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been, if it had been practicable? We have writings of several of the Fathers of the three first centuries; and, if they taught any thing of the kind, could they have omitted, on some occasion or other, to notice what the church of Rome now holds to be so pious a part of devotion? Why then rest on the Fathers of the fourth, and make them tantamount to all antiquity? Simply because their predecessors say nothing of it. Even Lactantius, who wrote a whole book on the subject of True Worship, in the beginning of the fourth century, does not give the most distant intimation of respect for reliques, or prayer to saints. As to the Fathers, we respect them as far as they respect and adhere to the Scriptures, and no further can we do so. Error is a weed, that strikes its roots, and gathers strength, in obscurity. It is seldom noticed till it has taken root, and becomes conspicuous by its growth. This error seems to have begun to shew itself earlier than Bossuet was aware that he might date it; that is, in the time of the apostles themselves; and where alone it could be supposed to do so, that is, among the Gentile converts. In the Epistle to the Colossians, chap. ii. v. 18. St. Paul says to them, "Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind," that is, by merely human imaginations of what is not revealed;" and not holding” (i. e. adhering to) “the Head.”

The Gentiles, with Plato at their head, thought the Deity too great to be directly addressed, and therefore, by a voluntary humiliation, wished to address him

through the intermediate intercessions of inferior celestial beings; and it was natural, therefore, for the Gentile converts to apply the same mode of reasoning to Christianity. The Jews, on the contrary, knew, that their religious reverence was to be addressed to God alone, and that even Daniel was not permitted to give it to an angel. And the objection, which St. Paul opposes to any worshipping of angels, concludes against the paying any religious reverence to any other than God himself, viz. that it is not holding the Head, that is, not adhering to the supreme Being, as the only original source of all, and the only Giver of good, the common Father and Protector of his creatures, who wills that they should consider themselves as all equally under the superintending eye of the same omniscient Being, and as brethren in the vast earthly dwelling of the human race.

This grand and sublime idea of the Omnipresent, and impartially just and beneficent common Father of all created beings, it was one of the great purposes of revelation to teach and maintain; and to rescue the human mind from the misguiding effects of ima ginations enfeebled by ignorance, and bewildered by hopes and terrors. The savage's idea of a God is as limited nearly as his horizon. He feels there exists a superior Being, and wishes his favour towards himself, and his enmity towards his enemy. The idea of local and personal partialities in angels, or sainted spirits, is merely an improvement of the first idea of the savage, applied to Christianity; and, to suppose their intercessions to avail, we must suppose passions and partialities, similar to those which man feels, to

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prevail in the pure mind of Omnipotence, and thus degrade him to the rank almost of imperfect humanity.

Nor is this all. The supposed intercessor, also, will intercept a portion, and perhaps the greater portion of the gratitude due for favour, supposed to be obtained through his intercession; and instead of the sense of an impartial and omnipresent God, we have partial and local dispensations of his favour taught in direct opposition to it.

Of the state of departed spirits we know nothing; of that of angels very little. To worship either is then an intrusion into those things which are not revealed, and therefore forbidden by the apostle.

To reverence images is still worse. However a representation may work upon the senses, it degrades the conception of a God, perverts the imagination with the ideas of local or personal partialities, and a debased idea of him, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. Such also is the effect of believing the Host to be the transubstantiated body of our Saviour. It is to all human perception but an image to those, who believe it to be himself under that form'; for it is not himself in his own proper character.

Images of saints have similar effects. By a little familiarity with such objects the ignorant will always ascribe virtues (that is, beneficent effects) to the image, or something connected with it. A veil is thus interposed between them and the Deity, false ideas of him generated, and the saint, and finally the image, have that homage which the word of God declares he will not permit to be given to another.

The council of Trent has, it is true, forbid the attributing any virtue or excellence to the image; it was then aware of the danger, and the more culpable in not abolishing the use of them, the evil consequences of which had been sufficiently apparent, eveņ in the high estimation of that at Loretto.

OF TRADITION.

This and the following part of the Bishop of Meaux's subject, which might with more propriety, though with less convenience, and perhaps some danger to the rest of his Exposition of the Doctrines of the Romish Church, have opened the subject, he has skilfully for his purpose reserved to close it. The elucidation, which it affords, of the meaning of the authority, which he quotes under the magnificent terms all antiquity, might have abated much of the deference of readers, who would reflect upon the subject; and he has therefore placed that, which would not bear scrutiny, where it would be least attended to. Having read his assertions, that his positions were supported by all antiquity, the most part of his readers were not likely to trouble themselves much with looking further than an obvious meaning.

It is admitted that*"when Jesus Christ had founded his church by his preaching, the unwritten word was the first rule of Christianity." But the Bishop adds,

* Translation, p. 157.

"And when the writings of the New Testament were added, this unwritten word did not upon that account lose its authority; which makes us receive, with equal veneration, all that was ever taught by the Apostles, whether by writing, or by word of mouth, as St. Paul himself has expressly declared." The reference in the margin in my French copy (which is that of Paris, in 12mo. A. D. 1730) is to 2 Thess. ii. 24. I presume by an error of the press for 2 Thess. ii. 15. which runs thus; "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."

To this every sincere Christian will answer, that he is willing and desirous to adhere to all that was really, and in fact, taught by our Saviour or the Apostles, by preaching or writing. The writings of the Apostles and Evangelists, as collected in the New Testament, being allowed by Protestants and Roman Catholics in general to be genuine, the question between them is only as to other tradition. The difficulty is, how to be assured that any tradition, said to be that of our Saviour, or his Apostles, is genuine. This difficulty the Bishop endeavours to obviate by the following criterion. * "It is," says he, “a most certain sign a doctrine comes from the Apostles, when it is universally embraced by all Christian churches, without any possibility of shewing its beginning. We cannot choose but receive all that is established

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* Translation, p. 158.

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