and sometimes in the grosser purpose of raising a revenue. And by this interpretation is the Christian spirit to abide, shutting the eyes of his understanding, or opening them only to draw down merciless persecution!

Upon those two articles is founded the POWER of Rome. The former establishes an usurper upon Scripture; the latter commands that we shall bow down to the usurper. Tradition is used, not to support Scripture, but to support the Church against it. In what part of the Bible are we commanded to wait for the help of tradition? Scripture declares itself to be " THE WHOLE COUNCIL OF GOD!"

The fifteenth article declares-that there are seven sacraments, baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders, and matrimony. It declares those to have been all instituted by our Lord, and "essential to salvation, though not all of them to every one.'

Shall any man condescend to dwell upon the refutation of this strange doctrine! our Lord instituted but two sacraments, baptism and the eucharist. How is matrimony, however honourable and wise, essential to any man's salvation? Can anointing the joints of a dying man with

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oil be any thing beyond a superstitious rite? by what train of reasoning can penance be proved essential to salvation? Which of the Apostles did penance? But all these added sacraments have been sources of the most productive revenue to Popery; therefore were they fabricated, and therefore are they retained!

The sixteenth article "embraces the whole doctrine of the council of Trent, concerning original sin and justification."

By this doctrine, eternal happiness is not simply a mercy of God, but a justice to the merit of man, the declared wages of his good works; and not merely thus, but often the underprice of his good works; for Popery holds, that a man may be so much better than hé needs, that the superflux of his virtues may be given to make up his neighbour's deficiency!

What, then, becomes of our Lord's declaration that after we have done all, "we should call ourselves but unprofitable servants." Of St. Paul's praying, that he may not be a castaway; "after his life of holiness and labour in the Gospel. Of "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." Of " ye are saved through grace by faith, and that, not of your

selves, it is the gift of God." Of "not of works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Jesus Christ, unto good works."

The Christian's heart will answer this doctrine by many a bitter consciousness, by the stain of his best purposes, by the infirmity of his loftiest performances, by the perpetual vacillation, the mortal and melancholy wanderings of his spirit, at hours when it should be full of the burning adoration of the Cherubim and Seraphim before the Lord. What becomes of Christian humility, the lowly, penitent, and heartfelt prostration of the converted spirit of man before that eye which seeth all its secrets! This proud and calamitous doctrine-the birth of haughty and worldly hearts-sets itself up against the whole sense of Scripture. But by this doctrine was Popery made the great source of refuge to the opulent criminal. The superfluous virtues of the faithful were turned into Indulgences, and the Indulgences were turned into money. It rolled a tide of wealth into the treasury of Rome!

The seventeenth Article professes, that-in the Mass is offered to God a true, proper, and

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propitiatory sacrifice for the quick and dead; that in the Eucharist there is really and substantially the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ!

This article contains two features. First, of the Mass.

I would not speak irreverently of things which profess to be intended as homage to God. But in what language can the mind, not chained up in the fetters of Popish faith or fear, speak of a ceremony so simply, yet so mystically superstitious; so feebly, yet so deliberately allusive to the holiest and deepest act of redemption.

The Mass *.

1. The priest goes to the altar, in reference to our Lord's retreat with his Apostles to the garden of Olives! 2. Before he begins mass, he says a preparatory prayer; he is there to look upon himself as one abandoned of God, and driven out of paradise for the sin of Adam! 3. The priest makes confession for himself and for the people, in which it is required, that he be free from mortal and venial sin. 4. The

*Picart's Religious Ceremonies and Explanation of the Mass.

priest kisses the altar as a token of our reconciliation with God, and our Lord's being betrayed with a kiss! 5. The priest goes to the epistle side of the altar, and thurifies, or perfumes it with incense. Jesus Christ is now supposed to be, taken and bound! 6. The Introite is said or sung, applicable to the circumstances of our Lord's being taken before Caiaphas! 7. The priest, says the Kyrie Eleison,' (Lord have mercy upon us,) in allusion to Peter's denying our Lord thrice! 8. The priest, turning towards the altar, says Dominus vobiscum,' the people return the salutation by Et cum Spiritu tuo,' and this means, Christ looking at Peter! 9. The priest reads the epistle relative to Jesus being accused before Pilate. 10. The priest, bowing before the altar, says 'Munda cor,' and 'the devotion is directed to our Saviour's being brought before Pilate, and making no reply! 11. The priest reads the Gospel, in which Jesus Christ is sent from Herod to Pilate. The Gospel is carried from the right of the altar to the left, to denote the tender of the Gospel to the Gentiles, after the refusal of the Jews!' 12. The priest uncovers the chalice, and this means, the stripping of our Lord, in order to be scourged! 13. The oblation of the host. The priest then kisses the altar, and