trine touching the veneration and invocation of saints ?" it is said that We are taught, 1st, that there is an honour and veneration due to angels and saints: 2d, that they offer prayers to God for us; 3d, that it is good and profitable to invoke them, that is, to have recourse to their intercession and 4th, that their relics are to be had in veneration."

prayers; and, They tell us further, that the church in all ages has paid this honour and veneration to the saints, by erecting churches, and keeping holidays to their memory; a practice which the Protestants have also retained. In their invocations, however; they simply say to the saints, pray for us." To the Virgin Mary, the common invocation is this, "Hail Mary, mother of God, the Lord is with thee; pray for us sinners now at the hour of death!" They, however, frequently in their books of common prayer, missals as we call them, use the most pleasing and endearing epithets to the Virgin.

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ARTICLE XXI.

I do believe that the images of Christ, of the blessed Virgin the mother of God, and of other saints, ought to be had and retained, and that due honour and veneration ought to be paid. unto them.

Exposition." Pictures are the books of the unlearned." But it is not this idea alone that suggests to the pious Catholic the propriety of paying veneration to the images of the saints; the catechism says that the minister shall teach the people, that images of saints are to be placed in churches that they may be likewise worshipped. If any doubt arise about the meaning of the word worship, when applied to images, the minister shall teach them, that images were made to instruct them in the history of both testaments, and to refresh their memories; for being excited by the remembrance of divine. things, they excite more strongly to worship God himself.

It is a stupid and illiberal error to charge the Roman Catholics with the proper worship of saints or of images; and to call them idolators, as many have done, and some ill-informed Protestants still do; the charge is both untrue and unjust.

Who has not often involuntarily ejaculated a prayer to the One God, when looking upon some well-executed piece of sculpture or painting, representing some person or scene of sacred history? The scriptural paintings of the late Mr. West, some of which ornament the altar-pieces of our own churches, have a powerful tendency to call forth this feeling; and he has but a cold heart, if not even a sceptical one, who can look upon that artist's "Christ healing the sick," or his "Christ rejected," and be totally unmoved by something of a devotional spirit. It is certain, that nothing more than the excitation of this feeling is intended by the use of images and pictures amongst the Roman Catholics. If ignorant persons in ignorant times have made any other use of these visible romerobrances of departed worth, it has been an abuse of an harmless, if not a profitable,

practice. The Catholic Church forbids idolatry, ranking it as one of the deadly sins. Let them be rightly understood on this as on other points. Let us not charge them with being of a religion which they deny, nor judge them lest we also be judged. I neither justify nor condemn; but state facts. But it must be confessed that their language, especially when speaking of the Virgin Mary, is sometimes extremely poetical and devout: in the little office of the blessed Virgin, she is desired to loose the bonds of the guilty to drive away evils from us-to demand all good things for us make us chaste-protect us from the enemy-receive us at the hour of death. She is set forth as the mother of mercy, and the hope of the world; but why may not a Roman Catholic call her The Mother of God? These are all so many pious hyperboles and nothing more: worship, in the highest sense of the word, the Catholics pay to the Trinity only the very same Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, which is " worshipped and glorified" by Christians of the re

formed churches in all countries.

ARTICLE XXII.

I do affirm that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the church; and that the use of them is very beneficial to Christian people.

Exposition.-Bossuet asserts, and only what is commonly believed, that the Council of Trent proposes nothing more relative to indulgences, but that the church had the power of granting them from Jesus Christ, and that the practice of them is wholesome; which custom, the council adds, ought still to be preserved, though with moderation, lest ecclesiastical discipline should be weakened by too great toleration.

By indulgences granted by the popes and prelates of the church, persons are discharged from temporal punishment here and in purgatory.

On few subjects has the Catholic religion been more misrepresented than on this of indulgences: there is something obnoxious in the very term. We are apt to attach an idea and importance to it, when applied as in this case, which do not belong to it. That a bad use may have, at times, been made of it, is readily admitted: for what good is there that has not been abused? But it is denied that the Catholic religion gives any authority to its popes or prelates, or other ecclesiastical officers to grant a licence to sin, as many well-meaning Protestants suppose they may. The forgery about Tetzel at the time of the reformation ought not to be mentioned, except to the individual disgrace of the forgers. I vindicate not the practice or the doctrine of indulgences in any sense; but the author, as an honest writer, will endeavour to screen the youthful mind, for whom he principally now writes, from the contagion of prejudice and mistake on this, as on other points. ·

In the first ages of the Christian church indulgences were common. In those times of strict ecclesiastical discipline, very

severe penalties were inflicted on those who had been guilty of any sins, whether public or private; and in particular they were forbidden, for a certain time, to partake of the Lord's supper, or to hold any communion with the church. General rules were formed upon these subjects; but as it was often found expedient to make a discrimination in the degrees of punishment, according to the different circumstances of the offenders, and especially when they shewed marks of contrition and repentance, power was given to the bishops, by the Council of Nice, to relax or remit those punishments as they should see reason. Every favour of this kind was called an indulgence or pardon.

In course of time, however, this wholesome discipline began to relax and degenerate, and some few ambitious and designing men, in those dark ages, began to make a bad use of it: in the very teeth of their own religious tenets and doctrines, these indulgences were actually bought and sold, just as in our own times church-livings, advowsons as they are called, seats in parliament, lucrative and honorary offices in church and state, are sold. The doctrine itself implies neither more nor less than a merciful relaxation of some severe ecclesiastical discipline; and the practice, though not the name, is still retained by many of the sects of the present day.

At present, the utmost length to which the use of indulgences is carried in the Church of Rome, is their extension to the dead and here the Catholics tell us, they are not granted by way of absolution, since the pastors of the church have not that jurisdiction over the dead; but are only available to the faithful shepherd, by way of suffrage, or spiritual succour, applied to their souls out of the treasury of the church.

They have also what they call a jubilee; and so called from the resemblance it bears to the jubilee in the old Mosaic law which was a year of remission, in which bondmen were restored to liberty, and every one returned to his possessions.-The Catholic jubilee is a plenary or entire indulgence granted every twenty-fifth year, as also upon other extraordinary occasions, to such as, being truly penitent, shall worthily receive the blessed sacrament, and perform the other conditions of fasting, alms, and prayer, usually prescribed at such times.

There are other plenary indulgences, differing from a jubilee. A jubilee is more solemn, and accompanied with certain privileges, not usually granted upon other occasions, with regard to their being absolved by any approved confessor from all excommunications, and other reserved cases; and having vows exchanged into the performance of other works of piety. To which may be added, that as a jubilee is extended to the whole church, which at that time joins as it were in a body, in offering a holy violence to heaven by prayer and penitential works; and as the cause for granting an indulgence is usually more evident, and greater works of piety are prescribed for the obtaining of it

the indulgence, of consequence, is likely to be more certain and

secure.

In the ordinary, or what may be called the every-day practice, indulgences extend only to the granting of the laity to eat certain meats, or abstain from certain formal fasts and observances, from considerations of sickness, convenience, &c.

This is the sum of that dreadful bug-bear at which we have so long startled with horror, and shrunk back from with indignation: the practice may be absurd; but it is not wicked when rightly understood, and observed in conformity with the spirit and tenure of the rest of the Roman Catholic religion.

ARTICLE XXIII.

I do acknowledge the holy Catholic and apostolic Roman Church to be the mother and mistress of all churches; and I do promise and swear true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter, the prince of the Apostles, and the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

Exposition. This article has reference chiefly to what has been, somewhat improperly, called the pope's supremacy; it ought rather to be called the pope's primacy.

The Catholic doctrine is as follows: That St. Peter was head of the church under Christ-that the pope, or Bishop of Rome, is at present head of the church, and Christ's vicar upon earth. This they attempt to prove by the unanimous consent of the fathers, and the tradition of the church, and say that St. Peter translated his chair from Antioch to Rome. Hence the see of Rome in all ages has been called the see of Peter-the chair of Peter; and absolutely the see apostolic; and in that quality has, from the beginning, exercised jurisdiction over all other churches.

The Church of Rome they call the mistress and mother of all churches; because her bishop is St. Peter's successor, and Christ's vicar upon earth, and consequently the father and pastor of all the faithful; and therefore this church, as being St. Peter's see, is the mother and mistress of all churches.

Pope Boniface VIII. in his canon law, asserts and decrees as follows; Moreover we declare, and say, and define, and pronounce to every human creature, that it is altogether necessary to salvation, to be subject to the Romon pontiff."

It is proper here to caution the reader against the notion that Roman Catholics, in admitting the pope's supremacy, or primacy, hold that the pope's power over the Christian world is of a temporal nature: it has no such extension; no such reference; for how often have the pope's spiritual subjects, catholic kings and emperors, gone to war with his holiness? Kings do not now hold their crowns at the disposal of any one except of the laws and of their own subjects. The pope's authority over his own temporal dominions, which he holds as any other sovereign, is, of course, not purely of an ecclesiastical kind; and his spiritual power is greatly limited, even in Catholic countries, as France,

Spain, &c. The French or Gallican church, in particular, is very independent. As far as relates to local discipline, the pope has but a limited authority; even in the church of which he is recognized as the head.

ARTICLE XXIV.

:

I do undoubtedly receive and profess all other things that are delivered, defined by the sacred canons and oecumenical councils, and especially by the holy Synod of Trent and all other things contrary hereunto, and all heresies condemned, rejected, and anathematized by the church, I do likewise condeinn, reject, and anathematize.

This, it must be confessed, is a sweeping article: but even here we shall do well not to mistake or misrepresent. The intolerance here manifest is evidently directed against "things" rather than persons. They are heresies. real or supposed, that are condemned, rejected, and anathematized, and not the persons of the heretics. It ought not, however, to be denied or concealed, that this famous bull, as it is called, which bears date Nov. 1564, repeatedly denounces curses on all those who dare dispute its statements. This solemn "bull, concerning the form of an oath of profession of faith," all ecclesiastical persons, whether secular or regular, and all military orders, are obliged to take and subscribe as follows: "This true Catholic faith, without which no one can be saved, which at this present time I do of my own accord profess and sincerely hold, I, the same N. N. do promise and vow, and swear, and God assisting me, most constantly to retain and confess, entire and unviolated, to the last breath of my life; and so far as in me lies, I will likewise take care that it shall be held, taught, and preached by my subjects, or those the care of whom belongs to me, in the discharge of my office."

The exclusive character of the Roman Catholic religion is, its worst feature; in doctrines, of a purely theological nature, it differs little from the Calvinist, or at best from the reformed churches in morals it is equal to the best of them in discipline it is more rigid than any of them but in the exclusive spirit, which it almost every where breathes, it is more uniformly explicit, and expressive than all the others. It is true, that in the Church of England, we boldly pronounce "God's wrath and everlasting damnation" on all who do not believe, or hold, or "keep whole and undefiled,” the creed of St. Athanasius. It is equally true, that the Calvinian churches do not admit salvation without faith, meaning thereby faith as understood and expressed by them. Nor is it less a fact, that many sects and parties" do not see how a man can be saved holding such and such a creed, differing from their own;" but, then, we do not, like the Roman Catholics, call persons heretics, and anathematize them at the repetition of every doctrine, consigning them to the blackness of darkness for ever and ever, because they do not say our Shiboleth in every particular. We