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THE COCKATRICE'S EGG.

(From Puseyism,' No. 4.)

THESE were all consequences not very difficult to be foreseen by the deep and practised schemers by whom Bishop Cheney's movements were directed; and they were not mistaken in these their calculations. The egg, that the Pope by his agent had thus deposited in the church, underwent a careful incubation through this and the following reigns, by a school of divines holding the same opinions, either in delusion or duplicity, of which Buckridge and Bancroft were probably the founders. There were promising symptoms of success in King James' time; but when his son and successor showered upon the reverend bevy of incubators the dazzling splendours of the sun of court patronage, full orbed and cloudless, their process was hastened by the genial warmth. The cockatrice burst forth, attained as in a-moment to giant dimensions, and erecting herself high above the sacred edifice where she had first seen the light, hissed to the four corners of the land. The effect of this full developement of the principles of the Oxford Tracts is too well known already. Men rushed at once to the settlement of these questions, not in the strife of words, but of swords. Our country was once more bathed in the blood of her children; nor did the civil discord cease until the

Church of England lay prostrate in the dust, and the King of England on the scaffold.

The weapons of that warfare were but carnal; with such, these momentous questions can never be settled. The sword that had cropped the flower of our nobility, and spared neither the priest at the altar nor the crowned king, shivered like glass against thescaly rind' of this accursed creature. She wound her dragon form into the crypt of some cathedral, or lay lurking on the dusty and neglected shelves of a college library, until the storm that herself raised was overpast. Twice since that period has the foul thing crept from her retreat, and diffused over our island the pestilential and maddening vapour of her breath; and on both occasions with the same effect. The Church has instantly been torn with fierce contentions, and the throne has tottered amid the shouts of civil discord and the clash of arms. Foiled in both attempts, through the great mercy of God, she retreated unhurt from the assault of the same weapons, and found refuge in the same hiding-places.

And now, after long repose, when men had wellnigh forgotten her existence, she has glided forth once more, stealthily, and, while the watchman slept, into the sanctuary; there undisturbed, and until lately almost unnoticed, she lies coiled around the very altar, defiling the sacred elements with her forked tongue. Calm and unexcited as yet, she basks in the sunshine, displaying the grace and beauty of her mazy folds, and the refulgent glories of her speckled skin. But mark her well! Already her living colours flash and quiver, baleful fires are kindling in her eye, the black venom drops from her

jaws, and a noisome and deadly blight exhales with her breath. She is already irritated, and, unless the special providence of God interpose, she will assuredly rouse herself, as in the days of old; and thenIn good sooth, he has need of a steady eye, a firm heart, and a clean conscience, who at the present moment would calmly calculate and gaze unmoved upon the future.

Such was the rise of Puseyism. It did not originate with the representatives of an ancient Christian community at Rome, retaining still some vestiges of the truth, however imperfect; but with Rome, deep in the devices of one of those detestably wicked machinations whereby she has always endeavoured to propagate her false doctrines, and which brand her true title upon her forehead in characters so plain that he who runs may read it. It is the offspring, not of Rome as a Christian Church, but of Rome as very Antichrist.

So one the other side. If you bring me books of external evidence, moral or philosophical, to prove God's account of creation to be true, from the appearances of things to the senses, or from certain deductions of periods and events, I hold them to be as light as the others. My evidence of the truth of God's book is internal, in the book itself-my spirit has received it, and I believe God himself. All other evidence is trifling impertinence, from which my soul turns away.-Sabin.

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(From the Preface to the Rev. J. Hough's History of Christianity in India.)

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In a letter of a Romish bishop alluded to above, one principal cause of the writer's displeasure was, my use of the term Papist, instead of Catholic, in the reply to the Abbé Dubois. Nothing was more foreign from my intention than to give offence by using an obnoxious term, and therefore in the present history I have adopted the word Romanist. The term papist occurs indeed, but it will be found generally, if not exclusively, in quotations from other authors. asked why I have not called them Catholics, since it is the name which they prefer, I answer-because of the advantage that they disingenuously take of our use of the term. The church of England retains the word Catholic in her Liturgy, and the Romanists know that we do not use it in their exclusive sense, but apply it universally to all that have been baptized in the name of the Trinity, hold the true faith in Jesus Christ, have "the pure word of God preached " to them, and the sacraments duly administered, according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite and necessary to the same." (Article xix.) The church of England regards all other churches who answer to this character as united with her to Jesus, their common head, by

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communion of the same spirit. Though varying in outward circumstances, and in matters not essential to salvation, they form various branches of the Catholic or universal church, yet Romanists well know that many members of both our church and theirs do not make this distinction, but apply the term exclusively to that of Rome: and taking advantage of this ignorance in some, and negligence in others, they charge us with inconsistency in using the term, while we protest against their church, whereas they know that Protestants use it in its legitimate sense; and the inconsistency is theirs, in applying it only to their own communion. Are we then to be charged with illiberality for refusing to concede to them this name, while they persist in making so unfair a use of the concession? This is not a mere logomachy. Truly has it been said 'names are things!' For Protestants to call Romanists Catholics, is to put a weapon in their hands which they neglect no opportunity to wield against us. While in courtesy yielding the name, they pretend that we concede the principle it implies; and hereby we expose our brethren, who do not take trouble, or have not ability to discriminate, to the designs of these enemies to the truth and freedom of the gospel. The single point they keep in view is, that theirs is the only Catholic church; that all Christians out of her pale, by whomsoever baptized, owe allegiance to the pope; and that every term is to be repudiated that implies the existence of any church independent of Rome. Catholic is the name that best accords with these arrogant pretensions; no wonder therefore that they so strenuously contend for it: but for the same reason should Protestants resist their exclusive appropria

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