not whether is the greater, the impiety or the cruelty of such conduct. The Lord Jesus Christ says, " Search the Scrip- tures." ' No,' says the Papist ; ' ye shall not search them : I will not even suffer them to be in your possession : and if they be given you, I will wrest them out of your hands.' But if it be replied, " In them we have eternal life ;" ' I care not for that,' says the Papist ; 'ye shall perish, rather than I will suffer you to read that book.' ' But Christ has said, " They testify of me ;" and I want to know what they testify.' ' I care not for that,' says the Papist ; ' I will not suffer you to know what they testify : you shall not hear their testimony any farther than I please to inform you of it, and then you shall know it only as corrupted and falsified by me.' What such priests will answer at the bar of judgment, God alone knows: but I fear their doom will be very terrible, seeing that they will have to answer for the souls of thousands whom they have kept in the sorest bondage, and blinded to their eternal ruin. Judge then ye, brethren, whether ye should not endeavour to counteract this impious tyranny, and to diffuse the knowledge of salvation through the perishing millions of your fellow-subjects. I mean not that you should do this in a spirit of opposition, but in a spirit of love. And as the legislature at their request has made them partakers with you in all civil and political privileges, so do ye, unsought and un- solicited, labour to impart unto them the full enjoyment of your spiritual privileges, in the knowledge of Christ, and of his salvation g.]
e Preached for the Societv of Scripture Readers in Dublin, March 1830.