the fetting up the authority of the church of Rome above all other churches: a few more examples to the like purpose now follow, viz. I. The veneration paid by the Papifts to their images (contrary to the practice of the primitive Chriftians within four hundred years after Chrift, among whom no images were worshipped or ufed in their churches*) and to their faints; to whom they erect temples and chapels, confefs their fins, pray and give praises, thus robbing the one fupreme God of his honour. Now this their worfhip of faints is a practice borrowed from the heathenifh theology, and particularly from the worship of dæmons among the Pagans; and accordingly they have a variety of faints and fainteffes to anfwer the gods and goddeffes in the heathen world; and as the feveral kingdoms of the earth were formerly fuppofed to be under the protection of different gods, in like manner are they now configned over to the guardianship of feveral Roman faints, as St. Dennis for France, George for England, Andrew for Scotland, &c. In fome other inftances they corrupted the fimplicity of the gospel by the introduction of divers Jewish rites. Thus the ufe of holy water, or the water of purifying, was a Jewish rite mentioned in the Eighth chapter of Numbers, where God commands the water of purifying to be fprinkled on the Levites; and hence Alexander I. bifhop of Romet is faid to have been the author of confecrating fuch cleanfing water, ordering it to be kept in temples and houfes to drive away devils. Whether the bishop last mentioned, who prefided in the beginning of the Second century, was really the introducer of this cuftom, I fhall not take upon me to determine however, its origin is plainly Jewifh, and the continu * Cave's Primitive Christianity. Palyd. Virg. de rer. inventorib. 1. v. c. 8. ance of it in the Christian church, a voluntary relapse from gofpel-liberty into Jewish bondage. 11. The priests' vestments are derived from the Hebrews, as the laft cited author fhews in the mitre, furplice, girdle, &c. from Exodus xxviii. &c. III. The payment of tithes is another Jewish rite, void of all fupport by precept or example in the New Teftament, and which was not established until about the fame æra as divers other popifh corruptions. For as father Paul, in his Treatife of Ecclefiaftical Benefices and Revenues, obferves, the Law of tithes was a divine Mofaical law, and as fuch, binding only to the Jewish people.-All right whatsoever of tithes is merely human; and about the year 1170, Alexander III. ordered proceedings by cenfures to enforce the payment of tithes, under pain of excommunication.'* IV. Auricular confeffion does not appear to have been abfolutely enjoined to be practifed once a year, earlier than the 4th Lateran † council in 1215. I fhall fubjoin but a few words of their corruptions of the Christian doctrines, and first, in their doctrine of purgatory, which is exprefsly contrary to the fenfe of the catholic church in the four firft centuries; and is moreover acknowledged by an eminent popish author, and an opponent of Luther, to have been but lately received into the univerfal church. Secondly. The doctrine of tranfubftantiation is also another novelty, not broached until the Eighth century, and even about that time warmly oppofed by the most learned men, particularly Johannes Scotus. In the year 1214, Pope Honorius III. commanded that the miffal-bread fhould be lifted up above the priest's head at a certain time, and that all the people fhould fall down and worship it; and Father Paul's Treatife of Ecclefiacal Revenues, &c. chap. xxviii. + Sermons againft popery. A. D. 1735. Ibid. though the new-found device and term of Tranfubftantiation was hatched in the Lateran council, A. D. 1059, the doctrine of tranfubftantiation was not decreed or established by any general council but the council of Trent, A. D. 1551. * To conclude; that divers of the novel order of Jefuits, of whom Ignatius Loyala the founder was not canonized until 1622, did corrupt the great doctrines of Christianity, and reprefent the Chriftian morality as far fhort of the purity of the heathenish, the reader may fee in a treatife written by the Abbé de Berthier, published in Dublin, 1726, entitled the 'Parallel of the Doctrine of the Pagans with the doctrine of the Jefuits, and that of the Conftitution Unigenitus, iffued by Pope Clement XI.' Out of feveral inftances therein mentioned of the nature of the doctrines of these fathers, it fhall fuffice here to transcribe one as a fpecimen of the reft, viz. Father Rhodes, in his fcholaftic theology, fays, if any one commits adultery or murder, and at the fame time confiders the malignancy and heinous nature of these actions but in fuch a manner as is very imperfect and fuperficial, though the matter of it is very grofs, yet his fin is venial.' To which I fhall fubjoin one instance more of the Chriftian morality being represented even by the profeffed vicar of Christ Jefus himself, as far fhort of the heathenish, viz. in a bull of Pope Clement VI. in the year 1351, a difpenfation was granted to John, king of France, and to queen Joan, his fecond wife, giving to the king and queen's confeffor a power to abfolve them both for the past and future from all engagements and contracts, though backed by an oath, if they could not keep them without fome inconveniency. Thus is perjury authorized; whereas among the ancient Romans, it was an opinion generally received that rather than break one's oath, one ought to be ready to brave all that is dreadful in banishment, imprisonment and torment.'* Now furely it must have been in a time of deep sleep that those tares were fown, that these grofs corruptions in doctrine and practice, thefe flat contradictions to the precepts laid down by the author of the Chriftian religion in the New Teftament, were broached; and indeed the broachers of them feem to have been well aware of their being fuch, and therefore, confiftently enough, ordered that book to be locked up from the ufe of the vulgar; and that ignorance was the mother of devotion became an established maxim among them; and (difmal to relate!) the prayers of the church were to be muttered in a language which most of thofe that were therein exercifed did not understand; for even in queen Mary's time, in the year 1557, it was deemed a crime for any clergyman to perform divine † fervice in English and indeed an univerfal ignorance, extending to human as well as divine things, did reign for divers, centuries preceding the grand æra of the midnight of popish darkness above hinted at: v. g. king Alfred who died in 900, complained bitterly that from the Humber to the Thames there was not a priest that, understood the liturgy in his mother tongue; and that from the Thames to the fea there was not a man that knew how to tranflate the easiest. piece of Latin. And in the 15th century, the state of learning was very deplorable, viz. real learning was then fcarce fo much as heard of. School divinity and skill in the canon law were all the ecclefiafticks valued themselves upon, and it was the only road by which they could hope to arrive at church dignities. On the other * Letter from a Librarian at Geneva, published in the London Magazine, 1751. Fox's Ecclefiaftical History. Rapin's Hiftory of England, Vol. I hand, the monks who had crept into most of the profefforfhips in the univerfities had over-run divinity and philofophy with fuch a heap of jargon as ferved only to give their disciples falfe notions of learning,' and to teach them to wrangle. But with the reformation in religion, a more folid and useful learning did alfo revive; and here it seems well worthy of notice, as a fingular providence greatly favouring the progrefs and establishment of the reformation, that about the year 1450, the mystery of printing was first difcovered; and is faid to have been brought into England, A. D. 1471, in the reign of Henry VI; which, as Fox obferves, proved a forcible engine to batter popery, and a means of spreading knowledge among the people, who had with great care been kept in ignorance by the prevailing power. But now, as the poet fays, by means of this excellent invention, Learning revives, nor fears again t'expire. and 'tis humbly hoped that the fame thing may justly now alfo be applicable to the reformed religion. Thus have I, for the fake of those who may have been lefs converfant in thefe matters, given a brief portraiture of the apoftacy of the profeffors of Christianity, thofe efpecially who affected the title of vicars and reprefentatives of Chrift Jefus; of whom as it is fuppofed to have been prophefied that his vifage was more marred than any man's, thefe men have taken care that this fhould be amply fulfilled in the reprefentation they have given of Chrift and his religion to the world: a religion, although calculated to promote the temporal as well as eternal Rapin's History of England, Vol. VI. |