of society and subverting the peace and order of the world. Now let any man of unprejudiced and impartial judgment bring the bloody tragedies and cruelties that have been from time to time' acted upon the stage of popery to the test of these reflections, and I will appeal to himself whether the popish religion be not as great an enemy to the religion of Jesus Christ, as ever the old heathen was, or rather whether they be not, at least in this respect, one and the same. It is impossible, without shuddering, to read the history of the slaughter of the protestants of France begun on the eve of St. Bartholomew's day, 1572. There were, according to the popish writers themselves, at least thirty thousand massacred, in a few days, in Paris and other cities of France. Their bodies were dragged along like dead dogs, and some thrown to the fishes, others hung upon gibbets, and the rest buried in ditches and pits. A more execrable barbarous action, than this, as Perefixe, who was archbishop of Paris in the following century, and other French writers confess could not be, yet nothing could be greater than the rejoicings made on this occasion throughout France, Spain, and Italy. They went in procession to the churches, they returned public thanks to God, they sung Te Deums, they celebrated jubilees, they struck medals, &c. and it was enacted, that St. Bartholomew's day should ever after be kept with double pomp and solemnity. If this be the religion of God, the gospel must be the religion of the devil.

As the conformity or rather uniformity, of popery with paganism is evident from what has been hitherto said, it must seem strange that any of the Romish communion, who are conscious of it should pretend to justify it. And yet it is certain there are several who, far from owning this woe

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ful corruption and shameful degeneracy seem rather to glory in it.

Nothing could be more simple than the manner of worship of the apostles and primitive christians. But in process of time the manna lost it's relish and nothing could please the taste but the old onions and flesh-pots of Egypt. The religion of the gospel appeared too naked and plain, and therefore it was thought necessary to adorn and set it off with festoons of ceremonies. Those who call themselves the vicars of Jesus Christ and successors of St. Peter, thought themselves wiser than either. Those children of Adam were seized with the vanity of their old father and vied with God himself in wisdom and knowledge. The disciples would know more than their master, and thus it was that human ignorance and presumption by degrees introduced those superstitious rites and ceremonies into the christian religion, and opened a door to a thousand abuses whereby the administration of the mysteries of religion has degenerated from the purity and simplicity of their first institution; for the multiplicity and confusion of the rites and ceremonies wherewith the christian religion is obnubilated and defaced by popish innovations and corruptions, are in nothing short of the superstitious ceremonies and practices of the Jews, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans put together. This alone would be enough to ground a most reasonable prejudice against popery; for as truth never looks more beautiful and lovely than when it is Simplex Munditijs, so the more absurd and ridiculous any thing is in itself, the more solemn pretences it requires to set it off.

Now what is deplorable in the case is, that it is those solemn pretences and this mystical pageantry that the poor ignorant people are mostly struck

with. Nothing takes with them better than a ceremonial which promises a great deal and costs but little. They swallow the poison of heathen superstitions without reluctance, because they receive the cup out of christian hands. They are ignorant of the cheat that is put upon them, nor will those, who know it, disabuse them because they find it their interest to keep, nay to confirm them in their ignorance.

Did not St. Paul condemn them when he opposed the Jewish doctors who would fain bring the christians under the yoke of the ceremonial law, as the popish doctors would fain bring the whole world under the yoke of the rites and ceremonies of the old heathens? "Beware," says St. Paul to the Colossians,* "lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ—let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon or of the sabbath days-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 fleshy mind.-Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances, touch not, taste not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom, in will, worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body, not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh." Who did our Saviour empower to sanctify abominations? The heathen rites, though they might be of an indifferent nature, i. e. neither good nor bad by nature, became unclean and

* Coloss. 2.8-23.

abominable by the use that was made of them as we learn from St. Paul, who speaking of the victims that were sacrificed by the heathens, forbids the Corinthians to eat of them because, though the flesh of the poor animals was equally good and wholesome whether offered to God or the devil, yet as they had been used for an idolatrous purpose, to partake of them would be to drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.

Moses was so far from pretending to adopt or sanctify any of the heathen rites and customs, that on the contrary he prohibited the use of them under the severest penalties. Nothing could be more opposite to the heathen ceremonial than what he instituted. He not only forbade the making and worshipping the image or resemblance of God or any thing else in heaven or earth, but also instituted the Passover in direct opposition to the heathen ritual.

Here then we see how far the wise legislator Moses was from adopting or sanctifying any of the heathen rites and ceremonies. Here we see how minute, how particular he was in every circumstance, in order to wean the Hebrews from all the prejudices they had conceived in favour of the feasts and worship of the people of Egypt. To act in direct opposition to the Egyptians, he ordered the animal to be killed at the very time that he was honoured by the Egyptians. He ordered it to be roasted because the Egyptians boiled the flesh of their victims. Lastly he ordered them to besmear the upper parts of their doors with the animal's blood to inspire them with contempt for, and to make them act in opposition to the Egyptian practices.

In vain do they pretend that those heathen rites and practices are of their own nature indifferent,

* 1 Corinth. 10

and therefore may be lawfully adopted and observed by christians. To the contrary, the most of them have been expressly forbidden by God himself. For instance, to set up a mortal man in the temple of God and to adore him as God; to worship images of God or any other being; to invoke and pray to angels and dead men and women; to erect temples and altars and to offer incense and sacrifices to them; to sacrifice the son of God in their honour; to adore bread and wine and sticks and stones and bones, and old rags, &c. Can those abominations be sanctified? Certainly, if the pope, as Bellarmin says, has the power of changing the nature of sin, and can turn virtue into vice, and vice into virtue, he can sanctify all the idolatries the heathens were ever guilty of, and turn them all into so many holy ceremonies. Then surely it is the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish law that ought to have been adopted and sanctified and not those pagan abominations that are condemned, abhorred and detested by all true christians.