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interest of our opponents, they serve rather as proofs of the instability and badness of that cause which they are brought forward to maintain; and must convince, even the most casual observer, that reason and religion can have no connexion with a party who are compelled to have recourse to such puerile tricks to maintain even a shadow of authority over ignorance and superstition.

This creed has in truth placed an impassable barrier betwixt Popery and the Reformation, and has for ever separated the Roman from all other Christian Churches. For by the decision of the Council of Trent many of their errors have become articles of faith, and been declared necessary to salvation: and every one who ventures to express a doubt respecting the doctrines or discipline of the Roman See is stigmatized as an heretic. "You may not," says the learned author of the Holy Inquisition, “question, nor so much as hesitate about any point in the new Articles; neither may you interpret them, or seek to give them a commodious sense, as certain Bishops have endeavoured to do, to make them plausible: the whole creed and oath must go down in the Pope's sense that imposed it, be it what it will. So that except a man truly and thoroughly believe all this, he cannot with any conscience comply with the Church of Rome, or remain in its Communion. And all the gilded words and promises of the Popish Clergy to those they would seduce about tolerating different opinions, and leaving them to themselves; are (as appears by this Bull and Creed) but pious frauds, and downright lies."

The Papists have declared that salvation absolutely depends upon an implicit belief in certain doctrines, which God has no where revealed; which in many respects are directly contrary to his Word, and the true Catholic faith of all Christians. How different the conduct of our Reformers of the Church of England. They have not proclaimed any thing as necessary to salvation, but that which our Saviour himself hath declared; they have imposed no doubtful or controverted doctrines on the people; have taught nothing but that which all true Christians have professed in every age and nation; and in a word have given provocation to no men to withdraw themselves from the Protestant Communion, but to such as implicitly believe the Creed of Pius IV. which Mr. Butler acknowledges to be the standard of the Popish faith.-Pp. 25-29.

The following curious facts are well worth an attentive consideration :

There has from its infancy existed a practice in the Church of Rome, which calls for the most unqualified condemnation: we allude to the system of mutilating MSS. and expunging all those passages from the writings of the ancient fathers, which can be in any way interpreted to their disadvantage.

In the printed editions of St. Isidore these words are omitted: "Now bread and wine are therefore compared to the body and blood of Christ, because, as the substance of this visible bread and wine feeds and nourishes the outward man, so the Word of God, which is the living bread, doth refresh the souls of the faithful by the receiving thereof."

In a defence of the book of Bertram, published anonymously, and dedicated to the Right Honourable Henry Coventry, one of the Privy Councillors to King James II. the following remarkable confirmation of the facts above stated occurs, to which some reference is made in the Apology; "Rabanus, Archbishop of Mentz, whom Baronius styles the brightest Star of Germany, in his 'Penitentials' makes strong allusions to Paschasius and his followers, who had entertained false sentiments touching the sacraments of the Lord's body and blood; saying, “that this very body of our Lord, which was born of the Virgin Mary, in which our Lord suffered on the Cross, and rose again from the grave, is the same which we receive from the altar." These last words were, as Baluzius and F. Mabillon observe, razed out of the MS. from whence Stevartius published that epistle of Rabanus; which I take notice of, because Mr. Arnaud's modest Monk of St. Genouefte makes so much difficulty to believe Archbishop Usher, who tells of a passage of the same importance razed out of an old MS. Book of Penitential

Canons, in Bennet College Library, Cambridge, though he had seen it himself, and, no doubt, the other MS. also, out of which the lost passage was restored.— Pp. 37-39.

Mr. Isaacson then produces a mutilated passage of St. Chrysostom; and referring to Bishop Jewell for a similar example from Origen, he concludes the topic with the following observation :

It may perhaps be objected that these are antiquated facts: that it is not possible for the Church of Rome to be accountable for the individual acts of all its members; and that however true these accusations may be, still, these practices have long ceased under the milder influence and more enlightened sway of modern Popery. But what will the world say, when they find the great champion of the Romanists citing passages from works which have been thus mutilated; and extolling the piety and evangelical purity of Augustine, the Italian monk, as if he were a worthy inheritor of the name of the celebrated and truly Catholic Bishop of Hippo ?-P. 42.

It has always been a favourite argument against the superiority of the Protestant above the Romish faith, that its professors, and especially the English Protestants, "have gained nothing by the Reformation in temporal happiness." This conclusion has been drawn from a comparison between our national prosperity in the times before and after that event. Now, admitting that England was in a more prosperous condition in the times preceding the Reformation, than it has been since, we are by no means prepared to grant that the purity of a nation's faith is to be measured by its prosperity. But let us hear Mr. Isaacson::

The man, who can in the face of the world come to such conclusions, is only to be answered by another question; whether England does not hold a more distinguished situation since that event, than she did before it, not only over European States, but over those of the whole world? Whether, considering the present security of law, the liberty of the press, the stability of a settled succession to the crown, she will suffer by a comparison with her former state, before the Reformation? Whether she will suffer, when compared with France, or Spain, or Italy, or any other country, where the religion of the Church of Rome has never ceased to bestow her temporal blessings on the human race? Whether, beneath the prevalence of the Reformation, she has not risen to the highest summit of glory; whilst countries, professedly Papal, have sunk into insignificance amongst the States of Europe? We pity that blindness of religious prejudice, which can make an Englishman so far undervalue the blessings he now enjoys, as to mistake the base calm of submission to an absolute, or worse than absolute monarchy, for the security of law administered by a Sovereign, who can be considered in no other light, than as the father of his people! Where is the loyalty in such conclusions? What have we to expect from the patriotism of such sentiments as these?

Similar prejudices lead to similar conclusions in another question; "has England gained, by the Reformation, in spiritual wisdom?" The question is a fair one, but its answer consists in only unauthorized assumptions and illiberal attacks. Mr. B. demands, whether the great body of the English Clergy and Laity sincerely believe in the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, Divinity and Atonement of Christ? On these points, it is assumed, that before the Reformation, there was a general and sincere belief. But is this assumption true? As Protestants, at least we contend that they were absorbed, lost, and rendered totally unavailing to the sublime purposes for which they were revealed, by the

whence the sea would then penetrate one-half further into the crust of the earth, and thus present along its base a most formidable line of proximity with the fused and explosive metals of the interior. We may thus also perceive on what a tottering equilibrium the devoted dwelling-place of the Cainites was suspended. During nearly the whole period of its existence, the penal fire sent forth its convulsive prodigies, as if to repress the growing wickedness of man, but in vain. Mighty memorials of these tremendous earthquakes pervade the whole masonry of the antediluvian earth, from the deep carboniferous limestone, to the uppermost tertiary beds. After many a disregarded presage, however, the disruptive consummation arrived, the deluge rushed over the subverted lands, and a more stable terraqueous equilibrium ensued. Yet, for some time, the residuary diluvial waters would soak freely down into the still yawning crevices of the crust, and provoke fresh eruptions, almost rivalling those of the primeval ages. To this epoch obviously belong those vast lava torrents of extinct volcanoes in France, Germany, Italy, Hungary, &c. of whose activity there is not a traditional vestige; probably because the eruptions occurred before the posterity of Noah had colonised these western countries.

The second fossil enigma, which the superior depth of the primeval seas enables us completely to solve, is of still greater interest than the first to the natural history of the earth. "In the organic beings buried in the shelly strata," says Humboldt, "every thing astonishes, and nothing can be explained, as to the climate which gave them birth." To the many proofs of this proposition formerly given, we shall add a few decisive documents. Pp. 494-496.

These documents may be found in the general facts deduced from the geological observations made in the Northern voyages of our celebrated countrymen, Parry and Franklin-and may be seen in the Edinburgh Phil. Journal, New Series. Vol. ii. P. 105.

But the geologist starts a question which at first surprises, but which is capable of as correct a reply as any other-the question which relates to the destruction of the human race, when no record is discovered of any human fossil remains, although the whole variety of vegetable and animal creations are discovered in a state of perfectness; which, whilst it charms, astonishes the mind. On this point, we consider Dr. Ure's remarks as the most satisfactory we have yet seen. †

From the diminished area of the postdiluvian lands, and temperature of its seas, the new globe could not furnish room or food sufficient for the myriads of enormous animals which peopled its predecessor. Hence we may comprehend why the fossil elephant, mastodon, great cavern bear, palæotherium, megatherium, megaloynx, megalosaurus, and iguanodon, were not restored. Those powerful and voracious quadrupeds would have consumed the nascent herbage, which the horse, the cow, the sheep, and the other tribes of domestic animals required. Moreover, we may see that the multiplication of the former orders of wild beasts, would have been incompatible with the unbounded dispersion of

Of these, a fit subject for a separate treatise, we cannot venture a syllable—the matter is so prolific, that we should soon outrun patience as well as space.

+ Cuvier in his "Discours sur les Révolutions de la surface du Globe," p. 131-139, has some remarks which very nearly approach to those of Dr. Ure.-M. Alex. Bertrand in his "Lettres sur les Revolutions du Globe," copics them without reference. See Lettre xiii. "Des Brèches osseuses des Cavernes." P. 227. Vide also, "Bakewell's Geology." 3d Edition. Chapter I.

man over every district of the renovated earth. The primeval compatriots of Noah were certainly restricted to one region, now submersed; for human bones moulder as slowly in the earth as those of any brute animal, yet not one of them has been found of a truly fossil character. The conclusion, indeed, may be drawn from the prodigious herds of wild beasts which prowled through these northern regions of ours, that human society was not established there. The two were, in fact, incompatible, and could not dwell together. And further, we may venture to infer from the tenor of the Mosaic history, that God, foresceing the wickedness of Cain's progeny and their associates, benevolently restrained the progress of primeval population.

Thus we learn that Adam was 130 years old before the loss of Abel was repaired by the birth of Seth; and Seth lived 105 years before Enos his eldest son was born. Again, Enos was 90 years old before he had Cainan, to whom Mahaleel was born in his 76th year. After 65 years Jared appeared, who had no son, however, till he was 162 years of age. Then Enoch was born, who begat Methuselah in his 65th year; but Methuselah was 187 years old before he had Lamech, whose son Noah was born in his 182d year.-The average period which each of the primeval patriarchs lived before his eldest son was born, was therefore 1174 years.

Judging from these data, the only ones we have, the increase of population must have been very slow; Divine mercy limiting the victims of guilt and perdition. Multiplying in this temperate ratio, the race of man could not spread widely over the world, thinned as the members must also have been, by mutual violence, the dire legacy of Cain. Whither Adam went when banished from the district of Eden, we cannot tell. We formerly suggested that he and his family might have wandered into some great southern territory, which expiated the curse of God pronounced on the earth on account of Adam's sin, by its submersion at the deluge." And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold I will destroy them with the earth."—Genesis vi. 13. This language, as also St. Peter's emphatic term, anwλero (perished), could never be spoken of a transient inundation. Would any one affirm that Egypt perishes or is destroyed every summer, when its land disappears under the waters of the Nile? But if the earthy continent which was occupied by the antediluvians, being permanently overflowed with water, perished in the deluge, a result to which physical principles have already led us, then prior to that terraqueous revolution, the climate of the primeval lands and seas, even in arctic regions, must have been warm enough, as we have seen, to breed and nourish organic productions now confined to the tropics. Hence the bony relics of the elephant and rhinoceros, found in the soils of the north, instead of being obstacles to faith, become unimpeachable witnesses to the Divine inspiration of Moses, when he relates the destruction of the earth, along with its guilty inhabitants.

The same causes that are now narrowing the range of fertility in many tropical countries, the same pulverisation of the surface by continued drought, the same sand-flood must have acted with far greater force, on the relatively arid antediluvian lands. Hence most probably a great and rapidly widening zone on either side of the equator was altogether desolate. But the proportional area of land and water established by the deluge, is adapted to a more durable and extensive fertility of the globe, from the more abundant distribution of water in every form, solid, liquid, and gaseous. Pp. 596-599.

We have purposely left unnoticed the great mass of the work, not having intended to convey in this article geological instruction, properly so considered, but simply to state such arguments as throw light upon the disputed portions of inquiry, and to bring evidence, to shew that our character of the book, as fulfilling the promise of its title-page, is not exaggerated. We can, however, assure our

unauthorized additions and opinions, with which they were obscured by the Church of Rome.-Pp. 67-69.

The extracts which we have thus given will be a sufficient specimen of the powers of Mr. Isaacson as a writer, and a guarantee for the ability with which he has executed his translation of the Apology. We could wish that a smaller and less expensive edition were printed, for the purpose of a wider circulation; as in these days the book ought to be in every one's hand, from the highest to the lowest. As a library book, the volume before us is worthy of a splendid binding; whether it be calf-extra, or blue morocco with gilt leaves. But we should have rejoiced to see it thumbed and dogs-eared by every cottager in the kingdom; and in the most ragged condition it would still be a jewel to every honest Protestant.

ART. III.-An Answer to a Printed Paper, entitled, "Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society." The Third Edition. To which is annexed a Rejoinder to a Pamphlet by the same Author, the Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. entitled "Syntagma of the Evidences of the Christian Religion." By JOHN PYE SMITH, DD. London: Simpkin and Marshall, &c. &c. 1829. 8vo. pp. 91. 1s. 6d.

THE impossibility of noticing every theological publication, in the limited space necessarily allotted to criticism in our Journal, must be our apology for not earlier introducing our readers to an acquaintance with Dr. Smith's masterly Answer to the Manifesto of the soi-disant Christian Evidence Society; which answer we consider as a necessary supplement to every treatise extant on the truth and evidences of the Christian religion, and on the authenticity and genuineness of the Holy Scriptures. If our memory does not deceive us, the pretended "Manifesto" was first issued in the year 1826, on a small quarto broadside page, in the form of a hand-bill, which was sold for a penny, and was industriously circulated by the advocates of infidelity; but it was not accompanied with any authorities or proofs of the four bold and false propositions, which were therein announced. Subsequently, however, these propositions were republished, and were accompanied with what the unhappy writer of them wished to be accepted as proofs. This second publication gave rise to Dr. Smith's "Answer," which appeared early in the year 1827, in a neat 12mo tract, containing sixty closely printed pages, which was sold at the low price of twopence per copy. In this most conclusive " Answer," Dr. S. has followed "the Reverend (!!!) Robert Taylor, A. B." throughout all his assertions; has convicted him of garbling and misrepresenting the authors whom he pretends to cite as proofs; and has placed the

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