PROTESTANT EPIGRAMS. I. Refusal of the Sacramental Cup. "Drink of this cup, drink ALL, "* the Saviour cries; "None of this cup shall drink," the Pope replies. Yet strangely deems the consecrated wine The blood itself: no mere memorial sign: Forbids the blood that on the Cross was spilt, The precious blood that cleanses from all guilt. The wafer sole is Rome's permitted food; 'Tis Christ's own body, but without His blood! II. Public Prayers in Latin. "Better five words in vulgar language utter'd, III. Adoration of the Virgin. Rome worships Mary, Mother of her Lord: To whom all sinners for salvation flee ! IV. Prohibition of Scripture reading. "No : "Search well the Scriptures,|| that ye well may know, says Men spy not, while the Scriptures are suppress'd, How to our purpose Heaven's own word we wrest!" ERASMUS REDIVIVUS. *St. Matthew xxvi. 27. See St. Luke viii. 21, and xi. 27-28. 1 Corinthians xiv. 19. St. John ii. 4. tt 2 St. Peter iii. 16. DONATIONS, SUBSCRIPTIONS, &c. Received from January 26th to February 25th, 1845. IV. ARE ROMAN CATHOLICS forbidden to read the HOLY SCRIPTURES? V. A FRIENDLY APPEAL to ROMAN CATHOLICS, in behalf of the Reformed Catholic Church. VI. TRANSLATION of the CREED of POPE PIUS IV., with Explanatory Remarks. VII. IDENTITY of POPERY and TRACTARIANISM; or Pope Pius the Fourth's Creed: illustrated by Tractarian Comments. VIII. The ABSURDITY and NULLITY of the ROMAN and TRACTARIAN RULES OF FAITH. IX. WHERE was the UNIVERSAL VOICE of the VISIBLE CHURCH in the NICENE AGE? or, a Brief Sketch of the principal Heresies and Divisions of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries; designed as an Antidote to Tractarianism. X. The QUESTION, What is TRACTARIANISM? answered by an Examination of No. 59 of the British Critic. XI. The FANATICISM of the 4th and 5th Centuries; or Tractarian Inconsistency. XII. PRIVATE JUDGMENT:-The Bible and the teaching of the Holy Spirit, versus Tractarianism, Tradition, and the Catholic Voice of Antiquity. XIII. 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Bagot, B.D. Price 6d. SHORT ADDRESSES to the Roman Catholics of Chelsea. By Capt. F. E. V. Harcourt, R. N. Price 2s. per 100. SHORT TRACTS on Transubstantiationthe Sacrifice of the Mass-Purgatory, and Prayers for the DeadInvocation of Saints and AngelsImage Worship-The Rule of Faith, and the Hostility of the Romish Church to God's written word. d each, or 1s. per 100. DOWNSIDE DISCUSSION between Rev. E. Tottenham, B.D. and Rev, J. Brown, Roman Catholic priest. Price 68. bds. HAMMERSMITH DISCUSSION, between Rev. J. Cumming and D. French, Esq. Price 88. bds. Sold at the Society's Office, 8, Exeter Hall, Strand, London. Also by NISBET, Berners-street; HATCHARD, Piccadilly; SEELEY, Fleet-street; and SHAW, Southampton-row. PROTESTANT. No. V.-MAY, 1845. MAYNOOTH. POLITICAL measures do not come within our province; but so painful is the policy of her Majesty's Government on this one subject of Maynooth, and so vital are the interests involved in it, that we cannot forbear expressing our opinion. in Whether we look at the principle necessarily sacrificed any national support of the great Western apostasy, or at the doctrinal tenets toward the inculcation of which we are to contribute, or at the past effects of every similar concession to antichristian demands, we cannot but reprobate an endowment of Maynooth as one of the most pernicious acts that have ever stained the statute book of England. Like all its predecessors in the same unhappy line, it will, we doubt not, be followed by special national judgments, as well as signal proofs of its utter failure to achieve the purposes for which it was originated. Its enactment is, we fear, too certain ; but up to the eleventh hour we think it is but the obvious duty of every Christian in the realm to protest and petition. If we fail to arrest its progress, we may stir and evolve much latent Protestant feeling, and, peradventure, smooth down the sectarian asperities which have made Christians the easy victims of Papal aggression. G VIGILANTIUS AND HIS TIMES. (Continued from p. 83.) HAVING presented his readers with a picture of the life and devotions of St. Martin, Mr. Gilly next proceeds to give an interesting description of his biographer Sulpicius Severus, which throws an additional light upon the origin and progress of superstition in the fourth century. We are informed that "in the year 394, Sulpicius spent some time with the Bishop of Tours and his monks at Marmontier. When he returned home he devoted himself entirely to the practice of austerities, or the compilation of marvellous narratives. His abbreviations of sacred history shew what he might have done, had not his mind lost its balance; but his life of St. Martin and his dialogues, descriptive of the miracles of the Bishop of Tours and the Hermits of Egypt, were the subjects, which by preference employed his thoughts and his pen; and never did writer with any claims to common sense, indulge such a love of the marvellous and incredible. But while we mourn over the wanderings of this good man's mind, it is a consolation to discover, that there were some pious and sensible persons of high rank in the church, who protested against the fables with which he and others were degrading the annals of Christianity. Neither the works of these witnesses to the truth are come down to us, nor the names of the works in which they declared against the pretended miracles of St. Martin, whom they considered to be unworthy of credit, as being either a wilful impostor, or an enthusiast acting under "a strong delusion that he should believe a lie." 66 But though their writings are lost, Sulpicius himself has recorded the fact, that there were clergy and bishops of Gaul, who questioned the veracity of these statements, which he professed to have received from Martin's own lips. The miracles which Sulpicius related of the Monks of the East, are quite as absurd as those which he ascribed to the apostle of Gaul, and we might suppose that this fondness for the preternatural was the error of the individual, and not of the age in which he lived, if we did not find that men of stronger minds than himself, even such as Jerome and Augustine, indulged in the same extravagances. In his dialogues on the virtues of the Egyptian monks Sulpicius gravely tells us, a wolf used to come regularly at the hour when a certain hermit went to supper, and received a morsel from the old man's hand, which he gently licked and caressed; one evening the hermit was absent at supper time, and the wolf helped himself to one out of five loaves. The hermit on his return suspected who was the thief, and came to a knowledge of the truth by the evident marks of penitence and grief which the animal testified. Another hermit, says this writer, was visited by a lioness, who rolled herself at his feet, and then induced him by her actions to follow her to her den, where he found five full-grown cubs, which were all blind. The hermit prayed, the cubs had sight restored to them, and the lioness, in gratitude, brought a skin as a thank-offering to her benefactor, which he afterwards wore for his clothing. I must add one more story, which Sulpicius put into the mouth of Posthumianus, the principal speaker, in his dialogue concerning the virtues of the Monks of the East. "I approached the monasteries of the blessed Anthony, which are still inhabited by his disciples, and I directed my steps to the very place. in which the most blessed Paul, the first hermit, passed his time.. Amid the recesses of Mount Sinai, an anchorite was said to be still living, who had secluded himself there nearly fifty years, from all intercourse with men: he had no garments, but was covered with long hair, which served like a divine gift, to clothe his nakedness. As often as pious men attempted to approach him, he fled into the most retired glens, and thus avoided every communication with all his fellow creatures. One person only had an opportunity of accosting him about five years before, and it was granted to him as a reward for his extraordinary faith. When the hermit was asked |