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ROME AND ilER CHURCH. 



At a period like the present, when every part of this christianized em- 

 pire may be said to be rife with " alarm," fearing as they do that the 

 Papists, with their pontifical Monomaniac of Rome, may procure the re- 

 li"ious ascendancy — for so long a period enjoyed by the Protestants of 

 England under the sway of tlie princes of the house of Hanover, — we 

 think we cannot show our regard for the National Church, which we 

 venerate, the Protestantism which we revere, and the respect which we 

 owe to the prejudice of the nation in favour of them more than by trans- 

 ferring to the pages of the " Monthly" the valuable contents of a dis- 

 course touching that important question, by the Rev. James Fordyce, 

 D.D., the same having just been reprinted, with additions and correc- 

 tions by the Rev. George Crookshank, A.B.* 



The delusive and persecuting spirit of Popery seems to have counted 

 on " better days," long ere the Bill for the emancipation of t!ie 

 Catholics passed the English parliament. Since that time, it is demon- 

 strative that the Popish warfare has extended its baleful influence with 

 untiring ardour and a pestilent secretness of purpose, which have 

 aroused the timid to incessant watchfulness ; the bold and competent, 

 to openly and fearlessly expose the horrid trumpery of that ambitious, 

 blood-thirsty church; to lay bare all and every " trick" which she so 

 artfully and cunningly practises upon the ignorant and daily-tortured 

 human victims who are found within her doleful pale. As a discourse, 

 the one before us, to say the truth, is a most triumphant and scholarly 

 essay ; and one, too, wliich we beg our youthful clergy to make them- 

 selves acquainted with. The Rev. Editor, in his introduction to Dr. 

 Fordyce's Essay, sensibly observes, that — 



" The Editor having in his possession, among other original papers 

 of Dr. James Fordyce, a copy of his Sermon upon ' the Delusive and 

 Persecuting Spirit of Popery,' and, as it is one of the most powerful 

 efforts of the author's pen, and sets forth, in the strongest and most 

 forcible manner, the horrors so naturally to be dreaded from Catholic 

 supremacy, and shows Papism in its true and natural colour, he attempts 

 no apology to his readers for bringing it before them at the present 

 season of just alarm. 



" At an epoch like the present, when our church establishment, 

 from the apathy of most of its members as to the question of Catholic 

 claims, and from the unwearied and incessant attacks of its opponents, 

 totters to its very foundation, — when those very principles which placed 

 the reigning house of Hanover upon the throne of these realms are 

 shaken, — when the very members of that constitution, which, by law, 

 is bound to support and maintain our temperate, but firm, ascendancy, 

 coalesce in lending the aid of their talents and their learning to under- 



Ilalchard and Son, Piccadilly. 

 K2 



