tian to carry back his thoughts to the bodily relics of the apostolic and primitive church of Rome, as they rest in the Catacombs; and to carry his thoughts upwards to their living spirits, now in the presence of the Lamb,

where they rest from their labours, and their works do follow them ;" and to look forward to the time when he shall be with them and present with the Lord? Do we desire to ascertain their faith and practice? It is recorded in the apostle Paul's Epistle to the Romans. It can only have consisted, 1st. In a recognition of the lost and ruined condition by nature of every descendant of Adam. 2nd. In faith in Christ, for complete pardon and perfect righteousness; for a full atonement for their sins, and for that imputed perfect obedience which only could entitle them to eternal life and glory. 3rd. In their reception, through faith in Jesus and a spiritual union with him, each in his own soul, of the Holy Spirit, by whom they were quickened, from whom they received the spirit of sonship, by whose power they mortified evil, and through whom the love of God and of holiness, and the hatred of sin, was shed abroad in their hearts. 4thly. In a life of holiness, producing richly the fruits of the Holy Spirit, "love, joy, peace, gentleness, meekness, temperance." Such, doubtless, were the faith and virtues of these primitive disciples of the apostle Paul at Rome. But, as time rolled on, the full tide of corruption broke in upon the visible Church; and the woman "who was clothed with Christ," the apostolic Church, was driven for a long season, even until the glorious Reformation, into the wilderness. Although arianism, fanaticism and idolatry seem to have originated in the east, the two latter were speedily engrafted into

the Romish church, and therein they were especially patronized and defended by the Roman bishops. Jerome was the great corrupter of the Romish Church in the matter of monkish fanaticism, and the veneration of relics and saints. But there were Christians at Rome who resisted him, although they were overborne by the apostate priesthood and the multitude. Not only Vigilantius and certain of the bishops and clergy, but many of the laity, were hostile to Jerome's views. We find from Jerome's writings, that there were in those days Biblicals' at Rome. Jerome complained that all classes and both sexes presumed to reason and teach from the Scriptures. He abuses certain garrulous old women of doing this. But an old woman, if she has prayerfully sought the teaching of the Holy Spirit and studied the Scriptures, will be a better divine than a learned but a fiery monk, who has disgraced not only his Christian profession but humanity, by his ravings and fanaticism in the desert. If Jerome had lived only a few years back, the scriptural garrulity of a Mrs. Hannah More or a Mrs. Stevens would indisputably have been as displeasing to him, as was that of the Roman matrons, who sought to prevent their children being seduced by him into monkish austerities and anti-christian will-worship, and who reasoned against his heterodox absurdities from the word of God. The bishop of Rome eventually favoured Jerome's monastic views. In the eighth century they sided with the idolatrous Greeks against the Greek Emperors, who sought to remove graven images from the churches and to destroy them; and although the Council of Frankfort, composed of upwards of 300 Western bishops,

declared that no worship whatever was due to images; by Papal influence the decree of the 2nd Council of Nice, with respect to the honorary worship due to sacred images, was received by the Western church. Hence, though not the originators either of monkery, fanaticism, the worship of the Virgin Mary, or the veneration of saints and images, the Bishops of Rome have ever been the most strenuous patrons, defenders and promoters of these impieties; and when they possessed an uncontrolled influence, the exterminators of those who protested against them. It is satisfactory to find that these sacrilegious bishops derive no apology for their wickedness from the monuments of the ancient Christians in the catacombs of Rome. The voice of these monuments is a Protestant voice. Yes; and after

a few years Christians now living may hope to be received with these primitive disciples, and to sing with them the song of the Lamb, and follow his blessed footsteps. What a bright and glorious hope! This is the true communion of saints. The saints on earth are separate at present from the saints above; but even whilst separate they have one Lord, one spirit, one faith, one hope, one love, one God and Father of all; and after a comparatively brief period, they shall all be one visible body in Christ-Saints, autediluvian, patriarchal, Mosaic, and apostolic; the saints that have lived, those that are living, and those who are yet unborn; all chosen, and in due time adopted in Jesus; a holy family, a royal priesthood, who shall reign with the King of Saints, and, throughout eternity, ascribe all honour, power, glory and dominion, to " Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb." A hope thus

bright and glorious elevates the Christian far above the cares, tribulation, sorrows, and sufferings, the pleasures and allurements, of the fleeting world.

ON TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

BY THE RT. HON. SIR GEO. ROSE, BART.

THE Church of England, when announcing her doctrines in her Articles, declares of Transubstantiation, (Article 28), that "it cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and has given occasion to many superstitions ;" and it says, (Article 31) that "the sacrifices of masses are blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits."

As the doctrine of the mass rests wholly on that of transubstantiation, let us see how the latter is described, and adopted by the Council of Trent. "Session 12. On

the Eucharist. Chapter I. on the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist." The holy Council openly and simply professes that, "after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God, God and Man, is truly, really, and substantially contained in the sweet and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, under the forms of those sensible things."

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In the Catechism of the Council of Trent are these words : But now the Pastors must here explain, that not only the true body of Christ, but that whatever appertains to the true mode of existence of a body, as the bones and nerves, but also that entire Christ is contained in this sacrament."

The Council of Trent also (Session 12, Chapter V.) further decrees as follows: "There is therefore no reason for doubting, that all the faithful in Christ may reverently exhibit to this most holy sacrament the worship of Latria, which is due to the true God, according to the most received customs of the Catholic Church.' Latria' is the highest degree of worship.

It is for our Tractarians to reconcile these doctrines of our Church and those of that of Rome, thus most explicitly stated, and in direct opposition to each other. It is for them also, if they can, to relieve their creed from the fearful pressure on it of the very words of God, against one of whose positive and solemn injunctions it has been devised. In this short essay this injunction alone will be urged on the subject, for want of space. It will thus, however, as standing alone, be the more clearly placed in view; it is decisive on the question at issue; and it is the more desirable to bring this argument into notice, as it appears to merit more of it than it has received.

The object is to prove, on the highest scriptural authority, that it is utterly impossible, that our Lord should have used the words, on which the Romish doctrine is founded, in the sense attributed to them by the Church of Rome. It is to be shewn that it is impossible, that when he commanded his disciples at his last supper, to drink the wine as his blood of the New Testament,' he meant them to understand that the fluid in question was actually that which flowed in his veins, and not the juice of the grape.

We learn from the Scriptures, that from the Creation until after the Deluge had subsided, the food of man was exclusively vegetable. God, when he created him, gave to him "every herb bearing seed, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree, yielding seed," for his meat, and nothing else. Food was therefore made a gift; man was only to take such as heavenly bounty allotted to him. But when the flood had passed away, God blessed Noah and his three sons, and thus extended to them his grant of sustenance, saying, every moving thing, that liveth, shall be meat for you.' But this restriction was added. "But flesh, with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." The Lord vouchsafed thus to declare a motive for this prohibition, informing man also of the important fact, that his life is in his blood; and he designed, in a later day, to develop fully the principle, and it is one of heavenly mercy, in which he founded this reservation. The prohibition, therefore, as issued to the fathers of