blishment; and we conceive its constitution and administration to be alike unscriptural. We rejoice at the same time, in the number of its pious, intelligent, and useful members, and are willing, most cordially, to unite with them on the common principles of our Protestant Christianity, in every "work of faith and labour of love." But we cannot forget that in many instances, the Church of England symbolises with the Church of Rome, conforms to its ceremonies, adopts its notions of the efficacy of sacraments, imbibes a large portion of its anti-catholic spirit, and arrogates to itself the same exclusive privileges which the more consistent Church of Rome, denies alike to all, who secede from her communion. We consider the reformation still imperfect and incomplete, and believe that in proportion to the right understanding of the only rational and defensible principle of separation from the Roman hierarchy, will that deficiency be generally acknowledged and deplored.

In the second place, I would exhort you, my Christian friends, to the duty of unfeigned gratitude to God, that you live in a day when the rights of conscience are recognized, and the blessings of religious liberty, more widely diffused than at any preceding period. Of all earthly enjoyments, religious liberty is the most valuable. It is the unalienable right of every human being; and no occasional disorder arising from its abuse and perversion, can equal the consequences which spring from unrighteous attempts to restrain and abridge its operations. To God alone I am accountable for my religious principles; and what secular power ought to interfere between God and conscience? There was a period, when such a power did interfere; when our venerable forefathers were exposed to personal suffering, and the loss of all their temporal and social comforts, because they could not

conform to an ecclesiastical requisition. There was a period, when the same sanguinary principle that lighted the torch of persecution in Smithfield, prepared an act of uniformity, and all its dreadful apparatus of imprisonment, spoliation and exile for puritans and non-conformists. There was a period when a Presbyterian bigot, called toleration, the gangrene of the church, upbraided the Protector for allowing all the subjects of his government, the exercise of their religious rights. But those times are gone by-we trust, for ever! In this land of liberty, we may hear the distant thunder of the Vatican, and smile at the fury of pontifical vengeance;-it "grieves, but alarms us not." The demon of persecution, starting from. his slumber and his chains, may shake himself as aforetime: and the racks and tortures of the Inquisition may be again applied to the victims of a relentless intolerance. The disciples of Loyola may creep forth from their lurking places and bask in the sunshine of papal favour. But these we trust are only the convulsive efforts of a dying cause, permitted to exhibit to the world the unaltered features of that despotism which has so long revelled in its usurpations, and scattered around it, “firebrands, arrows, and death!" Let us, Christians, rejoice in the unmolested liberties we enjoy, and fervently pray that the radiance of heavenly truth may dispel the delusions of superstition, the gloom of bigotry and the spiritual darkness which has so long invested the fairest portions of the earth! "ARISE O GOD, PLEAD THINE OWN CAUSE, LET NOT MAN PREVAIL!"

I would remind you, in the third place, of the obligations you are under as Protestants, to a corresponding and proportionate excellence of Christian character. You have advantages and privileges that involve in them, the most solemn and affecting responsibility. Your opportunities of

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knowledge and usefulness, your civil and religious liberties, your free access to the sacred Scriptures, and your abundant means of instruction are talents of high value, committed to your care, by the sovereign Proprietor of the universe. Your residence is fixed in the land of freedom and under the meridian of spiritual illumination. Let me ask— "what do YE more than others" who have not your advantages? While you contend for your rights and liberties as Protestants-are you genu ine and scriptural Christians? Are you "seeking FIRST the kingdom of God and his righteousness?" Does the "grace of God teach you to deny ungod "liness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world?" Are you as careful and devout in your religious observances, as regular in your attendance on divine worship, as conscientious in the performance of private duties, as many of the members of that communion from which you separate, and whose principles and institutions have formed the subjects of our investigation? Do you excel them in the knowledge of the word of God, and are you desirous of exemplifying the moral influence of your superior means of understanding divine truth, by the spirituality of your temper, the benevolence of your disposition, and the consistency of your deportment? Remember, my friends, "to whom much is given, of them much is required." It will be far more tolerable in the day of judgment," for those who have lived under the darkest night of Popery, than for you, who "know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ," amidst the religious privileges of the present day.

Let me exhort you, in the fourth place, to cultivate and display a spirit of habitual kindness and conciliation towards those who differ from you. This requires no sacrifice of truth, no compromise

of principle, no unhallowed and unscriptural concessions. You may be firm, intrepid, and inflexible advocates of what you conscientiously deem to be important, and expose in all their folly and deformity the consequences and tendencies of error; and yet towards those who maintain it, you may and you ought to manifest the spirit of Christian meekness. Candour is not indifference, and zeal is not intolerance; and while you avoid these dangerous extremes, you may unite those truly Christian virtues for which they are often the specious substitutes. Let me beseech you, never to imitate the worst part of Poperyits uncharitable and ferocious bigotry. Never imagine that penal and disqualifying statutes will convince a man's judgment, and reclaim him from his prejudices. Oppose sophistry by argument, absurdity by exposure, and tradition by Scripture. Distinguish between persons and principles; and remember the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

Finally, I would remind you of the duty of holding fast your profession, and attempting by every rational and scriptural method, to diffuse the knowledge of those great principles, which give to the Protestant cause all its value and importance. Because Protestantism restores to the Scriptures their paramount and exclusive sufficiency, it presents the purest medium for the communication and defence of sacred truth. But Protestantism itself is of no value, if the great and characteristic peculiarities of the gospel be abandoned. Forget the principles for which the first reformers suffered and bled-the principles that support the hopes of a penitent sinner in the view of eternity-the principles that respect the state of man as a sinner -his justification by faith in a divine Redeemer, and the necessity of spiritual influence to enlighten and purify the darkened and polluted mind of

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ment of this engine of priestly and prelatical intolerance, under the reign of the despot who is now the King of Spain; and has condescended to maderate the severity of its operation. I know that there are intelligent and candid members of the Papal Church who deplore these evils, and condemn the intolerance out of which they arise; but such protestations are of no avail, and affect not the general argument supported by these facts, that persecution is cherished and sanctioned by the principles of their system. Let those in authority in their Church, their bishops and dignitaries, and secular powers unite in promoting the convention of a general council; let that council under the presidency of their pontiff revoke, cancel and annul all the acts of former councils, which directly or indirectly support the principles of force and coercion in religious matters; let them recognise the rights of conscience and destroy the Inquisition; let them condemn all interference of the civil with the ecclesiastical power, and limit the jurisdiction of the clergy to the spiritual duties of their office; let them promulgate the healing principles of conciliation and employ in the support of their system, only the weapons of persuasion and reasoningand then, I will venture to predict, Popery will be harmless. But as soon may the "Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots," as this revolution be effected in the principle and tendencies of the papal religion.

It has been often retorted on Protestants, by the advocates of Popery, that they have been guilty of the crime of persecution; and they will not unfrequently present their martyrology of those who suffered in the reigns of Elizabeth and her immediate successors as proofs of the fact. I have already confessed that the first reformers did not reform at once and immediately, the dreadful heresy of persecution. Too long the Protestant