credit the fact of the conversation. But if the peculiarities of Popery had no better support than traditions of this kind afford them, the zeal of the Papists for tradition would be considerably abated. The Irish Gentleman has quoted a very touching and beautiful passage from Irenæus, in which that Father describes his interview with Polycarp, and "the discourses" the latter "made to the people, and how he related his conversation with St. John, and others who had seen the Lord; and how he related their sayings, and what he had heard from them concerning the Lord; both concerning his miracles and his doctrine, as he had received them from the eye-witnesses of the Word of Life."* In what is all this comparable with what the Papists call tradition? The youthful Traveller, in his simplicity, forgot, for once, when to stop, and has actually presented us with the next sentence in the passage: "All which Polycarp related AGREEABLE TO THE SCRIPTURES. No doubt; and if Popish tradition were as Apostolical as Polycarp's, it would be "agreeable to the Scriptures" too. And its manifest incongruity with Scripture is the most direct proof of its spuriousness which its opponents could desire.

Surely the Irish religion hunter must have entertained strange ideas of the capacities of his readers when he adduced in favour of unwritten tradition such a passage as the above, and as that which follows from the same Father :

"Supposing the Apostles had not left us the Scriptures, ought we not still to have followed the ordinance of Tradition, which they consigned to those to whom they committed the Churches? It is this ordinance of Tradition which many nations of barbarians, believing in Christ, follow without the use of letters or ink.-Adv. Hær. lib. 4."-Travels, Vol. I. pp. 37, 38.

Because, if we had not the Scriptures, we ought to follow tradition, therefore, as we have them, we ought to follow tradition still! Because barbarians believe without reading, therefore " this enlightened age" should do the same! Because if we had no sun, we should live by candle-light, therefore, as we have, we ought to hold our tapers to the day! If this were Irenæus's argument, we would readily leave the Papists in possession of such a champion. "The ordinance of tradition," of which this Father speaks, appears to mean the Apostles' Creed, by committing which to memory an outline of religious knowledge was preserved by those who could not read. And it may be well here to remark, that when the Fathers speak of the unwritten tradition, they frequently mean the Apostles' Creed; as this form was long taught in the Church without committal to writing, and was the symbol, as it was termed, by which Christians knew each other.

Traditional interpretations of the Scriptures are highly commended

But

by the Fathers, nor will the Church of England discredit them. those traditions are not the language of particular Churches; still less that of particular Fathers. Where all ancient Churches, however separated, concur in interpreting particular texts, we should hold it extremely presumptuous to dispute. Such concurrence seems a sufficient voucher for the apostolicity of the interpretation. But where pretended traditions are not interpretations of Scripture, and still more, where they are against Scripture, it is manifest which tradition is the true;-the written tradition of the Apostles, or the vague opinions ascribed to them. The consent of the Catholic Church itself could then prove nothing. If an angel from heaven should preach any other doctrine than I have taught you, said St. Paul, let him be accursed. But the constituent of the Catholic Church has never vouched for any such traditions: Rome has the exclusive merit of them. How can the compulsory celibacy of the Clergy consist with 1 Tim. iii. 2, 4, 11, 12; iv. 3; Tit. i. 6? How can the invocation of saints consist with Col. ii. 18? How can the merit of good works be maintained in unison with Luke vii. 42; xvii. 10; Rom. iii. 27 ?

Papists sometimes inquire, with an air of triumph, whence do you date the beginning of Popery? The corruptions and superstitions patronized by the Pope, and thence called Popery, have very unequal claims to antiquity. Some arose before Popery, properly speaking, had any existence; but yet have found shelter under the deadly shade. Others are genuine shoots of the plant itself. Of the former description are prayers for the dead-the antiquity of this custom we do not deny, but its primitive authority, or apostolicity, we do. It is a practice for which there is no authority in Scripture. The early martyrs never besought their surviving friends to pray for them after their departure, earnestly as they entreated their prayers until they should have departed. Chrysostom, it is true, refers the ordinance to the Apostles; but Chrysostom wrote in the fourth century, and we have only his assertion for the fact: while the writings of the Apostles countenance no such practice, and even charge us not to be wise above what is written, and not to intrude into things we have not seen.* The wisdom and necessity of such a charge is evident from facts. Prayer for the dead might at first seem pious, or, at least, harmless. But experience testifies to the contrary. From it has resulted the doctrine of purgatory, which, above all others, has contributed to hold men's minds in servile superstition, and to render them careless of their morals, provided they could provide largely for posthumous masses. For it must not be supposed, that prayer for the dead, as the Irish Gentleman insinuates, resulted from the belief of a purgatory, but the reverse.

1 Cor. iv. 6. Col. ii. 18.

Prayers for the dead were founded on the notion that torments might be mitigated, or glories increased by them; but by no means that they could exchange torment for glory.

Invocation of the saints is another consequence of departure from the same Scripture principle. That departed believers pray for those on earth may be the case: and could we have any assurance that they could hear our invocations, there would be certainly no impropriety in asking their prayers. But such assurance has been withholden. The Christian religion is intended for all men; the vulgar as well as the learned and we need not be told the danger of any doctrine to the latter which allows of any address to an invisible being except to the Supreme God. The Romish liturgy is filled with invocations of the saints; and the vulgar Papists, to say nothing of the more educated, scarcely ever think of offering their prayers to Him who has commanded them to do so. The blasphemous character of the prayers to the Virgin is too notorious to be here insisted on. The Irish Gentleman himself has a Cisalpine shame of it; but something must be said, and here that something is

There appears no doubt that this worship, within the due bounds to which all rational Catholics would confine it, formed a part of the devotions of Christians, from the very first ages of the Church. In the Second Century we find Irenæus, the great light of that age, attributing such power to the intercession of the Virgin with God, as to suppose her the advocate, in heaven, for the fallen mother of mankind, Eve. The Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus,—a work referred to the same period, and which, though manifestly an imposture,* may not the less be depended upon as, at least, an echo of the tone prevalent among the orthodox of its times,-in relating the circumstances which occurred previously to our Lord's nativity, gives to the Virgin simply the name of "Mary," but immediately after that event, styles her the "Divine Mary," and adds that Churches were, in those times, dedicated to her honour.-Travels, Vol. I. pp. 65, 66.

We simply subjoin the comment of Philalethes.

The mention of the invocation of saints reminds our Traveller that, in his rapid journey through the first four centuries, he has overlooked one most conspicuous object of Romish worship. We know how large a share the Virgin possesses of the devotions, public and private, of Roman Catholics. If she is not raised above the Father and the Son, she is, in this respect, placed at least on an equality with them; yet our Traveller reaches his eighth chapter before he even notices her. He now, however, informs us, that the worship of the Virgin, within the due bounds to which all rational Catholics would confine it, formed a part of the devotions of Christians from the very first ages of the Church. His proofs of this assertion are, it is true, not only scanty, but of a suspicious character: two references to apocryphal Gospels-those of the Infancy of Jesus and of the Birth of Mary-and a passage from Irenæus. Of the

* With this Gospel another apocryphal work, of the same high antiquity, is usually joined, to wit, the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, in which it is declared that the object of her espousals with Joseph was, not that he might make her his wife, but that he might be the guardian of her perpetual Virginity; the High Priest having said to him, "Thou art the person chosen to take the Virgin of the Lord, to keep her for him."

The

former two authorities, I shall leave him in undisturbed possession. Romish Church may appeal to them: the Catholic Church has rejected them. But on the passage of Irenæus I shall offer a remark. In the second century, says our Traveller, we find Irenæus, the great light of that age, attributing such power to the intercession of the Virgin with God, as to suppose her the advocate in heaven for the fallen mother of mankind, Eve. The following is the passage, as the Latin translator has rendered it, on which our Traveller grounds his assertion :-"et sicut illa (Eva) seducta est, ut effugeret Deum, sic hæc suasa est obedire Deo, uti Virginis Evæ Virgo Maria fieret advocata."* In my last Letter, I observed, that the heretics, against whom Irenæus was writing, denied that the Creator of this world, who gave the law, was the supreme God who gave the gospel. In order to confute this absurd notion, Irenæus refers to the solicitude which the writers of the New Testament have displayed to keep its close connexion with the Old constantly in view. Why did St. Luke trace back our Saviour's genealogy to Adam, if the Demiurge, who placed Adam in Paradise, was not the same God who sent Christ on earth? Why did St. Paul call Adam the type of Christ? In order to render the connexion perfect, it was appointed that, as the disobedience of one virgin † (according to Irenæus, Eve was a virgin when she ate the forbidden fruit) was the cause of death, so the obedience of another virgin (when Mary replied to the angel, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word,") should be the cause of salvation to the human race. As Eve was seduced by the speech of the (evil) angel, so that she fled from the face of God after she had disobeyed His word; so Mary received the glad tidings through the speech of the angel, that she should bear God (in her womb), being obedient to his word. We now see in what sense Irenæus called Mary the advocate of Eve, viz. because the Saviour of mankind was born of her. Our Traveller, in order to make us suppose that Irenæus used the word advocate in the sense of intercessor, has dexterously inserted two words (in heaven), of which there is no trace in the Latin.-Reply, pp. 50–58.

So much for the testimony of antiquity to the worship of the Virgin. The Irish Traveller, by way of helping his cause, adds the following from Epiphanius :—

"Iler body (he says) was, I own, holy, but she was no God. She continued a Virgin, but she is not proposed for our adoration; she herself adoring him who, having descended from heaven and the bosom of his Father, was born of her flesh. . . Though, therefore, she was a chosen vessel, and endowed with eminent sanctity, still she is a woman, partaking of our common nature, but deserving of the highest honours shown to the Saints of God.-She stands before them all on account of the heavenly mystery accomplished in her. But we adore no saint: and as this worship is not given to angels, much less can it be allowed to the daughter of Ann:-Let Mary, therefore, be honoured; but the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost alone be adored: let no one adore Mary.”—Adv. Collyridianos Hær. 59.-Travels, Vol. I. pp. 69, 70.

If these be" the bounds to which all rational Catholics would confine" the worship of the Virgin, verily "a rational Catholic" differs little from a Protestant. But we fear, on this rule, the Irish Gentleman must pronounce the great body of his sect (and his countrymen most

* L. v. c. 19.

ተ "Et quemadmodum astrictum est morti genus humanum per Virginem, salvatur per Virginem."

"Quemadmodum enim illa (Eva) pec angelicum sermonem seducta est, ut effugeret Deum, prævaricata verbum ejus: ita et hæc (Maria) per angelicum sermonem evangelizata est, ut portaret Deum, obediens ejus verbo."

better name.

ན

especially) irrational. Nay, Popes and Councils would receive no The present Pope, in his last encyclical letter, talks very differently about the Virgin Mary from Epiphanius and "the rational Catholics.' Indeed, what a "Catholic" can have to do with rationality, on the Irish Gentleman's scheme, we cannot understand. "Reason," he says, "which, even in this world's affairs, proves but a sorry conductress, is, in all heavenly things, a rash and ruinous guide."+ And, to do him justice, we must admit that he has entrusted himself to such perilous guidance.

We are here compelled by stress of matter to defer our further remarks to another opportunity.

ART. II-History of the Reformed Religion in France. By the Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M. A. late Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Vol. II. London: J. G. and F. Rivington. 1834. Pp. 366.

-AMONG the atrocities which have swelled the blood-stained annals of religious persecutions, there is none, perhaps, which exceeds in heartless treachery and in malignant cruelty the massacre of the Huguenots in Paris, on the memorable feast of St. Bartholomew, in the year 1572. The former volume of Mr. Smedley's work, of which we gave a hasty analysis in the CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER for January, 1833 (Vol. XV. p. 13), concluded with an account of the fatal repose into which Coligny and his friends had been betrayed on the eve of that eventful festival. Day had not yet broken, when the clang of the tocsin was heard, and the wounded Admiral was one of the first victims to the murderous assault. Of the various records of the brutal outrage and the sanguinary proceedings which followed, the most candid and faithful is that with which the present volume commences; and we shall not hesitate to pass a somewhat cursory glance over the succeeding history, in order to draw more largely from the detail of occurrences which occupy the opening chapter. Indeed, the subject is so important itself, and so interesting is the view which the writer has taken of it, that our space will be amply filled by the extracts which we are about to make.

"Let us raise our eyes to the most blessed Virgin Mary, who ALONE destroys beresies, who is OUR GREATEST HOPE, yea, THE ENTIRE GROUND of our hope." Encyclical Letter of Gregory XVI. dated August 15, 1832.-We may observe here, by the way, how much the Apostolic See has increased in enlightenment since the days of its founder. St. Peter told the Church that her faith and hope should be in God (1 Pet. i. 21); his infallible successor, however, has discovered a higher "ground of hope," which has completely abolished the antiquated maxim of the Apostle, and become the greatest, the entire ground.

† Vol. II. p. 338.