heartless prince boasted of having slaughtered three hundred thousand protestants. Advert too, to the intolerance of Louis XIV. and of Queen Mary of England, when the prediction was so memorably verified, that "It was given to the beast to make war with the saints and to overcome them." Nor has she reformed in principle from that hour to the present; but is still the same unchanging enemy to religious liberty, and the rights of conscience, as the actual influence of her doctrines, her precepts, and her practices every where evinces. It was foretold that antichrist should "wear down the saints of the most High," and that the "scarlet-coloured beast should be drunken with the blood of the saints." And these predictions have been mournfully fulfilled in the oppression, cruelty and intolerance which have ever distinguished the Church of Rome. Intolerance is the natural and genuine effect of her whole system. "Toleration," says Bossuet, who was far from being a violent Romanist, "toleration is not a mark of the true Church."* Uniformly has the "Son of perdition" maintained the right to persecute even unto death, every deviation from his creed, and every secession from his family. By the solemn decisions of his councils, still unrevoked, heresy and schism are "mortal sins."

But while we say that the Romish Church has

*Bossuet's History of the Variations of Protestants.

been, and still is, the great enemy, with ingenuous shame must we confess that the Protestant Church has not always been the friend of religious freedom. It was no doubt more the fault of the age, than of the man, that Calvin instigated the condemnation of Servetus. But what a comment upon the spirit of the age! The law which condemned heretics to the flames, was retained by the Protestant Churches of England during one hundred and thirty years. And long after Protestantism was finally established at the revolution in Scotland, it framed the solemn League and Covenant for the extirpation of prelacy by the sword. There is no more humbling view than that which is presented by this single feature in the history of the Church. At one moment she is the persecuted of her pagan neighbours; at the next, the persecutor of some of her own family. Scarcely has she rest from her external foes, and the wounds are staunched that were opened by the sword of the unbelieving, than she herself turns it against her own children! And yet, the bitterness of this spirit has been allayed by the gospel. The vehemence of this fierce orthodoxy has been gradually subsiding, and its unfeeling, icy rigour melting away, in proportion as the Sun of Righteousness has been gaining a gradual ascendancy over the mind; and as the Church has become wiser and better, she has become the more consistent friend and advocate of religious liberty.

The principles of religious liberty are clearly

revealed in the New Testament. And what are those principles? They are in the first instance that the Holy Scriptures are the only source of authority in matters of religion. It is not remote antiquity. It is the Bible. It is not tradition. It is the Bible. Tradition is an indefinite, intangible thing-found any where found no where. It is not the decision of councils, nor ecclesiastical statutes. It is the Bible. "The word is nigh thee, in thy heart, and in thy mouth."

Another of these principles is, that the Bible secures to every man the undeniable and inviolable right of private judgment in all matters of religious faith and duty. This was the doctrine of the Great Reformation; this is the doctrine of the New Testament. That sacred Book, does not more clearly reveal the obligations to faith and obedience, than it asserts the right of individual thought and opinion founded on the principle of individual, personal responsibility. This the Church of Rome denies, and the Scriptures affirm. On this point, they have been, and still are at issue. On this point also the Church of God has, from age to age, been at issue with civil governments, instigated as they have been by ecclesiastical establishments, to interpose the power of the secular arm to secure uniformity in belief and modes of worship. But what is more evident from the New Testament, than that men are, in this respect, responsible not to any secular tribunal, but to God

alone; that the Bible is the only infallible standard, and the Author of the Bible the only Judge? The Scriptures commend those, who, with a noble independance of thought and Berean character, brought even the instructions of inspired apostles to the unerring authority of God's holy word. They invite men to read and hear for themselves; humbly and prayerfully to examine every religious subject, and employ all their powers in investigating the truth; and when they have done so, solemnly, and in the fear of God, to form their own opinions. They require them to form, not a wrong judgment, but a right one, and make them responsible to the Searcher of hearts for the judgment they form. God gives them light, and bids them beware how they pervert, or abuse it, or call it darkness. Prejudice, and partiality, and hostility to the truth he allows no man to exercise. None may form his judgment without evidence, nor in opposition to evidence, but according to evidence; and if he fails to do this, he must answer it to his Maker. "To his own Master he standeth, or falleth." For this high prerogative God has formed him, and given him a supernatural revelation, and laid the solemn injunction upon his conscience, "prove all things; hold fast that which is good." The Bible gives no man, or set of men, dominion over human faith. The apostles themselves expressly disclaimed this authority. The maxim of the prophets was, "to the law and the testimony." The direction of the Saviour stands out in living

characters before the world, "call no man master, for one is your master, even Christ." There is no thought enstamped more legibly on the pages of Holy Writ than the individual, personal responsibility of every subject of the divine government. "If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself; but if thou scornest, thou alone shall bear it." "Every one of us shall give an account of himself unto God." "Every man shall be judged according to his works;" works that are the sole expositor of his character, because they are the result of affections that indicate him to be the enemy, or the friend of righteousness, as they have grown out of his views of divine truth. There would be some semblance of reason in submitting our religious opinions to the dictation of men, if they could assume our responsibility and stand in our place when we stand in the judgment; if they could suffer in our stead when we and our principles are condemned at the last day. I know men may greatly abuse the liberty of forming their own religious opinions. They have done so to their souls undoing. I know too that one of the great stratagems of the deceiver is this boasted liberty, and that many swerve from the faith through the fear of not thinking for themselves. But much as this artifice of the destroyer is to be detested, better had the right of private judgment be abused, than not enjoyed. There is no right, without its corresponding obligation. The man who abuses the right of private judgment has fear