participation of all the benefits, civil and political, which flow from such an enlightened system of legislation.

"That your Petitioners have seen with great satisfaction a Bill now before your honourable house, enabling his Majesty's subjects professing the Jewish religion to enjoy all the same civil rights, and to hold the same civil offices as British subjects of the Roman Catholic faith; and as the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and the removal of Catholic disabilities, were effected by the happy concurrence of statesmen otherwise politically opposed, your petitioners earnestly hope that a similar spirit of liberality will again manifest itself in obtaining for the said bill the sanction of both houses of parliament, and thus consummating the great triumph of civil and religious liberty, by extending an equal measure of justice to every class of British subjects."

It is remarkable how different was the state of the nation in 1753, when a bill for the naturalization of the Jews, (excluding them however from civil and military offices and other privileges,) [409] was passed through parliament. Though it gave them not political power, the Lord Mayor and Council of London then also petitioned, but it was to express their apprehension that the bill would tend to the dishonour of the Christian religion. Such a ferment was also excited by it through the nation, that the bill was repealed the next session.

The great art of the enemy of our souls is to call evil things by good names; and a most solemn woe is pronounced against those doing this. "Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. " It may indeed be a symptom to us of the approaching triumph of truth, that our great spiritual foe is obliged to assume the mask of light, liberality, benevolence, and an equal measure of justice, in order even to accomplish his objects of dethroning God and his truth.

What is called the liberal course really is open disbelief and contempt of the truths of God's word. We make no difference between giving power and showing favour to those maintaining the grossest corruptions of Christianity, predicted in the word of God as such, like the Papists, or denying Christianity altogether like the Jews; and giving power and shewing favour to those holding with a consistent practice, truths plainly revealed, and for holding which distinctly, God has been blessing us as a nation for the last three centuries beyond every other nation. Political power is a trust and favour of God, and not a universal right; and governments, like individuals, are bound not to patronize but to discountenance those who turn aside from

God's word, Ps. ci. But the day is hastening on when the vile person shall no more be called liberal.

The claim to civil power is made to rest on good conduct. The Bible puts it simply on the will and righteousness of the Lord. Psalm lxxv. 6; Rom. xiii. 1, 2; Titus iii. 1; 1 Peter iii. 13.

Rejoicing in what is called an enlightened system of legislation cannot but remind us of that fearful prediction, "Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand; ye shall

lie down in sorrow."

The happy concurrence of "statesmen politically opposed," is too like that foretold of the enemies of our Lord to give anything [410] but pain in such a cause to a thoughtful Christian. Acts iv. 25-28.

The "consummating of the great triumph" is not, it is to be feared, the triumph of liberty, but of licentiousness; is not the triumph of religion, but of infidelity. That is "an equal measure of justice," which is regulated according to the revealed will of God, establishing and not setting aside the truths of his word. May God preserve our country from that awful state: "They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations; I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them."

One great principle of the Christian's faith is that all power in heaven and earth is given to that Divine Redeemer, who commissioned his apostles to go and baptize all nations in his name. When nations have received him as their Lord, they thereby own their allegiance to him, and acknowledge him as having all power, and in reality profess that the power which he gives to them is a trust derived from him. Faithfulness to Christ is then the very basis on which power ought to be entrusted by a Christian government to those ruling under it, as may be seen in David's statement of his own purposes. Ps. ci. this principle our whole constitution was formed. Our king is to be a Protestant, and takes a solemn oath to maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the gospel, and the Protestant reformed religion.

On

We have hitherto nationally acknowledged the Lord Jesus Christ, as having all power in heaven and earth, but for us now to commit the power he has entrusted to us, to those whose very character it is to disown him, is not real kindness to them, but injury under the mask of kindness! is not benevolence to man, or obedience to God's law of love, but ruin to our country, and treason to the King of kings.

The Jewish Civil Disabilities Bill appears to me so peculiarly important and fearful a national measure, that I feel called upon while there is yet time to do it, solemnly to testify against it in these strong statements.

If, yielding to the falsely liberal, and really infidel, spirit of the age, we adopted this bill, we should voluntarily give up "as a nation" in our legislature, not only any decided profession of the Protestant faith, but even that of the Christian faith. Under [411] what I fear may be called the hypocritical mask of superior liberality towards the Jew, we should as a legislature renounce our Saviour Christ, and despise our peculiar character and honour as a Christian nation. It seems to me if this measure were carried, it would be, through our unbelief, the transfer back again to the Jews, though they seek not for it, of that which we obtained through their unbelief, even the Christianity of the country with all our religious privileges; it would be the completion of our national apostacy, and the opening of the door to those last threatened judgments, which it is predicted shall come on the Gentiles.

For farther remarks on the duty of a Christian government to support the true religion, see Bishop Reynolds' four Sermons on Zech. iii. 1; Hosea ix. 12; Zech. ii. 5, and Malachi iv. 2, 3.

V.

NATIONAL SINS.

Among many other national sins that might be mentioned as bringing down the divine displeasure on our country, the following may be particularly noticed.

THE DIRECT SUPPORT OF POPERY. This is done in various forms. The annual grant to Maynooth has now for many years, and under all parties, dishonoured God, by national maintenance of an avowed idolatrous religion. Increasing grants have also been made for the support of Papal bishops and priests in our colonies: 26 are thus appointed in India, at an expense of 2000l. a-year, and 83 in our other colonies, at an expense of 14,763. The Government have also (July 1839) carried a measure, and are proceeding with it, notwithstanding the small minority of two for it, in a full House of Commons, and the large majority against it in the House of Lords, sanctioning national support of Papal education. How painful is it to see our country thus more stamped, year by year, with the mark of the beast, and worshipping his image! Rev. xix. 20.

Mr. Poynder has given the following affecting proofs of our

NATIONAL SUPPORT OF PAGAN IDOLATRY, in a letter, dated June 21, 1839, to the editor of a morning paper:-"I have proved, in [412] open court, that the European officer of the Madras government offered a gold marriage necklace (an indication of the strictest union, and therefore a direct act of worship) to the idol Padazier, together with red silk cloth and incense; and also presented scarlet cloth to the priests, and money to the heathen attendants. I then also read the government order, authorizing this expenditure from the public treasury, for this idolatrous ceremony. I farther proved that offerings are annually made on behalf of the government, to the idols at Conjeveram, near Madras; no similar honour having ever been paid to idolatry under the rule of Mahomedan predecessors. Also that the British Government herein incurs the expense of 300 pagodas, paid from the public treasury, and I named Mr. Place, as the government officer (the collector of the Jaghire), from whose time the festival has been performed by the India Company. I further shewed that, in one year, the Rajah of Mysore requested leave to perform this worship himself, which was conceded; but in the following year the government performed the ceremony instead of the rajah. I proved that Mr. Place offered to the god jewels and a head ornament worth 1000 pagodas; that Lord Clive, on his personal visit to an idol temple, effored an ornament of 1050 pagodas; that Mr. Collector Garrow presented a gold necklace of 500 pagodas; and that till this time, the collectors present to the god, every year, a lace garment of 100 rupees' value. In Mr. Place's collectorate, he sent for all the musicians, dancing girls (or prostitutes), elephants, and horses, attached to the other temples of the Jaghire, in order to increase the pomp of the principal ceremony in question, when he gave his personal attendance, and made offerings to the priests who recited the vedas; and I then asked the court whether these facts did not remind them of Mr. Burke's celebrated declaration, that "The servants of the East India Company contrive to get unbaptized in their outward-bound passage?" I proved further that the government order issued at Canara, so late as 1833, fully sanctions the offerings to the idols for procuring rain, and expressly allows money from the public treasury, for the maintenance of this abominable superstition, and even directs the officiating priest to offer such worship. The total money paid in that one year to the several temples in one district, was no less than 360 rupees. I proved further that the Hindoo goddess of wisdom [413] ("the world by wisdom knew not God," 1 Cor. i.) receives annual offerings at the public expense, and that, as a part of the ceremony, the account books of the Company

were equally deified, and money gifts distributed to the heathen priests. These gifts, the music, and the fruit, all form a regular item in the public expenditure."

THE SINS OF TRADE and commerce are very great. The iniquities of the opium trade with China have been lately brought forward; and the wickedness, folly, and impolicy of it may be fully seen in a pamphlet with that title, published by the Rev. A. S. Thelwall. A heathen nation sends a Christian nation the means of a daily refreshing beverage; and the Christian nation returns, to a larger amount, a poisonous drug, full of the most deleterious injury to that heathen nation, against all its laws and authorities! And that Christian nation is Protestant Britain! Oh, let us not be high-minded, but mourn for the abominations done in the midst of our country.

To these sins may be added our neglected poor, both as to religious education and church room, and our wide neglect of the Christian instruction of our vast colonies.

In the midst of all our national iniquities, there is nothing like national humiliation; though all our difficulties abroad and at home, and the progress of a spirit of insubordination and infidelity might well awaken the fears of the most careless, and lead us back to him from whom we have so deeply revolted.

VI.

ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

Mr. Alison's, the fullest history yet given of events connected with the French Revolution, furnishes many historical illustrations of the pouring out of the vials. In the opening remarks, Mr. Alison finds the most natural division to be that, which in truth developes by facts, in a remarkable way, the meaning of the first four of the vials. The statement is so striking that it is added

"The history of Europe during the French Revolution naturally divides itself into four Periods.

[414] "The FIRST commencing with the convocation of the States General in 1789 terminates with the execution of Louis, and the establishment of a republic in France in 1793. This period embraces the history and vast changes of the Constituent Assembly; the annals of the Legislative Assembly; the revolt and overthrow of the throne on the 10th August; the trial and death of the King. It traces the changes of public opinion, and the fervor of innovation, from their joyous commencement to that bloody catastrophe, and the successive steps by which