inviolably; and do call all the heavenly and glorious host of heaven to witness these my real intentions, to keep this my oath. In testimony thereof I take this most holy and blessed sacrament of the Eucharist; and witness the same further with my hand and seal, in the face of the covenant this day of

Anno Domini, &c."

After a careful perusing of this oath, may it not be asked, can such a body of men be considered safe subjects in a protestant country? If occasion served, would our beloved sovereign Queen Victoria be secure upon her throne? See the many plots this party laid against Queen Elizabeth, amongst which was not the least cunning and diabolical-the poisoned chair.

THE INQUISITION.

FOR the benefit of such of my readers as may not know what the inquisition is, I shall give some account of it. The inquisition is a kind of ecclesiastical court, which take cognizance of all kinds of heresies. It was instituted in the thirteenth century, by the court of Rome, and admitted into some kingdoms of Europe, but resolutely and successfully opposed in others, The principal officers of this court are called, "Inquisitors of heretical pravity." They occupy a building called the "Palace of the inquisition," where, they hold their sitting for the trial of heretics. They have under

them certain servants whom they call "familiars,” who execute their orders, and answer to our baliffs in

the ordinary courts of justice. When a person is

suspected of heresy, one of these familars is sent by the inquisitor to seize him. This order is executed with such astonishing address and secrecy, that a man is missed without any one knowing what has become of him, and an instance stands recorded, of a man, his three sons, and three daughters, who lived all in the same house, being put into prisons of the inquisition, and not knowing of each other being there, till seven years after, when those who were alive came forth in an (6 Act of Faith."

When the familiars have brought the offender into the prison, he is questioned by the inquisitor; and if he denies, or persists in his supposed heresy, his constancy is tried by various kinds of torture, such as placing his feet to the fire, pouring water down his throat, till it runs out again at his mouth, plying his flesh with hot pincers, or stretching his limbs on the rack, till they are moved out of the sockets. If he stands all this, he is considered as incorrigible, and delivered over to the civil magistrate, to be committed to the flames. However, when the inquisitors. are giving him up to the magistrate, they charge him not on any account to hurt the poor creature-a piece of hypocrisy so gross as scarcely to be believed, were. not the evidence such as to destroy the possibility of a

doubt.

same way,

If I had lived in Spain or Portugal (thank God I do not), I should have had to encounter all the rigour of the inquisition for the great offence of reading the word of God, and if I had not given up what I found therein, and promised to offend no more the I should in the end have been committed to the flames as an incorrigible heretic; perhaps some of my readers will scarcely credit this assertion, that do not know the reading of the scriptures is prohibited by the highest authority in the Church of Rome. For the conviction of such, I insert the following edict of the Council of Trent, which I consider as one of the most stupendous monuments of human folly or wickedness to be met with in the annals of the world. Reader behold it! "All Bibles extant in the vulgar tongue are prohibited, with all parts of them, either printed or manuscript, with all summaries and abridgments (although historical) of the Bible, and books of the holy scriptures, in the vulgar language or tongue." Did the members of this celebrated council read the scriptures or not? It they did not, they were surely but indifferent guides for the Romish Church; and if they did they seem to have had but little respect for the authority of Christ and his apostles, when they could make such a decree in direct opposition to the following texts.

"Jesus answered and said, ye do err, not knowing the scriptures." Matt. xxii. 29. Again he says,

"Search the rcriptures." John v. 39. The Bereans are commended for searching the scriptures. "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." Acts xvii. 11. And he speaks of Timothy with approbation, as one who had known the scriptures from his earliest years. "From a child hast thou known the scriptures." 2 Tim. iii. 15. But why say more on a point which cannot be disputed by any who abide by the word of God? Look to it reader, that thou art not abetting this anti-christian decree! I shall conclude these remarks with the following short but interesting anecdote. An eminent divine of the Roman Catholic church, who seems to have possessed more honesty than prudence, asked one day in his sermon, "What is truth?" After pausing a little he said, "I have found it at last," and shewing a New Testament, told his hearers that he held in his hand. "But" added he, putting it in his pocket, "this is prohibited."

DOCTRINE OF CREATURE WORSHIP
CONSIDERED.

As Jesus Christ is partially rejected as the atonement for sin and the saviour of mankind, by the members of the Church of Rome, they also reject him as their advocate, and introduce in his stead saints and angels, and whatever they say to the contrary, they pray ten times to the Virgin Mary for once to God: in the prayer called the Pater and Avea, which they most commonly use, the conclusion of which is this "Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and in the hour of our death, Amen." Let none deny this, for thousands of times have I repeated this prayer, and heard others do so too; and in the Litany of the Saints, which is inserted in the Manual, there is a long catalogue of the names of different saints, and the name of each of them is mentioned separately; at the conclusion of which is said, "Pray for us." Now is anything clearer than that these are made mediators instead of Christ? And yet the ingenious pastors of the Church of Rome, (whose extraordinary faith, and superior power, enable them to imagine that they can change anything into every thing, or nothing) meet with no difficulty in denying this, when the impropriety of it is questioned and