down burning torches from on high, as fymbols and emblems of fire from heaven. Miracles are thought fo neceffary and effential, that they are reckoned among the notes of the Catholic Church; and they are alleged principally in fupport of purgatory, prayers for the dead, the worship of faints, images, and relics, and the like (as they are called) Catholic doctrines. But if thefe miracles were all real, we learn from hence what opinion we ought to frame of them; and what then fhall we fay, if they are all fictions and counterfeits? They are indeed fo far from being any proof of the true church, that they are rather a proof of a falfe one;-they are, as we fee, the dif tinguishing mark of Antichrift 8."

66

To corroborate these obfervations, let us turn to the description of the church in the tenth century h. Both Greeks and Latins placed the effence and life of religion in the worship of images and departed faints, in fearching after with zeal, and

* Newton, vol. iii. p. 236, 237. Mofheim, vol. i. p. 456.

i

pre

The worship of images was established at the fe

i

cond

2

preferving with a devout care and venera-
tion, the facred relics of holy men and wo-
men; and in accumulating riches upon the
Priests and Monks, whofe opulence in-
creafed with the progrefs of fuperftition.
Scarcely did
any Christian dare to approach
the throne of God, without rendering first
the faints and images propitious by a so-
lemn round of expiatory rites and lustra-
tions.-The fears of purgatory, of that fire
which was to deftroy the remaining im
purities of departed fouls, were now car-
ried to the greatest height, and exceeded
by far the terrifying apprehenfions of in-
fernal torments; for they hoped to avoid
the latter easily, by dying enriched with
the prayers of the clergy, or covered with
the merits and mediations of the faints ;
while from the pains of purgatory they
knew there was no exemption. The clergy
therefore, finding these fuperftitious terrors
admirably adapted to increase their au-
thority and promote their intereft, used
every method to augment them, and by
the most pathetic difcourfes, accompanied

cond Council of Nice, A. D. 787. See Lowman, p. 206.

with

with monftrous fables and fictitious miracles, they laboured to establish the doctrine of purgatory, and also to make it appear that they had a mighty interest in that formidable region.”

The fovereign Pontiff exercised the authority he had obtained in making and publishing edicts and conftitutions for the establishment of idolatry. Divine honours were conferred upon reputed faints, who were folemnly canonized according to regular forms of confecration. As they were fuppofed to be poffeffed of divine power, the most fervent prayers were offered up to them-the name of God, and of them that dwell in heaven, was blafphemed, and the Supreme Being was deprived of the glory and worship due to him alone, and the name of the genuine faints and angels was abused by setting them up as mediators and interceffors for mankind. The dipine laws were changed1. In the Popish mafs-books, and in the tables written in the churches, the fecond commandment, fo directly pointed against all idolatry, was omitted; and, in order to make up the

complete number of the Decalogue, the tenth commandment is divided into two. It has been the practice of the Church of Rome for many ages, to dispense for money with the due obfervance of the precepts of the Gospel, and to fell indulgences, pardons, and abfolutions, even for crimes of the moft atrocious nature m. Of the progrefs of this infamous traffick, we may judge by the account given of it in the twelfth century.

"When the Roman Pontiffs caft an eye upon the immenfe treasures, that the inferior rulers of the church were accumulating by the fale of indulgences, they thought proper to limit the power of the Bishops in remitting the penalties impofed upon tranfgreffors, and affumed almost entirely this profitable traffick to themselves. In confequence of this new measure, the court of Rome became the general magazine of indulgences and the Pontiffs, when either the wants of the Church, the emptiness of their coffers, or the demon of avarice

I refer the Reader to the Catalogue of Indulgences printed in 1514, and quoted by Simpson in his Key to the Prophecies, p. 247.

prompted them to look out for new subfidies, published not only an univerfal, but alfo a complete, or what they called, a plenary remiffion of all the temporal pains and penalties, which the Church had annexed to certain tranfgreffions. They went ftill farther; and not only remitted the penalties which the civil and ecclefiaftical laws had enacted against tranfgreffors, but audaciously ufurped the authority which belongs to God alone, and impiously pretended to abolish even the punishments which are referved in a future ftate for the workers of iniquity; a ftep this, which the Bishops with all their avarice and prefumption had never once ventured to take ". He opened his mouth in blafphemy against God. God alone hath power to forgive fins," is the declaration of our Lord.

n "

"When a new Pope is inaugurated, he is clothed with the pontifical robes, and crowned, and placed upon the altar of the church of St. Peter at Rome, and the Cardinals come and kifs his feet, which ceremony is called adoration. They first elect,

Mofheim, vol. i. p. 595. See likewife p. 596, and

and