THE RIGHT REV DAVID LOW, L.L.D.

Bishop of Rall and Argylet

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Ypiscops. Rossen A rigation

EL WAR EN T tainting ly CHARLES LEES, S.A.

LORD BISHOP OF ROSS AND ARGYLE, SCOTLAND.

THE Right Reverend David Low, L.L.D., F.R.A.S., Bishop of Argyle and Moray, was born in the city of Brechin, in Scotland. In the neighbourhood of his birth-place, his father possessed a small landed property, which descended to, and is still possessed by his only son, the Bishop, who was sent at a very early age to the Mareschall College and University of Aberdeen, where he continued till he took his degree of Master of Arts.

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Owing to the pressure of the severe penal laws of 1748, on the Scottish Episcopal Church, such was the difficulty of procuring candidates for the sacred office of the Ministry in his time, that the subject of this brief memoir was ordained Deacon at the age of nineteen. Before he had attained his twenty-third year, he was appointed to the congregation to which he has ever since continued to minister, now for upwards of forty years, having changed, nor wished to change, his place," though frequently in the depressed state of the Church his income did not exceed the " forty pounds a-year" of Goldsmith's country parson. Mr. Low was a member of the important Convention held at Laurencekirk, in the year 1804, when the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England were adopted as the standard of the Scottish Episcopal Church. On the 14th November, 1819, (the anniversary of the consecration, at Aberdeen, of Bishop Seabury, the first Protestant Episcopal Bishop of America,) Mr. Low, having been unanimously and duly elected by the presbyters of the united diocese of Ross and Argyle, was consecrated at Stirling by those three venerable Bishops, Gleig, Jolly, and Torry. The University of Aberdeen soon afterwards conferred on his Lordship the degree of L.L.D. He now entered with his usual ability and zeal on the discharge of his high and arduous duties; and since he has been entrusted with the superintendence of the important and extensive district under his episcopal care, he has been, by the blessing of Almighty God, the happy means of enlarging the boundaries of the Scottish Church, and disseminating the truth as it is in Jesus, through those benighted isles, once inhabited by savage slaves and roving barbarians," but many of whose successors, now members of the Church, look forward with delight to the almost annual visits of their pious and apostolic Bishop. This worthy prelate's unostentatious and primitive appearance among them forcibly recalls to our minds the days of the

"Pure Culdees,

Who were Albyn's earliest priests of God,

Ere yet an island of their seas

By foot of Saxon monk was trod."

NO. VIII. VOL .I.

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The learned and estimable Dr. Russel, now Lord Bishop of Glasgow, in his edition and continuation of "Keith's Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops," published in the year 1824, thus characterises the subject of this memoir :"It becomes me not to speak of those who are still at their post, and who, of consequence, are not yet proper subjects of history; but I may be allowed. to observe, that the zeal and intelligence with which Bishop Low has entered upon his episcopal duties, as they have already been of no small service to his extensive district, will no doubt secure for him, in the end, a lasting memorial of gratitude and esteem among both Clergy and people."

By a decree of the Scottish Episcopal College, the ancient diocese of Moray, on the demise of the saintly and learned Bishop Jolly, was added to Bishop Low's already very extensive and interesting district; but instead of shrinking, as many would have done, from any increase of labour and expense, when there was no additional emolument, this venerable and zealous servant of Christ, though now approaching the age which the Psalmist has allotted to man, is at present, we believe, proceeding on an apostolical journey which, by sea and land, cannot be altogether less than a thousand miles, through the highlands and islands of Scotland, visiting the Clergy and people of his Church, to "see how they do."-(Acts xv. 36.) And it is delightful to know that "neither are his eyes dim, nor has his natural strength abated." And earnestly do we pray that it may seem good to the great Head of the Church long to spare a life so valuable, and so much of which has already been dedicated to the service of God, by the furtherance of pure and undefiled religion, and the extension and welfare of a Church which we rejoice to learn is every day enlarging her borders and strengthening her stakes. The purity of her principles, and the sufferings which the Scottish Church has endured, for the sake of primitive truth and order, are becoming so much better known, that she must enlist the sympathies and partake of the liberality of her more fortunate sister the Church of England, and rise in the estimation of every true member of the Catholic Church of Christ.

We are not aware that this venerable and highly esteemed successor of the Apostles in the episcopal office is the author of any works besides seve ral admirable charges.

POPERY versus THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND.-No. III.

In our last paper on this subject, we examined the former part of a quotation which we then gave from Mr. Walker's Sermon at Leeds; we now proceed to a consideration of the latter part of it, which runs thus :-“ Oh! my brethren, with what confidence do Catholics go to such a battle as this! For, whatever dismay it may carry to the bosoms of others; however others may be involved in these bold and intrepid proceedings, Catholics well know what the fortune of the day must be, when any other Church dares to dispute dominion with the Catholic Church on the ground of authority." Now, taking the word Catholic here in the sense in which Mr. Walker uses it, we say, with sorrow, that we do know "what the fortune of the day must be, when any other Church dares to dispute dominion with the Catholic Church," if that Church have power sufficient to compel submission to her dominion. The Church of England has disputed the dominion of what this papist calls the Catholic Church in every age, and denied her authority in this country; and our forefathers opposed that dominion and authority even unto death. Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, Hooper, and others, "dared to

dispute dominion with the Catholic Church," and found by painful experience that "the fortune of the day" was, that they were to be tormented and burnt alive for their faithfulness to the truth. Such was "the fortune of the day" to them, and to thousands of others, who have dared to dispute authority with that Church.

But we deny that the popish sect, to which Mr. Walker belongs, is synonymous with "the Catholic Church," and exclusively entitled to that appellation. It is indeed hardly a question whether, since the Council of Trent, the Romish sect be at all even a part of the Catholic Church of Christ. At that heretical Council, the papists acted as though the Catholic faith, which had served the Church for fifteen hundred years, was insufficient for all the purposes of man's salvation. They therefore proceeded to the fabrication of new articles of faith, and to mould them into a new creed; and by demanding belief in their new creed, as necessary to communion with them and to everlasting salvation, they cut off the whole Catholic Church of Christ from their sect-and consequently, the Catholic Church does not belong to them, nor they to that. The Catholic faith is not sufficient for them; they must hold the popish faith as well; and because they do so-because they adhere to the faith composed, or published by a Pope (Pius the Fourth), we call them popish, and papists from papa, the Latin word for pope. And because their adoption of that particular pope's creed, and their adherence to it, as essential to salvation, is the distinguishing feature of their communion, we very properly call them papists. We do not thus designate them by way of opprobrium, but for the sake of distinction, just as we call the followers of John Wesley, Wesleyans. If we were to call them Catholics, as they seem to wish, they would indeed have just cause to complain, for Catholics they are not. We of the Church here in England are strictly Catholics, because we strictly adhere to the old Catholic faith, and consider that alone as necessary to salvation. And the Church of Rome did the same previously to the schismatical Council of Trent, when she virtually rejected the Catholic Faith and Church, and made a new faith and new terms of communion; and if we be wrong now, the Church of Rome was equally so before the Council of Trent. To designate the papists as exclusively Catholics, would be both unjust to them and to ourselves. We reject the new faith of Pope Pius, and therefore are not papists; we hold the old Catholic faith, and belong to the old Catholic Church, and are therefore Catholicsstrictly and truly Catholics. Nor will we give up to those who have no right to require us to do so, a sacred appellation which justly belongs to us; especially as our doing so would involve principles with which we never part, without unfaithfulness to God, and risking our title to the Christian name.

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Understanding then the word Catholic in its true and proper sense, in the passage we have quoted, we quite agree with Mr. Walker that "no other Church can successfully dispute dominion with the Catholic Church on the ground of authority;" for no other Church has any authority; and we might add that, properly speaking, there is no other Church besides the Catholic Church. There are portions or branches of that Church which are called Churches, such as the Church in England, and the Church in Scotland, but they possess all the authority which belongs to the Catholic. Church of which they are portions, and cannot of course dispute that authority, as they would be thus disputing their own authority, which is absurd to suppose. And as for the various sects which do dispute dominion with the Catholic Church, they are not Churches at all, though, for the sake of the honour, and to raise themselves in the estimation of the more ignorant part of

mankind, they may call themselves so. All authority to be valid, must descend down from Christ, the fountain of all authority and power, as does the authority of the Catholic Church, and by consequence the authority of that branch of it here in England. The authority pretended to by the various sects was never received by them from Christ, and is therefore usurped authority, and mere pretence. As the Christian Church, or, which is the same, the Catholic Church, has received her authority from her Lord and Master and founder, so the various sects have respectively received their authority from their respective "fathers and founders." And, as the head of the Christian Church is divine, so is the authority which she possesses; and as the heads of the various sects were all respectively human, so the authority which those sects possess is merely human, and by consequence of no avail; because the human authority possessed, or pretended to, by one man, is nothing superior to what is possessed by any other man; and if one has no more authority than another, all are equal, and authority vanishes into thin air and is lost. The difference, therefore, between the Catholic Church and the sectaries is simply this, that the Church possesses divine authority, but they only human-or, what is the same, just none at all. And the question then with all professing Christians is, whether they will submit to the authority of Christ as possessed by His Church, or to the pretended authority of men like themselves, who in reality possess none? We can, therefore, as Catholics, exclaim with Mr. Walker, only with much more truth and propriety, "with what confidence do Catholics go to such a battle as this!" But with how little confidence do Papists go to such a battle as this!

From what has been said, it will be seen that we are quite prepared for Mr. Walker's challenge :— "Then let the rival banners be unfurled, and let us see what image and superscription they shall respectively bear." But hear how, through his popish spectacles, he reads those inscriptions:-"Alas! alas!" says he, "on the banner of Catholicity you behold Christ and his Apostles, and their successors, for eighteen hundred years !-On that of Protestantism you have Archbishop Cranmer and the Reformation, just three hundred years ago." Now, as before a company of persons who know not a letter of the alphabet, a person may take up a book, and read anything he may choose, without the detection of his fraud, so this papist reads as the inscriptions of the respective banners, just what he liked to his ignorant audience. But we will give the true reading of them, which is this:-"Alas! alas! on the banner of Catholicity you behold Christ and his Apostles, and their successors, for eighteen hundred years!-On that of Popery you Pope Pius the Fourth and the Council of Trent, just about two hundred and seventy years ago." That is the correct reading of the inscriptions upon the respective banners. On the banner of the Catholic Church, proudly floating before all nations, there are displayed, in legible and brilliant characters, Christ and His Apostles and their successors for eighteen hundred years, holding forth the book of God, the word of life to the world; while on the banner of Popery you find pasted over the word of God and the Catholic faith, the new creed of Pope Pius the Fourth, supported by himself, the Council of Trent, and their successors, all guarded by the holy inquisition, with its torturing wheels, and racks, and thumb-screws, and gags, and other instruments of cruelty.

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Talk of Protestantism with Archbishop Cranmer and the Reformation, as only three hundred years old! Why, if that were true, Protestantism would be then twenty-five years older than Popery, which, in a definite shape, has only been promulgated to the world about two hundred and seventy years. But it is remarkable how the Papists contrradicted themselves-saying one