What has all been but a significant rebuke at the Lord's hands for the luxury and the pride and the supineness and the departure from the faith of our forefathers?

Our rulers have been fostering, in every possible way, that accursed foe of God and man-that daring usurper of Divine authorityPopery. Strange to say, that whilst Popery is falling in other lands, it is rapidly spreading in so-called Protestant England. A foreign Count lately remarked, in a public assembly at Bath, that this was deemed a most singular and unaccountable circumstance, in Roman Catholic countries, where they were but too anxious to throw off the Romish yoke.

The heads of our national establishment-the bishops of our Church -have not, by a decision and a firmness and a promptitude, sought at once to discountenance and to banish from their several dioceses a system of dishonesty and intrigue and Jesuitism which is fast leading back our Church to the period and practices of Popish darkness and superstition. Whilst they have solemnly enjoined upon the men they have ordained to be "ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word," alas! but too many of the said bishops have, both by precept and example, given the lie to their own professed teachings and exhortations. A greater anomaly and a more God-dishonouring course could scarcely be conceived than that adopted by men who, both by position and pledge, have proved themselves unworthy the one, and false to the other.

There is no gainsaying the fact, with respect to the aspect of the Church of England at the present time, that our bishops are at fault, and that to many of them is to be attributed the perilous condition of a Church they pledged themselves to uphold. Instead of defending and upholding, by their inaction, or-worse-by their sympathies with an apostate Church, they have betrayed her; and have, by supineness or an unwarrantable leniency, fostered within her bosom those who are traitors both to their Church and their country. They are countenancing and encouraging men to continue within the pale of the Church of England, the tendency of whose miserable ministrations is either to estrange the affections of the people from the establishment, and drive them into dissent, or to lead them to Rome, where, if they were honest, they would be themselves. These men are too crafty to be candid; too subtle are they to be sound and simple-hearted. They have already drunk deeply into the spirit of the system to which they have given a heart-allegiance, which is that "the end justifies the means." Hence they can reconcile it to their consciences-such as they are to continue professedly in the service of the one Church, but only with a view to proselytize for the other.

Thus England's rulers, and but too many of England's bishops, have been frittering away our liberties and our privileges, as a nation and as a people who nominally acknowledge the God of the Bible, and His word as our only rule of faith. It is our unworthy pander

ing to Rome, in a national and in an ecclesiastical point of view, that has already caused us to sink in the scale of nations, and to sacrifice our previous character as the first people in the world. With the sacrifice of our great Protestant name, we have sacrificed also our great national fame. We have no longer any right to lay claim to the character which, as a nation, we sustained in bygone years. So much for Jesuitism and the faithlessness of men in authority.

Oh, where are our senators, and where our bishops of blessed memory-men "who counted not their lives dear unto them," when Bible doctrine and Protestant principles were imperilled? Men-like -God-like, they were prepared to lay their heads upon a block, or to go to the stake, in vindication of their principles. This, when called in the providence of God to do so, they did, fearlessly and unflinchingly. They were partakers of the same spirit as good old George the Third (of blessed memory); "I can lay my head upon a block," said that venerable monarch, "but I can never break my coronation oath." Alas! where in the present age shall we find our Ridleys, and our Latimers, and our Hoopers ?-men clear in doctrine-bold in faith-and possessed of indomitable courage. Truly "there were giants in those days;" whilst our times have given birth to a class of men of hesitancy-men of expediency; men removed from the firmness of a Luther or the courage of a Knox, as it is possible to conceive. Would the double-dealing of a Salisbury, an Exeter, and an Oxford, have been tolerated in a bygone age? Nay. Of them it would have been said, as was said of the Tractarians by the late Bishop of Peterborough, "They are on the high road to Rome, and nothing can stop them." And the Protestant people of England would have risen en masse then, as they ought now to do, and compel such men to go to their own place (which is Rome), or to surrender their position, as the professed protectors (whilst at the same time they are nothing more than the betrayers) of the Protestant faith.

But, painful as is the aspect of matters within the pale of the Church of England, and critical as is her present position, we see not a more cheering state of things beyond her boundary; among Nonconformists generally there is formality, or worldliness, or mere empty profession; whereas among the better-taught, the really spiritually-minded, there is party feeling and petty strife, that is like a canker worm sapping at the very foundation of their life and spirituality.

Truly we live in a critical age, and in the midst of most serious events. Nor must we overlook the fact that the sister-country has been saved, during the present year, as it were by miracle, from a most fearful and murderous outbreak. Fenianism had obtained a widespread and most powerful hold of the people. A little further delay on the part of the Government, and a dreadful slaughter of the Protestant community would, without doubt, have been the consequence.

In all probability this number of the Gospel Magazine will scarcely reach the hands of its readers before the Pope will be compelled to flee from Rome, and his temporal power be annihilated. Any system but that of unblushing, daring, and presuming Popery, would stand aghast at its position, and justly deem it to bespeak the unsoundness of its basis, and the unlawfulness of all its high pretensions and blasphemous claims.

Whilst, however, looking around, and contemplating the general aspect of the world and the times we live in, socially, politically, and ecclesiastically, in the midst of all our anxiety for the ark of God, and the uncertainty of a continuance of those great and glorious national privileges we have so long and so uninterruptedly enjoyed, we fall back upon, and abundantly rejoice in, the unspeakably satisfactory truth, "Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His." Amidst all the confusion and turmoil and seemingly hazardous character of the present state of things, nothing either has arisen or can arise to interfere with-much less to frustrate-Jehovah's wise and gracious purposes and arrangements. Everything touching His inscrutable designs must be wrought out according to "the counsel of His own will." "He will work, and none shall let," or hinder. And sure we are, that, come what may, His own plain and positive promise shall to the very letter be fulfilled, "My people shall never be ashamed." Nay, more, we believe that in the very midst of the otherwise most dread realities, God's own dear covenant people shall know what that "lifting up the head with joy" means of which their most glorious Head and Lord spake in regard to the coming of awful judgments and calamities.

Hence, dear reader, it behoves you and ourselves to seek to ascertain, upon sure and certain scriptural grounds, the reality of our union to Jesus; the fact that we are the adopted sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty; and that we are in very deed building by precious faith all our hopes and expectations, both for time and eternity, upon " that Rock against which the gates of hell shall never prevail."

THE EDITOR.

St. Luke's, Bedminster, Nov., 1866.