66.

life of man; a shadow a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then passes away. It flies faster than a weaver's shuttle, and as soon as we begin to breathe, we begin to draw to our end; and humbling is the thought that none of us have an abiding city here;" we walk upon the ashes of our fathers, and very soon the place where we dwell shall know us no more, and our bodies will return to their kindred dust. Is it for us to be proud, or envious, or unforgiving, or profane, or self-righteous? Is it for us to make light of the soul's loss, and to prefer the pleasures of sin which are but for a season, to the joys which are at God's right hand for evermore? Beware how you sport upon eternity's brink, or spend your time in laying up treasure upon earth! God will wait for no man; but when his TIME is, he will give death his commission, and that commission will assuredly be executed. With what terrors does that commission come charged, to the man who is at ease in his possessions-who is a lover of pleasure more than a lover of God-who is destitute of the knowledge that maketh wise unto salvation, and to whom those awful words may in an unlooked for moment be addressed, thou fool this night thy soul shall be required of thee.

If we should never again witness a practical illustration of the truth that our days on earth are as a shadow, we have had most convincing ones during the past week. Behold that pew, and from its sable shroudings learn that death has not ceased from exerting his destructive power. Behold that pew, and be warned to prepare for your removal hence, which will take place at a moment that you look not for it. Behold that pew, and be thankful that you are not bending over the corpse of the

The Corporation seat was hung with black cloth, and was closed during the service.

dearest earthly object of your affection. Behold that pew, and pray for grace to redeem your time and improve your talents, SO as to glorify the God who bestows them both. Our truly valuable and highly respected chief magistrate is no more. On the very day month on which he was called to his high, and honourable, and responsible office, his body was committed to the tomb; on this day fortnight he formed one of the congregation then assembled here. In a few short days oppressive sickness terminated his earthly existence, and while we deplore the loss of a deservedly estimable public character, his family have to lament the removal of one who laboured unceasingly to promote their welfare. Little did I think when addressing you last Sunday, and warning you to employ your reason in the search of truth, that I should be called to the painful duty of directing your attention to the removal of our lamented friend, or that he should be so severely visited as to be unable to exercise reflection in his last days. This, like all other dispensations which pass before us, is written for our learning. O! that we may profit by it, and know the things that belong to our peace before they are hidden from our eyes. May the God of all grace lead every member of his family to seek for comfort where alone it can be found, in the faithful promises of God, as contained in the Holy Scriptures, and may they have reason to say with David, it was good for me to be afflicted.

As you will pass out of this church to-day, one of the first objects which will meet your eye is the house wherein only a few hours since lay the remains of a respectable citizen, who, on Thursday night was suddenly called into eternity without previous pain or disease. His death has added to the melancholy and already nu

merous list of the fatherless and widows in our city, and is calculated to strike terror into the consciences of all such as make light of sacred things, and think they show superior discernment and intelligence, by despising God's message, and reviling God's servants. This young man had just heard a sermon upon the text (which I have twice quoted) thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee, and, as I am credibly informed, reproved some persons who were speaking of it in a light and irreverent manner. Let us hope that the message was to him one of mercy, sent by our heavenly Father to awaken him to serious reflection, on the eve of his awful and sudden call. It is at all events written for our learning, and is only one of innumerable warnings given to our thoughtless and unbelieving race, by him who knows what is in man, and can duly estimate the extent of his rebellion against infinite love. But a few weeks have elapsed, since a clergyman in the north of Ireland dropped dead in the pulpit, just as he had repeated that passage from scripture, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall."

Our lives, my beloved brethren, hang by the same slender thread, and are at the disposal of him who gave them. Let this consideration check your folly and presumption, and if you never thought seriously before, begin this day; if you never commenced the serious and regular reading of the Holy Scriptures,, begin this day; if any of you have

them not, do take the advice of one who sincerely desires your eternal happiness; procure at once a copy, and if this should be my last time, to preach, and your's to hear, O let us believe the same glorious testimony, that salvation is of the Lord; that it is a free gift; that it is treasured up in all imaginable fulness in Christ, and that if we are reconciled to God by faith in his merits, we shall be ready to die, and shall be for ever happy in the kingdom of heaven. Ever remember that there is no name under heaven given to man in whom and through whom he can have health and salvation, but only the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. To him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be ascribed equal and undivided honour, power, and glory, now and for evermore. Amen.

Quicunque desideraverit Primatum in Terra, inveniet in Cœlo confusionem.S. Chrysostom, Op. imp. Hom. xxxv. Dis. 40.

Quis est iste, qui contra statuta evangelica, contra canonum decreta, novum sibi usurpare nomen præsumit ?—

Consentire in hoc nomen est fidem amittere.-S. Greg. Epist. Lib. 4.

THAT the claim of supreme power and pre-eminence on the part of the Bishops of Rome; and the assumption of an infallible tribunal, within the pale of that communion on which that claim is mainly grounded, is destitute of every support, either from scripture or antiquity, is apparent on the slightest investigation. And yet this demand is still made, these pretensions, more suiting the Cimmerian darkness of the tenth than the noon-day brightness of the nineteenth century, are still ostentatiously obtruded on the world: and any departure from the faith of these unerring and heavenly inspired Pontiffs, is pronounced ex-cathedra, and acceded to by thousands as meriting and ensuring eternal condemnation. Were it a matter of difficult determination, one which required an unusual stretch of intellectual power and depth of literary research to define; and which could consequently be cognizant only to a few gifted individuals possessing these rare acquirements, it would not be so very surprising, to hear of the lofty demands of submission to the infallible decisions of the Church;" which the advocates of that persuasion adduce, as the ne plus ultra of argumentation, the unanswerable reply to every remark on their departure from the faith and practice of antiquity; but it is really and truly astonishing at this time of day, to hear such things, and that too of a community whose motto should have been mutability and change.

"Out of the church," says the

Romanist, "there is no salvation," that is, out of that portion of it. which follows the faith and practice of Rome; and why? "because the church cannot err." If the premises are admitted, the conclusion must necessarily follow; if there be within the hallowed circle of the Papal communion, a power of determining without the possibility of error, those points of faith, which are necessary to the salvation of every Christian; then consequently the laws promulgated by such a tribunal, demand a general acquiescence; and if that power had been exercised from the apostolic times to the present day, known and acknowledged of all men, there would undoubtedly have been an universal assent to its definitions, as emanating from a higher source, and which commanded the unhesitating acceptation of every one hoping to be saved. But then it is clearly necessary that this supposed tribunal should be perfectly free, not only from error, but from every suspicion of it; and it is no less evident that the place of its existence must be accurately defined; for it would be a palpable contradiction in terms, to suppose for a moment, that any doubt, mis take, difference of decision, or hesitating mode of issuing its decrees, could be concomitant with such a tribunal; or that there should be any difficulty in ascertaining the source on earth, from whence those divinely inspired dogmas were to emanate. All these pre-requisites must first be determined ere the belief in the existence of such a power can be demanded; and it is left to the conscientious Romanist to solve the host of doubts and difficulties to which they give rise,

A desire of showing the untenableness of these claims, as derived from antiquity, the store-house from whence the principal arguments in their support are adduced,

has given rise to the following sketches; their author is well aware that the subject of papal power and supremacy has been often discussed with a force of argumentative demonstration which nothing can gainsay or resist; but into this wide and oft trod field of controversy, it is not his intention to enter, indeed he dare not with his limited means and knowledge adventure on SO hazardous a course; a humbler path is marked out for him, namely, that of gleaning from the page of history, those facts, which bear most strongly, upon this infallible prerogative, whether vested in the Pope singly, as vicar of Jesus on earth, as is contended for by some; or in general councils legally assembled, as is maintained by others, (so little certainty is there as to its source) and also its kindred usurpation; the supreme power and pre-eminence of the Bishop of Rome, not only over the spiritual, as insisted on by the most moderate, but even over the temporal affairs of men, † as demanded by various unerring Pon

*

"The Pope, although he may err by personal error in his own private judgment, as a man, and as a particular doctor in his own opinion; yet as he is Pope, as he is the successor of St. Peter, as he is the vicar of Christ upon earth, and as he is the shepherd of the universal Christian church, in public judgment, in deliberation or definitive sentence, he never erreth, nor never erred, nor ever can err.

"Of the Pope hangeth the safety of the whole church of God, to him is given all manner of power as well in heaven as in earth."-T. Harding's Confutation of Bishop Jewell's Apology, quoted by the Bishop in his Defence, folio, (black letter,) 1611.

+ That the Pope is endued with a divine or godly power, and that by the same he is able to depose kings; that all kings by the commandment of Christ receive all their power from him.—Ibid.

In Papa est omnis potestas, supra omnes Potestates tam cœli quam terræ.-Conc. Lateran, sub. Leo. 10th..

This was the general Council next preceding that of Trent, whose acts (with those of others) were confirmed by that assembly, and form consequently to this day the authorized creed of the Roman church!!!

tiffs; and never to this day by any authorised act disclaimed.* Having thus stated his design, and marked out the track he proposes to follow, he will without further preface endeavour to pursue it.

The fourth century of our era is remarkable for the very important changes which early occurred in the affairs of the Christian Church. The great and powerful of the earth having embraced (nominally at least) the religion of the cross; the offence of that cross, as far as it had reference to the persecuting of its followers, ceased; but as a sad counterbalance to these advantages, erroneous opinions had gained admission to the sanctuary; the discordant note of controversy disturbed the harmony of Christian fellowship; while doctrines subversive of Christianity were advocated and supported, by means according with the spirit from which they emanated.

Among these modes of perversion, that which originated at Alex

* Christ and the Pope make one consistory and keep one court: and, sin only excepted, THE POPE CAN IN A MANNER DO ALL THINGS THAT GOD CAN DO.-Panormitane De Electione, ex. Citation. Jewell. The acmé, however, of these Papal pretensions was reserved for the noted Hildebrand, (Gregory the 7th,) who in his Dictatus Papæ carries these claims to the utmost possible height. The learned and elegant historian of Italy during the middle ages thus describes them. Gregoire avoit formé le plan du despotism ecclesiastique, et en avoit proclamé les principes. Le recueil de ses maximes intitulè Dictatus Papæ, nous a été conservé dans les annales ecclesiastiques. On est étonné de voire avec quelle audace la tyrannie théocratique ose y lever la masque. Il n'y a qu' un nome au monde (y est il dit) celui du pape; lui seul peut employer les ornamens imperiaux tous les princes doivent baiser ses pieds; lui seul peut nomer ou deposer les eveques, assembler, présider, et dissondres les conciles; personne ne peut le juger, son election seule en fait un saint; il n'a jamais erre, jamais a l'avenir il n'errera; il peut deposer les princes et delier les sujets du serment de fidelite."Histoire des Republiques Italiennes du moyen age. Par J. C. Simonde Simondi, Tome premier, chap iii. page 195.

:

when, with a view if possible of giving peace to the church, he summoned (in the fulness of imperial power) the famous council of Nice: there being then, it seems, no infallible tribunal to which recurrence might be had to determine by its unerring decision the debated points. And this certainly was a case that called for its interference, had it been in existence. A question was agitated, of the most vital importance, one which deeply affected the eternal welfare of millions, and which, could it have been for ever set at rest by an incontrovertible decree, would have conferred the greatest blessing on mankind. But no such attempt was made, no reference had to the infallible see. The Bishop of Rome dared not-most likely thought not of advancing such a claim; the very mention of which would have appeared to the Christian world as wide a departure from the faith as that of the heresiarch himself. The decision of the council (founded upon the unerring word of truth) hushed for a time into silence the

andria possessed the widest and most deleterious influence. The great master of the catechetical school of that city, Origen, gifted with a pow. erfully penetrative mind, gained a pre-eminence of influence in the church rarely acquired: crowds assembled to listen to his novel, but unhappily highly dangerous method of expounding the scriptures; which, departing from the apostolic and primitive mode that had hitherto prevailed, sought an occult and hidden meaning in the plainest passages and as even his penetrative genius could not discover what was never intended by its blessed Author, he called to his aid the metaphysic subtlety of the Grecian philosophy, to elucidate that gospel whose highest praise and greatest blessing it is that its consolatory truths are not reserved as the reward of deep research or critic lore, but are destined for the lowly in spirit and the humble in heart. The consequence of such a mode of procedure is obvious: we may rest assured that spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned; and that the delusive lights of a metaphysical philosophy, whenever or wherever applied, can have no other effect, than to draw men aside from the lucid path of truth to pursue the wanderings of an unenlightened and consequently erring reason. Such was its melancholy result at the time under review; and it was most likely the application of the expository principles of Origen* that caused Arius to depart from the faith "once delivered to the saints," and which has handed his name down to posterity as one of the earliest promulgators of opinions at variance with the truth as it is in Jesus.

On the accession of Constantine to the throne of the Cesars, the opinions of the Alexandrian presbyter had gained many supporters;

* Vide Wall on Infant Baptism, pp. 18-30. 4to. Second Edition.

dissonant sound of warring opinion, and the blessings of peace were vouchsafed to the church.

But Constantine's successors followed not his steps; the heresy of Arius was adopted by the court; and scenes of persecution ensued, more in unison with the reigns of Nero and Dioclesian than that of sovereigns professing the mild and benevolent religion of the cross. The emperor Constantius held a bad pre-eminence among these opposers of the truth; and having acquired power in the west, which had hitherto afforded shelter to the orthodox, he proceeded thither, with a determination that all should bow down to the imperial will, and em. brace those opinions which it was his pleasure to advocate.

At this period (A. D. 352.) Liberius succeeded Julius in the see of Rome :-Pope, as he is entitled by the modern historians, Dupin