upon Dr. Milner for a proof of his assertion. I have it declared by Bishop Cameron upon oath, that our own Mr. Scott is a priest in a most extensive ministry; that there is none like it within the jurisdiction of the diocesan of the lowlands of Scotland: and I hereby challenge him to adduce a single instance of a real Protestant calling or sending for this priest, at the hour of death, in order to be reconciled to the church of Rome, that he might have the benefit of dying in her communion. I am persuaded that nothing of the kind has occurred during the incumbency of this gentleman; but if he has indeed been called upon for the above purpose, in one single instance, I call upon him for the name and designation of the party; and if he shall furnish me with but one, the world shall hear of it, and all about it.

Dr. Milner is speaking of persons, who, during their lives, entertain doubts of the truth of their religion. These are not truly Protestants; and, what is a more serious consideration, such persons are not truly Christians; for nothing can be more unchristian like than to entertain doubts of the truth of the Christian religion. Dr. Milner will evade this by saying, he does not mean persons who entertain doubts of the Christian religion; "but those who entertain doubts concerning the truth of their religion." But this is admitting, and even pleading, that their religion is something different from the Christian religion; and, therefore, the boasted achievement of converting such persons to popery, is merely turning them from one system of error to another.

Such persons are represented as experiencing "redoubled anxiety at the approach of death." And no wonder. They do not believe the divine testimony concerning Jesus Christ. They have doubts about the truth of their religion; which is quite inconsistent with a belief of the gospel; and in such a state of mind they must be horribly anxious in the prospect of death; unless, as is often the case, they be quite insensible of their sin and danger. These are the sort of persons of whom Dr. Milner boasts, as seeking, at the point of death, to be reconciled to the church of Rome, that they may die in her communion.

This furnishes a strong argument against that church. It presents her in the light of a mere empiric; who, by certain incantations, can perform cures better than any regular practitioner. The regular prescription of the word of God to sinners in the prospect of death, as well as to those just entering upon active life, is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ;"" Repent and be converted, and ye shall receive the remission of sins." This is what we are authorized to say to the greatest sinners, even at the point of death; and the Lord may bless his own word for the salvation of the vilest, at the last hour, as no doubt he has done to many. But in general those who live in sin, are left to die as they have lived. They have, perhaps, no person about them who can tell them of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, for the salvation of the ungodly; or, if they should be favoured by the presence of such; and if they should have the gospel of the grace of God stated to them ever so plainly and affectionately, their carnal mind, instead of being subdued, may revolt and rebel against it, as insulting to them, who, notwithstanding innumerable transgressions, are still so far righteous in their own eyes, that they cannot submit to the gospel plan, or accept of salvation as the free gift of divine mercy.

Now popery is just the thing that suits such persons. It flatters them VOL. II.-68

with a hope of salvation without the hard necessity of denying themselves, of forsaking their sins, and submitting to the righteousness of God. It is not wonderful that persons who do not understand the gospel method of salvation, should submit to popish teaching, which is so agreeable to the principles of our fallen nature. The mystery is, that so few, among thousands of merely nominal Protestants, should fall into the snare that is laid for them by a host of cunning seducers, in the form of popish priests, who prowl about the country seeking whom they may deceive. They tell the simple and the serious-those who seem to be concerned for the salvation of their souls, but who have not found peace of mind, and hope towards God by the belief of his word, which is perhaps the melancholy condition of not a few, that if they will become reconciled to the church, they will insure their eternal salvation and as drowning persons will catch at a straw in hope of being saved by means of it, so such persons as are here described will put implicit confidence in their ghostly advisers, and submit to their teaching and discipline, in the hope of finding that peace which the word of God does not profess to give to any man, but in connexion with his being renewed from sin to holiness. The priest, as I have often said, promises peace of mind without this condition; and, considering how ignorant of Christianity many who are called Protestants are, it is not surprising that now and then, an individual, alarmed by the prospect of death, should grasp at the peace and security which a priest promises with so much confidence, and seek admission to the church that professes to save him by certain operations, such as the sacraments, without his being obliged to renounce either his sins or his righteous

ness.

The wonder is, that popery has not more of such converts to boast of; and it is indeed a wonder that our Glasgow Papists cannot boast of a single instance. There are, no doubt, many among us who would like to go to heaven, who do not like the gospel way; but to whom the popish way would be perfectly agreeable, were it not for the expense; yet we might expect that persons would get over this difficulty when about to die, though it seems they cannot; for I assert again, that of that which Dr. Milner declares to be so common, I never heard of a single instance having happened in Glasgow; and I do not believe such a thing can be proved.

I shall here give an illustrious example of the sort of conversion of which Dr. Milner boasts, and of the means by which it was effected. It is that of Anthony Ulric, duke of Brunswick, whose case is cited by Dr. Milner himself, as an evidence of the truth of his statements. The duke took it into his head, in his old age, to be reconciled to the church of Rome, from which his fathers had separated. He had been brought

Two Papists lately ventured into a Protestant place of worship, in the neighbourhood of this city, where they heard the gospel of salvation by free grace. This was so different from what they had been accustomed to hear, that it excited their serious attention; and one was heard to say to the other, on retiring:-"Well, if what this priest says be true, I shall never go to chapel again; for here we are told that God will pardon our sins without any money at all." I do not boast of this as a conversion from popery, for the man's mind does not appear to have risen any higher than the idea of escaping punishment without expense. Had he thought of the necessity of his forsaking sin, which, according to the gospel plan, is as necessary as having it pardoned, he would probably have preferred paying money to the priest as before. I mention this as probable; but, perhaps, I ought to hope for better things.

up a Protestant; but never having known what true Christianity was, he fell into doubts, and began a search after the true religion, which, according to his own account, he pursued most systematically, until he thought he found it in the church of Rome. He wrote a book, or some one for him, entitled, "The duke of Brunswick's fifty reasons for preferring the Roman Catholic religion to all other sects." The following is his concluding and crowning reason, which may be considered as comprising the substance of his whole fifty: "I observed that many sectaries, who had seemed for many years to be fixed in their persuasion, were converted towards the end of their days, and desired to die in the Roman Catholic faith. But never did I meet with any Catholic that wished to die in another religion. Now it is chiefly at the hour of death that the soul opens its eyes into a clearer prospect of things eternal. For my own part, I resolved to live as I should wish to die; and for that reason I came to a resolution to embrace immediately the Catholic faith; because death is as certain as its hour is uncertain. Besides that, the Catholics, to whom I spoke concerning my conversion, assured me, that if I were to be damned for embracing the Catholic faith, they were ready to answer for me at the day of judgment, and to take my damnation upon themselves: an assurance I could never extort from the ministers of any sect, in case I should live and die in their religion. Whence I inferred that the Roman Catholic faith was built upon a better foundation than any of those sects that have divided from it."

Such was one of the most noble converts to popery since the reformation, and such was his crowning reason for being converted to what is falsely called the Catholic faith. It is not surprising that an old dotard, whose conscience was troublesome, should desire such peace as the church of Rome promises to give; and seeing he had adopted the notion that the church and her priests were infallible, and could not tell a lie, it is not wonderful that he should have believed that they were able and willing to take his damnation upon themselves, if necessary to allow him to escape, seeing, no doubt, he would pay them well for it; but, I suppose, it will appear to some of my readers very surprising, that English Papists, in the nineteenth century, with the vicar apostolic at their head, should boast of such a convert, and hold forth to the world such an argument, or reason, for his conversion-" that if he should be damned for becoming a Papist, they would answer for him at the day of judgment, and take his damnation upon themselves!" The impiety and the impudence of the thing are beyond all expression; yet it must be the sentiment of English Papists at this day, and probably one of the means by which they make converts, seeing the book is strongly recommended by Dr. Milner, and the edition before me was printed in Manchester, as lately as 1802. This alone is enough to show that popery has received no amelioration; and that even the intellectual condition of Papists is deplorably low, notwithstanding the advancement of science, and the general diffusion of knowledge all around them. Not a particle of light seems to have entered their minds. To things spiritual and moral they are as much in the dark as their fathers were in the age of lead; and they exhibit at this moment such a prostration of intellect as we would scarcely expect to find among the most ignorant Hottentots.

Here I expect to be condemned by my polite and ultra liberal readers, for using language too strong; but let them look at the passage again,

and let them try, if they can, to find words sufficiently strong to condemn such diabolical villany. I should rather say popish villany; for I believe there is nothing recorded of the devil in sacred or profane history that can match this. I never heard of him promising those whom he wished to deceive, that if they should be damned, he would take their damnation on himself. This consummate species of imposition was reserved to be practised by modern Papists, for the purpose of gaining converts to the church of Rome.

What is thus urged to prove the certainty of his highness' faith, shows in a very strong light that he had no certainty at all, but was agitated by doubts and fears. He was not satisfied by his previous forty-nine reasons. He catches hold of this last one; and upon it he is willing to venture his eternity. He is conscious that he has nothing but the word of fellow-creatures to rely upon; but this satisfies him, seeing he believes that if he is deceived by them they must be damned for him. Yet, after all, he is not clear about this, for his words bear that he might be damned first: and he trusts to their being able and willing to take the sentence upon themselves. A generous mind could feel no satisfaction in the reflection that others were damned in his stead. Had his highness condescended to take the Bible for his guide, he would have found, that the principle which he avows was enough to condemn the whole system. Upon the gospel plan, there is no such thing as one man's escaping damnation at the expense of his neighbour's falling into it. Christianity knows of no substitution but that of Jesus Christ, who voluntarily put himself in the place of fallen man, that he might put away sin by the sacrifice of himself; and, having made atonement and reconciliation by his sufferings to the death, he rose from the dead to bestow the benefits resulting from his death upon all, of every nation, who should believe in him. One of these blessings is reconciliation and love to our fellow-men; especially our fellowchristians. It is one blessed fruit of the reconciliation effected by Christ's death, that every one who believes and becomes interested in it, is taught to love his neighbour as himself. It is absolutely impossible that such a one should enjoy peace of mind from the reflection, that if he were damned, his neighbour would take the sentence upon him, and suffer in his stead. This, however, is the grand consideration that gave peace to the mind of the duke of Brunswick, whose example is in the strongest manner recommended by Dr. Milner, for the imitation of his Protestant friends in England. Upon this ground alone, though there were nothing else, every intelligent reader will perceive that popery is the very opposite of genuine Christianity.

His highness complains that he could never get the ministers of any sect to promise that they would take his damnation upon them, if he should die in their communion; from which he infers that the Roman faith was built upon a better foundation than theirs. Now, had he possessed a particle of common sense, he would have come to the very opposite conclusion. He would have said, "these are honest men; they know what they are about; and they are careful not to promise what they may not be able to perform." Had they been deceivers and Jesuits, who had no higher end in view, than to make merchandise of his soul, they would have promised any thing he pleased: but they knew that no man could stand in the place of another at the day of

judgment: they knew that no man could escape damnation but in the way of being personally united to Christ by faith, and personally renewed from sin to holiness, of which, I suppose, they saw no evidence in his highness; and, therefore, they would not flatter him with the false hope of his being saved, by his merely remaining in their communion. The statement of the fact, under his highness' own hand, does great honour to the Protestants with whom he had conferred. It proves that they were not time-servers; but faithful ministers of Jesus Christ, who invites the high as well as the low to partake of the blessings which the gospel brings to their view,-not in this communion, or that communion exclusively, but by coming to the knowledge of the truth, and submitting to the righteousness of God.

One main pillar in the Romish idol temple is, that the salvation of men is secured by their being in her communion. Let poor simpletons submit to this, and the priests take all the rest upon themselves. If they can prevail upon poor, ignorant, wicked persons, at the point of death, to believe in their miraculous powers, which may happen in some instances, for the sake of the false peace in which they would rather die than without any peace at all, they submit to be baptized and anointed by priestly hands, and absolved by certain Latin words from a priestly tongue; and then the poor sinner says, Peace, peace, to himself, when there is really no peace; and he goes down to the grave with a lie put into his mouth by his ghostly deceiver. Such are the conversions of Protestants at the hour of death, which Dr. Milner boasts of as so frequent; but I again challenge Mr. Scott to produce a single instance of the kind under his ministry.

My mercantile readers understand what is meant by a guarantee commission; and they are aware that this is, or ought to be, in proportion to the degree of risk. No doubt, therefore, the duke of Brunswick paid largely for the risk which the priests took upon themselves; and if this number of mine should ever reach a descendant of that illustrious house, from which our own royal family is sprung, I request that strict search may be made in the archives of the family, in order to ascertain what his highness really paid for the accommodation which the priests granted to him. It must have been something very considerable; and yet, if we can suppose that these priests received a pecuniary consideration, for taking the duke's damnation upon themselves, we must suppose them to have been infidels of the most abandoned description. In this, however, there is nothing worse than what happens every day, in their trafficking for the release of souls from purgatory.

CHAPTER CLXXXIX.

DOCTOR MILNER'S TRUE RULE DISCUSSED.

HIS REMARKS ON TRADITION. RELIGION THE SUBJECT OF REVELATION FROM THE BEGINNING-NOT OF TRADITION. MEANING OF THE WORD TRADITION AS USED BY THE APOSTLES.

SATURDAY, February 23d, 1822. IN taking leave of what Dr. Milner calls the second false rule of faith, I remark, that I have not attempted to reply to all the nonsense