theologians must not hold one language at one time, and a totally different one at another. They have satisfactorily shewn, while combating the infidels and sceptics, that the right use of our reason, without submitting it to the arbitrary dictation of any human being, or human authority, conducts us inevitably to the conclusion, that the book called the Bible is a Divine Revelation; or a collection of writings inspired by the Holy Spirit. Consequently, having thus argued, and having successfully established this point, they are not now at liberty to turn round and adopt the contrary view; namely, that it is only by the authority of the church that we can learn the Divine character of the books of Scripture.

Inq. Certainly, this is clear enough. And it follows also of inevitable necessity, that if you adhere to this assertion,-that it is only by the testimony of the church that you can know the Scriptures to be inspired,-then, with an infidel, who takes your church to be nothing else than a system of fraud and priestcraft, you have not even a word to say. You cannot even begin an argument; for if you admit the external evidences of the authenticity and inspiration of the Scriptures to be insufficient, the question between you and the sceptic is wholly at an end. But let us endeavour, on this occasion, to advance another step. As far as I am concerned, I feel no doubt whatever that the divine inspiration of Scripture is abundantly established. In the Bible, therefore, I admit that we have a standard; and 1 have not yet heard that the Romish church can offer me any further or better rule. Let us proceed, then, on this basis, that the Bible is to be judge and arbiter of this controversy. And now let me ask, what is to be the subject of this day's conversation?

What point do you propose to open for our discussion this evening.

Prot. Having thus mastered the main question in the whole controversy, we must now take up in succession, the various points of. difference between the Romish and Protestant churches. And that which I shall offer for this day's discussion, is our main accusation and objection against the Romish church, namely, that she is an Idolatrous Church; or a community which having once been a true church of Christ, has apostatized, and fallen into the practice of worshipping and serving other gods. This is the view presented of her by the apostle John, in the book of Revelation, chap. xvii. xviii. and though it may not be expedient to turn our argument into a discussion as to the interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy, there can be no impropriety in my gravely and calmly bringing the same accusation against the Romish church, upon the evidence of facts, which is here stated, in figurative language, by the inspired apostle. I charge, therefore, the church of Rome with the practice of open, flagrant, and unblushing IDOLATRY.

Rom. Gently, my good Sir! I must address you in Dr. Wiseman's rebuke, Idolators! know ye, my brethren, the import of this name? That it is the most frightful charge that can be laid to the score of any Christian? Then, gracious God! what must it be, when flung as an accusation upon those who have been baptized in the name of Christ, who have tasted the sacred gift of his body, and received the Holy Ghost?*

Prot. I am quite aware that the charge I make is a most serious one, and one which ought not to be lightly hazarded. But when Dr. Wiseman affects to recoil back with surprize and

* Wiseman's Thirteenth Lecture, p. 93.

indignation at sofrightful' an accusation, he should remember the real nature of the separation which exists between the church of Rome and the Protestant churches. Those who, in the sixteenth century, at the hazard of their lives and all they held dear, threw off their allegiance to Rome, never dreamt of treating the differences which existed, as matters of light and trifling moment. If they had not believed the grounds of their protest to be both solid and of the most vital nature, they would not have caused a separation, which if made without sufficient ground, must have been a schism. They jeoparded every thing that life could offer. Hundreds, even in England, and thousands in France and Germany, paid the forfeit of their decision with their lives; and is it now to be made matter of surprize that the charges brought by them and by us against Rome, and their belief in the truth of which they sealed with their bloodshould be serious and weighty! If the grounds of separation adduced were not of a deep and fearful nature, would not the Romanists themselves be justified in asking, "Wherefore, for such light and trifling causes, have ye broken the unity of the church?" I admit, then, that the charge we bring against your church is a most fearful one. I admit that we charge you with depriving God of his honour, and transferring that worship and adoration which should be paid to him alone, to divers of his creatures, who were and are nothing but poor human beings like ourselves.

Ing. But how shall we conduct this inquiry? Shall we hear the defence of the Church of Rome first, and then proceed with your reply?

Prot. If you please. I will, then, only now lodge my formal accusation, that the Church of Rome, by her worship and adora

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tion of the Virgin Mary, and of sundry dead men and women, called saints,' does, in effect, rob Christ of his peculiar glory; affront the God and Father of our Lord, who hath "6 given him for a covenant of the people, for a light of the gentiles," and set at nought the Holy Ghost, whose office it is to glorify Christ, and to shed abroad his love in our hearts. In short, that another worship, distinct from and opposed to, the worship of the blessed Trinity, is set up, as entirely distinct from, and opposed to, the worship of the only true God, as was the worship of the heroes and demigods of ancient Greece and Rome. But let us now hear what our friend here has to offer in defence of this system.

Rom. I shall, without apology, read to you some passages from Dr. Wiseman on this subject; feeling assured that that lucid writer has, in his well-considered argument, done more justice to the cause of the church, than I should be likely to do, by any extempore efforts of my own. The Doctor

says,

"What is the Catholic belief on the subject of giving worship or veneration to the saints or their emblems? You will not open a single Catholic work, from the folio decrees of Councils, down to the smallest catechism placed in the hands of the youngest children, in which you will not find it expressly taught ; —that it is sinful to pay the same homage or worship to the saints, or to the greatest of the saints, or the highest of the angels in heaven, which we pay to God; that supreme honour and worship are reserved exclusively to him; that from him alone can any blessing possibly come; that he is the sole fountain of salvation, and grace, and all spiritual, or even earthly gifts, -and that no one created being can have any power, energy, or influence of its own, in carrying into effect our

wishes or desires. No one surely will say, that there is no distinction between one species of homage and reverence, and another; no one will assert, that when we honour the King or his representatives, or our parents, or others in lawful authority over us, we are hereby derogating from the supreme honour due to God. Would not any one smile, if he did not give way to a harsher feeling, were he taxed with defrauding God of his true honour, because he paid reverence or esteem to others, or sought their intercession or assistance ? It is wasting time to prove that there may be honour and worship,-for, as I will shew you presently, this word is ambiguous, that there may be reverence or esteem demonstrated, so subservient to God, as in no way to interfere with what is due to him.

"What I have cursorily stated, is precisely the Catholic belief regarding the saints: that they have no power of themselves, and that they are not to be honoured and respected as though they possessed it; but at the same time that they are intercessors for us with God, praying for us to him, and that it is right to address ourselves to them, and obtain the co-operation of this, their powerful intercession, in our behalf. The very distinction here made excludes the odious charge to which I have alluded with considerable pain. For the very idea that you call on any being to pray to God, is surely making an abyss, a gulf, between him and God; it is making him a suppliant, a dependent on the will of the Almighty: and surely these terms and these ideas are in exact contradiction to all we can possibly conceive of the attributes and qualities of God.

"But I go further still. Instead of taking any thing from God, it is adding immensely to his glory: by thus calling on the Saints to pray for us, instead of robbing him of a

particle of the honour which belongs to him, we believe him to be served in a much nobler way than any other. For we thereby raise ourselves in imagination to heaven; we see the Saints prostrate before him in our behalf, offering their golden crowns and palms before his footstool, pouring out before him the odours of their golden vials, which are the prayers of their brethren on earth, and interceding through the death and the passion of his Son. And surely, if this be so, we are paying to God the highest homage, which his apostle describes as paid in heaven; for we give occasion, by every prayer, for this prostration of his Saints, and this outpouring of the fragrance of their supplications. Such being the Catholic belief regarding the saints, we must be further convinced that it is, and can be, no way displeasing to God, that we should shew a respect and honour to their remains on earth, or to those images and representations which recal them to our remembrance. Nay, we believe more than this: for we believe that God is pleased with this respect we shew them, inasmuch as it is all ultimately directed to honour him in them. We doubt not, that he may be pleased to make use of such outward and visible instruments, to excite the faith of his people, and to bring them to a disposition of fervour, which may produce salutary effects."*

Prot. May I ask, whether the Doctor supports his view by any passages from the word of God?

Rom. Yes, he adduces several texts. I will give you the whole passage.

"In the book of Daniel, for instance, we read of angels sent to instruct him, and we have mention made of the princes, meaning the angels of different kingdoms. In the book of Tobias, which, what*Wiseman's 13th Lecture, p. 93

95,

ever any one present may think of its canonicity, as I said on a former occasion of the book of Maccabees, must be considered at least as a strong testimonial of the belief of the Jews, -we find these words expressly put into the mouth of an angel: When thou didst pray with tears, and didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner and hide the dead by day in thy house, and bury them by night, I offered thy prayers to the Lord." In the book of Maccabees we have the same doctrine repeated. It is there said, that Onias, who had been High Priest, appeared to Judas Maccabeus, "holding up his arms, and praying for the peo ple of the Jews. After this, there appeared also another man, admirable for age and glory, and environed with great beauty and majesty. Then Onias said, "This is a lover of his brethren, and of the people of Israel: this is he that prayeth much for the people, and for all the holy city, Jeremias the prophet of God." Such, then, was the belief of the Jews, and such it is at the present day.

"But is there any thing in the New Testament to contradict it, and give reason to suspect for a moment, that our blessed Saviour rejected and reprobated this conviction? Does he not, on the contrary, speak of it as a thing well understood, and in terms which, so far from reproving, must have gone far to confirm his hearers in this belief? "Even so," says our Saviour, "there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninetynine just that need not penance.' What is here signified, but that communion of which I spoke, whereby a sinner's repenting here below is matter of joy and gladness to the angels? And we are elsewhere taught that the saints of God shall be like his angels. We have also the angels of individuals spoken of and we are told not to

:

offend any... of Christ's little ones, or make them fall, because their angels always see the face of their Father, who is in heaven. Why, this to all appearance goes as much as the Catholic belief, and more, to affect the superintendence and guidance, and general providence of God. That we are to take care to avoid sin, because it offends the angels-that we are to avoid being the cause of these little ones' fall, because their angels see the face of God! What does this mean, but that they have an influence with God, and will use it to bring down judgment on the offender? For, in fact, wherefore is the connexion between the angels and men alluded to, except to show that the former, enjoying the divine presence, have a powerful advantage over us, which they will use to bring signal judgment down on the heads of the offenders? And what is that but establishing a communion and connexion between them and their little charge in the way of intercession?

"But in the Apocalypse, we have still stronger authority; for we there read of our prayers being as perfumes in the hands of angels and saints. One blessed spirit stood before a mystical altar in heaven," having a golden censer, and there was given to him much incense, that he should offer the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God, from the hand of the angel." And. not only the angels, but the twenty-four elders, cast themselves before the throne of God, and, as I before remarked, pour out vials of sweet odours, which are the prayers of the saints. What does all this signify, but that they do present our prayers to God, and become intercessors with him?"*

* Wiseman's 13th Lecture, p, 101103.

Prot. And this is the whole that the learned doctor can do, in the way of proof from Scripture. So signal a failure ought of itself to decide the whole question. Prayer is the one grand topic of the Bible. Every saint therein described, was eminently a man of prayer. Not less than five hundred times do we find prayer, and the act of praying, distinctly spoken of. And yet, with all Dr. Wiseman's research and ingenuity, he is only able to find four passages in the Old Testament, and four in the New, from which he can possibly draw an inference suited to his views. And on the least examination, we shall find that not one of these lends the least countenance to the practice of your church.

Rom. Ten, I think, is the number of the passages cited.

Prot. Yes, the Doctor quotes two verses from the Apocryphal books, but they can have no authority in the matter. The care of the books of the Old Testament was committed by God to the Jewish church: "Unto them,” says St. Paul, were committed the oracles of God." (Rom. iii. 2.) Now the Jewish church never acknowledged the books of Tobit or the Maccabees as inspired writings. We can have nothing, therefore, to do with them in this matter. And, in fact, you must be aware that the council of Chalcedon held in A. D. 451, and attended by 630 bishops, while settling the canon of Scripture as then held, says nothing of these books of Tobit and Maccabees. It was reserved for the Romish church of a later age,-finding that a few passages like those which Dr. Wiseman has quoted, told in favour of their awful fictions of purgatory and prayer to the saints,-to gather up and adopt these forgeries which had lain unheeded and disregarded for many hundred years.

Rom. Well, but you may surely accept them in the light in

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which Dr. Wiseman proposes to use them, as a strong testimonial of the belief of the Jews."

Prot. Nothing can be more irrational. Here are two old books, one of which, Tobit, is a mass of childish absurdities, such as the story of a man's losing his eye-sight by the muting of a sparrow, and recovering it by the use of a fish's liver, with various others of a similar kind. And of the other, it is sufficient to say, that it approves and lauds an act of suicide! Neither of these books was ever admitted by the Jews into the canon of the Scripture, nor yet by the early Christian church. What are they, then? Simply two old books, representing the opinions of none but their writers. How can books that were rejected from the first, by the whole body of Jewish rabbis, furnish any "testimonial of the belief of the Jews?" Perhaps, however, it is but consistent that the worship of false and spurious mediators should be supported by the authority of false and spurious books of Scripture!

Inq. But pass on to the other eight passages, which Dr. Wiseman quotes from the sacred writings.

Prot. These will occupy us but a very short time. The first four are taken from Daniel, and are as follows,

"I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision." (chap. viii. 16.)

"Yea, while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation." (chap. ix. 21.)

"Then he said unto me, Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before God, thy words were heard,