that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God" (v. 4). This is the Pope, the head of Popery. "And then shall that Wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming" (v. 8). This is the Pope, the head of Popery.

"Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved" (v. 9, 10). This is the Pope and Popery.

"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (v. 11, 12). This is Popery as revealed to the Apostle Paul by the Holy Ghost.

"Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her" (Rev. xviii. 20). This is Popery. "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all" (v. 21).

This is Popery.

"And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth" (v. 24). This is Popery.

Talk of Popery being the Church of God, and the Pope the vicar of Christ upon earth! a greater lie was never invented by the devil. God has nothing whatever to do with Popery, beyond permitting it to exist for His glory in its final destruction. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John iii. 8). That Popery is of the devil no one with the Word of God in his hand can truthfully deny; but many will deny it because they are deceived and blinded by the god of this world, just as the Apostle writes of the Gospel: "But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Cor. iv. 3, 4). This solemn statement is not made for the purpose of offending anyone-God forbid—but to warn the unwary what a dreadful, abominable thing Popery is. "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her" (Rev. xviii. 4-8). This is Popery, that great apostacy that "the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming" (2 Thess. ii. 8). Yours faithfuly in the Lord,

Liverpool.

P. LEIGH.

F F

CROSS-WEARING.

To the Editor of the Gospel Magazine.

MY DEAR BROTHER,-There was an article, which appeared in the Remembrancer last month, on the above subject, by Mr. Walker, which I did not quite like. In attacking opinions, or practices, we should take care to use Scripture language. Mr. Walker, in his zeal against cross-wearers, has not made use, I think, of suitable weapons, and has been led to speak disparagingly of the cross. The cross is a most important part of a man's religion. In declaring against cross-wearing, we must be careful not to diminish the weight or importance of the doctrines of the cross. We must not speak of the cross as if a man's religion had nothing to do with it. Take the cross out of my religion, and you take away the very gist and essence of my religion; you take away that of which Paul was determined to know nothing else among the Corinthians. "I am determined," said he, "to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." You take away the very thing which, had the eyes and minds of the Galatians been more fixed upon, they had not embraced the Judaising teachers. "O foolish Galatians," said the Apostle, "who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you ?" And, to return to my own experience, you take away from me all those faith's views of the cross and Christ crucified, the blotting out of the handwriting of ordinances against us now nailed to the cross (Col. ii. 14, 15). You take away from my faith's view that crucified Man, the Lord of life and glory, who, with His crown of thorns and blood-stained features, was first revealed to me fifty years ago, and so became my God, and I became a worshipper of a crucified Man. And, lastly, you take away that which neither saints nor angels in heaven shall ever be allowed to forget, as that to which they owe all their bliss and glory," the Lamb in the midst of the throne, as it had been slain from the foundation of the world, in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

Mr. Walker's answer to his first opponent was very good and very suitable; but that to his second opponent has, I think, furnished his second opponent with all the argument or answer he or she needs.

You say, might his opponent answer, that the cross is an emblem of sin, of God's wrath, of the Redeemer's agonies and death, of the curse of God, of His humiliation and disgrace. These are the very things I mean to represent by the cross. You say we are to call the cross "Nehushtan, a picce of brass." This I could not do. You say a gallows, or a guillotine, would be a ghastly emblem; and yet, if the Lord had been hung on a gallows, or executed by a guillotine, then I should have used either in the same way I now use the cross. Again, you say these emblems are the badge of a party. I acknowledge it, and profess to belong to that party. Very well, now we understand you perfectly; but you must consider what party it is you profess to belong to and have cast in your lot with. Not the High Church party only, nor the Ritualists, nor the formalists, whose religion is the religion of externals, but the Papists also; for the idolatry of externals is the root of Popery. It was the introduction of these emblems, as of the cross, &c., which proved to be the thin edge of the wedge which led to all the idolatry of the Church of Rome. We must, therefore, conclude that, as your religion is the religion of externals, you are totally unacquainted with the internals and spirituals

of the Gospel of Christ, so that you must not be surprised at last if you find yourself amongst those whose names are not "written in the Lamb's book of life," and amongst such as "make an image to the beast, and receive his mark in their right hand or in their foreheads." See the crucifixes set up at every corner of the highways in some parts of France and Italy.

How such passages as the following, in Mr. Walker's piece, could be admitted into the Remembrancer I don't know.

Mr. Walker says, "The cross signifies the triumph of Satan, and nothing else."

Again, "Why should I, a living member of God's family, go back to the cross for comfort and inspiration? It speaks to me only of my shame and ruin." I should have been sorry to have used such language. Mr. Walker could never mean this. What would John Bunyan have said to it? Where did he get his comfort and peace? Where did he get rid of his burden of guilt? Where did it fall from his back but at the foot of the cross? Where else did I get my peace? My most vivid moments have been when I had Christ crucified before me. There was a timeand those my happiest days-when Christ on His cross never left me.

Again, "The cross represents only the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Apostle Paul tells us that faith in a dead Christ is no faith at all." Where do you find such language as this? It is all very well to contend against "cross-wearing," but let it be done with lawful weapons -words of truth.

Again, "The thing which you suspend around your neck is little less than an insult to the Saviour. It represents sin, the curse," &c., &c. But does it not do more? Does it not represent the putting away of sin and redemption from the curse? "He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

Mr. Walker, in his mistaken zeal, has written too much in disparagement of that cross on which I now, in my eighty-first year and fiftieth year in grace, hang all my hopes. I could quote many similar passages in his piece. I should have been sorry to have admitted such sentences into any publication I had to do with. His language is quite Plymothian. I remember a lady, who was intending to join the Plymouth Brethren, saying, in her folly, "I do not want to hear so much about Christ crucified; I want to hear about Christ exalted, Christ on the throne, Christ triumphant." So they, I suppose, would see no objection to what Mr. Walker has said. But I have not so learnt Christ.

It were well for the evangelicals of the day to consider whether their degenerated preaching-mere doctrinal argumentation, rationalism, such a mingling of law and Gospel, grace and works-has not in a great measure contributed to the present calamity of Ritualism, semi-Popery, and anti-Protestantism so rampant at the present day. We know that the chief cause lay in the sad retention of so much of the heads of Popery in the formularies of the Church of England. It is well known that in the days of Elizabeth, when a reformation or alteration of the Prayer Book was attempted, the object was to take out every thing that would give offence to the Roman Catholic party, and make it as palatable to them as possible, and which was done.

But to return to the preaching. Where do you find now such men as dear old Watts Wilkinson? He was not ashamed of his colours as a decided Calvinist and free-grace preacher of the sovereignty of Jehovah

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How he delighted to dwell upon the everlasting covenant, and in such an experimental way. I call him a model preacher. The peculiarities of his preaching were great simplicity and great unction.-Yours in Gospel union and affection,

J. A. WALLINGER.

In reference to the subject of this paper, how could Mr. Walker join in the following lines?

See also Hart's 63rd hymn. If a man's religion and experience is destitute of these feelings, I must doubt whether he has got the true religion-I must doubt whether he knows the Lord. J. A. W.

[We have no wish to anticipate our brother WALKER's reply. He will, we are sure, be quite ready to answer for himself; but a circumstance of very recent occurrence compels us to say, that it was not with the veriest thought of speaking lightly of all the solemn transactions of Calvary that led Mr. WALKER to write as he did upon cross-wearing. As Lot's righteous soul was vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked, so our brother WALKER's mind has been grieved as he has seen professed Protestants assuming this badge of Romanism. Nothing more tends to gratify the abettors of this accursed system than the adoption of so distinguishing a mark. Time was when the wearing of the cross would have stamped the wearer as a Papist; if that, however, were the alternative now, their multiplication would be fearful indeed. The fact, however, to which we have alluded, was with respect to a daughter of a mutual friend of our very old and now venerable correspondent, our dear brother WALLINGER. Some seven-and-twenty years ago, we three met at a friend's house at

Brighton. Doubtless he will remember what passed. The results of that conversation we, personally, shall ever have reason most gratefully to recollect. But what will our dear brother say when we apprise him of the fact that, when the other day in London, and just as his letter had been sent on to us, we casually met, at a friend's house, a daughter of that once champion for God and truth, more thoroughly encased-shall we say hardened?-in Romanism than any one with whom we ever remember to have come in contact? As she entered the room where we were sitting, the large white cross dangling from her neck, a similarly conspicuous one appended to her side, and one at each ear, so roused us that we could but earnestly and affectionately remonstrate, in similar terms to those quoted from our brother WALKER's pamphlet about wearing the fac-simile of the weapon by which some dear friend had been cruelly murdered. But, alas! all our arguments had not the veriest influence whatever. We never met one so insensible to impression. Although we dealt with her in the plainest possible manner, appealing to the memory of her father, as we formerly knew him, and, as we said to her, before his latter affliction and various infirmities came upon him ; still, all was to no purpose. We ontreated that the weight of our own years, and, speaking as we did beneath hoar hairs, might lead her to pause and consider; her reply was, that she was bound to listen and reply to us "as a priest." We repudiated the idea. We declared ourselves to be no priest. She simply smiled at the denial. We besought her to "search the Scriptures." She said she did; but with what effect facts proved. Our repeated assurance as to the fatal issue of her present course, if persisted in, had not a feather's weight upon her. She was both blinded and hardened, and, without exception, the most self-satisfied person we ever remember to have conversed with. Never do we recollect to have parted with a fellow-creature with more thorough sadness of heart. One of those present positively withdrew from heaviness of soul in the contemplation of that scene. Now, as we doubt not, our dear brother WALKER has witnessed many such instances of the blinding, hardening, deceiving, and destructive influences of Romanism, or its twin seducer, Ritualism, he has written the more earnestly and emphatically by way of caution and remonstrance, and not, as we have said, in the least wise to call in question, or detract from, the doctrine of the cross, or the holy resolve and blessed determination of the Apostle Paul, "to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." We must remind our venerable correspondent, our dear brother WALLINGER, Of another fact, that, as an Irish clergyman, our brother WALKER had, for many years, personally, lamentable illustrations of the vain, futile, and heartless character of this cross-wearing. In the sister isle, on every hand, the cross as a standard, the cross as an ornament, the cross as a badge, the cross as symbolized with the fingers, is to be met with; but, under all this assumed reverence for the cross, what is the language and what the conduct under the very shadow of that cross? The personal witnessing of these things, and the many years' painful familiarity with them, may well account for a righteous indignation being stirred up in the hearts of any who see the captivating influence which Romanism is obtainning over a professedly Protestant community.-ED.]