The same angelic doctor writes of the sacrament as follows. It is a hymn for the feast of Corpus Christi. Docti Sacris institutis, Consecramus hostiam Dogma datur Christianis, Et vinum in sanguinem, &c "Being taught by holy lessons, we consecrate bread and wine for a saving host. It is a maxim to Christians, that bread is changed into flesh, and wine into blood. What thou dost not comprehend, or see, a strong faith confirms, besides the order of nature. Precious things lie hid under different species, which are signs only, not things. The flesh is meat, and the blood drink, yet Christ remains whole under each kind. Uncut, unbroken, undivided, he is received whole by him that takes him. When a thousand take him, one takes as much as they; nor is he consumed in taking. The good and the bad both take him, but their lot is unequal in life and death. He is death to the bad, and life to the good; behold an unlike end of a like thing. When the sacrament is broken, be not staggered, but remember, there is as much in a particle as the whole covers. Here is no division of the thing, only a breaking of the sign; whereby neither the state nor stature of the thing signified is diminished." To those who would inquire how this can be? the following answer is furnished, in another hymn for Corpus Christi day: "What never yet was understood, Nor ever seen by any creature, Since faith alone's enough to do it; For faith supplies the senses' want, And makes good measure where that's scant." In the Manual of Godly Prayers, there is another hymn by the same saint, which is in English as follows: Again: "At his last supper made by night From his own hands himself to eat. The Word made flesh, to words imparts Such strength, that bread himself is made, He wine into his blood converts: And if our sense here fail and fade, Faith only can the truth persuade. To this, with such great graces deckt; "O saving host, that open'st heaven's door Thy strength we need; O help with speed, We humbly thee implore." Such are the prayers of Papists to a piece of bread, the work of the baker.* There was published at Paris, with the approbation of three doctors of the faculty there, in 1669, a little book in French, called, "Practique pour adorer le tres saint Sacrament de l'Autel:" Or, a form for the adoration of the most holy sacrament of the altar; which begins thus: Praised and adored be the most holy sacrament of the altar; and then adds: "Whosoever shall say these holy words, (praised be the most holy sacrament of the altar,) shall gain a hundred days of indulgences; and he that does reverence, hearing them repeated, as much. He that, being confessed, and having communicated, shall say the above-said words, shall gain a plenary indulgence; and the first five times that he shall say them, after his having confessed and communicated, he shall deliver five of his friends' souls, whom he pleases, out of purgatory." Then follows the form for honouring the holy sacrament, consisting of two prayers, as follow: (I give the English only.) The first of them has this rubric before it, in the hours of Salisbury. "Our holy father, Pope John XXII., hath granted to all them that devoutly say this prayer, after the elevation of our Lord Jesus Christ, three thousand days of pardon for deadly sins." Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Water of Christ's side, wash me. Passion of Christ, comfort me. Within thy wounds hide me. Suffer me not to be separated from thee. From the malicious enemy defend me. In the hour of death call me; And command me to come to thee, That with thy saints I may praise thee At the elevation of the Mass. All hail, true body, born of the blessed Virgin Mary; O good, O Jesu, Son of the blessed virgin, have mercy on me. The following is translated from a satirical poem of George Buchanan. A baker and a painter once contended which of them could produce the best specimen of his art ;-whether the former would excel with his oven, or the latter with his colours. The painter boasted, that he had made a god; the baker replied, It is I who make the true body of God, thou only canst produce an image or representation of it. The painter said, Thy god is always consumed by men's teeth; Thine, rejoined the baker, is corroded by worms. The painter affirmed, that one of his making would endure entire for many years, while an innumerable quantity of the baker's would be often devoured in an hour. But you, said the baker can scarcely paint one god in a year, while I can produce ten thousand in an hour. Stop, said a priest, and contend no more with words to no purpose; neither of your gods can do any thing without me; and seeing it is I that make each of them a god, both shall be subservient to me: for the picture shall beg for me, and the bread be eaten by me. + It seems they wish the substance of the wine to remain after all. VOL. I.-56 Let it be observed, all this is addressed to the bread upon the altar, which the Papist is taught to believe is really his Saviour. After the above, the French form adds what follows: "These two good prayers were found in the sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem; and whosoever carries them about with him with devotion, and in honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, shall be delivered from the devil and from sudden death, and shall not die an ill death. He shall be preserved from pestilence, and all infectious diseases. No sorcery, or sorcerer, shall be able to hurt him or her that has these two good prayers about them. The fire from heaven shall not fall upon the house where these prayers are rehearsed with devotion. A woman with child saying them devoutly, shall be brought to bed, without any danger of her own, or her child's death. Lightnings and thunders shall not fall upon the houses where these prayers are rehearsed with devotion. Such a one shall not die without confession, and God will give him grace to repent of his sins." It is easy to see the pernicious tendency of such doctrine, not only as cherishing idolatry and superstition, but encouraging men to live in all the wickedness to which their hearts may be inclined; seeing they are assured, that by the use of a few words, now and then, they shall not die without grace to repent of their sins. I shall conclude these specimens of popish devotion with the litany of the holy sacrament, from the Manual of Godly Prayers: Living bread that didst descend from heaven God hidden and my Saviour Bread corn of the elect Wine budding from virgins Fat bread, and the delight of kings Continual sacrifice Pure oblation Lamb without spot Most pure table Food of angels Hidden manna Spiritual sweetness tasted in its proper fountain Reflection of holy souls Viaticum of those who die in the Lord Have mercy upon us. It must be allowed that there is a great deal of apparent fervour here. Papists seem really in earnest in devotion to their idol, which they call the holy sacrament; but it is the earnestness and fervour of a nurse, who labours to silence a petulant and peevish child, by giving it many fine names without much meaning. I am indebted for most of these extracts, and some of the remarks, to a work entitled, "The Popish Doctrine concerning the Sacraments refuted," in volume second of the "Preservative from Popery," title vii. by Dr. Stillingfleet, and other eminent divines of the seventeenth century. I shall conclude the present number, with an extract from title vii. chap. v. of this work, which shows the practice of the church of Rome as it corresponds with their doctrine. "Having considered the adoration of the host as it is taught in the church of Rome, I shall now consider the practice of it, which is more plain and evident, and notorious to all the world; however they would palliate and disguise their doctrine. According to their Missal, which is wholly different in this, as well as other things, from the old liturgy, and eucharistic forms, as I shall show by and by,-the priest in every mass, as soon as he has consecrated the bread and wine, with bended knees, he adores the sacrament; that which he has consecrated, that very thing which is before him, upon the patine, and in the chalice; and gives the same worship and subjection, both of body and mind to it, as he could to God or Christ himself: for, with his head and his soul, bowing towards it, and his eyes and thoughts fixed upon it, and directed to it, he prays to it, as to Christ himself; 'Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us, grant us peace,' and the like; then the priest rising up after he has thus adored it himself, he lifts it up as high as conveniently he can, above his head, and with eyes fixed upon it, he shows it to be devoutly adored by the people, who having notice also by ringing the mass bell, as soon as they see it, fall down in the humblest adorations to it, as if it were the very appearance of God himself." The remainder of the passage will be given in my next. CHAPTER LXI. CARRYING THE HOST. SEVERAL ABSURD STORIES OF RESPECT PAID TO THE HOST BY BEASTS AND INSECTS. ON WITHHOLDING THE CUP FROM THE LAITY. SATURDAY, September 11th, 1819. THE reader is requested to connect what is contained in this and the following page, with the conclusion of the last number: "If Christ were visibly present before them, they could not show more acts of reverence, and devotion, and worship, to him, than they do to the host. They pray to it, and use the very forms of petition and invocation to that, as to Christ himself; such as these,-'O saving host, or blessed sacrament, which openest the door of heaven, give me strength and power against dangers, and against all my enemies. Make me always more to believe, to hope in thee, to love thee: grant that my soul may always live upon thee, and that thou mayest always taste sweet unto it.' "Thus both the priest and the people are several times to adore and worship both the host and the cup in the celebration of the eucharist; and they will not disown, nor cannot, their directing and terminating their devotions and prayers upon the sacrament, which is before them. Prayers they call them to the eucharist, and it is become a common form of doxology amongst them instead of saying, 'Praise be given to God,' to say, 'Praise be given to the most holy sacrament.' Sanders, in his book of the Supper of the Lord, instead of Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,' turns it thus, To the body and blood of our Saviour, under the species of bread and wine, be all honour and praise, and thanksgiving, for evermore:' as if it were another person of the blessed Godhead. "This adoration is not only in the time of communion, when it is properly the Lord's supper and sacrament; but at other times, out of it, whenever it is set upon the altar with the candles burning, and the incense smoking before it; or hung up in its rich shrine and tabernacle, with a canopy of state over it. And not only in the church, which is sanctified, they say, by this sacrament, as by the presence of God himself, but when it is carried through the streets in a solemn and pompous procession; as it is before the pope, when he goes abroad, just as the Persian fire was before the emperor, merely by way of state, or for a superstitious end, that he may the better be guarded and defended by the company of his God. In all these times it is to be worshipped and adored by all persons as it passeth by, as if it were the glory of God which passeth by. They are, like Moses, to make haste, and bow their heads to the earth and worship; but above all on that high day, which they have dedicated to this sacrament, as if it were some new deity, the festum Dei, as they call it, the feast of God, or the festum corporis Christi, the feast of the body of Christ; for to call the sacrament God, is a general expression among them, as when they have received the sacrament, to say, 'I have received my Maker to-day;' and the person, who, in great churches, is to carry the sacrament to the numerous communicants, is called, Bajulus Dei, 'the porter or carrier of God;' and they always account it, and so always reverence it, as Boileau falsely says the ancients did, as a present Numen and Deity. This feast was appointed by Pope Urban IV. about the middle of the twelfth century; and again by Clement V. in the beginning of the thirteenth, as is owned by themselves, upon the occasion of a vision to one Juliana, who saw a crack in the moon, that signified, it seems, a great defect in the church, for want of this solemnity. Such was the rise of this great festival, and so late was its institution in the Roman church; in which, and in no other Christian church in the world, is it observed to this day. And that the whole practice of the adoration of the host is novel, and unknown to the primitive church and to ancient writers, I shall endeavour to make evident against the bold and impudent canon of the council of Trent, which is the first council that commanded it, in these words:-' If any one shall say that the sacrament is not to be worshipped by a peculiar festival, nor |