admirable distinctions laid down on this subject, by the last-mentioned author, will be prepared to acquiesce in the more original and ingenuous, but less wary and less correct, remarks of Pascal. The truth vis, that this great man was here somewhat misled by the prejudices of the school to which he was attached, and, perhaps, also by a prepossession arising from relative affection. The Jansenists believed, that miracles were wrought in favour of their body, and one of these, and we believe the earliest of them, was an extraordinary care effected on the e person of Pascal's own niece, by touching a relic preserved in the Portroyal. What appears of the case, does not seem to us to warrant the idea of any thing beyond one of those extraordinary developements of the resuscitating powers of nature, with which medical men of great practice are, as we believe, familiar. But we may; perhaps, forgive a different opinion in Pascal and the Jansenists. Nor let any man ridicule this instance of human -credulity in those eminent characters, until he shall have learned to rival them in their less common quadifications.

L

« C'est une des

cular confession. principales raisons qui a fait révolter contre l'Eglise une grande partie de l'Europe." How light, how easy the task of auricular confession may become, how conveniently it may be made not only an accompaniment, but a cloak to the vilestiarrégularities, fully appears, from the account given of the practice of the Jesuits, by Pascal himself, in the tenth of his Provincial Letters. On the other hand, no fact surely in history can be better authenticated than this, that the secession of half Europe from the Romish Church, was far less owing to the rígidness of the discipline of that church, than to the laxity of her practice. Lastly, the superiority of the Protestant practice Pascal himself elsewhere candidly admits, where, in repelling from the Jansenists the charge of secret Protestantism, which their enemies were fond of alleging against them, he says that they are Protestants only in their reformed morals: " ils ressemblent aux héretiques par la reformation des mœurs.'

Let it not be imagined that these reflections are suggested by any 'feeling of uncharitableness towards a communion of Christians at vàtriance with our own. If we at all know our own hearts, such a suspicion would be extremely unjust. We are sensible of two very distinct, though not incompatible, impres sions, when we contemplate the Roman Catholic Church. One of these arises in considering her through the medium of those eminent persons with whom it has pleased Providence to adorn her sanctuary, and several of them even in these latter days. When, for instance, we listen to the devout aspirations of Kempis clasping, the foot of his Saviour's cross; when we catch the accents of charity that flow from the hips of Fenelon, We here adopt the name popularly assigned the work, De Imitatione Christi," "Without deciding whether it is this true one?? (160 se

ཡ་ཀ

bor witness the tears with which he Supplicates for his flock, between the porch and the altar; when we imbibe the solemn and saintly morality of Nicole, breathing from his 3 gloomy cell in the Portroyal the most heavenly lessons of purity, -charity, self-denial, and devotion; when we hear the voice of Pascal, now raised with authority, as if from Mar's Hill, to proclaim the unknown God, and now, in measures awful and piercing as the lamentations of a prophet, mourning over the misery of man; when we see and hear all this, we say we tremble to pro-nounce an indiscriminate sentence against a community blessed, even in its days of darkness, with such burning lights, lest haply we should be found to curse whom God hath pot cursed, and to defy, whom the Lord hath not defied.

But the great and serious concerns between man and his Maker, are not to be decided by mere autho-rity. And therefore, if, after all this, we disclaim the Romish religion, if we humbly, but deliberately acquiesce in a separation from that communion,-if we even say, O my soul, come not into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united!"-it is not because we strike a numerical balance between the holy, virtuous, and venerable persons we have mentioned on the one hand; and the sages, and martyrs, and confessors of Protestantism on the other: it is not because we confront the noble army of the Pascals, the De Sales's, the Duvergers, the Arnaulds, the Nicoles, the Sacies and the Fene lons, with our own Andrews's, Hookers, Hammonds, Ushers, Halls, Jew els, Beveridges, Leightons, Baxters, Wattses, Doddridges: but it is be cause, to our humble judgment, exercised most candidly, conscientiously, and solemnly, the faith of Rome appears to be a corruption, and ber pretensions a fable. It is because our reason, mistakenly, per haps, but most sincerely exerted, is merly unable to resist the trium

1

phant arguments by which the Fathers of the English Church vindicate the Reformation. It is, because we can find in Scripture nothing like a warrant, no, not even the semblance of it, for the claimed infallibity of the Romish hierarchy, which if denied, the whole fabric confessedly falls. It is, because we regard it as a matter of plain history, that the imposing ceremonies peculiar to the Romish worship principally arose from the ashes of extinguished Paganism. Above all, it is because the religion of Rome, not perhaps as held by those great and revered names above-mentioned, but certainly, and inevitably, in its natural and popular effect, appears to us materially to disparage the dignity and majesty of our blessed Lord and only Saviour, Jesus Christ. ..How, indeed, the eminent Christians alluded to, could endure, with unwounded feelings, the worship of their own communion in its popular form, is to us a perfect mystery. Amidst a host of subordinate mediators; of mediators, in name subordi. nate, but who, in fact, occupy all those emotions and exercises of hope, fear, love, gratitude, and dependance, that constitute devotion; what casual observer would conceive, that He whom, through all this dazzling magnificence of ceremonial, we so dimly discern or explore in vain, was the only Mediator between God and man? That he was the only begotten of the Father? That he trod the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with him? That he had a name written which no man knew but he himself? That he openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth? That he was both the author and the finisher of our faith, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end? Oh, who are these beatified mortals, however radiant their crowns, or however, honoured their names as

brethren that had the testimony of Jesus," who interfere with the incommunicable attributes of inter

tance strong even to pain. They have been wrung from us only by a fear of the influence of error when sheltered under such authorities as Fenelon and Pascal; for we deeply feel how unworthy we are to offer even the slightest censures on men who appear to have made so emi nent a progress in the most exalted because the most sacred of all human pursuits. Let that progress be a subject of self-reproach, and a motive of exertion, to the professors of the Protestant faith; and let such, at the same time, feel themselves confirmed in their principles, by finding that the distinguished cha'racters on whom we have been descanting, whatever they might be in their creed, were in the temper of their hearts essentially Protestant. As one proof that this was the case with Pascal, and also as an appropriate termination to the comments of the Christian Observer on the merits of that great man, we shall now conclude with extracting some petitions from one of his prayers; petitions which, if offered up sincerely, and through the merits of our Redeemer, will never be offered up in vain.

C'est pourquoi, mon Dieu, je m'adresse & vous, Dieu tout-puissant, pour vous deman

der un don que toutes les éréatures ensemble ne peuvent m'accorder. · Je n'aurois pas la

hardiesse de vous adresser mes cris, si quelqu' autré les pouvoit exaucer. Mais, mon Dieu, comme la conversion de mon cœurque je vous demande, est un ouvrage qui passe tous les efforts de la nature, je ne puis m'adresser qu'à l'auteur et au mâitre toutpuissant de la nature et de mon cœur. A qui crierai-je, Seigneur, à qui aurai-je rêcours, si ce n'est à vous? Tout ce qui n'est pas Dieu, ne peut pas remplir mon attente. C'est Dieu même que je demande et que je cherche; et c'est à vous seul, mon Dieu, que je m'adresse pour vous obtenir. Ourtez mon cœur, Seigneur; entrez dans cette place rebelle que les vices ont occupée. Il la tiennent sujette. Entrez-y comme dans la maison du fort; mais liez auparavant le fort et puissant ennemi qui la maitrise; et prenez ensuite les trésors qui y sont. Seigneur, prenez mes affections que le monde avoit volées; volez vous-même ce tresor, ou plutôt reprenez-lé, puisque c'est à vous qu'il appartient, comme un tribut que fe veus dois, puisque votre image y est empreinte. Vous l'y aviez formée, Seigneur, conde naissance; mais elle est toute effacée. au moment de mon baptême, qui est ma seL'idée du monde y est tellement gravée, que la vôtre n'est plus connoissable. Vous seul avez pû créer inon âme: vous seul pouvez la créer de nouveau; vous seul avez pû y former votre image: vous seul pouvez la rẽformer, et y réimprimer votre portrait effacé; 'c'est-à-dire, Jesus-Christ mon Sauveur, qui est votre image et le caractère de votre sub"stance."