promises to be no less notable than the rock, and whose various merits will, we doubt not, carry its fame far beyond Scotland or the admirers of our Scottish martyrs. "Every thing that is in that crag," says Boece, "is full of admiration and wonder." So say we of this volume, for which we heartily thank not only its several authors, but our friend Mr Crawford by whom it was originally projected, and through whose perseverance it has been brought to such a successful issue.

An enemy thus writes of England," Look around on every side; what on the whole is the religion of England? It is restlesness. Look round, I say, and answer, why is it there is so much change, so much strife, so many parties and sects, so many creeds? Because men are unsatisfied and restless. And why restless, with every man his psalm, his doctrine, his tongue, his revelation, his interpretation? They are restless, because they have not found. Alas! so it is; in this country called Christian, vast numbers have gained little from religion, beyond a thirst after what they have not, a thirst for their true peace, and the fever and restlessness of thirst." There is power here,-we might say,eloquence, as indeed in all the works of that far-erring apostate; but what is there of truth, and what is there of exaggeration? That there is truth in it, few will hesitate to own. That there is the exaggeration of an enemy, few also will deny. It is not true at least of Scotland. There is and there has ever been restlessness among us, and among our fathers too; for where there is a world lying in wickedness, there will be restlessness. But that such is, or has been the religion of the land, is most thoroughly untrue. Bold, calm, unswerving consistency has from the Reformation downwards marked the religion of Scotland. Its irreligion has been restless enough; but its religion has been nobly the reverse. We will not say of it that it is

"Firm rooted in the rugged soil of custom;" but we will and may truly say of it, that it is firm rooted in the rugged soil of Scripture,-firm rooted in the rugged soil of martyrdom. A religion of restlessness makes no martyrs, leads to no sacrifices, prompts to no deeds of might or manly vigour. A church that can point to its martyrs, its sacrifices, its brave deeds and brave men, need not fear such a charge. Its history is the answer. And where can we read that answer more legibly or listen to it more loudly, more clearly uttered, than on this oceanrock, this gathering-place of the men who were the true representatives alike of the land and its religion? Firm as that rock they stood, they testified, they died. Deeper than ocean are its

• Newman-Sermons, p. 157.

foundations,-deeper far were theirs,-foundations not laid amid the wild convulsions of dateless primæval ages, with no eye of man to behold them; but foundations laid 1800 years ago, on Golgotha, in the sight of human eyes, and as the resting-place of human hearts,-foundations on which the security of the solid universe depends, and round which as a centre that universe must through eternity revolve. The sea with its thousand waves has been rushing against that little rock for ages, yet it moves not one hair-breadth. It swerves not, it rocks not. So stood these representatives of Scotland's faith,-thus shadowed forth to us by their own prison-rock, as men who, for constancy and endurance, both of principle and purpose, have had few equals in this inconstant world.* If there ever was a spot into which she might strike the staff of her ancient banner with the motto semper eadem on its unfolding breadth, or better still with the motto of her great enemy surmounting all, tandem triumphans, it is here. If ever there was a rock on whose forehead she might inscribe without a challenge her own memorable watchword, it is here,NEC TAMEN CONSUMEBATUR.

ART. II.-1. Madeira, or the Spirit of Antichrist in 1846, &c. By J. R. TATE. Second Edit. Nisbet and Co., London: 1848. 2. A Sketch of Popery. London: Tract Society.

3. Popery; its Character and Crimes. By W. E. TAYLOR. Seeley: 1847.

FROM the beginning, it has been Satan's uniform policy to form a party and establish an interest within the pale of the Church of God. He has all along, aimed, through means of false professors, at the subversion of saving truth, the corruption of divine worship, and the disparagement, yea, if possible, the extinction in the world of the name of Jesus. No sooner had fallen man been placed under an economy of grace, than Satan meditated an assault against the foundation laid for man's hope in that economy; and accordingly, he engaged the firstborn of Adam in hostility to the doctrine of atonement. In a subsequent age, when he saw the hosts of Israel emancipated from the bondage of Egypt, and separated as a peculiar people to the worship of Jehovah, he employed the instrumentality of one gifted with prophetic vision, but uncircumcised in

History has great things to tell of men and nations that had faith, high and earnest faith."-M'Cullagh's Use and Study of History, p. 24.

heart, for the purpose of laying Israel open to Jehovah's curse, by perverting them with carnal allurements, to the worship of idols. He enters into the heart of the camp, and among the tabernacles of Israel, yea, in the highly-honoured tribe of Levi, he procures men willing to subserve his interests, and to rise up for him in rebellion against the Lord's Anointed. In the history of self-righteous Cain, of covetous Balaam, and of rebellious Korah, there is exhibited a type, or comprehensive, though succinct and miniature view of that course of policy,-of those wiles and stratagems whereby Satan, amidst all the emergencies and complications of his perilous warfare, has uniformly endeavoured to maintain his interest in the earth, and to weaken, depress, and if possible, utterly ruin the interest of the Divine Redeemer.

Already had Satan, through the varied experience and discipline of four thousand years, improved the advantages of natural sagacity and cunning, when, in consequence of Christ's incarnation and death, the plan of redemption, that till then had been seen but dimly in the twilight and dusk of typical revelations, was manifested by gospel-preaching in its uncovered glory and spirituality, as the fulness of grace and truth laid up for us in the person of a Covenant-Mediator. Satan was now reduced to extremities, and compelled to make the most of his resources, natural and acquired, in the forth-putting of a last and desperate effort. His policy was still the same in regard to its main elements, and characteristic peculiarities, only it was modified in its practical operations, so as to meet the requirements of a new order of things. It was improved by new adaptations to man's natural mind, and refined by new imitations of God's matchless wisdom. During the course of former generations, Satan had not neglected the numberless opportunities and advantages which he had for studying the infirmities of human character, nor has he failed in later times to take hints and lessons from the development of God's manifold wisdom in the administration of gospel grace. He has levelled his engines of assault at every point where he knew man was weakest and most vulnerable; and he has contrived to give efficiency to his plans of operation, by spreading over them an artful and imposing resemblance to those of God. He has obtained currency for doctrines subversive of the truth as it is in Jesus, by stamping them with a counterfeit of the Divine image and superscription. He has drawn men aside to the worship of devils, preserving all the while an impression on their minds, that they were engaged in the prescribed and acceptable worship of God. He has surreptitiously borne them away from the only foundation on which the sinner's hope

can repose with safety, and set them down deluded, but confident, on the sandy ground of self-righteousness. By an appearance of doing honour to the death and sacrifice of Christ, he has made the cross necessarily of no effect; and under show of giving due acknowledgment to Christ's pre-eminency of nature and office, by removing him far from immediate contact with the sins and infirmities of men, he has in reality done what he could to rob Christ of his dignity, as the only Mediator, denuding Him of his kingly prerogatives, and setting Him aside from the discharge of his priestly functions. He has led men, wicked and reprobate in the visible church, under the exterior of a holy and faithful confession, virtually and in effect to "deny the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."

Scarcely had the Spirit of Christ been shed in promised fulness upon the Church, when the counterworking of the spirit of antichrist became manifest. The faith of the gospel was still only in the freshness and blossom of its first triumphs, when a disposition to apostacy began to appear. The apostles of our Lord, ere they finished their course, were called upon to testify against growing heresies of a dangerous and formidable nature. So early did the Prince of darkness send forth into the very heart of the Church, ministers and apostles of unrighteousness, who, by the insinuation of false doctrine, deceived, and vitiated, and poisoned the minds of men. Hence it is that "the mystery of godliness," and "the mystery of iniquity," have been, so to speak, interwoven and confounded. The leaven of error and the flour of pure doctrine have been commingled. "The scal of the living God," and "the mark of the beast," which is merely an imitation and counterfeit of that seal, have been mistaken the one for the other. Men under the influence of Satanic delusion, have imagined that they were actuated by the Spirit of God. Under the name and semblance of zeal for Christ, the power and interest of antichrist have been raised up and consolidated. Within the enclosure of the visible church, or, to use scriptural language," in the Temple of God," has the throne of Satan, the invisible Antichrist, been erected, and "the son of perdition," (one who like Judas professes to be an apostle of Christ, but is in reality a traitor and murderer), has, with blasphemous pretensions to supremacy over the Church, been seated on that throne as its visible occupant. Sitting on "seven mountains, and overawing the nations with the "voices" of his "seven thunders," the representative of Satan has been wondered after, and honoured as the representative of God on earth. We speak advisedly, when we characterize the wearer of the triple crown, as "the representative of Satan." It is a revelation of Holy Scripture, that "the dragon gave him his [i. e.

the dragon's] power, and seat, and great authority." "His coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved."

So complete was the apostacy of the Church, which, under the direction of Satan, both led to, and was perpetuated by, the manifestation of the Papal Antichrist, so thorough and pervasive was the leavening of the Church with antichristian doctrine, that at the period of the Reformation, when the Sun of righteousness burst forth so brightly with healing in its wings, nothing but a partial restitution of divine truth, nothing but a partial expurgation of antichristian leaven, was effected. Abundance of tares was left still growing amidst the wheat; and at the present day, whilst there is in all the Protestant churches no small admixture of antichristian formalism and worldly-mindedness,-at least one of these churches is manifesting strong symptoms of affinity and good-will to the apostate Church of Rome.

It is true that the Reformation in England was comparatively defective, that the movement which led to it was greatly impeded by the interference of principles, which, operating in subserviency to mere worldly interests, were tolerant of many things that the Scriptures condemned. The sagacity of such men as Milton could foresee, that, owing to her retention of so much that was antiscriptural, though authorised by "the traditions of the fathers," the Episcopal Church of England would, in all likelihood, after a time, be disposed to a re-embracement of Popery. But we must beware of thinking that the defection which is now in progress, of such numbers in the Church referred to, is owing merely to something peculiar in the character and constitution of that Church. The truth is, that all the Churches of the Reformation,-would that the Free Church of Scotland were, as she is not, an exception to the remark,-have in their bosom no small portion of an element, the natural tendency of whose operation is favourable to the upspringing of antichristian and antiprotestant doctrine. This pernicious element is such a holding of the truth in unrighteousness, or at least, without any experience of its divine power, as leaves the heart inclined, with a very decided preponderation, to the side of apostacy. The face is the face of Luther, but the character of the inward man is that of "the son of perdition.”

Popery has its roots deeply stricken in the congenial soil of our fallen nature, and it cannot be eradicated by a mere outward purgation or reformation of confessions and creeds. The man of sin is enthroned on the self-righteousness, and formality, and