slightest chance of success.

He is our master in all worldly cleverness, in politics, in policy, in every kind of ability in all its extensive and diverse ramifications. But, when armed with the sword of the Spirit, with the very word of the very GOD, if the whole legions of Hell oppose us, we shall annihilate them by His power, by the power of His Word. Satan knows his strong hold is SPIRITUAL IGNORANCE, and the armour with which he renders his hosts invulnerable (amongst protestants, I grieve to be obliged to say it, as well as Romanists), is hatred of spiritual things.

Oh! my Christian friends, let us be earnest and constant in prayer to the Almighty Disposer of all things, to supplicate in behalf of our poor benighted countrymen, of whatever religious persuasion, the diffusion of His sanctifying grace, that He may be pleased to dispose the hearts of many-a great multitudeto turn to Him, and love Him, and the things that pertain to life eternal, and that He will sanctify us unto Himself; having thus become a peculiar people, zealous of His Honour and all good works.

The unchangeable, "infallible" Church of Rome did administer the cup to the laity, as Cassander and Aquinas admit, for upwards of 1000 years. The council of Constance, held 1415, was the first that sanctioned the innovation by declaring that none but priests should receive the cup. (Con. Constance, sect. 13).

XIX. I do firmly believe that there is a purgatory, and that the souls kept prisoners there, do receive help by the suffrages of the faithful.

A purgatory! what's that? Purgatory is an ima

ginary place of purgation for the souls of Romanists, where they are to be purified by fire, before they can be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. And, according to their own confession, every soul that dies must go to purgatory, because 66 as none is perfect, no not one "--all must go there to be perfected.

Now, as we have it from such undeniable authority, as their own admission and creed, we shall be scarcely accused of illiberality, if we agree with them; and our certain and scriptural conviction is, that every one who dies in this communion, will certainly enjoy the full benefits of the supernatural burning, in whatever shape it may please the dread GOD to inflict it upon his disobedient worms! Thus then do we make them a present of this first part of their assertion, and so far will it be a purgatory, that it will cause repeptance for their former sins, aye-endless repentance!

But this "purgatory" of theirs is a place which was not positively defined by any satisfactory authority, before the year 1140, and was first made an article of faith by the council of Florence, and was afterwards, as you may have perceived by the creed, ratified and confirmed by the council of Trent.

Some glimmering of this "terra del fuego incognita" was obtained by Pope Gregory I. in the sixth century, in the interim the little speck increased, till it became a place of such magnitude and importance, that at the council of Florence it was deemed essential to issue an edict, not recommending alone departed souls to take a look at this brilliant and enlightened country, but actually insisting upon their going there for a time

upon pain of total exclusion from the regions of eternal bliss. This was a most notable discovery for the church of Rome, as it brought them in such a revenue as rendered her at once independent, and the admiration of the world. Then did she say in her heart, when she glorified herself, and lived deliciously, "I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." Rev: xviii. 7.

But property in this place appears to bear an inverse ratio to property in these parts of the universe. The tenements there being all freehold, without trouble, down you sit in your property, and as we have before been informed, live "house-hire and fire-wood free.”

However, notwithstanding these advantages, it is said that the atmosphere being too warm to be altogether comfortable, the tenants get out of them as soon as they can; and they obtain permission to depart, whenever the priests in this part of the world have received a certain sum of money from the relatives of these coerced freeholders, for saying masses for the release of their souls. As soon as the last mass is said, they speedily wing their way to the eternal realms of bliss, according to the account of those priests; but I doubt very much if we have any authority in scripture to warrant our saying, that after Satan has got possession of a departed soul, that he ever allows him to escape his fangs again. However that may be, it is very certain that a close communication is carried on between the keeper of purgatory and the visible church of Rome, for they certainly possess very accurate information respecting it; indeed so much so, that it has

been insinuated that the Pope is only Satan's agent to entrap souls for eternal damnation, and for myself so fully do I believe this insinuation, that I am ready to testify the same, either at the faggot or the gibbet, and that I am earnest and zealous in the same cause, the contents of this book may be taken for evidence.

Now if this assertion or insinuation be not the fact, I would ask, how the event becomes notified to the souls in purgatory that they are freed, or how does the priest know when he has said masses enough to set them at liberty?

I would ask how Peter Damianus, (a cardinal of this communion and bishop of Ostia in 1057,) could declare that the measure of praying for souls in purgatory was so effectual, that the devils complained that they were robbed of the souls of the damned, not merely those in purgatory, (that would have been but a trifling loss,) but of the damned, by the prayers and alms of Odilo.

Now this Odilo was an abbot of Clugni, who, without any scriptural warrant, but merely on his own authority, ordered a solemnity to be observed on the day following that of All Saints, for the souls of the departed in torment.

He was induced to do this at the instance of a pilgrim, who, in the year 998, being entertained by an anchorite in Sicily, was so terrified by an irruption of the volcanic mount Etna, that his imagination led him to conclude that he heard the groans of the damned.

w Vide Appendix, No. IV.

And this is the history of purgatory. It was mucli controverted at the time and afterwards by many divines of the Romish church, so that its defenders were obliged to search out the sacred volume for proofs, in which they could find nothing to sanction it. They then had recourse to the Apocrypha, where they found a kind of imaginary authority for a great number of their Heathen ceremonies and ideas, almost all their errors being produced by a mixture of Paganism with truth.

But as they are very apt, if run hard on any point, to carry their opponents into the demi-fabulous mazes of the Apocrypha, I have deemed it good to extract from the Rev. Hartwell Horne's most valuable work, entitled, “An Introduction to the critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures," the reasons why the Church of England reject the apocryphal books; these he classes under four heads as follow:

I. They possess no authority whatever, either external or internal, to procure their admission into the sacred canon, because,

1st. Not one of them is extant in Hebrew.

2d. They were written subsequently to the cessation of the prophetic spirit, though before the promulgation of the gospel.

3d. Not one of the writers, in direct terms, advances any claim to inspiration.

4th. The Apocryphal Books were never received into the sacred canon by the Jewish Church, and therefore they were not sanctioned by our Saviour.

II. The Apocryphal Books were not admitted into