rejection of some vital article of faith. We are bound by the apostolic judgment to be " enlarged," (2 Cor. vi. 13.) "Come out from among them and be ye separate," saith the Lord, (2 Cor. vi. 17.) The church of England for example can recognise neither the adoration of the Eucharist, nor the denial of the divinity of our Lord and Saviour. In either case there is a rent made in the seamless robe of the Redeemer-a disunion in society. We have only space to refer to a few of the passages of Scripture where these needless "divisions" (aipéørıç) (Acts vi. 7; Ġal. v. 20;) are emphatically condemned-turn to Matt. xii. 25; 1 Cor. i. 10, 12, 13; iii. 1, 3, 4; Gal. v. 19, 20.

Thus have we, pursuing the track so ably cleared for us by our reverend pioneer, demonstrated, we hope to the reader's satisfaction, from Scripture and reason, and from what was the practical belief in the golden era of the faith, that it was the design of the Almighty that all men should be one in Christ, whose visible church (whatever its locality) must be necessarily united in the knowledge of the truth, in the spirit of love, and in the catholic communion of its worshippers. There is an important corollary to be drawn from this irrefragable verity, which, from the vast consequences which hinge upon it, might almost be called an axiom in christian polity.

The mind of man opens slowly to abstract ideas; and the narrow and invisible path to heaven is difficult, if not impossible, to corporeal beings, destitute of superior guidance. Let them quit the company of their brethren who are pursuing the track beaten and laid down by the apostles,-let them go astray after their own vain imaginings, and with darkened heart follow those meteors of the air, which, like the horizon, always fly before them, they will find it hard to retrace their flight, or play, an after game of repentance. They may, indeed,

but they soon get entangled in the whirlwind, or else their Icarian pinions become relaxed by the rays of that luminary they would scan too nearly:

"All unawares, fluttering its pennons vain,
Plumb down it drops."

Thus separation brings with it its proper punishment; and by the very act of violating the bond of peace and departing from the holy catholic Church, the wings of the soul get entangled in pride and presumption, which are the antagonist principles of love. So they soon feel themselves too far gone to recede.. Returning were as tedious as go o'er;" and so, according to an emphatic expression of the inspired writer, "They detain the truth in unrighteousness," (Rom. i. 18.) They may indeed

know, and in their hearts approve what is true, but nevertheless labour to support and perpetuate what is false, against which the wrath of God is revealed from heaven. Indeed, the difference between religious sects, and likewise between those sects and the Establishment, is more frequently founded upon passion than on principle; and till the irregular affections of men be corrected, it is vain, we fear, to expect a perfect or cordial unanimity. The love of novelty, the pride of argumentation, the pleasure of making proselytes, and the obstinacy of contradiction, will for ever give rise to sects and disputes; nor is it possible, while human nature remains what it always has been, that such a source of controversy and dissension can be entirely exhausted. And this brings us to an important conclusion, with an eye to which the observations that opened the present paper were hazarded. It is the persuasion of many that the majority of those who have gone out of the church of England, are nothing like so obtuse and ignorant as we churchmen-being more humble-minded, and who know and feel that wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar; and that we must take root downwards, if we would bear fruit upwards-are apt to imagine. We hold that, to multitudes of educated dissenters, the little volume of Mr. Kemp will impart not a syllable of which they were not already just as conscious as he is himself. It is not their theoretical convictions that require any enlightening, but their heart, which needs to imbibe that understanding which will dissipate the fumes of conceit and arrogance in the knowledge of God. Any ray of that knowledge they are obstinately bent upon shutting out; and as the human mind is cunning in dwelling upon its own fatuities, they form a theory to themselves to justify their conduct, and to prevent the darkness of that cloud, which hangs over their soul, from being ever dispelled. Such is the dexterity of self-love, that the very Socinian will find some apology to lay to his soul; and since all error is only a degree of madness, will believe himself in the right, even against conviction. It is easier to forego those lesser sins which are more properly carnal, than to remove the devil, whose wickednesses are malice, and revenge, and opposition, and a complacence in working and beholding confusion; and thus every man will blink the rays of truth, and strive to persuade himself, even against the secret instincts of his own mind, that he is in the right. We will risk the assertion, however paradoxical it may read, that the majority of mankind is at once much less and much more in error than they appear to their fellows. Blind to their own foolishness, they truly deem themselves more knowing than their neighbour esteemeth them; but could he, on the other hand, be cognizant of their weakness, did he view them really as they are, his opinion of their folly would be heightened. It is not any deficiency of learning or judgment that is the cause of man's

spiritual blindness; but often rather the fire of his heart being smothered by the superfluity of pertinacious wit. Supposing we are right in this our hypothesis, it would follow that those who attack the head go the wrong way about. If we be not indulging in a fallacious view of what constitutes one of the principal sources of dissent, argumentative treatises like that of Mr. Kemp are hardly the thing needed. The difficulty lies much deeper. Thousands, of course, not feeling the incommensurable importance of the subject, although they may think it likely the church of England is the true church, remain Methodists or Baptists, simply because they were unalterably determined to the mode of worship professed by their family and immediate connexions. And thousands again, without entertaining any thing like what merits to be called conviction, pretend to have imbibed a theoretic notion of Christianity, which they cannot make cohere with the articles of the established Church. But their very dissent belies their secret opinions; and the opinion itself often contracts a kind of falsehood, and belies their inward sentiment. They do not choose to look deeper or further, for very fear-(Oh, the dreadful infatuation of this world!)—that if they do, they may ascertain that they themselves have taken a fallacious and short-sighted view, and discover that the established Church is not so much in the wrong. These sort of men, out of that bastard wisdom which goes by the name of shrewdness, are fain to worship God and acknowledge the Redeemer after some new-fangled Socinian prescript. Upon nonconformists like these-and though not Legion, we are of opinion they make up the majority of the dissenting body-all reasoning is thrown away. Notwithstanding their vituperations, their conviction is more affected than real, and scarce ever approaches in any degree to that solid belief and persuasion by which we are governed in the common affairs of life. They are circumfused in clouds of complacent self-delusion, which bid defiance to all the weapons drawn from the armoury of truth. As for examining their own principles piecemeal, they soon feel it is out of the question, since they vanish, if approached and looked at too nearly. When they declaim the loudest against our clergy, they are least in earnest. They merely give voice to assertions, of which, in their own hearts (even be they just), they have neither conviction nor comprehension. They seem determined nonconformists and enemies to the established Church, without being so in reality; or at least without knowing their own minds in that particular. Such men are logic-proof; and they become through habit so rooted in error, that not even the heavenly diet of affliction shall cause them to abstain from searching the holy volume, not (to use the words of St. Augustine) to find reasons of faith, but pretexts of infidelity.--We purpose to resume this subject in our next number.

ART. V.-Memoirs of the Council of Trent; principally derived from Manuscript and unpublished Records; namely, Histories, Diaries, Letters, and other Documents, of the leading Actors in that Assembly. With Plates. By the REV. JOSEPH MENDHAM, M. A. London: Duncan. 1834. Supplement to the above, by the same Author. 1836.

WE presume we shall have credit when we say for ourselves, that we are no friends to controversy, much less its admirers. The peaceable possession of what we think we have a right to, and what we likewise value, would be, in our estimate, far preferable to the most splendid laurels which can be won in the field of literary warfare, whether philosophic or theologic. At any rate, where the matter in contest is of any value, we certainly prefer controversy to surrender.. And we believe the world is quite on our side, whatever may be the declamations or sneers of a certain and rather numerous class, when they happen to be thinking of nothing but religion. With these, and with every body else, we perfectly agree, that where the subject of controversy is of none or little value, the controversy has neither motive nor justification. It is on this principle, that our opinion harmonizes with that of the vulgar, in not passing any very pungent censure upon the controversies which overspread the whole face of civilized, and perhaps more, uncivilized society. We are careful how we condemn debates in our houses of parliament, though not always so temperate as they might be; because the liberty of the subject to do bad as well as good, and various other comforts of this life, are the matter in controversy. We are gentle towards all the litigations, sober and otherwise, of our courts of law, because a serious affair is at stake. We are not indignant that an individual, when grossly calumniated, should, if the law will not help him, fly to his pen, and wield it with some freedom of severity against the assailant: his reputation is of value, at least in his own eyes. And has the philosopher no indulgence to spare for those, who, with all due respect for temporalities of every kind, may chance to think, that it is likewise an affair of some importance, how a rational and accountable creature, like man, stands in the view of his Maker-what are his prospects for another scene of existence-whether there be any intelligible and sure way of escaping evil and securing good, both of them, as may be believed, and on some authority, extreme and without termination? Something like this is the state of the case as respects those who undertake to defend religion, or rather Christianity, against those who impugn it, and would defeat its intentions, its tendency, and its effect. It is as supposable that, on this subject, there may be a right way and a wrong way, as that a benighted traveller in an unknown country may have two courses before him, at the end of one of which may

be a precipice, which he could not be expected to see and avoid, while the other might lead to a place of safe and comfortable entertainment.*

We need hardly say, how all this applies to the controversy in existence between the Roman and the Protestant churches. We have no fear in saying, because we have no fear of being able to prove, that the wrong way and the precipice all belong to the church of Rome. Such being the case, we must be allowed to think, that the controversy between us is of some importance. It was not likely that an ecclesiastical community of such outrageous and exclusive pretensions, as this community puts forward, should patiently submit to so foul a stigma. Rome has flown to her. defence with resolution, and even fury; and to her right of selfdefence, as far as she fairly pursues it, no demur ought to be, interposed. But both her arms, and her way of using them, should be fair and honest; and we know well enough they are far from being so; indeed, she would get nothing by such a course, and she only appears to get by the opposite. To be short, the stratagem upon which she most relies, when contending with protestants, is, at pleasure, without conscience, and frequently in contempt of common decency, to deny, article by article, the whole round of her creed-to turn her back upon each, as may be required, of the approved, sainted, calendared, doctors of her church; not sparing the great head himself, who (as friends well understand and can take liberties with each other) suffers all to pass quietly and unnoticed. By the rules of the papal drama, all this is transacted aside.†

But to this mode of defence, or rather its success, the Council of Trent at the time opposed, and still opposes, and ever will oppose, a mighty obstacle. Wave impelling wave in the course of a mysterious and irresistible providence (we are borrowing the sense of the admirable work before us), the church of Rome was involuntarily carried on to the performance of acts, which explained and bound her in such a way, that her tergiversations and maskings would do her little good, except with those who might not understand the means which she had put into the

* My Lord John Russell, in harmony with the late Dr. Doyle, is sorely vexed that efforts should be made to substitute Christianity for popery in the minds of the enslaved population in Ireland. It irritates the Catholics, and on a subject of no importance! A new edition of Sir Humphrey Lynde's "Via Tuta" and "Via Devia," with notes, from his Posthumous Vindication," by D. Featley, entitled "A Case for the Spectacles," would be a very acceptable present to Protestant readers at this time.

There is a society-a secular one, we guess-whose members would consider it a mortal offence to be known or recognised by their most intimate friends in public.