more alive to the purity of his truth! Nor is this stated without a humbling sense of personal fault, by one who has been, for nearly a quarter of a century, a member of that society, and may therefore be justly chargeable with a portion of the blame of circulating what he has never adequately protested against; his only excuse being indeed ignorance of their real character.

The great snare and danger of this false doctrine, is the extraordinary mixture of truth and error. When you are ready to think you have got on the solid rock of the most blessed truths of the gospel, in a free salvation, you are plunged at once into the mire of your own doings, as necessary to complete your salvation; the leaven is so mixed up with the 19.) Where can the sinner see love to himself with such an overwhelming blaze of glory, as in free salvation by the blood of Jesus? This, brought home to the heart by the Spirit, fills him with entire confidence in, and with intense love to, the HOLY God. The propi. tiation of Jesus is God's remedy, both for the guilt and the power of sin. (1 John ii. 1, 2.)

1 The following specimen is given from Admonitions for Sunday Schools,' p. 45.

Eternal life is the gift, the free undeserved gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' Here you have all the clearness of the gospel, but the very next words overthrow it all. 'It is his merits and perfect obedience that must recommend our imperfect services to God. There is, therefore, no room for boasting on our part. Far otherwise. But if, with faith and humility, we do the best we can to serve and please God, we may be sure that our services, however imperfect, will be accepted, and that, however undeserving, we shall not lose our reward.' This is in reality that antinomianism as well as self-righteousness, which it professes to renounce. If it be asked what should have been added to the apostle's statement, to guard against these fearful evils, I reply just what the apostle himself adds where he speaks on this subject. This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life; or just what our Lord adds He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. One grand fault of an adulterated gospel is, that it takes away the main springs of real love to God, and good works among men.

The conflicts with the early Protestants produced some degree of caution, respecting the doctrine of human merit, even in framing the Canons of the Council of Trent;-but their sophistry having been exposed, Satan who is full of subtilty in his efforts to pervert the grace of God, seldom attempts now to bring in human merits, and will in words disclaim them, as a part of the cause of our salvation. But the very same principle without the name of man's merits, and even with the outward renunciation of that idea, is one grand cause of all misstatements of the gospel. Men suppose God loves them, not because he gave his Son for their sins, but because they think that there is some good in them. Their hopes are founded on some fancied good of their own, and not on Christ Jesus, the

meal that it cannot be separated. To a superficial eye, it appears to be every thing you could wish, and yet the bitter root of death is in it. How decisively the apostle Paul speaks of those who professed Christ, and yet sought something else to be added to him; Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace. O that the blessed Spirit may himself teach us that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God, 1 Cor. ii. 12; and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.

If any of my readers are disposed to think that such statements as these respecting a very valuable Protestant institution, are, at the very best, unseasonable, and that it is peculiarly rash, at this critical period, to find fault with so useful and venerable a society, let them for a moment remember, how useful, how venerable a servant of Christ, St. Peter was; and what a critical time the conflict with judaizing Christians and the whole of Paganism was; and yet that St. Paul withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed. On a point, where the purity of God's truth, and his honour and glory, therefore, were concerned, he gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour. O that all ministers and servants of Christ may drink deep into the same spirit. Where only our personal concerns are at stake, being reviled we bless, being persecuted we suffer, and being defamed we entreat. Where the word of God is at stake, and that the truth of the gospel may continue, it is to make no matter to us whoever opposes. (Gal. ii.) We are to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. (Jude 3.)

The situation of the present conductors of the Christian Knowledge Society, is full of difficulty, and has many peculiar intricacies and perplexities. They have inherited the accumulation of tracts of nearly a century and a half;-one part, and that the unspeakable gift. Hence there is so much doubtfulness, darkness, and anxiety in their minds. They say they doubt themselves. The reality is, they do not give God credit for the truth of what he says, or in the words of St. John, they make him a liar. This is denying the Father, this is Anti-christ, this is popery, whether spoken by a Papist, or a nominal Protestant.

greater, of which time was distinguished by an extensive decline from the pure principles of the gospel and of the Reformation; and another part also was distinguished by extravagancies connected with the revival of those principles. Thus they have now tracts which on the one hand, partake of that decline, and on the other, meet those extravagancies, not with the pure light of gospel truth, but rather with the wisdom of man, and the self-righteous system which marks declining churches. But to reform all this, of however great necessity such a reform unquestionably is, yet also it is a work of very great and self-denying Christian wisdom and holy courage. It requires peculiar singleness of eye and of heart for our Divine Master to be valiant for the truth, though it bring reproach on honoured names, by amending or ejecting their writings. To these difficulties must be joined the varied minds of good men discerning truth in very different degrees of light and distinctness, and yet having to concur in producing one result, and the many dangers to be dreaded from the strong current of sweeping reform and reckless innovation flowing in on every side. Consider these things and it will not perhaps be surprising that the progress of tract emendation is slow. The greatest help to this work will be the frank, repeated, and constant testimonies, in a spirit of real kindness and sound judgment, to what the members see erroneous in the tracts, and the willing and candid reception of such testimonies, which, I believe, has already been manifested by the tract committee. The effect of this may be a far greater diffusion of the simple truth of the gospel, than if the society had never published any thing which could have been really objected to. Men's minds will thus be led to investigate divine truth, to prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good.

We have very watchful, zealous and active enemies on every side. The ardour with which the new voluntary-church principles are pursued, may be seen in the lectures on church establishments published at Glasgow, by dissenters of no mean name or ability. The author believes those principles to be destruc

tive of the real welfare of our country, and not according to the gospel of Christ. But men of great powers of mind, and whose conscience seems engaged in their own views think otherwise, and views like theirs are so suitable to the democratic and infidel spirit of the age, that they are likely to spread widely. Now it is the part of true wisdom, in these days, to keep within those scriptural lines which our church has so distinctly marked.

The great means of extricating ourselves from our difficulties is to press every where, as the Reformers Tyndal, Bradford, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Jewell, Becon, &c., (not to say even Knox and Bale) did,— simply the pure, faithful gospel message of God's love to the world in salvation, by Jesus alone, and through faith in his blood. This is the foundation; let this foundation stand prominent and distinct. The wood, hay and stubble of man's inventions will never stand the fiery trial that is coming. Let this be our distinguishing characteristic as a Church; a full, free, distinct, constant proclamation of the saving name of Jesus Christ. The church of England, in its accredited formularies, has this foundation clear and manifest, and while we bend our strength for the maintenance of this, God will be with us, and support us in, and carry us through all our difficulties, and his people will be drawn around us and multiplied. This again makes it of immense importance, that the Christian Knowledge Society should have no doubtful doctrine respecting this foundation, but be a faithful witness for God's holy gospel.

It is painful to read in the accounts given of a late meeting of the Society, a statement which it would be pleasant to think was unfounded that when a desire had been expressed for the republication by the Society of Fox's Book of Martys, it had been refused, not on account of the expence, (the present protestant feeling of the country is such, that there is no risk on that point) but on some other grounds not explained to the public. Believing that those grounds were not merely fears of provoking the papists by that faithful exhibition of their cruelty, nor an un

willingness now to confess the truths stated in Fox, still let not the Society thus give occasion to suspect any departure from the principles of the Reformation. We gain nothing by a timid course. When we remember that the Government in Queen Elizabeth's days publicly enjoined this work to be set up in all the parish churches, together with the Bible and Bishop Jewel's Defence of the Apology, to be read at all suitable times by the people; when we remember how triumphantly it has withstood all the attacks of papists, and come out the more fully justified from every attack; it would be a most desirable step for that Society, now publishing valuable writings of the Reformers, to establish its own character for adherence to the principles of the Reformation, by sending forth, as a giant refreshed, that inestimable defender of the protestant faith in his main work."' 'Numerous attacks' says Mr. Soame, have been levelled at the honest chronicler of Romish intolerance, but they have ever fallen harmless from the assailants' bands.''

When it is considered that the income of this Society is upward of £70,000 a year, and that 1,891,428 of its books and tracts were circulated in the last year, the immense importance of the purity of scriptural doctrine in them, will be manifest. Who can bear the thought of the guilt of helping in any way to turn men from Christ and his salvation from the guilt, love, and power of sin, to their own doings as the ground of their hopes.

May the Father of lights, the only giver of heavenly wisdom, largely bestow on the leaders and conductors of this great Institution heavenly wisdom, to guide them through the difficulties of their present situation! If once the evil of erroneous doctrine was adequately seen and felt, and the existence of this evil in its publications manifested, the Society possesses, among the members of its Committee, men of practical wisdom, integrity, and firmness to devise methods to throw out every thing contrary to the

1 See Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 1. 375 380, iii. p. i. 737, and the lives of Cranmer and Grindal. See also Soame's history of the Reformation. vol. iv. 721, 722.