grace operating upon it. We thus exercise a judgment of discretion, and this is the protestant faith; but the Church of Rome requires her flock to be. lieve that she has authority to determine what is Scripture, and what is the object of our faith. Rome always runs in a circlebelieve the Scriptures because the Church commands you; and believe the Church because the Scriptures require you. We believe in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, upon the authority of God's own revelation, and on the evidence of the Church from Adam to the present day. But it would be blasphemy to allege that we believe in God on the authority of the Church.

LET US, THEREFORE, never be ashamed of our protestant name or character. It is antagonistic to popery, which is an apostacy from the pure faith of the gospel; for they worship God in vain, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men; for laying aside the [second] commandment of God, they hold the traditions of men." Like the Pharisees, "they reject or frustrate the commandment of God, that they may keep their own tradition," in the worship of the Virgin and saints. The Christian faith, however, is too great and transcendant to be built upon the authority of any Church; for who can decide whether or not there be a Creator, a Redeemer, or a Sanctifier? This can only be known by revelation, and made known to us by the Church in her capacity of a witness for the truth as it was delivered to her.

9 St. Mark viii. 7, 8.