I will be supreme over all, not a creature on earth shall be equal with me, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the Most High." (Isai. xiv. 13.) the true conjuring word, on which the goodness of the charm de pends,) of storms, thunder, and tempests." This holy ordinance was established by pope John III. Hist. of Popery, vol. iii. p. 350. The curious blunders made by the use of an unknown tongue in religious services, by ignorant persons, is more like NECROMANCY and MAGIC, (which is said to be totally void of any intelligible meaning in the words applied,) than a rational service, offered up to the Supreme Intelligence. The baptising of a child in this form,-" Baptizo te in nomine patria et filia et spiritu sancta,-I baptise thee in the name, country, and daughter, and female holy male spirit," occasioned considerable trouble and nonplus to the INFALLIBLE CHAIR, for a decision on the question, whether THE WORK should not be done over again; but it was happily given in the negative, Decret, Gratian de Consecratione. An ignorant priest, troubled in conscience at the wicked word SATANUM, (or the devil,) like "the abomination of desola tion standing in the Holy Place," in the baptismal office forsooth, ventured to scrape out the supposed profane mistake, and in troduce the word CHRISTUM (Christ) instead of it. The faulty passage by this emendation gives the latin words for"dost thou forsake the devil and all his works?" with this change," dost thou forsake Christ, and all his works?"—to which the sponsors (in the same darkness) answer- "I for sake them all. Dr Fulk's Annotations on 1 Cor. xv.. "Persist in the multitude of thy SORCE RIES, in which thou hast laboured from thy youth;"-(many of the corruptions of popery being of great antiquity, for the traces of them are visible in the fathers, and the mystery was working even in the days of the apostles,)" if peradventure thou mayest be profited, if thou mayst be strengthened by them." The prophet then assures her that the evil days will overtake her, from the calamities of which her pious frauds and wicked counsels, her spiritual magicians and miracle mongers, shall not be able to save her, nor even to deliver their own souls from the power of the flame; but these merchants of her religious wares shall flee every one to his own quarter, and leave her to her deserved fate. It is evident from comparing St John with Isaiah, that he has touched upon all the prominent parts of the prophet's description, and explained them.-"How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day,"―(within one year perhaps, the two great overthrows which are to work her final destruction, shall come upon her.)" Death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burnt with (volcanic) fire, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth ber." The prophet next adverts to the state of perplexity and sorrow, in which the powers still favorable to the popish cause shall be left, by the ruin of their spiritual metropolis, and the failure of their great light and bond of union, the popedom,-the merchants and traders in her false wares of reliques, images, agnus dei's, indulgences,* masses for the dead, &c. shall lament the loss of sale for their once • INDULGENCES, which Rivet calls "EMULGENCEs, purse milkings," were one prime article of the traffic of these MERCHANTS, of which a short specimen may suffice. POPE ADRIAN VI, granted,—" That whoever lying at the point of death should hold in his hand an hallowed wax candle, and depart out of this life holding the same, shall obtain a plenary imdulgence of all his sins, if before his death he has but once recited the psalter, or Rosary of the Blessed Virgin," precious and costly commodities; and she will be bewailed with interested lamentations, by "all that had ships in the sea" of this boundless and bottomless apostacy, and whose power and wealth had depended upon the perpetuity of the venerable and splendid imposture. This Rosary is a collection of blasphemous and idolatrous prayers to the Virgin, which are here upon infallible authority placed upon an equal footing with the word of God, For money indulgences could be had for any purpose whatever. Thus the atheist POPE SIXTUS IV. granted an indul gence of sodomy to Peter Riere, cardinal of St Sixtus, and Je. ronimo, his own brother, and cardinal St Luce, during the three hottest months of summer, at their request. Hist. of Popery, vol iv. p. 261. Chemnitius in his "Examen Concil, Trident, ludicrously exposes indulgences. He quotes the following monkish lines, graven on an ancient stone in the Cathedral of St Stephen, at Bourges.-Ex Chemn. Exam. p. 4 c. iv. "Hic des devote, coelestibus associo tei Ezekiel's prophetic lamentation over the fall of Tyre, in chap. xxvi. xxvii. and xxviii. seems to have a considerable degree of correspondence with this for the mystic Babylon; and there are several points of resemblance in it, which seem to have a farther scope than their first and ostensible object, in the fate of Tyre. But it is certain that much of what is Hic si large des, in coelo sit tua sedes. Cur tardas?-Tantum nummi mihi des aliquantum; Thus englished in suitable doggrel, "Give here devoutly, and I'll join thee to heaven's band, Wouldst have the market thine ?-dash down a little coin. The INDULGENCES sent out for sale all over the christian world, by POPE LEO X. were preached by his emissaries in a stile nothing short of the above. They were able not only to relieve the living, but to deliver the souls of the dead out of the |