I shall proceed to prove this by a number of instances, furnished by one who was an eyewitness of the different parts of Romish worship, as practised in Rome itself; and whose extensive and intimate acquaintance with the writings and practices of ancient heathens, qualified him, in an eminent degree, for tracing the Romish rites to their heathen original. I refer to Dr. Middleton, whose "Letter from Rome" supplies abundant materials for this part of my subject. The remaining part of this number shall be occupied by extracts from this letter. I do not believe the work is much known among the readers of my papers, and therefore I make no apology for treating them with so much matter that is not original. I am following the example of a writer in THE TIMES newspaper, under the signature of IGNOTUs, who, about two years ago, published a number of letters in that paper, and afterwards in the form of a three shilling pamphlet, of which Middleton's letter is confessedly the basis. "Many of our divines have, I know, with much learning and solid reasoning, charged, and effectually proved, the crime of idolatry, on the church of Rome; but these controversies, (in which there is still something plausible to be said on the other side, and where the charge is constantly denied, and with much subtlety evaded,) are not capable of giving that conviction, which I immediately received from my senses the surest witnesses of fact, in all cases; and which no man can fail to be furnished with, who sees popery, as it is exercised in Italy, in the full pomp and display of its pageantry; and practising all its arts and powers without caution or reserve. The similitude of the popish and pagan religion seemed so evident and clear, and struck my imagination so forcibly, that I soon resolved to give myself the trouble of searching to the bottom; and to explain and demonstrate the certainty of it, by comparing together the principal and most obvious parts of each worship; which, as it was my first employment after I came to Rome, shall be the subject of my first letter." "The very first thing that a stranger must necessarily take notice of, as soon as he enters their churches, is the use of incense or perfumes in their religious offices: the first step which he takes within the door, will be sure to make him sensible of it, by the offence that he will immediately receive from the smell, as well as smoke of this incense, with which the whole church continues filled for some time after every solemn service. A custom received directly from paganism; and which presently called to my mind the old descriptions of the heathen temples and altars, which are seldom or ever mentioned by the ancients, without the epithet of perfumed or incensed." Pages 132-134, 4th ed. I forbear giving the authorities, and the Greek and Latin quotations, which the author gives in the margin. Readers who wish to see these, will have recourse to the work itself. "In some of their principal churches, where you have before you, in one view, a great number of altars, and all of them smoking at once with steams of incense, how natural is it to suppose one's self transported into the temple of some heathen deity, or that of the Paphian Venus, described by Virgil? "Her hundred altars there with garlands crown'd, And richest incense smoking, breathe around VOL. I.-62 "Under the pagan emperors, the use of incense for any purpose of religion, was thought so contrary to the obligations of Christianity, that, in their persecutions, the very method of trying and convicting a Christian, was by requiring him only to throw the least grain of it into the censer, or upon the altar," page 135. This was, it seems, the test of a man's being, or not being, a Christian. How few Protestants, in the present day, would bear the test? To throw the smallest grain of incense, that is, to give the smallest possible degree of countenance to idolatrous worship, was equivalent to a renouncing of Christianity: yet, how many of our citizens are there, who reckon themselves very good Christians, and who can, without scruple, voluntarily join in the service of the idol's temple, in Clyde street, and snuff up, with the utmost complacency, the fumes of incense which are offered to the popish idol? ་་ Our author proceeds: Under the Christian emperors, on the other hand, it was looked upon as a rite so peculiarly heathenish, that the very places or houses, where it could be proved to have been done, (i. e. where incense had been offered,) were, by the law of Theodosius, confiscated to the government. "In the old bas-reliefs, or pieces of sculpture, where any heathen sacrifice is represented, we never fail to observe a boy in a sacred habit, which was always white, attending on the priest, with a little chest, or box in his hands, in which this incense was kept for the use of the altar. And, in the same manner still in the church of Rome, there is always a boy in surplice, waiting on the priest at the altar, with the sacred utensils, and among the rest the thuribulum, or vessel of incense, which the priest, with many ridiculous motions and crossings, waves several times, as it is smoking, around and over the altar in different parts of the service." Page 136. Dr. Middleton's Letter, when it was first published, excited almost as much rage and wrath among the Papists of his day, against the unhappy author, as are excited, at this day, against THE PROTESTANT. The author of a work, entitled "The Catholic Christian Instructed," thought himself called upon to write something that should pass with his brethren for a reply to the obnoxious Letter; but, after a great deal of quibbling and vapouring, he left the Letter just as he found it, without invalidating any material fact contained in it. This writer attempts to vindicate his church from the charge of conformity with heathenism in the matter of offering incense, because this was used, according to divine appointment, in the service of the temple of God under the Mosaic dispensation to which, Middleton replies, in a preface to his fourth edition "Should we grant him all he can infer from this argument, what will he gain by it? Were not all those beggarly elements wiped away by the spiritual worship of the gospel? Were they not all annulled on account of their weakness and unprofitableness, by the more perfect revelation of Jesus Christ? If, then, I should acknowledge my mistake, and recall my words; and, instead of Pagan, call them Jewish ceremonies; would not the use of Jewish rites be abominable still in a Christian church, where they are expressly abolished and prohibited by God himself?"—" He tells us, that there was an altar of incense in the temple of Jerusalem; and is surprised, therefore, how I can call it heathenish: yet, it is evident, from the nature of that insti tution, that it was never designed to be perpetual; and that, during its continuance, God would never have approved any other altar, either in Jerusalem or any where else. But, let him answer directly to this plain question; was there ever a temple in the world, not strictly heathenish, in which there were several altars, all smoking with incense, within one view, and at one and the same time? It is certain, that he must answer in the negative: yet, it is certain, that there were many such temples in pagan Rome; and are as many still in Christian Rome; and since there never was an example of it but what was heathenish, before the times of popery, how is it possible that it could be derived to them from any other source? Or, when we see such an exact resemblance in the copy, how can there be any doubt about the original ?" The next thing that will, of course, strike one's imagination, is their use of holy water; for nobody ever goes in or out of a church, but is either sprinkled by the priest, who attends for that purpose on solemn days, or else serves himself with it from a vessel, usually of marble, placed just at the door, not unlike one of our baptismal fonts. Now, this ceremony is so notoriously and directly transmitted to them from paganism, that their own writers make not the least scruple to own it. The Jesuit, La Cerda, in his notes on a passage of Virgil, where this practice is mentioned, says, 'Hence was derived the custom of holy church, to provide purifying or holy water at the entrance of their churches.' Aquaminarium or Amula,' says the learned Montfauçon, 'was a vase of holy water, placed by the heathens at the entrance of their temples, to sprinkle themselves with.' The same vessel was by the Greeks called Пeppippavτńpiov; two of which, the one of gold, the other of silver, were given by Croesus to the temple of Apollo, at Delphi; and the custom of sprinkling themselves was so necessary a part of their religious offices, that the method of excommunication seems to have been by prohibiting to offenders the approach and use of the holy water-pot. The very composition of this holy water was the same also among the heathens as it is now among the Papists, being nothing more than a mixture of salt with common water; and the form of the sprinkling brush, called by the ancients aspersorium, or aspergillum, (which is now the same with what the priests make use of,) may be seen in bas-reliefs, or ancient coins, wherever the insignia or emblems of the pagan priesthood are described, of which it is generally one. 46 Platina, in his lives of the popes, and other authors, ascribe the institution of this holy water to Pope Alexander the First, who is said to have lived about the year of Christ, 113; but it could not be introduced so early, since, for some ages after, we find the primitive fathers speaking of it as a custom purely heathenish, and condemning it as impious and detestable. Justin Martyr says, that it was invented by demons, in imitation of the true baptism signified by the prophets, that their votaries might also have their pretended purification by water; and the Emperor Julian, out of spite to the Christians, used to order the victuals in the markets to be sprinkled with holy water, on purpose either to starve or force them to eat, what, by their own principles, they esteemed polluted. Thus we see what contrary notions the primitive and Romish church have of this ceremony: the first condemns it as superstitions, abominable, and irreconcilable with Christianity; the latter adopts it as highly edifying and applicable to the improvement of Christian piety. The one looks upon it as the contrivance of the devil to delude mankind; the other as the security of mankind against the delusions of the devil. But what is still more ridiculous than even the ceremony itself, is to see their learned writers gravely reckoning up the several virtues and benefits, derived from the use of it, both to the soul and the body; and to crown all, producing a long roll of miracles, to attest the certainty of each virtue which they ascribe to it." Pages 136-140. "I do not at present recollect whether the ancients went so far, as to apply the use of this holy water to the purifying or blessing of their horses, asses, and other cattle; or whether this be an improvement of modern Rome, which has dedicated a yearly festival peculiarly to this service, called, in their vulgar language, the benediction of horses; which is always celebrated with much solemnity in the month of January, when all the inhabitants of the city and neighbourhood send up their horses, asses, &c., to the convent of St. Antony, near St. Mary's the Great, where a priest in surplice, at the church door sprinkles with his brush all the animals singly, as they are presented to him, and receives from each owner a gratuity proportionable to his zeal and ability. Amongst the rest, I had my own horses blessed at the expense of about eighteen pence of our money; as well to satisfy my own curiosity, as to humour the coachman; who was persuaded, as the common people generally are, that some mischance would befall them within the year, if they wanted the benefit of this benediction." "I have met, indeed, with some hints of a practice not foreign to this among the ancients, of sprinkling their horses with water in the Circensian games; but whether this was done out of a superstitious view of inspiring any virtue, or purifying them for those races, which were esteemed sacred, or merely to refresh them under the violence of such an exercise, is not easy to determine. But allowing the Romish priests to have taken the hint from some old custom of paganism; yet this, however, must be granted them, that they alone were capable of cultivating so coarse and barren a piece of superstition into a revenue sufficient for the maintenance of forty or fifty idle monks." Pages 141, 142. Middleton afterwards acquired more information with regard to the origin of this rite; for he writes as follows, in the preface to his fourth edition, in reply to his opponent: "But though our Catholic seems so much ashamed at present of this benediction of horses in their church, I can give him such light into the origin of it as will make him proud of it, probably, for the future, from a story which I have observed in St. Jerome, which shows it to be grounded on a miracle, and derived from a saint: I mean St. Hilarion, the founder of the monastic orders in Syria and Palestine. The story is this: A citizen of Gaza, a Christian, who kept a stable of running horses for the Circensian games, was always beaten by his antagonist, an idolater, the master of the rival stable. For the idolater, by the help of certain charms, and diabolical imprecations, constantly damped the spirits of the Christian's horses, and added courage to his own. The Christian, therefore, in despair, applied himself to St. Hilarion, and implored his assistance; but the saint was unwilling to enter into an affair so frivolous and profane, till the Christian urged it as a necessary defence against these adversaries of God, whose insults were levelled not so much at him, as at the church of Christ. And his entreaties being seconded by the monks who were present, the saint ordered his earthen jug, out of which he used to drink, to be filled with water and delivered to the man, who presently sprinkled his stable, his horses, his charioteers, his chariot, and the very boundaries of the course with it. Upon this the whole city was in wondrous expectation. The idolaters derided what the Christian was doing, while the Christians took courage, and assured themselves of victory; till the signal being given for the race, the Christian's horses seemed to fly, whilst the idolater's were labouring behind and left quite out of sight! so that the pagans themselves were obliged to cry out, that their god Marnas was conquered at last by Christ." Pref. p. xvii. "No sooner is a man advanced a little forward into their churches, and begins to look about him, but he will find his eyes and attention attracted by a number of lamps and wax candles, which are constantly burning before the shrines and images of their saints. In all the great churches in Italy, says Mabillon, they hang up lamps at every altar: a sight which will not only surprise a stranger by the novelty of it, but will furnish him with another proof and example of the conformity of the Roman with the pagan worship; by recalling to his memory many passages of the heathen writers, where their perpetual lamps and candles are described, as continually burning before the altars and statues of their deities." The primitive writers frequently expose the folly and absurdity of this heathenish custom. They light up candles to God,' says Lactantius, 'as if he lived in the dark: and do not they deserve to pass for madmen, who offer lamps to the Author and Giver of light?' "In the collection of old inscriptions, we find many instances of presents and donations from private persons, of lamps and candlesticks to the temples and altars of their gods: a piece of zeal which continues still in modern Rome, where each church abounds in lamps of massy silver, and sometimes even of gold, the gifts of princes and other persons of distinction; and it is surprising to see how great a number of this kind are perpetually burning before the altars of their principal saints, or miraculous images; as St. Antony of Padua, or the Lady of Loretto; as well as the vast profusion of wax candles with which the churches are illuminated on every great festival; when the high altar, covered with gold and silver plate, brought out of their treasures, and stuck full of wax lights, disposed in beautiful figures, looks more like the rich sideboard of some great prince, dressed out for a feast, than an altar to pay divine worship at." Pages 141-145. "The mention of Loretto puts me in mind of the surprise that I was in, at the first sight of the holy image; for its face is as black as a negro's; so that one would take it rather for the representation of a Proserpine, or infernal deity, than that which they impiously style it, of the Queen of Heaven. But I soon recollected, that this very circumstance of its complexion, did but resemble the more exactly the old idols of paganism, which, in sacred as well as profane writers, |