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ters, to hold a truth, and at the same time to teach a countervailing error, must be a sin-the sin of hypocrisy, or of indifference, or of unwise and unjustifiable compromise. Nor does it appear that the case is altered if the teaching is by means of an intermediate person. In this case, if in any, qui facit per alteram facit per se. It is impossible to separate the prime moving agent from the moral result. An erroneous teaching goes forth to deceive mankind and defeat God's gracious purpose, which would not but for my instrumentality; a false teacher of delusion, opposed to revelation, acquires through my act increased facilities for practising his nefarious calling; error is declared, truth is repressed, and souls are perverted. It is inconceivable to a well balanced mind that any circumstances could induce a clear-sighted believer of a revealed truth to be thus in anyway,

however remotely, the propagator of an opposing or adulterating error. Men may say, this is very rigid and illiberal; but look at the elements under consideration, and their awful sanction. Give them their real weight; and it will surely be concluded that good men ought to come up to this standard; and that if they do not, it is worth while enquiring what defective and perverting agency is at work, which can lead men with comparative indifference to circulate on the one hand the justification of the soul by faith alone, and on the other its justification by human merit. We know there are many ways of mystifying a question of this sort, and letting the inconsistency pass under the cloud of sophistication; but the point is, what does a truly honest, straightforward mind think of it- -one who would not lightly lend himself to his own deception?

It is quite evident that the Bishop of Worcester has felt the practical difficulty, as it is here put, to be a great one; because he has felt that as long as he were compelled to view the teaching of Rome and the Reformation as essentially opposed to each other, he could not take the position he has done. Nothing," he says, "could induce me to vote for a measure

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per se sinful;" and surely he would consider a measure far more effectually teaching vital error-doctrine differing vitally from his own--to be sinful per se. His mind therefore has taken refuge, where only it had the semblance of escape, in the essential identity of the great substance of Romish and Reformation teachingin the comforting and quieting idea "that we hold many doctrines

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in common with our Roman Catholic brethren." And here again, on the justificative ground of the Bishop's original position, we once more join issue with him. Could we agree with him, we would go further than he does; but believing the Romish system to be "an apostacy," a falling away from the truth, the believing of," and the propagation of, "a lie" in the cause of God: we cannot cherish a charity so virtually licentious; we would rather maintain that, with respect to every truth which we hold, the parallel dogma in the Romish scheme is not the truth-is not a truth-but is a perversion, or a contradiction, or a pollution, or an overlaying of the truth- -so that the truth is not there. The union of moral truth and error is like an union of two simple substances in nature by chemical affinity. The sulphur combines with the iron, and makes sulphuret of iron, another substance of widely different qualities, utterly different from the nature of iron, and unfit for the purposes to which iron is applied; and the iron will not be iron again till the sulphur has been thoroughly abstracted."

We agree, then, here, in the main, with our correspondent, while we venture, respectfully, to differ from the mitre. And we conceive, in order to fix our relative position towards Rome, and our duty towards God and our fellow-creatures in this awfully important matter, we must permit ourselves to be brought up by right reason and the paramount authority of revelation to this distinct position :viz. we hold no truth in common with the Church of Rome. She holds no truth; because every truth which she seems to hold is nullified and perverted, inasmuch as it is essentially combined with a fatal error. A man

may say with me, that twice two are four; we seem to agree; but if he hold also, that three and two are four, then his notion of the number four differs essentially from mine. There is an element in his notion of four which is at variance with mine-we do not hold our arithmetical tables in common. In all the practical results of calculation we shall differ; I can have no safe or sound dealings with him till he shakes off the delusion that the elements of five are only equivalent to four. Then, only, will he hold the truth as to four: then, only, shall we be agreed; and hold the multiplication table in common.

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This is an illustration, not an argument; but it carries the principle; and will materially assist the developement of our objection to the Bishop's vindication of his vote for the education of Romish priests, on the ground that they and we hold and teach many truths in common. There is not a tenet of Christianity professed to be held by the Romanist, that is not so essentially combined with an unscriptural notion as to make it not the averment which it professes to be, but a widely different and dangerous one; so that the notion held by him is not held in common with us, but is exclusively and peculiarly his own. The Bishop says, we both believe in God the Father;" but be it remembered, that we do not believe in a mere name, but in a revealed character, and if the general views entertained of that character by Romanists are essentially inconsistent with the sublime notion of revelation, if their God and Father is a being who can sanction an adoration of demons and of images, and contentedly divide the honours of worship with creatures and figments, if He is not in their estimation the "jealous God" of the decalogue, then, even on the subject of this elementary truth, we have no doctrine in common. Their rock is not as our rock, themselves being judges. In the same way the professed tenets of a Trinity in Unity is vitiated by the assumption of a woman to the throne of divine honours. The introduction of the genetrix Dei as a prominent object of worship-introduces a

fourth element into the great mystery of the Godhead; and the habit of the Popish mind toward the object of worship, differs essentially from that of the Protestant. The cherubic emblem of Ezekiel presents to the Protestant an adequate intimation of the Triune God manifested through the incarnation; but it would not fully meet the Romanist's practical notions. He would be conscious of defects. He would be feeling after some presentation of the additional idea of the

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Queen of Heaven," who fills so large a portion of his confidence and his devotions. We hold not the same notion of a Trinity with those who recognize a fourth element of Divine power and glory, however casuistically modified and subordinated. It is impracticable in the scope of these pages to follow out this idea in detail. But it might be very clearly shown, that the doctrine of a gracious salvation through an atonement, is essentially vitiated by the recognized means of fastings, penances, and payments, on the part of the congregation, and of indulgences, dispensations, and pardons, on the part of the priest; that the true doctrine of mediation is lost in the second-class mediation of hosts of canonized intercessors; that the one propitiation, by a sacrifice once offered, is merged and buried in the daily sacrifice of a daily created Christ, for the quick and dead; that the belief of Christ's appointment of two sacraments is swamped in the assertion that he appointed seven; that the divine inspiration of canonical Scripture cannot be held as we hold it, when the same inspiration is claimed for other writings containing palpable error; and that a system of revealed truth is diluted and lost when held together with an undefined and yet undeveloped depositum somewhere or other in the heart of the clergy, an "unwritten law in the Church," as Dr. Phillimore calls it, which may be brought out piecemeal

as convenience serves.

Now we submit this view of Romish error most seriously to the consideration of the Bishop, and all others who wish to entertain largely charitable views of the abettors of the

Romish system; for we believe this to be the gravamen of their sin, that they have poisoned the stream at the fountain. They seem to hold Scriptural truths. They hold none. The

voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. They sign, swear to, and repeat the Triune Creed, but they also sign, swear to, and repeat twelve other articles, which are taken along with it, as of equal authority with the previous articles, and essentially modifying them, as truly and really as a will with a codicil to it, which can only be admitted to make such bequests as flow out of the fair interpretation both of the previous and the subsequent documents. Then, as it is evident that every statement of the previous part of the creed is modified, altered, and vitiated by the subsequent statements, it must be admitted, that we hold none of the previous truth in common with the Romanists; because they do not hold them at all as they stand, but as they are modified, coloured, and transformed by that which follows.

Let this view be entertained, and we see not how an accurate mind, thinking rightly over the whole matter, can properly entertain any other, and then, surely, all charity towards the Romish system must cease. If we are satisfied that the combined result of professed Scriptural truth held with and modified by adulterating error, is not truth but falsehood; then it is quite evident, that to further the promulgation of that falsehood is sinful; and that it is sinful, in the very worst form of such sin, to support a scheme for training more effectually the teachers of the system. It is applying fresh power at the centre of the system. It is strengthening and quickening the energies of the heart.

It behoves us, however, to state, before we altogether turn away from this very momentous subject, that we do not deny, that through the extraordinary mercy of God, men may catch at and lay hold, even in the precincts of the Romish community, and under the upas tree of Trentine teaching, of some portions of saving truth. The alembic of their mind may,

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through mercy, eliminate the associated poison. Pascal is an instance of this; but this does not at all affect the systematic teaching. "There is death in the pot." The mixture must be condemned as poison; and no mitigated notion of the virus must be entertained, because it is just possible that some minds are so constituted as to separate that which is healthy from that which is deleterious. Men may in this way be saved within the system, but the mixture is poisonous, and they who put forth a hand to aid it, are participators in the administration of death.

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And thus we are brought, finally, to the Bishop's posing question, which, certainly to a Bishop, as a legislator for a population of mixed creeds, is one which must call up most serious, extensive, and not easily answered enquiries. It is," he says, "a question between teaching Christianity as professed by Roman Catholics, and teaching no religion at all." We have no wish to cut a knot, rudely and summarily, which we cannot untie, but we do deliberately, in our position, accept the latter horn of the dilemma. The Romish system is not a Christianity, but an apostacy" from it, and we say at once, that the responsibility attached to religious teaching is so awful, and the guilt of teaching error so great, that it is clearly the duty of believers of the truth, to teach nothing, if they may not teach truth. There is no other way of keeping their hands clean. There is no other way of using profitably the actual state of things to further the cause of truth. Mere statesmen may do what they like, and Christian men and Christian Bishops may go the length of tolerating all erroneous religious opinions, and refusing to mulct men in any way in their civil privileges on that account. But a stand must be made on the extreme verge of truth. We cannot go further. We cannot deceive men's souls and keep them in error by a compromise. Their interest is directly concerned in the manifest horror with which Protestants should shrink from any participation in the teaching of idolatrous delusion. Let

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men carry out their view one step further, and look again :-Mahommedanism is a modification of Christianity-would they teach that? And in what is the false prophet at Rome less criminal than he of Mecca? Vital disease calls for desperate remedy. It is no concern of the Christian what religion a people will have, if they will not receive the truth. Let the way be unrestrained for them to maintain their own superstitions. Let the true Church provide her agents to offer the truth to their attention, and then with the Gospel standard in our hand, we may say, safely and wisely," we demur to any participation whatever in the teaching a compound of truth and error. While the means of teaching truth are provided for them, we say fearlessly, it is better for the people, as yet, to be anything at all, than that we should neutralize the testimony to saving truth, and mystify the narrow

path of light that leads to heaven, by taking part in teaching them to be Roman Catholics.

With such views we must, of course, deeply regret, not only the direct vote of Dr. Pepys for the Maynooth measure, but the general want of bold, prominent, uncompromising protestation by the Right Reverend the Bench against it. It was as if

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a standard bearer fainted." We cannot forget that there was an English Archbishop, in Reformation times, who was once led to put his hand to a measure of conciliatory compromise with Rome; but when the day of calm and serious investigation came to him, on the verge of eternity, and he read alike the mercy, the integrity, and the Scriptural truth of the Church of Rome, by the blazing faggot of his martyrdom, he thrust that hand first into the fire, saying-" Oh! this unworthy hand!"

FROM THE GERMAN OF RUCKERT.

(For the Christian Guardian.)

THE sky is a huge letter, on a ground
Of azure written, held in God's right hand,
Which to this hour undimm'd its hue retains,
And will retain it, till the world shall end.
In this majestic letter is contained

Mysterous writing from the mouth of God:
But th' round, splendid seal thereof-the sun--
Will not permit the letter to unfold:

Now, when night from this letter takes the seal,
Then the eye, in a thousand characters,
Reads nought but one stupendous hieroglyph-
That" God is love, and love can ne'er deceive!"
Nought but this sentence, yet so great its depth,
That human mind can ne'er interpret it.

M. N.

A VISIT TO THE UNION HOUSE.
(For the Christian Guardian.)

WE readily insert the following letter,
not because we have changed our
opinion of the Poor Laws, which we
have from the very first reprobated
as cruel, unchristian, and unconsti-
tutional, but because we are glad to
be able to exhibit a specimen, for the
encouragement of others, of what
may be done under humane and
Christian direction. We know there
are exceptions to the general rule,
and we could name some (one, at
least,) ourselves. But they are not
such as the existing laws, in their
strict letter, admit. We believe that
where the Poor Law system works
satisfactorily, it is only by a deter-
mined resistance on the part of hu-
mane guardians to its objectionable
provisions. Happily, the Govern-
ment are yielding to the pressure of
irresistible influence, and the vaunt
of infallibility, which has so often
and so ridiculously issued from So-
merset House, is heard no more.
There is scarcely an objectionable
feature in the Poor Laws which the
Home Secretary is not gradually,
though we fear reluctantly, compelled
to amend; so that we live in hope to
see the day when our nation will
cease to treat poverty as a crime, and,
in the haste to check the disorderly,
oppress the virtuous.

"WE had so constantly heard complaints from the poor in every town we visited, of the cruelty of the laws respecting the Union Houses, and expressed the horror of being obliged to become their inmates, that we wished to see one and judge for ourselves of the truth of these statements: and being at Cheltenham for a short time, we took the opportunity of going over the Union House there, and our visit afforded us very great pleasure. We were struck, on entering the garden, with the air of cheerfulness and the attention to taste in the distribution of the flowers; and there was evidently the desire to render every thing both useful and agreeable-a thing too often lost sight of. The

flower-pots were bright red, which cast quite a sunny glow over the little garden. We were first shown into the governor's room; and upon our observing to him how much we had been struck with the garden, he replied, it gives the inmates a taste for cultivating their little gardens at home; and when they see how much can be done in small space, it encourages them to try to raise a few flowers and vegetables for themselves, and the colour of the flower-pots is to show them how much brighter and more cheerful cleanliness is, than the dirty and disorderly way they are usually accustomed to at home. We then enquired about separating the husbands and wives. It appeared to us hard, that a couple, after having lived the best part of their lives together, should in old age be deprived of that comfort. He laughed, and said, 'Oh, I assure you that is not the case. The law provides out of the house for any respectable couple who bear a good character. I have been here ten years, and have not yet met with an instance where there was the smallest desire expressed to be together; on the contrary, the request generally is, Pray never let me see my wife again, or, I trust I shall be kept from my husband; misconduct in one or both being the usual cause of their state of destitution. Drinking is the scourge of the lower orders; and really I think, if anything, the women are worse in this respect than the men. They have no domestic comforts to lose; strife and contention, poverty, and every evil which sin brings with it, is all they have known at home.' We said we thought they must be very comfortable in such an establishment. He answered, 'Yes, to the aged, the sick, and the children, we do endeavour to give every possible comfort; their circumstances require it: but to the strong and healthy, we should be guilty of a sin, to encourage them in idleness. Man must gain his bread by the sweat of his brow, and there

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