the advocate of the virgin Eve. Thus, as the human race was doomed to death through a virgin: so the human race might be delivered also through a virgin; the balance being equally held, between the disobedience of one virgin, and the obedience of another1.

(3.) You may begin, says Tertullian, from parables: where there is the lost sheep, sought for by the Lord and carried back upon his shoulders. Let the very pictures of your cups be produced: if, even in them, the interpretation of that animal will clearly shine forth.

In all our movements, whether we come in or whether we go out, whether we put on our raiment or whether we bind on our sandals, in the bath, at the table, while using either lights or beds or couches, in whatever fashion we may be employed, we wear our forehead with the sign of the cross. If, for these and the like points of discipline, you demand scriptural authority: truly you will find none. Tradition will be alleged to you, as their voucher: custom, as their confirmer: faith, as their observer3.

(4.) Let us, says Cyprian, be mindful of each other in our prayers: let us be concordant and unanimous: let us always mutually pray for one another: let us, by mutual charity, relieve our troubles and distresses. And, whosoever, through the celerity of the divine favour, shall first depart, let our love persevere with the Lord: for our brethren and for our sisters, let not our prayer cease with the mercy of the Father.

Quemadmodum enim illa per angelicum sermonem seducta est, ut effugeret Deum prævaricata verbum ejus ita et hæc per angelicum sermonem evangelizata est, ut portaret Deum, obediens ejus verbo. Et, sicut illa seducta est ut effugeret Deum : sic hæc suasa est obedire Deo, uti virginis Evæ virgo Maria fieret advocata. Et, quemadmodum adstrictum est morti genus humanum per virginem : solvatur per virginem, æqua lance disposita virginalis inobedientiæ per virginalem obedientiam. Iren. adv. hær. lib. v. c. 16. p. 340, 341. and cap. 19. ed. Oxon. 1702. where Grabe has retained the inferior reading, approved, of course, by Feuardent, salvatur.

For a right understanding of this tasteless tissue of unmeaning antitheses, compare Iren. adv. hær. lib. iii. c. 33. p. 221.

2 A parabolis licebit incipias, ubi

est ovis perdita, a Domino requisita, et humeris ejus revecta. Procedant ipsæ picturæ calicum vestrorum, si vel in illis perlucebit interpretatio pecudis illius. Tertull. de pudic. Oper. p. 748. and cap. 7. p. 559. ed. Paris. 1675.

3 Ad omnem progressum atque promotum, ad omnem aditum et exitum, ad vestitum et calceatum, ad lavacra, ad mensas, ad lumina, ad cubilia, ad sedilia, quacunque nos conversatio exercet, frontem crucis signaculo terimus. Harum et aliarum ejusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostules Scripturarum, nullam invenies: traditio tibi prætenditur autrix; consuetudo, confirmatrix; et fides, observatrix. Tertull. de coron. milit. § 3. Oper. p. 449.

4 Memores nostri invicem simus, concordes atque unanimes: utrobique pro nobis semper oremus: pressuras

Bravely endure: spiritually advance: happily arrive. Only remember us then, when in you virginity shall begin to be honoured1.

(5.) We venerate and worship, says Justin Martyr, the Angelic Host and the Spirits of the Prophets, teaching others as we ourselves have been taught2.

II. Such is the Romish Case, as made out, from Canonical Scripture, from the unsafe Apocrypha, and from the Ecclesiastical Writings of the three first centuries.

1. The FACTS, to be substantiated, were: that The Invocation of Saints and the Relative Worship of Images and Relics and Crosses, as propounded and defined by the Second Council of Nice and afterwards by the Council of Trent, are inculcated in Scripture; and that, accordingly, On Scriptural Authority, such Practices universally and notoriously prevailed in the Universal Church, during the very first centuries, up to the time of Christ and his Apostles.

Such were the FACTS, proposed to be evidentially established. Yet, respecting this asserted Invocation and respecting this asserted Relative Worship, not a single syllable is said by any one of the witnesses produced, whether from Scripture, or from the Apocrypha, or from the Ecclesiastical Writings of the three first centuries.

Here it will be exclaimed by the merely English reader: Surely, Justin Martyr, as cited above, attests, that the Christians of his age, only forty years after the death of St. John, venerated and worshipped both the Angelic Host, and the Spirits of the departed Prophets; nay more, attests, yet additionally, that they had been taught so to do by their predecessors, which brings the testimony up to the very life-time of St. John.

Certainly, in the preceding citation, they are represented as so doing but then it is only in the garbled and falsified translation of Dr. Milner, not in the statement of Justin himself3.

:

et angustias mutua caritate releve

mus.

Et quis istine nostrûm prior divinæ dignationis celeritate præcesserit, perseveret apud Dominum nostra dilectio: pro fratribus et sororibus nostris, apud misericordiam Patris, non corroboratio. Cyprian. Epist. lx. Oper. vol. ii. p. 143.

Durate fortiter: spiritaliter pergite pervenite feliciter. Tantum

in

mementote tunc nostri, cum cipiet in vobis virginitas honorari. Cyprian. de habit. virgin. Oper. vol. i. p. 103. Ed. Oxon. 1682.

2 The original, from which Dr. Milner has thought fit to produce this marvellous attestation, will forthwith be given.

3 The End of Religious Controversy. Letter xxxviii. p. 253.

The translation makes a most extraordinary appearance by the side of the original, which I have duly subjoined in the margin, but which, for very obvious reasons, Dr. Milner has thought it inexpedient to produce.

Justin really theologises in manner following.

But HIM (namely the Father); and the Son who came forth from him, and who hath taught these things to us and to the army of the other good angels who follow him and are made like unto him; and the Prophetic SPIRIT: we worship and we adore, honouring them in word and in truth, and, to every person who wishes to learn, ungrudgingly delivering as we ourselves have been taught1.

Justin evidentially informs us, that the adoration of the Holy Trinity constituted the worship of the Catholic Church from the very beginning. But Dr. Milner compels him to attest the primeval and universal establishment of the Idolatrous Superstition of the Church of Rome: and, to crown all, actually transmutes the Prophetic Spirit of God, worshipped by the Primitive Christians as the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, into the disembodied Spirits of the Prophets!

It is only just to say, that Mr. Berington is not guilty of any such stupendous perversion of Justin: but, nevertheless, on the general matter, he is evidently in despair, though he puts the best face upon it that he can.

Speaking of Images and Crosses, he says: It cannot be necessary, that, on this subject, I should adduce any authorities from the Fathers, which would prove; that, In the early ages, particularly from the time of Constantine, Painted Representations of mysterious Facts, of the Cross, of the Lives of Saints, were exhibited in the places of public worship2.

With his views, and with the avowed object of his Work, I should have thought, that the production of authorities up to the apostolic age, for the purpose of substantiating the ALLEGED FACT, not merely of the Exhibition of Images and Crosses and Pictures, but of their Relative Worship on the part of the faith

Γ'Αλλ' ΕΚΕΙΝΟΝ τε· καὶ τὸν παρ' αὐτοῦ ΥΙΟΝ ἔλθοντα, καὶ διδάξαντα ἡμᾶς ταῦτα καὶ τὸν τῶν ἄλλων ἐπομένων καὶ ἐξομοιουμένων ἀγαθῶν ἀγγέλων στρατὸν ΠΝΕΥΜΑ τι τὸ προφήτικον σεβόμεθα

καὶ προσκυνοῦμεν, λόγῳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ του μῶντες, καὶ παντὶ βουλομένῳ μαθεῖν, ὡς ἐδιδάχθημεν, ἀφθόνως παραδίδοντες. Justin. Apol. i. Oper. p. 43.

2 Faith of Cathol. p. 428.

ful as inculcated by the Councils of Nice and Trent, was, in truth, the very reverse of unnecessary. That Mr. Berington can produce abundant authorities from the time of Constantine downward, I make no manner of doubt: for the Church had then begun rapidly to degenerate into that unhallowed superstition, by which so widely in extent she has ever since been disfigured. But he must recollect, that the question is not, What might be the belief and practice of the fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh centuries, but What was the belief and practice of the Primitive Church up to the time of the Apostles founded professedly upon the teaching of inspiration. Yet the adduction of authorities, to this latter effect, Mr. Berington actually pronounces to be quite unnecessary. That it was out of his power to produce them, is sufficiently manifest: that their production is unnecessary, he will persuade no person who in the slightest degree understands the nature of historical testimony. The adduction of such evidence is the precise matter, which we require: Mr. Berington assures us, that it cannot be necessary.

2. But, if it be impossible to substantiate the Invocation of Saints and the Relative Worship of Images and Relics and Crosses, as defined by the two Councils of Nice and Trent, either from Scripture or from the Apocrypha or from the Writings of the three first Centuries: still less can such Invocation and such Worship be substantiated, as they practically exist or have existed in the gross form of absolute idolatry.

Those modern Romanists, who come in contact with scriptural Protestantism, are wont to assert: that their Invocation of the Saints is a mere request, that they would pray on their behalf; that the Relative Worship of Images is simply the appropriate worship, whether Latria or Dulia, of the objects represented by such images, for the Images themselves contain or possess no divine potency; that the Relative Worship of Relics is nothing more than a natural affectionate veneration, on the principle of what are commonly styled keepsakes, for whatever has belonged to an eminently pious individual; and that the Relative Worship of the Cross is but the Ultimate Worship of the Incarnate Deity who was crucified'.

Some Romanists, I believe, still please themselves with the excuse of

Pope Gregory: that images, through the medium of representation, are the

Thus, for instance, complacently glozes the Bishop of Strasbourg to the english laic, whom he is attempting to proselyte. But, even to say nothing of the total want of authority, either scriptural or primitive, for such vain notions and performances: how stands the matter, in respect to the fact of naked actual practice?

The very prayers, publicly used in the Latin Church, both before the Reformation and after the Reformation, supplicate the Virgin and the Saints, not merely to intercede for believers (as, while in the flesh, Christians are directed to pray for each other); but absolutely to grant to them those holy gifts and graces, and to impart to them that needful spiritual strength and assistance, which God only can bestow1. Dr. Trevern

books and remembrancers of the unlearned. See Gregor. Epist. lib. ix. epist. 105. They do not seem to be aware, that this was precisely one of the pleas advanced by the more decent sort of pagan idolaters. Δοκοῦσι dn μου καὶ οἱ νομοθέται, καθάπερ τιν παίδων ἀγέλῃ, ἐξευρεῖν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ταυτὶ τὰ ἀγάλματα, σημεῖα τῆς πρὸς τὸ θεῖον τιμῆς, καὶ ὥσπερ χειραγω γίαν τινὰ καὶ ὁδὸν πρὸς ἀνάμνησιν. Maxim. Tyr. Dissert. xxxviii. p. 369,

370.

1 Sancta Dei genetrix, quæ dignè meruisti concipere quem totus orbis nequivit comprehendere; tuo pio interventu, culpas nostras ablue, ut perennis sedem gloriæ, per te redempti, valeamus scandere, ubi manes cum filio tuo sine tempore. Collect. in Hor. ad usum Sarum. Paris. 1526. fol. 4. Burnet's Hist. of the Reform. vol. ii. p. 143. Records under Edward, No. 29.

Sancta Maria, succurre miseris, juva pusillanimos, refove flebiles, ora pro populo, interveni pro clero, intercede pro devoto fœmineo sexu. Ibid. fol. 30.

Mariam primum vox sonet nostra, per quam nobis vitæ sunt data præmia: regina que es mater et casta, solve nostra per filium peccamina: angelorum concio sacra, et archangelorum turma inclyta, nostra diluant jam peccata præstando supernam cœli gratiam. Ibid. fol. 80.

Virgo singularis, inter omnes mitis, nos, culpis solutos, mites fac et castos. Vitam præsta puram; iter para tutum.

ut, videntes Jesum, semper collatemur. Ibid. fol. 33.

Consolare peccatorem: et ne tuum des honorem alieno vel crudeli, precor te, regina coli. Me habeto excusatum, apud Christum tuum natum, cujus iram expavesco, et furorem pertimesco, nam peccavi tibi soli. Maria virgo, noli esse mihi aliena, gratia cœlesti plena: esto custos cordis mei: signa me timore Dei: confer vitæ sanitatem: et da morum honestatem: da peccata me vitare: et, quod justum est, amare; O dulcedo virginalis nunquam fuit, nec est, talis. Ibid. fol. 44.

Georgi, martyr inclyte, te decet laus et gloria, prædotatum militia; per quem puella regia, existens in tristitia, coram dracone pessimo, salvata est. Et animo te rogamus, corde intimo, ut, cum cunctis fidelibus, cœli jungamur civibus, nostris abluti sordibus: ut simul, cum lætitia, tecum simus in gloria; nostraque reddant labia laudes Christo cum gloria. Ibid. fol. 77.

Martyr Christophore, pro Salvatoris honore, fac nos mente fore dignos Deitatis honore. Promisso Christi, quia quod petis obtinuisti, da populo tristi dona quæ moriendo petisti. Confer solamen, et mentis tolle gravamen. Judicis examen fac mite sit omnibus. Amen. Ibid. fol. 77.

O Willielme, pastor bone, cleri pater et patrone, munda nobis in agone: confer opem; et depone vitæ sordes; et coronæ cœlestis da gaudia. Ib. fol. 78.