66 : power of the keys, and as to binding and loosing. So unreasonable, I may say, so foolish are they, that their assertion only exposes you to ridicule. Let us suppose that David were now King of the State of New York, with the sins of the matter of Uriah fresh upon him could you go to him and say, May it please your Majesty, I, John Hughes, by the power of binding and loosing transferred to me by Peter, will grant you indulgence from the temporal punishment due to your sins; and that child born to you by the wife of Uriah shall live, by virtue of my indulgence, if you will only build for me a splendid cruciform church, and endow it with regal magnificence!" Should you do this, would not your conduct be branded, not only as revoltingly arrogant, but as blasphemous? And is not this the way that many of your churches were built and endowed? But you now lower your tone, and say that indulgences only remit the temporal punishment inflicted by the church. But how does this mend the matter? By your power of binding and loosing you can send a man to hell or to heaven; you can inflict any punishment you see fit; and you can demand of the penitent, for indulgence, any "good works" you see fit. Here, sir, is the key which unlocks a chamber in your church filled with rottenness and putrefaction, more foul and filthy than the world has ever seen. Need I revert to the traffic in indulgences so zealously promoted by your Popes in past days? Need I point to their wholesale manufacture by your Popes -to their selling them by wholesale to tribes of vagabond monks, who hawked them all over Europe at prices to suit purchasers? The Pope drove as good a bargain as he could with the monks, and the monks with the people. For the indulgence which a poor peasant could purchase for a few pennies, a prince must pay pounds. The common sense of the world was insulted; the yoke of Rome became too heavy for the nations longer to bear; a poor monk discovered a copy of the Bible, and its truth filled his mind and his soul; strong in the Lord, he went out from his dark cell with the lamp of life in his hand; the Reformation follows. And for the exposure of her frauds and wickedness, your church has sent that poor monk to a place where the efficacy of seven sacraments, of all masses, of all indulgences, can never reach him. But you will say, all this was the abuse of the thing. My dear Sir, your doctrines of relics and indulgences have no use they are all abuse. Guard them as you may in your catechisms and books, practically they are all abuse. Millions have prayed at the tombs of your saints, who never offered an intelligent prayer to God through his Son. Millions have worshipped your relics, who never worshipped God in spirit and in truth; and millions have sought deliverance from sin by your penances, and extreme unctions, and indulgences, who never sought it through the blood of Jesus Christ. At this hour many of your churches in Rome are nothing but spiritual shops for the sale of indulgences. If The frauds which your church has practiced on the world, by her relics and indulgences, are enormous. practiced by the merchants of New York, in their commercial transactions, they would send every man of them to the State Prison. By your doctrine of relics you lead the people into idolatry on the one hand: by your doctrine of indulgence you give them a licence to commit sin on the other. At least this is their practical effect. It is said of the holy Sturme, the disciple of St. Winfrid, that in passing a horde of unconverted Germans, as they were bathing in a stream, he was so overpowered by the intolerable stench of sin that arose from them, he nearly fainted away. Similar is the effect of the odour of your relics and indul strove to reduce them to ONE-to substitute Theism for Polytheism-- then all the tolerance vanished immediately. They strove to exterminate Christians by ten general persecutions, and an additional persecution, conducted with deadly barbarity in the THE QUESTIONS OF THE Eastern empire. Nor was the polythe PRESENT AGE, CONSIDERED IN THEIR RELATION TO DIVINE TRUTH. NO. VI. THE STATE CHURCH. EFFECTS OF THE CONNECTION BE- THE Connection of the temporal and spiritual powers has produced all the religious persecutions recorded in the annals of history. Gibbon, in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, speaks of the wise toleration of the Roman polytheism, or heathen state church. But this toleration, like many other things spoken of by that Mephistopheles of History, was merely an assumption put forth in order to indulge in a biting and only too well delivered sneer against the mutual persecutions of professing Christians. The Pagan hierarchy was never tolerant: it expelled the Egyptian priests of Isis and the Egyptian soothsayers; and Paulus Emilius, the Roman Consul, struck down with his own axe, the doors of the temples of Isis. It is true, that in after years they did not expel the idols newly introduced into the temples; but this was because they had lost the power. By the conquest of Greece, they had become possessed of the statues chiselled by Phydias and Praxiteles, and after having placed these gods in the National Pantheon, and sanctioned their worship by their own example, they thereby lost all power of punishing those who afterwards followed their example. But when a system arose whose effect was to abolish polytheism -a system which did not seek to add to the number of the Gods, but ism of Greece in any respect so liberal as that of Rome. The Romans never persecuted their philosophers, but the Greeks put Socrates to death because he taught the Athenian youths the unity of the Divine Being: they persecuted Anaxagoras, and Aristotle only preserved his life by fleeing from his native country. The heathen state church never was tolerant. But the Protestant state churchman may say, "You are imputing to me the evil deeds of heathenism." No, we are not: we have adduced these exexamples to prove ONE fact, that as religious persecution cannot be the result of a divine system, and as religious persecution was practiced before Christianity was instituted, it necessarily follows that it was not brought into existence by Christianity, but by the admixture of some human or heathen principle with Christianity. But we shall now briefly show the effects of the union of temporal and spiritual power. PAGAN PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS. The Pagans murder the Christians in ten general persecutions, and also raise another dreadful persecution against them in the Eastern division of the Roman empire. CHRISTIAN PERSECUTIONS OF PAGANS. The Christians persecuted the Pagans in the reigns of Gratian, Theodosius, Arcadrius, and Honorius. THE MUTUAL PERSECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS. 1. The Trinitarians persecuted the Arians during the reigns of Valentinian, Gratian, and Theodosius. 2. The Arians persecuted the Trinitarians during the reigns of the 2. The Roman Catholics nearly exterminated the Waldenses. 3. The "Holy Catholic Inquisition" destroyed in Spain, the Indies, America, the Netherlands, France, Italy, rica, the Netherlands, France, Italy, and Portugal, &c. above three millions of human beings. They condemned a young Quaker girl to be taken to the West Indies, and sold as a slave; but when they applied to the captains of the ships stationed by the New England shores, they all refused, for any amount of money, to take her thither, or in any way participate in so horrible a crime. Though they were not professors of religion, they would not share in the iniquity of these Protestant Dissenters. 3. English Protestant Churchmen in the present day, rob Irish Catholics and English Dissenters of their pro perty by Act of Parliament, and im prison them if they will not submit to than this, for they shot the sons of an it. Indeed they sometimes do worse Irish widow at Rathcormac, because they resisted the tithe-officers when they attempted to take away the cattle which helped the woman to culti vate her land; and the mother knelt down in the blood of her children to ask God to take vengeance on their murderers. A very edifying spectacle, 4. The French Catholics massacred 100,000 French Protestants on Bartholomew's day, 1572. A civil war of above ten years' duration was the truly! and not very well calculated to render Protestantism agreeable either to Catholics or Infidels ! consequence. 5. The Jesuits caused the thirty years' war in Germany, in order to annihilate the Protestants of the nation. In this war occurred the massacres of Magdeburgh, &c. 6. The English Catholics under Henry the Fifth, Edward the Sixth, and Mary, persecuted the English Protestants. 7. The Irish Catholics massacred the Irish Protestants in the reign of Charles the First, being countenanced by him. PERSECUTIONS BY PROTESTANTS. Now this array of facts, which ranges over a period of more than two thousand years, is an immovable basis, on which we can found two deductions: : first, that every religious sect or body-whether Pagan, Roman Protestant Dissenters — all, indeed, Catholic, Protestant Churchmen, or have been engaged in the work of persecution: secondly, that all this persecution has been the result of a state church, which is the union of the secular and the spiritual powers. If the Christian church had not been united to the state, it could never have employed the sword of the state. The reason why religious persecution arises is, that it dispenses with the necessity of toil, persuasion, benevo 1st. The English Protestant Churchmen persecuted the English Catholics and Dissenters in the reigns of Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the First. 2. The English emigrant Dissent-lence, patience, and self-denial, in the ers, commonly called the Pilgrim conversion of opponents: it is so much Fathers, persecuted the Quakers in easier to kill men, than to kill their their states. We shall only select ideas. Nor can we accept any exone specimen of their enormities.cuse that they acted "conscientiously" -that they had mistaken views: for tions, which cover a space of 1800 this reason-when men of the world years. Let them calculate how little have resolved to commit an iniqui- poverty there would have been if tous act, their next measure is to seek Christianity had been allowed to fulfil a plausible pretext. If a professing its work, and if it had never been deChristian has resolved to do evil, he filed by an union of church and state. generally distorts some passage of We once made a calculation of the scripture into a precedent. For in- amount of wealth lost to the world stance, the New England Puritans, by the persecutions inflicted on the when they wished to rob the Indians early Christians. Allowing the reof their hunting grounds, held an as-sults of their labour to have accumusembly, in which, after due consulta-lated naturally during the last 1500 tion, they passed three resolutions, as follow : 1. Resolved, that the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. 2. Resolved, that the Lord has given the inheritance of the earth to his saints. 3. Resolved, that WE are the saints, therefore the lands are ours. This is a fair specimen of Satanic logic, only there is something wrong in the premises: and then, according to an unvarying law of our moral nature, he who endeavours to deceive his Maker, ends by deceiving himself. Nevertheless this self-deception, which is the punishment of the crime, cannot be accepted as its excuse. But we must now detail the consequences of these persecutions and religious wars. 1. The destruction of one hundred millions of human beings. No man can compute the misery, the murder, the crushed hearts, the lost souls, linked with this destruction. 2. The weight of these persecutions always fell on the middle and lower classes, who are the bone and sinew of a nation: therefore, all these persecutions and wars immeasurably retarded the progress of civilization, and helped to weaken and ruin the empires in which they took place. And at this time, when nations are complaining of poverty, and writhing under the quackery of economic science, it would be well if some of those ingenious quacks would try to compute the wealth lost to the middle and lower classes by these persecu years, we were astounded to find that it amounted to the present wealth of the civilized world multiplied many scores of times. How much additional wealth has been lost to the world by the Crusades, the iniquities of the Inquisition, &c. we did not attempt to compute, disgust having extinguished all desire of further inquiry. One result is evident: the middle and lower classes of the civilized world would have been infinitely more prosperous than they are now; nor should we now hear, as we often do, that the civilized world is over populated - as if God had made the world too small for its inhabitants ! 1. The religious persecutions of professing Christians, and the grasping tyranny of the State Church, have been the chief causes of the deism and atheism of modern Europe; for atheism is one of the strange developments of modern times. Christ said, 66 Every tree is known by its fruit ;" and we accept the aphorism. Man, as a whole, judges of systems by their results. When men saw that different sects had murdered one another by thousands, for the sake of some doctrinal dissimilarity; and that these belligerent parties did it, according to their own account, "for the glory of God," they naturally concluded that the thing contended for could not be of any value. They therefore denied Revelation, and became deists; or else, being told that God had "ordained persecution," and yet was a God of love, justice, and mercy, they considered that this religious per secution was inconsistent with the character declared, and therefore became atheists, real or pretended. And yet there is a worse result than this: the union of church and state has produced such an effect on the minds of those who have been brought up under its influence, that it has robbed men, otherwise noble and benevolent, of the influence due to their consecration of character. Calvin, who was brought up under the influence of a state church, condemned Servetus to the stake; and Melancthon, the virtuous Melancthon, who was regarded by Luther as a purer man than himself, tarnished his great name by applauding the act. Melancthon needed nothing but the opportunity to commit a judicial murder. Here are his own words :"Tuo judicio prorsus assentior, affirmo etiam nostros magistratus juste fecisse, quod hominem, blasphemum, re ordine judicata, interfecerunt." "I entirely agree," says Melancthon to Calvin, "with your verdict. I affirm also that your magistrates acted lawfully in putting a blasphemer to death, the matter having been duly judged." Here is a specimen of the results of a state church Melancthon approving of murder! If he had not been edu- | cated under the influence of a state church, his naturally mild disposition would have revolted at the crime committed by Calvin. 4. Another evil result of the union of church and state is, that it can never convert a heathen nation-it can never proselyte the world, from one cause alone. If the state churchmen are to convert the Chinese, Hindoos, or other heathen nations, they must first pick a quarrel with them, and then conquer them-which proceeding is nothing but legal murder. When they have done this, they cannot set their cumbrous state-church to work until they have appropriated a portion of the property or revenue of the country, for the purpose of providing churches, ministers, &c. : this we call robbery. Now a system which must lay its foundations in blood, and preserve its existence by robbery, cannot be God's systemthere must be something wrong in it. And, moreover, state-churchmen, by their own actions, tacitly acknowledge their system to be wrong; because, when they endeavour to convert nations which are not under British rule, they are obliged to send out and maintain their missionaries by voluntary contributions, and thereby demonstrate the inefficiency of a state church as a proselyting power. 5. Among the various things particularly calculated to excite suspicion as to the legality of a state church, we class the arguments of its parti zans. When we find a profound scholar and historian like Arnold, making such enormous blunders in the premises on which he argues the lawfulness of a state church, it at once arouses a suspicion that the cause he pleaded must be a very bad one, for no man possessed more sagacity, or evinced more nobility of mind in ordinary matters than did Arnold. But Mr. Gladstone makes a blunder positively colossal. Though he possesses a powerful and accomplished mind, he yet says, in his work "On the State in its Relations to the Church"-"The obligations of the state to religion must, of course, be limited by the subsisting constitution of a country.” Now Mr. Gladstone, in this sentence, causes his own theory to commit suicide. That which is once true in Christianity is true for ever; therefore, if it be right for the church to be once united to the state, it is right for ever. Now according to Mr. Gladstone, if the constitution of the country ordain that Christianity be made into a state church, it is right to do so : if it ordain otherwise, it is wrong. So that a state church is proper or improper, according to the will of the nation! Mr. Gladstone, if his assertion be |