aim, the extension and maintenance of the Royalties of St. Peter. The rest formed an Ecclesiastical Senate at Rome, whose fidelity was secured by their ample share in the honour and authority of the pope, and whose astuteness was intensified by daily attendance upon his presence, as his assistants in the management of home and foreign affairs. And the money-power of the popes was also vastly greater than that of all other Sovereigns. Neander points out a new and lucrative source of revenue opened at this time, by their adoption of the pagan custom of pecuniary fines or compensation for crime. Hence the origin of indulgences, by which the wealthy could easily purchase exemption from the punishment of sin, and obtain its forgiveness. Some few protested, 'If so, CHRIST would not have said, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of GOD." But their voices were only faintly heard amidst the loud chink of the golden showers that fell into the papal treasury.

But the lamented Archbishop Whately clearly shows that the secret of Rome's spiritual strength is mainly to be found in the fact, that all its errors have originated deep in the corruptions of our nature, and are rooted in fallen man's heart of hearts. Hence the Samson-strength by which it subdued and ruled the kings of the earth during the Dark Ages. Hence its still prouder triumph in keeping the greater part of Christendom in spiritual darkness and slavery, amidst the boasted liberty and light of our own times, the spirit of Popery being unchanged and unchangeable. He observes that the great contrast between the law of optics and of morals, sufficiently accounts for the difficulty of detecting errors in religion. In contemplating human transactions, the law of optics is reversed; we see the most indistinctly the objects which are close around us; we view them through the discoloured medium of our own prejudices and passions; the more fami

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liar we are with them, the less truly do we estimate their real colours and dimensions. Thus the Romish system rose insensibly like a young plant from the seed, making a progress scarcely perceptible from year to year, till at length it fixed its roots deeply in the soul, and spread its baneful shade far around, for it was the natural offspring of man's corrupt character, and it needed no sedulous culture. The corruptions crept in one by one, originating with a depraved and ignorant people, but connived at, cherished, consecrated, and successively established by a debased and worldly-minded ministry, and modified by them just so far as might best favour the views of their profligate ambition. The good seed 'fell among thorns,' which being fostered by those who should have been occupied with rooting them out, not only sprang up with it,' but finally 'choked' and overpowered it. He sagaciously traces the chief errors of modern Romanism to such perennial sources of corruption as Superstition, Fondness for Speculative Mysteries, Vicarious Religion, Pious Frauds, Undue Reliance on Human Authority, Intolerance, and Trust in Names and Privileges-all equally characteristic of the unenlightened Jew and Protestant, Pagan and Romanist. Here are some of his luminous thoughts on this curious and important subject, as much as possible conveyed in his own simple but forcible words.

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Superstition is the most prevalent of all errors in religion. In no point is our spiritual Enemy more vigilant, he is ever ready not merely to tempt us with the unmixed poison of known sin, but to corrupt even our food, and taint even that medicine of the soul, religion, with the venom of his falsehood. Superstition is his chief means of corrupting religion, as it consists in any misdirection of religious feeling, which may be done either by the worship of objects which deserve no adoration, such as false gods; or in the worship of the

true God by improper ceremonies and symbols; and the latter branch of superstition is extremely apt to degenerate into the former. The Romanist worship, for instance, of the wood of the supposed true cross, has a correspondence approaching to identity with the Israelites' veneration for the Brazen Serpent which Hezekiah destroyed. But the more ancient superstition was one degree less irrational, because the image was that which had itself been a more immediate instrument of a miraculous deliverance; whereas what typically corresponds to it in the Christian dispensation is (as our LORD Himself points out) not the cross on which he suffered, but the very person of the suffering REDEEMER. Hezekiah, by the destruction of the Brazen Serpent, vindicated the second commandment, which prohibits the worship of the true God by forbidden ceremonies or emblems, which so insensibly glide into direct idolworship, that it is often hard to decide where the breach of the second commandment ends and that of the first begins. Thus 'The sin of Jeroboam' was a breach of the second commandment, though not of the first. Superstition is commonly considered an amiable weakness, a harmless folly, merely an excess of religious feeling, and it is said that the actors are on the safe side. But suppose the parallel case of the sick man adding poisonous quack nostrums to the good physician's medicine, because he thinks it too simple. Is he safe? Superstition also attributes sacred efficacy to some outward act, or the presence of some material object, without any inward devotion of the heart being required to accompany it, and thus the natural food of religion is often converted into poison. So superstitious Romanists resort to pilgrimages, sprinkling with holy water, relic-worship, crossings, and telling of beads. The most startling result of ignorant superstition is profanity, as in the case of Hindoos cursing their idols when they fail to give them aid, and of the blas

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phemous jests of the ignorant vulgar, of all ranks and creeds, upon religion; although there is no real wit in profanity, for nothing can be easier, as there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and the pleasure afforded by wit chiefly arises from a perception of skill displayed, and of difficulty overcome. Every system of superstition should be read backwards, for 'the wish is father to the thought.' As the Roman pagan belief of the souls of unburied bodies wandering disconsolately on the banks of the Styx, arose from natural anxiety about their mortal remains; so Purgatory arose from prayers for the dead, and not the reverse. Transubstantiation did not spring from misinterpreting the text 'This is my body,' but the misinterpretation from the doctrine, and so of all Romish errors which have perverted texts alleged for their support.

Vicarious Religion and Fondness for Speculative Mysteries were remarkably characteristic of paganism. Indeed it is our natural propensity to trust our legal affairs to our lawyer, and medical to our physician, with a vague notion of some mystery in them that we cannot fathom. This is the origin of priest-craft. The Romish priesthood did but take advantage from time to time of this natural propensity, by engrafting successively on its system such practices and points of doctrine as favoured it, and which were naturally converted into a source of profit and influence to themselves. Hence the gradual transformation of the Christian minister— the presbyter-into the sacrificing priest, the Hiereus-in the Latin Sacerdos, as the Romanists call theirs-a name given by the Holy Scripture to the priests of the Jewish and Pagan religions, but which they never apply to any of the Christian ministers ordained by the Apostles. The priest in our own Church is only presbyter writ small,' being the contraction from the old word prester. Now St. Paul, in 'pro

claiming the good tidings' (preaching the Gospel is a phrase so familiar as almost to lose its original force) often applies the word mystery to truths not discoverable by human reason, but made known by Divine Revelation, always, however, directing attention not to the concealment but the disclosure. (Eph. vi. 19; Ro. xvi. 25, 26.) This he does in manifest allusion to the mysteries of paganism which invested its priests with supernatural awe as concealers, not explainers, of the secrets of their religion, making it their business rather to keep the people in darkness than to enlighten them. NOW TEACHING is the main duty of Christian ministers, and it is a distinguishing excellence and striking peculiarity of Christianity alone of all religions, that, as found in the Holy Scriptures, it has no priestcraft, for this simple reason, that it has (in the Romish sense) no priest on earth, and no priest at all except the SAVIOUR, of whom indeed all the Levitical priests were but types. It is also most important to observe, that John and Peter, in applying the title of priest to Christians, applies it to all of them, as a royal priesthood,' to prohibit this pagan vicarious notion, that religion was exclusively the concern of priests.

The Romish priest derogates from the honour of the one HIGH PRIEST, by undertaking to reconcile sinners to God through penances to be performed by them to obtain his absolution, and by profanely copying our only High Priest, in pretending to transfer to them his own merits or those of the saints. He, like a pagan rather than a Jewish priest, keeps hidden from the people the Book which guides their faith, that they may with ignorant reverence submit to the dominion of error, instead of being made free by the truth,' which he was expressly commissioned to make known to them. He also pretends to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, to propitiate GOD towards himself and his congregation, and, by making its effi

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