Tho' darkness gather round,
And death appear in sight;
In his own ranks be found,

He'll lead to realms of light.
You shall receive the martyr's crown,
On Heaven's brilliant throne sit down.
Then never tire or faint,

But wait the gracious word,

Of him who hears the saint's complaint,
Their ris'n God and Lord;

Till earth shall echo forth the strain
Of glad delight-" The Lord doth reign."
Go on your Saviour cries,

Till all my truth shall own,
I'll lead you to the skies,

I will your labours crown;
When at the last great day you stand,
I'll own you as my chosen band.

Then shall your timid fear,

Be banished far away;

When I in clouds appear,

On that decisive day.

My shining host in robes of white,
Shall lead you to the realms of light.

Southwark, Jan. 22, 1842.

WILLIAM WALL.

INTELLIGENCE.

Southwark.-The Rev. M. Hobart Seymour continues his interesting series of Lectures to the Members and Friends of the Southwark Operative Protestant Association, on alternate Tuesday evenings. The four first have been published, price 2d. each.

Southwark. The Revs. J. R. Barber, Tenison Cuffe, and John Cumming, have been delivering a course of Lectures on the Roman Catholic Controversy, during the past month, at the Temperance Hall in St. George's-road, Southwark.

Hugh Stowell, of Manchester, (D.V.) on Thursday Evening, May 12th, in the Rev. Thos. Mortimer's Episcopal Chapel, Gray's Inn Road.

Great Protestant Meeting.-The Annual Meeting of the Protestant Association will he held (D. v.) in the Large Hall, Exeter Hall, on Wednesday, the 11th of May, at 12 o'clock. Lord Kenyon in the chair. The Rev. Hugh Stowell, of Manchester and the Rev. Hugh Mc Neile, of Liverpool, are expected to take part inthe proceedings

New Publications.-Two very useful tracts have just been published by Messrs. Seeley, of Fleet-street, viz. A Short Protestant Catechism for the use of Schools, especially Sunday Schools, by the Rev. B. Richings; and Short Morning and Evening Prayers for the use of Sunday Schools, by the Author of "The Tent and the Altar."

Marylebone.-The Marylebone Association met at the Fitzroy School Rooms, on Friday, March 18th, Mr. Moulton in the chair. Rev. M. Hobart Seymour, Jas. Lord, Esq., and Edw. Dalton, Esq., were the speakers.

We hope to continue the "Conversations" in our next number.

Mr. Baisler begs to announce that he has in the press, Gems of Protestant Truth; selected from the speeches and writings of Edward Dalton, Esq. Secretary to the Protestant Association, by a Lady, which he thinks will form a cheap and valuable book of reference on Protestant subjects.

No. 26.

THE BIBLE,

The Right of Private Judgment, but No POPERY, which would rob us of these great favours bestowed upon us, and yet kept unto us by our gracious GOD.

VOL. III.

sin, together with the perfect remedy, Rom. iii. 23, 24. It proposeth perfect happiness unto you, Isaiah lv. 1, 3, affording means to work it out in you and for you, Rom. i. 161 Thess. ii. 13. It is mighty, through God, to prepare you for grace, 2 Cor. x. 3, 5. It is the immortal seed to beget you unto

late DR. JOHN OWEN.

[Showing what great benefits come by the Bible, and the right reading of it; which blessed Book of GoD, Papists, if they had the power in their hands, would burn, and those who read it, as they have done abundantly in times past when they ruled in this and other countries.-BEWARE THEN OF POPERY.]

"WHEN you read any part of the Word of God, you must put a difference between it and the best writings of men, preferring it far before them. To this end, first, consider it in its properties and excellencies. No word is of like absolute authority, holiness, truth, wisdom, power, and eternity, Psalm xix. 7, 11. 2. Consider this Word in its ends and good effects. No book aimeth at God's glory, John v. 39-2 Cor. iii. 18, and the salvation of man's soul, Rom. xv. 4James i. 21, like this; none concerneth you like to this: it discovereth your misery by

stronger meat to nourish you up in Christ, 1 Pet. ii. 2-Heb. v. 13, 14. It is the only soul physic (through Christ Jesus) to recover you, 2 Tim. i. 13, and to free you from all spiritual evils. By it Christ giveth spiritual sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech to the dumb, strength to the weak, health to the sick; yea, by it he doth cast out devils, and raise men from the death of sin (through faith) as certainly as he did all those things for the bodies of men by the word of his power, while he lived on the earth, John v. 25. This Book of God doth contain those many rich legacies bequeathed to you, in that last will and testament of God, sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, Heb. ix. 15, 18. It is the Magna Charta and Statute Book of the kingdom of heaven, Isaiah viii. 20: it is the book of privileges and immunities of God's children, Rom. vi. 14, 23; for it will make you wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus, making you perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works, 2 Tim. iii. 15,

17.

Whenever, therefore, you hear this word preached, and when at any time you read it, you must receive it not as the word of man, but (as it is in truth) the Word of God, then it will work effectually in you that believe, 1 Thess. ii. 13. Secondly, when you read this word, lift up the heart in prayer to God for the spirit of understanding and wisdom, Psalm cxix. 18, that your mind may be more and more strengthened with grace by it. For this word is spiritual, containing the great counsels of God for man's salvation, and which is a book sealed up, Isaiah xxix. 11, 12, in respect of discovery of the things of God in it, 1 Cor. ii. 10, 12, to all that have not the help of God's spirit; so that none can know the inward and spiritual meaning thereof, powerfully and savingly, but by the spirit of God. Thirdly, read the word with a hunger and thirst after knowledge, and growth of grace by it, 1 Pet. ii. 2-2 Pet. iii. 18; with a reverend, humble, teachable, and honest heart, Luke viii. 15, believing all that you read; trembling at the threatenings and judgments against sinners; rejoicing in the promises made unto, and the favours bestowed upon, the penitent and the godly; willing and resolving to obey all the commandments. Thus, if you read, blessed shall you be in your reading, Rev. i. 3, and blessed shall you be in your deed, James i. 25. The Holy Scriptures are thus to be read of all, of every sort and condition, and of each sex; for all are commanded to search the Scriptures, John v. 39, as well the laity as the clergy; women as well as men, Acts xvii. 11, 12; young as well as old, 2 Tim. iii. 15; all sorts of all nations, Isaiah xxxiv. 1, 16-Rev. i. 3; for though the spirit of God is able to work conviction and holiness immediately without the word, (as he doth in those infants that are saved,) yet in adult persons the Holy Ghost will not (where the word may be had) work without it as his instrument, Luke xvi. 29, 31, using it as the hammer, plough, seed, fire, water, sword, (they are Scripture metaphors or figures,) or as any other instrument, to pull down, build up, plant, purge, or cleanse the souls of men; for it is by the word both read, Rev. i. 3, and preached, that Christ doth sanctify all that are his, John xvii. 17, that he may present them to himself, and so to the Father, without spot or wrinkle, a church most glorious, Eph. v. 26, 27. And whereas it is most true, that those who are unlearned and unstable, 2 Pet. iii. 16, do wrest not only hard Scriptures but all other also to their destruction; yet let not this (as Papists would infer) cause you to forbear

to read, any more than because many surfeit and are drunk by the best meats and drinks, you do forbear to eat and drink. To prevent misunderstanding and wresting of Scriptures to your hurt, do thus: 1. Act and cherish a humble and honest heart, resolved to obey what you know to be God's will: if any man will, do his will,' saith Christ, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God,' John vii. 17. 2. Get a clear knowledge of the first principles of the Christian Religion, and believe them stedfastly, and endeavour to frame your life according unto those most easy and known Scriptures, where on the first principles of the oracles are founded; for these give light even at the first entrance, unto the very simple, Psalm cxix. 130. This do, and you shall neither be unlearned in the mysteries of Christ, nor yet unstable in his ways. 3. Be much in hearing the word interpreted by learned and faithful ministers, Isaiah viii. 20. 4. If you meet with a text of Scripture too hard for you, presume not to pass a sense to it of your own head; but take notice of your own ignorance, admire the depths of God's wisdom, suspend your opinion, and take the first opportunity to ask the meaning of some or other of those whose lips should preserve knowledge, Malachi ii. 7. Let no colourable pretence keep you from diligently reading God's book; for hereby you will be better prepared to hear the word preached. For it layeth a foundation for preaching, Acts viii. 28, 34, 35-Rom. x. 15, 17, leading the way to a better understanding thereof, and more easily preserving it in memory; also, to enable you to try the spirits and doctrines delivered, Acts xvii. 11-1 John iv. 1—1 Thess. v. 21, even to try all things, and to cleave to that which is good. May the good Lord enable us thus to hear and read for his name's sake."

Will Protestants submit to have Papists come in and take away from them and their families that great blessing they have inherited from their forefathers, THEIR Bible, and the free reading of it, that they may not be able to judge for themselves in matters of religion, which concern the best interests of their souls? or to have it in a language, if they have it at all, which they cannot understand.

CABINET.

Prayer is a key which unlocks the blessings of the day, and locks up the dangers of the night.

Good works are the touchstone of faith, its evidence and measure.

PERSECUTING SPIRIT OF

POPERY.

From Reed's Narrative of Six Months'

Residence in a Convent.

THE followers of Roman Catholicism are anxious to have the blood of martyrs, which antichrist has shed, forgotten. Sometimes misrepresentation is employed, at other times the aid of the most barefaced falsehood is not rejected, when the object is to cast into oblivion the hosts of Protestant martyrs, and to depreciate our great Martyrologist and other great Christian historians. But Protestants should never forget, that whatever benignity or liberality may exist in some members of the Romish church, the system of that church is a murderous persecuting system; and that that church is represented by an infallible writer as a harlot drunk with the blood of martyrs: Rev. xvii. 5, 6.

The Rev. T. Scott observes, "No computation can reach the numbers who have been put to death in various ways on account of their maintaining the profession of the Gospel, and opposing the corruptions of the church of Rome. A million of the poor Waldenses perished in France; nine hundred thousand orthodox Christians were slain in less than thirty years after the institution of the Jesuits; the Duke of Alva boasted of having put thirty-six thousand to death in the Netherlands, by the hands of the common executioner, during the space of a few years. The Inquisition destroyed, by various tortures, one hundred and fifty thousand Christians within thirty years. These are a few specimens, and but a few, of those which history hath recorded; but the total amount will never be known till the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain: '"-Scott on Rev. xiii. 7. To these dreadful statements may be added the massacre of the Protestants in France, when one hundred thousand are said to have been murdered in a few days; the news of which gave such pleasure to the pope of Rome, that a jubilee was granted, the people were commanded to go to church and bless God for the success of the action, and it was decreed that the pope and his cardinals should march in procession to church, and give God thanks for so great a blessing. Afterwards followed the massacre in the reign of Charles I. of the Protestants in Ireland, when as many as two hundred thousands are by one computation stated to have been inhumanely murdered in a great variety of shocking ways.

After the Irish massacre pope Urban the Eight issued a bull to the Papists of Ireland, of which the following is a translation : "URBANUS OCTAVUS, &c.

"Having taken into our serious consideration the great zeal of the Irish towards the propagation of the Catholic faith, and having got certain notice how, in imitation of their godly and worthy ancestors, they endeavour, by force of arms, to deliver their enthralled nation from the oppression of heretics, and gallantly to do what lieth in them to EXTIRPATE and totally root out these workers of iniquity, who, in the kingdom of Ireland, had infected the mass of Catholic purity with the pestiferous leaven of their heretical contagion; we, therefore, being willing, with the gifts of those spiritual graces whereof we are ordained the only disposers on earth, and by virtue of that power of binding and loosing of souls, which God was pleased to confer on us, to all and every one of the faithful Christians in the aforesaid kingdom of Ireland, and now for the time militating against heretics, do grant full and plenary indulgence and absolute remission of ALL their sin. Desiring heartily all the faithful in Christ, now in arms, to be partakers of this most precious treasure.

"Dated at Rome, in the Vatican of St. Peter's Palace, May 25, 1643."

Many causes now operate to check the display of such a spirit on the part of Romanism as was manifested on the tragical occasions just mentioned; yet there is no reason for believing that its spirit is essentially changed; it has renounced no one of its persecuting principles. In Dens's Complete Body of Theology, of which one edition was published through the unanimous agreement of the Roman Catholic Irish bishops in 1808, and another in 1832, dedicated with his approbation to their archbishop for Dublin, the following statements appears:

"Heretics, Schismatics, Apostates, and all similar persons who have been baptized, are bound by the laws of the Church which concern them, nor are they more released from her laws than subjects rebelling against their lawful prince are released from the laws of that prince. By baptism they are made subject to the Church, and they remain personally subject to the Church wheresoever they may be.

"Are Heretics justly punished with death? "St. Thomas answers, 2. 2. quest. 11. art. 3. in Corp.' Yes: because forgers of money or other disturbers of the state are justly punished with death; therefore, also,