they have set up images of these saints, and they fall down and worship before them. Nay, so far do they degrade themselves, that they worship "cast clouts and old rotten rags," if they can persuade themselves that these were part of the clothing, or had touched the body of any of their idols. But as the subject of worshipping images and relics deserves the honour of a paper by itself, I shall not enter upon it here.

I have just said, that to worship the true God under a false character, is as really idolatry as to worship a false god; and I intend to dilate a little on this subject, as it is one of great importance; and as I am afraid many, who are not Papists, will be convicted of this error.

All true and acceptable worship proceeds from the true knowledge of the object of worship. He that cometh to God must not only believe in his existence, but must believe that of him which he has been pleased to reveal in his word; he must know his true character as it is there exhibited; and if any man profess to approach to him without this knowledge and belief, he is not approaching to the true God, but to an idol of his own fancy. He may form in his own mind an idea of that great Being to whom he addresses himself; but if his idea of God be not that which is declared by his own word,-that which is exhibited in such endearing characters in the gospel of Christ, it is not the God of the Bible whom he is worshipping; and as there is no other living and true God, he is worshipping an idol,a thing that has no existence.

It is only in the gospel of Christ that God is represented in such characters as to warrant and encourage us to approach to him, and to worship him with the hope of being accepted. We must not forget that we are estranged from God, and enemies to him; and that he is justly offended with us. In this state of estrangement there can be no friendly intercourse between heaven and earth. We cannot approach to him as holy angels, who never offended him, do; nor will he accept of the homage or worship of enemies and rebels. This is the state in which the gospel finds the whole human race; and this message of mercy makes known the expedient devised by infinite Wisdom for effecting our reconciliation. This was no less than the gift of his own Son; he gave him up to the death to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness. Every man who believes this on the authority of the divine record, and submits to the righteousness of God, has his sins forgiven; he is reconciled; he receives a new heart and a right spirit; and in the exercise of faith and cordial repentance, on account of his many transgressions, he is enabled, by divine grace, to worship God in simplicity and godly sincerity. Such worship is graciously accepted. Jesus Christ is the only medium of it. He is the one Mediator between God and man. His righteousness alone is the footing on which our persons and services are accepted; and his intercession alone is available to our spiritual advantage.

I am aware that every Papist, and many a nominal Protestant, will cry out against this as cant and nonsense. No matter: It is just what the plain truth of divine revelation has been from the beginning of the world, in the esteem of those who did not like to worship God in the way which he himself had prescribed; who in fact did not like

to retain God in their knowledge, in those characters of infinite holiness and righteousness, under which he had revealed himself, and which would not admit the approach of any of the race of Adam, but by confession of guilt over a sacrifice of atonement.

Sinners, as such, never did like this view of the divine character; and yet if they profess to worship God under any other character, they are worshipping an idol, and not the true God. Cain seems to have been the first avowed idolater; and his idolatry consisted in presenting an offering to the true God under a false character. The divine appointment of worship by sacrifice, was a sufficiently plain intimation, that God was so offended with men on account of sin, that no man should ever approach to him but upon the footing of an atonement. But Cain did not believe that God was so offended with him, that he might not come to him as a friend, without a sacrifice,-without a reconciliation. It was not therefore the true God that Cain was thinking of; it was an idol of his own imagination; and this I take to be the origin of all the idolatry that has been in the world.

It was long, perhaps, before the impression of the revelation which God made of himself to the first family, and before the religion of that family were so completely forgotten, that idolatry acquired the grossness of avowed creature worship; yet we know that in process of time the earth was filled with it. So after God was manifest in the flesh; after the great atonement had been made; after all men were invited to confess their sins, and come to God for pardon upon the footing of that sacrifice; and after many churches had been gathered by the preaching of apostles, built upon the foundation of the truth which they preached, and professing to worship God in the name of Jesus Christ; it was some time, I say, after this, before idolatry began to appear in the grossness of creature worship. It soon appeared in its more refined and intellectual form, when some Jewish converts began to make an idol of their conformity to the law of Moses, and when others became ashamed of the doctrine of Christ, and began to corrupt it by inventions and traditions of men. This, though perceptible at first only to the keen spiritual discernment of inspired men, became by degrees palpable enough; and in the course of a few ages, it issued in the gross idolatries of the church of Rome, and the scarcely less gross superstitions of the eastern churches.

There is in the mind of every real Christian a representation of the true God in his revealed characters of goodness and truth, justice and mercy. This is produced by the gospel which he believes; and, continuing in the faith of it, this representation, or image of the living God remains within him. But there are many who receive the gospel only in theory, not in the love of it, and without any experience of its power and sanctifying influence; and there are many, called Christians, who do not know the gospel even in theory. In the minds of both these classes of persons there is an image of something else than the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; it is the image of an idol which they have set up in their own hearts; and all the worship of such persons is no better than idolatry. For instance, if a man shall imagine that God will accept him upon the footing of his own merits; that God is too good to be strict in marking his failings and imperfections; that he will kindly pass over these, without putting him to the VOL. I.-44

disagreeable necessity of confessing and forsaking his sins, and imploring mercy in the name of Christ;—such a man is thinking of an idol; his heart is as far removed from the true God as that of the deluded Papist, who worships a fragment of the handkerchief of the Virgin Mary, or the poor Hindoo, who falls down before the image of Juggernaut. I have a good deal to say on the conformity of popery with heathen idolatry; but the design of the present reflections is to show its conformity with the state of the carnal mind; and that it rises out of that alienation of the heart from the true God, and dislike of his revealed character, which exists in the heart of every man, until he is converted to God by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the instrumentality of the gospel.

But when persons have obtained the name of Christian, they do not like to give it up. In countries where Christianity is not persecuted, especially where it is the prevailing and established religion, men may depart from the faith of Christ, and still be called by his name. They call themselves Christians, and their children will be called Christians, though not united to Christ by the faith of the gospel. The living image of Christ is wanting in the hearts of such persons, and they must have something external and visible to supply its place; such, for instance, as a dead image of him which they set up in their churches. They abandon the doctrine of the cross of Christ; but they find a substitute in the timber or image of the cross. Not aware of the necessity of the influence of the Holy Spirit, to regenerate and sanctify them, they rest satisfied with the act of baptism and the application of holy water. Not receiving Christ by faith in the ordinance which commemorates his death, they are content to receive an image of him in the form of a wafer. The light of the divine word no longer shining from their pulpits, they supply its place by a number of wax candles, even in the face of the sun; and the priests, no longer exhibiting the character of heavenly purity, they clothe themselves with an image of it in the form of a robe of white linen. In this way the doctrines and ordinances of Christ were not merely corrupted, but totally supplanted, by a system of idolatries, and superstitions, and will-worship, which continues to this day to obstruct the progress of the gospel, and to enslave the minds of many millions of the human race.

Now I wish to be understood as distinctly maintaining that there is a tendency to these things in the minds of all who are Christians in name and not in reality. Where the living spirit of Christianity is wanting, men will take up with a dead image of it. If they receive not the gospel in its heavenly simplicity, they will be led away by some earthly representation of it. If they receive not the love of the truth that they may be saved, they may be abandoned to the fatal delusion of believing a lie. The first speculative error may appear small and trifling, but nobody can tell how far it may lead one astray. One degree of obliquity extended, will lead to an infinite distance from the right line. Rome was not built in a day. Admit but the principle, that any thing beside what is contained in the word of God, is to be a rule in religious matters, and this, in the course of time, will lead the minds of men entirely away from the word of God, as it did in the church of Rome, and issue in a system of direct opposition to the divine record.

Let such of my readers as are alarmed for the growth of popery attend to the root of the evil. It lies in the opposition of the carnal mind to the holy and humbling doctrine of Christ crucified. It is highly probable, that if popery shall regain the ascendancy among us, and become the fashionable religion, the worldly part of the community will fall into it; because the fundamental principles of popery and mere nominal Christianity are the same. If any of my readers ask how the growth of popery is to be prevented, I confess I know no proper means of prevention, but by every one receiving and holding fast the truth of the divine word; and by communicating the knowledge of it to all around him. It is only by the word of truth, and the armour of righteousness, on the right hand and on the left, that Christians can effectually oppose the progress of error; and such opposition, by the blessing of God, will ultimately be successful, even if popery should gain the ascendancy for a time.

CHAPTER XLVII.

BEATIFICATION.

RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN PAGANISM AND POPERY IN THIS PARTICULAR. HOW TO DISCOVER A SAINT AFTER DEATH. STORY OF ST. MAGDALEN OF PAZZI. INSTANCE OF FRAUD IN THE PRETENDED DISCOVERY OF ANOTHER SAINT. PROCESS OF CANONIZATION. INQUIRY, HOW THE SAINTS IN HEAVEN HEAR THE PRAYERS OFFERED TO THEM ON EARTH. ANSWERS SUGGESTED.

SATURDAY, June 5th, 1819. "BEATIFICATION," says Dr. Johnson in his dictionary, "is an acknowledgment made by the pope, that the person beatified is in heaven, and therefore may be reverenced as blessed; but is not a concession of the honours due to saints which are conferred by canonization." If this be a correct definition of the word, which I have no reason to doubt, it appears that the pope professes to have the faculty of knowing who are in heaven, and who are not, which must excite as great a degree of astonishment, as that of the village rustics at their learned schoolmaster, "That one small head could carry all he knew." It appears farther, that every saint in heaven may be reverenced as blessed, that is, honoured with an inferior degree of worship; but that to those whom the pope has canonized, a higher degree of worship is due. It is not then a matter of mere choice; it is a matter of obligation; it is the bounden duty of every good Papist to worship the idols which the pope has set up; that is, the saints to whom he has given places of distinction in heaven. Mr. Andrews very earnestly inculcates this duty in his school-book, as it regards the Virgin Mary; and in his edition of St. Wenefride's life and miracles, he is little less earnest in recommending devotion to her. At least he holds her up as an object of religious worship; as one that is able to bestow the greatest temporal blessings, such as the cure of diseases which no hu man skill can cure; and he furnishes suitable prayers for the use of her devout worshippers, on whom she has not bestowed the ability to make prayers for themselves.

Those who have marked the correspondence that there is between

heathenism and popery, have been struck with the resemblance of popish canonization to heathen deification. "The ancient priests, in order to the credit of their system, felt it necessary to persuade the people, that certain characters, many of whom had, however, been the most ambitious and sensual of mankind, were honoured by the special favour of Heaven; were deep in its mysteries, and even worthy of being placed among the gods themselves: in consequence of which, their public deification took place with all the pomp and circumstance so well calculated to impose upon a gross and idolatrous people. In order, however, to this ceremony, some miraculous intimation of the favour and will of Heaven, as to the individual in question, was required to be duly attested as necessary to the ceremony. Thus in the case of Romulus, one Julius Proculus took a solemn oath, That Romulus himself appeared to him, and ordered him to inform the senate of his being called up to the assembly of the gods, under the name of Quirinus. Plut. in Vit. Rom. Dioniss. Halicar. 1. ii. page 124, and in the deification of the Cesars, some of whom were little less than monsters, the established proof of their divinity was an eagle flying out of the funeral pile towards heaven, which was supposed to convey the soul of the deceased, and was also required to be duly attested." Dio. Cass. pages 598, 842. The Papists, in imitation of this pagan original, consider it necessary to their credit, to canonize or beatify certain individuals of their communion, some of whom have, like their heathen prototypes, been of infamous and scandalous lives; and in order to this act they also introduce the machinery of miracles, although with some difference as to the mode of its operation. In this case, the miracles are alleged to have been performed by the saints themselves, and there is as little difficulty in procuring the necessary attestations in modern as in ancient Rome. The creation of saints has in consequence become almost as common as the creation of cardinals, there having rarely been a pope who did not enrich the calendar with some fresh specimens. Benedict XIII. canonized eight in one summer, and his successor Clement XII. four more. Innocent XIII, who succeeded him, beatified Andrew Conti, a member of his own family and this is another main source of saintship, when, to gratify the ambition of the reigning pope, this honour is conferred on some of his name or family. The present pope has canonized five saints, all of whose banners are at this moment waving in one of the chapels of St. Peter's. The Papists consider this rite as so essential a part of their religion, that they have even perverted the sacred scriptures for the purpose of giving sanction to the practice, having translated the passage in St. James, v. 11, not as it ought to be: "Behold, we count them happy who endure," but “Behold, how we beatify those who have suffered with constancy;" in like manner as, in order to give a sanction to their religious processions with the host and with relics, &c., they translate the passage in Heb. xi. 30, "The walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days," "after a procession of seven days."

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It costs en immense sum to be made a saint, but pious relatives are sometimes content to bear it. Proofs of the miracles wrought by the deceased must be adduced in due form, in a judicial way. Witnesses are examined, and in order that full justice may be done, coun