undermines Christianity, inasmuch as it undermines the testimony of the senses. It blasphemously asserts that the sacred frame of the Redeemer can be subjected to the taste of man; and in scriptural language, there can be no other foundation for this assertion, which would not also assert that Jesus Christ is really a vine, or a door, or any other thing, by which he has been pleased to represent himself, figuratively and emblematically.

Some theological truths are above reason, yet never against it; for all verity complies with itself, as springing from one and the same fountain. But the doctrine of the real Presence implies a manifest contradiction, referring the same thing to itself in opposite directions; as it may be, at one and the same time, present and absent, above and below. It gives a false body to the Son of God, making that, every day, of bread, by the power of words, which was made, once, of the substance of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost. Of all reasons, the strongest against this doctrine is, that it utterly overturns the very nature of a It takes away the sign, and the

sacrament.

article of faith. It is not probable that the teachers of the Saxons had anticipated this wonderful doctrine, and taught their converts the future articles of the Council of Trentwhich Council thunders out an anathema against all who believe not this most monstrous and idolatrous doctrine.

analogy between the sign and the thing signified. It puts into the hand of every priest the power to do, every day, a greater miracle than God did in the creation of the world; for in that, the Creator made the world; in this, the creature daily makes the creator! Error of doctrine produces error in practice:—whether the bread and wine be worshipped as God, or God be worshipped under the form of bread and wine,' it is as much a violation of God's commandment to

▾ The great St. Basil, in his liturgy, at the consecration of the bread and wine, when the words of our Saviour's institution are to be pronounced, says, "The Lord hath left us monuments of his saving passion, the same that we have placed or shewn forth (on the altar) according to his commandments." And what before he calls monuments or remembrances, he does (after our Lord's words are pronounced) call "types or antitypes of the body and blood of Christ."

St. Chrysostom says, "That which we offer is the type or figure of that sacrifice which was made on the cross; we do not offer any other sacrifice; but we offer the same continually; or rather, we commemorate that sacrifice."

Theodoret, who was a bishop in the beginning of the fifth century, in his first dialogue introduces an orthodox person speaking the sense of the Catholic Church, thus:-" Our Lord, in delivering to us those mysteries, gave the name of his body to the bread, and called that which is mixed or put into the cup, his blood. Our Saviour certainly altered or changed the names, giving that to the symbol which belonged to the body; so when he called himself a vine, he gave a name to his blood, that be longed to the symbol.”— Dialogue i. tom. 2. Thus,as the Saxon Archbishop Ælfric

observes, we read in the Fathers.

bow down to an image of bread, as it is to one of brass and wood. Sincerity of belief, "that the bread and wine are really God," does not lessen the idolatry, for it is in the error of belief, as well as in the falsehood of doctrine, that idolatry consists. Were sincerity of belief an extenuation of crime, the Jews, who worshipped the golden calf, might have claimed exemption from the charge of idolatry: for it is evident from the feast appointed unto the Lord, they sincerely believed that the golden image was a true emblem of the Deity. But the adoration of the consecrated wafer is, in degree of idolatrous guilt, of a deeper dye than that of the Jews. For the Romanists consider the wafer not as an emblem, but as really God himself. This however, monstrous as it may appear to Protestants, is the belief of the most enlightened and best educated amongst them.— Thus we see, that a man's reason and common sense may be degraded to the lowest ebb, whose mind is overcast by the mists of superstition. But this is not the only instance of idolatry, for which the Church of England separated from that of Rome. The Scriptures affirm, that there is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Yet in defiance of this divine declaration, the Romanists scruple not, to offer up their petitions to heaven, and to supplicate for the grace of God through the interposition of angels,

the intercession of saints, and, above all, the mediation of the Virgin." Surely the edition of their Scriptures does not contain the charge of Paul to the Colossians. "Let no man beguile you of your reward, in a voluntary humility, and worshipping of angels, intending into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind." This passage may have slipped out of their memories, as the second commandment, “thou shalt not make any graven image," has slipped out of the catechism, which they generally circulate among their children.* The worship of the Virgin is at this day in the Church of Rome, and has been for several ages, a main part of their public worship, yea, and of their private devotions. For one prayer they make to Almighty God, they make ten addresses to the Virgin.

Our Lord, foreseeing the degeneracy of the church in this thing, takes all occasions to restrain all extravagant apprehensions, and imagination concerning any honour due to his mother. He

The worship of Mahuzzim, or Saint Mediators, is proved to be one principal token of the predicted apostacy. -Bishop Newton.

"1530 was

The Irish Roman Catholic Catechism. the precise period when the original Hebrew of the decalogue was tampered with: at that time a full stop was placed after the second commandment, and not after the first, in order to warrant its omission in the Popish Catechisms."

seems to have marked with studied indifference any mention of her name. When the womau brake forth into raptures concerning the mother of our Lord," Blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps that gave thee suck," our Saviour adverts to another thing: "Yea, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it."

When

he was told that his mother and brethren were without, "Who," he replied, "are my mother and my brethren? He that doeth the will of my Father, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother." The last time our Lord took notice of his mother was, when, looking down from the cross, he recommended her to the protection of his beloved disciple, saying-without any mark of honourable distinction-"Woman, "Woman, behold thy Son:" And from that time to the present the Church would never have known her by any other name than the blessed woman, or, "the Holy Mother," had not the Papists exalted her not only as a co-rival with her Son, but above him in supreme power and divine honours. This idolatrous worship of the Virgin seems to have been creeping into the church during the fourth century: it was stigmatized by one of the Fathers with the name of the heresy of the woman; on what account this appellation was given to the heresy, may be more easy to conceive, than proper to express.