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sentence is pronounced."

Conc. Trid. Sess. xiv. chap. 6.

See Catechism of the Council of Trent, and the Histories of Paoli and Matthias.

NOTE B, PAGE 213.

IN further corroboration of the remarks which have been made as to the adoration of the Virgin, I would give the following specimens of popular devotion. The Salve Regina is a great favourite in Ireland:"Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our Life, our sweetness, and our Hope; to thee we cry, poor banished sons of Eve; to thee we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears."-Poor Man's Manual. Here Mary occupies the place of the SAVIOUR.

"I reverence you, O Sacred Virgin Mary, the holy ark of the Covenant, and together with all the good thoughts of all the good men on earth, and all the blessed spirits in heaven, do bless and praise you infinitely, for that you are the great Mediatrix between God and Man, obtaining for sinners all they ever ask and demand of the blessed Trinity. Hail, Mary!

"I am the protectress of my servants, says the glorious Mother of God. Give me your heart, my dear child, and if it be as hard as flint, I will make it as soft as wax. My blessed servant Ignatius gave me one day power over his heart, and I did render it so chaste and strong, that he never after felt any motion of the flesh all his life. Give me your heart, my child, and tell me, in the sincerity of a true son, how much you love me your chaste Mother. Hail, Mary!

"O, my most dear Mother! I love you more than my

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tongue can express, and more than my very soul can conceive. And I reverence you, O sacred Virgin Mary! and together with the Holy Trinity, bless and praise you infinitely! for that you are worthy of so many praises as none can, no not yourself, conceive the same," &c.-The Key to Paradise, published Permissu Superiorum.

This is one of the largest and most highly esteemed of Roman Catholic Prayer-books. It is used chiefly by the more respectable portion of the community. Now what higher terms of adoration could be addressed to the eternal GOD?

NOTE C, PAGE 267.

THE three Councils that give the weight of their authority to the spiritual meaning of the phrase, Eating the Lord's flesh and drinking his blood, are Constance, Basil, and Trent; not by any formal decision, but by authorising the exposition of certain orators, specially appointed to express their opinions on the subject. For this fact, I am indebted to the kindness of the learned author of the "Variations of Popery," who states it on the authority of Labbeus, the Jesuit historian of the Councils.-Labbeus xvi. 1141, and xvii. 930, and xx. 613.

The disputed passage in John vi. has been understood and explained in a figurative sense, as signifying spiritual eating and drinking, by the following Fathers: Ignatius, Cyril, Augustine, Chrysostom, Bede, and Theophylact.— Ignatius ad Trall. Cyril, 293. Aug. de Doctrin. 316, and Ser. 131. Chrys. Hom. 47. Bede in Cor. x. Theoph. in John vi.

"Albertin has enumerated thirty Roman Pontiffs, Cardinals, Bishops, or Commentators, who interpret this

part of John's Gospel in a spiritual sense, and reject the idea of its application to the sacrament. This was the explanation of the two Popes, Innocent and Pius. According to Innocent III., ' Our Lord in this passage speaks of spiritual manducation. His body is eaten spiritually— that is, in faith.' Comeditur spiritualer, id est, in fide.Innocent, De Myst. Miss. iv. 14.

“Pius II. concurs, and, if possible, in still more explicit language, with Innocent. The Son of God,' says his infallibility, treats there not of sacramental, but spiritual drinking. The communion was not then instituted, and how, therefore, could they eat and drink Jesus but by faith? Those who believed in him were the persons who eat his flesh and drank his blood; for faith is the only means of such participation. Jesus on the occasion spoke in figurative language.'"-In Lenfan. ii. 211. 242.Edgar, 369.

Mr. Edgar's Variations of Popery, from which I have just quoted, ably supplies a desideratum in theological literature. It is a work of immense labour and research. Very few, indeed, are capable of the patience and perseverance necessary to explore the mouldering records of distant generations, in order to collect the "scattered atoms of historical truth" into one vast mass of authenticated facts. As a book of reference, the work is invaluable. There is no part of the Papal system, and no period of its history, on which he has not thrown light, by his minute and accurate investigations, and his clear and triumphant reasoning. His labours deserve to be more generally appreciated. The style, however, though spirited, is rather monotonous. There is not a living principle of connexion pervading and animating the whole work, and, without even an index to guide it, the mind

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is bewildered and wearied amid the endless recurrence of names and dates. There is, also, a tone of sarcasm-a strain of irony-a fondness for offensive epithets, which seem to betray a spirit that requires to be more deeply imbued with the love and humility of the Gospel. The book, likewise, contains offences against purity, which, however called for by the subject, cannot be tolerated in a Christian writer of the present day. He cannot commit with impunity the faults of a Bayle or a Gibbon. It is certainly desirable, that Protestants should have some notion of the shocking vices that were openly and unblushingly cherished in the Romish Church before the Reformation. But in exposing the delinquencies of the "mother of abominations," we should not appear to dwell with complacence on her vile practices, nor linger too long in her chambers of imagery," nor pry too curiously among the curtained scenes of her systematic pollution. The motive may be good; but we must guard against throwing oil, instead of water, on the fire which we would extinguish. There are portions of Mr. Edgar's book which, if not condemned to some oblivious limbo, should certainly pass through Purgatory!

NOTE D, PAGE 292.

THE following account of the present state of Catholicism in France will illustrate what has been said on the religion of imagination:

"However, we must not be deceived on the extent and depth of this religious movement.

Catholicism exists more in appearance

The progress of

than in reality,

more in its surface than in its roots. There are but few

persons who search the Roman dogma in Catholic churches. There would not be found one Frenchman in a hundred, nor, perhaps, one in a thousand, who believes in transubstantiation, or in the infallibility of the Pope. Most of those who attend Mass do so from imitation, from enticement; it is an affair of fashion and bon ton. Fashion is most powerful in France, but its reign is of short duration. Others frequent the old Gothic cathedrals, to behold the fumes of incense, to admire the pictures of the great masters, and to hear the majestic sounds of the organ. These are painters, poets, young men guided by a wandering and unruly imagination. They have formed a vague, fantastic, wavering religion, which submits to all the whims of imagination, feeds on empty emotions, grasps at shadows, and they give the name of Catholicism to those chimeras of their bewildered fancy.

"The Catholic clergy, it must be declared, do not take the trouble of undeceiving these young men from their fatal errors; they make no endeavours to warn them that they are directing their steps towards an abyss. On the contrary, they seem to favour, in their sermons and in their periodicals, the erroneous ideas, the extravagant chimeras, which compose the whole religion of the new generation. The Priests, no doubt, fear to lose many of their congregations, if they recalled and preached the austere doctrines of the Fathers of the church; but they will one day repent having so far yielded to the spirit of the age. Those pretended Christians are true idolaters, who worship the stones of their cathedrals, who worship Gothic chapels, coloured windows, and all the phantoms of their imagination."-Original Correspondence from France in the Evangelical Magazine for December, 1835.

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