main the utmost uncertainty, and in fact improbability, as to the safe passage or conveyance of each prayer we offer up to them. In a word, if they hear all the prayers addressed to them, then they are Gods, and not creatures: but if they are not Gods, but finite and imperfect creatures, then they cannot hear all the breathed or whispered aspirations which ascend towards them, from twenty nations of the earth at the same moment of time. If the Romanist embraces the latter supposition, then he should give up saintworship. But if he will not do this, then must he admit that he makes to himself new Gods!

God is dishonoured, then, by our ascribing his essential and incommunicable attributes to divers of his creatures. But still more is his displeasure excited, when His own way of salvation is set at nought, and the offices and honours which He has conferred upon Christ are attributed to some of those poor sinners whom Christ came to save. Now this is constantly done by those who pray to the saints instead of praying to Christ, and ask of them those very blessings which it is his peculiar pleasure and glory to bestow. "Come unto ME," says Jesus himself, "all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Rather turn, says Dr. Wiseman, to the saints, and "ask them to use their influence" with Christ. No, says Paul, "there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." But, rejoins Dr. Wiseman, "it adds immensely to His glory, it is paying him the highest homage, when we thus give occasion for the prostration of the saints before him on our behalf." On the contrary, we reply, what greater disrespect can we show, than by neglecting the course prescribed, and choosing other ways of approach unto God? "I am the way, the truth, and the life," saith Christ, "no man cometh unto the Father, BUT BY ME. "I am the door; by me if any man enter, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." And Paul declares, again and again, in the strongest and clearest terms, that he is our great High Priest, our only In

tercessor, and that he “has entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.' "And he therefore argues, "Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Dr. Wiseman, however, argues that "the saints look down upon us with sympathy; and that we may turn to them with the confidence of brethren,” and ask them to use their influence with their Master.

This is indeed one of the greatest affronts that can possibly be offered to Christ. "Greater love," said the compassionate Saviour, "hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine."

It is little to say, that no human records have portrayed, nor has the mind of man conceived, a character of such exceeding love and sympathy, as is that of Christ. The truth is, that even the outlines and rapid lineaments of that character which are afforded us in the brief narratives of the evangelists, are beyond the reach of our minds, and souls. The tenderness and compassion of that heart, which yearned, even to weeping, over a city whose inhabitants he well knew, were in a few short hours, to raven like wolves for his blood;-nay, which, even when actually suffering intolerable agonies of their infliction, cried out, not for himself, but for them, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!-the unutterable love of that heart, who can attempt to fathom! Yet it is from this compassionate Saviour that we are taught to turn, with doubt and apprehension, and to "beg of Mary to intercede with him on our behalf"" And we are to ask such a being as Dunstan, or Dominic, or Joseph, "to use his influence" with Jesus, to induce him to listen to our petitions! Intolerable insult! horrible blasphemy! God-dishonouring profanity! What words shall we use, rightly to describe this awful system of delusion!

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XVI. THE IDOLATRY OF ROMANISM.

IDOLATROUS WORSHIP.

OUR last essay, though somewhat prolonged, was still necessarily limited to a consideration of the principle discussed. Little was said of the practice which grows out of that principle. We endeavoured to show that, even as described by the Romish casuists, the doctrine of the INVOCATION OF SAINTS was in theory indefensible, and opposed to the whole spirit of Christianity. But we cannot stop here. We are compelled, if we would do justice to the subject, and to this inquiry, to consider also that doctrine as it is practically known among us. And this will be, in truth, the test to which the matter must be brought. We have alleged that the system of worship in the Romish church is idolatrous in its character and tendency. If we are right, we shall be sure to find the manifestation of that tendency, in the worship of those who adhere to that church. This, therefore, will naturally offer itself as the subject for our present consideration; namely, to show that the worship of the church of Rome is not only founded on principles which lead to idolatry; but is actually seen, in the conduct of its adherents, to produce that result.

With this view, we must consider the real nature of the worship which is current in the church of Rome; as a system idolatrous throughout; a system which, from one end to the other, constantly interposes some other object of worship between the creature and the Creator, and thus effectually precludes that intercourse and converse between God and man, which at first existed in Eden,-which Adam lost by

transgression, and which it is the main object of the gospel to restore.

In Dr. Milner's xxth letter, he loudly vaunts the vast advantage possessed by his church, in the greater means of sanctity provided, in her sacraments, public services, confession, and prescribed private devotions. But there is one important distinction which he seems to have forgotten; to wit, that between worship of a laborious, costly and splendid character, and worship rightly offered. We readily admit that the Romish church furnishes her votaries with many and most elaborate forms; with more sacraments than the apostles ever knew; with penances, and processions, and pilgrimages, which the apostles would have abhorred; but all this is nothing to the purpose, or rather it only the more proves our position. We do not charge the Romish church with abolishing, or discontinuing, or neglecting the services of the sanctuary, but with perverting them. And let us remember that the cautions given in Scripture are more frequently directed against superstitious, pharisaical, or ill-directed worship, than against the neglect of worship altogether. The prophets were frequent in such warnings-"To what purpose," says Isaiah, i. 11. "is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts. Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.' ""

In the same strain follows Amos: "I hate, I despise your feast-days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat-offerings, I will not accept them:

neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts." (chap. v. 21.)

But Paul must be our chief authority in this matter, as one who was especially "the apostle of the Gentiles," and who was inspired to write no fewer than fourteen different epistles, filled with instructions and warnings to the early Christian churches. And those instructions and warnings are most full and explicit against every one of those things in which Rome chiefly prides herself. We will just run over a short list of them.

1. Rome lays great stress on her multitude of holidays, most of which she makes positively obligatory. Paul dismisses the matter thus-" One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it." (Rom. xiv. 5, 6.)

2. Rome is most particular in forbidding meat on certain days in every week. Paul, on the contrary, leaves every man to his own mind and conscience, "For one believeth that he may eat all things; another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not, judge him that eateth." (Rom. xiv. 2, 3.) And in another place he says

"For meat commendeth us not to God: for neither if we eat are we the better; neither if we eat not, are we the worse,' (1 Cor. viii. 8.)

3. Rome makes celibacy a duty appertaining to the Christian ministry. Paul says

"Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?" (1 Cor. ix. 5.) In another place, he says

"A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife.” (1 Tim. iii. 2.)

And with reference to both this and the last point, he warns Timothy, that "in the latter times some