desired result, the most corrupt and wilful falsehood and perjury exchange their inherent depravity, and are metamorphosed into saintly virtues. In addition to this wickedness, it must be remembered, that the dispensing power claimed and exercised by the pope, nullifies all holiness, and sanctifies all vice.

The history of the popedom is one incessant proof of the truth which the Apostle Paul declared to the Thessalonians, Epistle 2. chap. 2. that the "falling away" of the church, and the subsequent enthronement in the temple of God, of "the man of sin and the son of perdition," should comprise a system of "strong delusions and all deceivableness of unrighteousness," which he emphatically denounces as "the lie!"

One of the most convincing demonstrations of the divine origin of the Holy Scriptures is this-that its most extraordinary and apparently incredible predictions should be exemplified with minutely accurate precision, by the very craftsmen who boast that they are the only church of Christ; and yet who are so ignorant of the truth which divine revelation announces, that they are unconscious of their own steadfast fulfilment of all the turpitude against which the curse of God is promulged.

It is also not irrelevant to remark, that if popery did not imbody and manifest all the abhorrent guilt which is imputed to it in the previous essays of the Protestant, it would not be a consummation of the prophecy. Therefore, nothing in this aspect can be more astonishing, than the disposition which so many professed Christians betray, to extenuate the wickedness, and to mask the deformity of the “Mother of harlots and abominations of the earth."

The spurious liberalism by which this ungodliness is engendered, undoubtedly constitutes one of the grand sources and aliments of modern infidelity. Prophecy ever depicts popery as a system of spiritual ignorance and impiety; of the grossest corruption; of incurable error and deceptions; and of a malignant cruelty, which could be represented in no more forcible and repulsive emblem, than that of a meretricious woman most gorgeously arrayed, "drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." In direct contradiction to this infallible portrait by the Apostle John,-modern Christians pretend, that popery is a system of light, truth, holiness, and philanthropy; only a little deteriorated with unhallowed mixtures which the Romanists themselves will gradually eject. Thus, the whole system of prophecy, as it yet remains to be fulfilled, is expunged. By this means Christianity is treacherously surrendered to her deadly foes. The most virulent and incorrigible enemies of the cross of Christ are encouraged in their direful apostacy; the anxious inquirer after divine truth is arrested at the vestibule of the temple of scriptural illumination; and the infidel scorner is justified in his atheistic folly, by that base perversion of the Holy Bible, for which its professed friends and avowed expositors are righteously condemnable.

This itself is part of "THE LIE!" Protestant nations even are but very partially reformed. Three centuries have elapsed since "the men of whom the world was not worthy"-the Luthers, the Zuingles, the Calvins, the Cranmers, the Knoxes, and their immortal compeers, commenced the glorious work of regeneration; but the Augean stable of popery is uncleansed. Mountain masses of wood, hay, and stubble, remain to be burnt up amid the hallelujahs of Christian beholders;

and as the Lord said unto Joshua, so it should be resounded in the ears of the purest of the reformed churches-"there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed."

Travellers with one accord assure us, that truth is not to be found in popish countries-not evangelical doctrine, because that blessed gift of God is not sought after among Papists-not that sincerity and veracity, which are essential to the existence of society; there is truth just sufficient to retain the national compact from dissolution, and no more. In all the Papistical countries of Europe, there is not now existing scarcely any resemblance of the truth, honour, and integrity which exist among the Cherokees; and indubitably there is more sound knowledge, and evangelical principle, among that tribe of fifteen thousand people, than could be found in Portugal, Spain, and Italy!

A Papist, if he conforms to his church, adopts its casuistry, as it has been authoritatively described, and copies the examples of them whom he considers as infallible and delegates of God, must unavoidably be a deceiver: for "the truth is not in him!"

4. A Papist is necessarily cruel!—Nothing can more graphically depict Romanism in this decisive attribute, than the exterior appearance of "the Beast," as John viewed him, Revelation, xiii. 2-11. "The beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion; and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And he had two horns like a lamb, but he spake as a dragon." This is the condensed history of popery during its whole past duration—it is the picture of the present Roman court-and when the Papal system loses these expressive symbols, it will cease to exist.

This beast is delineated as a leopard for his activity and fiercenesswith a bear's paw, for his brutal and griping rapacity-a lion, for his ferocity, power, and terrific ravening-a dragon for his devilish rage and deceitfulness a mother of harlots, for her sorceries and monstrous impurity-and a drunken harlot, intoxicated and infuriated with Christian blood, to unfold her unnatural licentiousness, and her unparalleled sanguinary and savage disposition. If no other proof of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures could be adduced, this luminous and minutely exact portrait of the Roman antichristian hierarchy would demonstrate infallibly their divine origin and veracity; for popery always has been, it is now, and it ever will be, until it is exterminated, the restless, and crafty, the incessant and voracious, the fearful and destructive enemy of mankind.

It is the cement of Romanism, that out of the Popedom there is no salvation; and that it is a heaven-appointed duty, if it can be executed without danger, to murder every man, woman, and child, who will not submit to the Roman pontiff, or as in imitation of the ancient heathen Arch Flamen and high priest, he blasphemously calls himself, Pontifex, Optimus, Maximus. Upon this subject, in the Corpus Juris Canonici, lib. 6. Decretalium, are the subsequent most edifying enact

ments:

Cap. 9. page 137. "Non valeat, &c. All laws by which the office of a heresy-hunter is obstructed or retarded, are null and void."

Cap. 10. page 137. "Officium, &c. The office of an inquisitor for heresy does not expire by death."

Cap. 19. page 142. "Bona hereticorum, &c. The property of heretics is rightfully confiscated."

Cap. 6. page 135. "Ordinarii, &c. Prelates, vicars-general, and their delegates, and inquisitors, may enforce persons who have secular jurisdiction to execute their sentence upon heretics." But the punishment appointed by the merciful Papists, for heresy, is prior torture in the most excruciating forms, and final roasting to ashes amid the shouts and exultations of the delighted Babylonians.

It is a fact, attested by all those who have been converted from popish idolatry to the Christian religion, that ordinarily the last Roman principle of which they become divested is the spirit of persecution; and this is corroborated by the history of the reformers of the sixteenth century. They had renounced all the idolatries and mummeries of popery; they had exposed its impious absurdities, and drawn aside the veil which had concealed its matchless pollutions; and they had rejected the bondage by which they had been so long enthralled; but the feelings of persecution lingered within them, and long was it, before the Papal delusion of the unity of the church and exclusive salvation was driven from their hearts. Like the dumb spirit, Mark ix. 17-29. it was a "kind of devil, which came forth by nothing but prayer and fasting."

At this period, and in our own country, there is no topic connected with the antichristian system, which is more steadfastly and pertinaciously imbued into the votaries of the dragon and the beast, than an inveterate hatred, and a revengeful, malicious feeling towards Protestants. The power to inflict mischief is taken away; and even in our civic institutions there is a strong counteracting influence against this thirst for blood, and this inextinguishable popish malevolence; but the spirit remains in all its energy, and often develops its latent venom and rage. The explanations which the infallible expositors give, of some passages of scripture, and which are taught in the confessional, as of oracular authority, will enable us accurately to comprehend the true qualities of this astounding machination of Babylon the Great, which when the apostle John saw, he "wondered with great admiration."

The Rhemish Testament, with its notes, is papistical infallible authority in private, however much it may be denied in public; and its comments are enforced as divine truths upon all the members of the Roman community. Every peculiar corruption of popery is inculcated as emanating from the source of all truth and wisdom; and full credence, with the consequent practice, is demanded, upon the penalty of the curse which the church denounces against all transgressors.

Matthew iii. "Heretics may be punished and suppressed, and may and ought, by public authority, either spiritual or temporal, to be chastised or executed."

Galatians i. 8. "Catholics should not spare their own parents, if heretics."

Hebrews v. 7. 88 The translators of the Protestant Bible, ought to be abhorred to the depths of hell.”

Revelation xvii. 6. "When Rome puts heretics to death, their blood is no more than the blood of thieves, mankillers, or other malefactors." All the doctrines taught in the notes to the Douay Bible, and the

Rhemish Testament, are of a similar tendency; they breathe nothing but fury, slaughter, and blood, against every person who does not bear "the mark of the beast;" and wherever it now sways, it retains all its fierce and vindictive attributes.

It must be remembered, that neither of the canons above cited is abrogated, and neither of the blasphemous or butchering notes, appended to their deceitful and erroneous version of the scriptures, is cancelled. They retain all their power and authority; and in no particle of doctrine, ceremony, or practice, is Romanism altered or amended. That would overthrow the boasted infallibility. There fore it must increase in impiety, perfidy, corruption, and barbarism, until its doomed extinction. The massacre of the French Protestants, after the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of France, in 1815, certifies beyond all dispute, that nothing but the opportunity and the power are wanted; for then the Mother of Harlots would again glut herself with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus; and she would manifest that her forced respite from her voracious drunkenness, had only rendered her a more greedy bloodsucker than ever. The fact is incontestable, that as long as popery sways, so long will it discover its atrocious qualities, as a relentless tormentor of mankind, bound by no law but the restriction of force; and, as in modern Spain, Italy, Austria, and Ireland, proving that the superstitions, priestcraft, treachery, crimes, and ferocity of Romanism, are totally and for ever inseparable. II. POPERY EXTERMINATES ALL THAT IS MOST ENDEARING AND AMIABLE IN DOMESTIC SOCIETY.

The basis of the family compact is that affection which, in addition to the instinctive attachments, is sealed by an unreserved confidence. A deep rooted conviction, that the conscientious obligations cannot be diminished, and that the reciprocal attachments cannot be exterminated, is the cement which binds all our social relations. Honour, truth, unity, and solicitude to promote the welfare of each other, who are joined together by the ties of blood and consanguinity, constitute the great principles which, in subordination to Christian motives, should actuate all those who are naturally thus connected. But popery enervates or uproots all that is sacred, tender, refined, and dignified, even in those bonds which the Creator has appointed, and in those relationships, without the existence of which the human family would speedily die. In matrimonial life, also, the purity of the husband and wife is an essential ingredient; at least, among those persons who have not deliberately resolved to discard the holiest and most delicate sensibilities of humanity. To which, it may be subjoined, that the very existence of households depends upon the conviction, that the trifling discords, and even the more painful exercises, which from infirmity of tempers, depression of circumstances, or even direct impropriety, occasionally disquiet the minds, and temporarily interrupt the harmony of the members, will remain unknown; and not be disclosed to add public scorn to private pungency, or to afford rivals or enemies an opportunity to gratify revenge by distorting truth, or transforming human involuntary and lamented waywardness, into the charge of obdurate guilt, until a fair reputation is suspected, and the comforts of life are irreparably lost.

In these aspects, popery is the destroyer of all that is charming and VOL. II.-95

most valuable in the domestic society. This general proposition admits of proof not less easy than it is irrefragable. All the claims of the Romish priesthood are utterly at variance with the sincerity, trust, and integrity which the unity of a household necessarily presupposes. To a person of judgment and delicacy, nothing can be more revolting than the demands which are made by the papal hierarchy; and, when we consider the extent, and the object, and the application of their requirements, we can easily perceive, that the necessary confidence of the husband and wife, of parent and child, of master and servant, in all their various conditions, cannot possibly coexist with the mastery of Romanism, over the hearts of those persons who hold these relative characters.

1. No genuine connubial affection can long subsist without purity. From a variety of causes, a delicate woman may maintain a profound reserve upon those inordinacies in her husband which disgust her feelings, and even render her life wretched: but in that case, it is preposterous to talk of that indescribable bond which the Lord intimates ought to subsist between the husband and his wife, when he declares them one. If the bitterness be not greater, yet the consequences are much more pernicious, when the pure husband either suspects or is convinced that his wife is unfaithful.

Undoubtedly the major part of the papists know that chastity is practically excluded from the Roman creed. The passages already cited demonstrate beyond all possibility of doubt, that the violations of the seventh commandment, whether in the single or compound guiltiness, in their tariff of crimes, are the most venial of all sins. Indisputable testimony has also been adduced, which assures us, that ecclesiastics of all orders in the Roman hierarchy, from the terrestrial representative and vicar-general of the kingdom of darkness, the Italian pontiff himself, down to the most ignorant monk who ever muttered over his AveMary, or sung masses for souls, always, and universally have taught their female devotees, that licentious familiarities with their confessors, or with popish ecclesiastics, are not criminal; that it is their greatest honour to accede to their sensual desires; and that even admitting their intercourse was irregular, the priest is guiltless, and can also absolve the female who submits to his solicitations.

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This pollution, however, is trifling, compared with the commutation for sin which is brought in to aid this priestcraft. In the Canones Penitentiales, or Canons for Penance, are several very edifying illustrations of this abhorrent contrivance. On page 1256, &c. of the Corpus Juris Canonici, I. "Si Presbyter cognovit," &c. IX. "Si Clericus contra naturam peccavit-si membro mulieris non ad hoc concesso voluerit uti-si coierit cum brutis, &c." For these nameless horrific crimes, penance is appointed for a specified time; but then comes forward the mystery of iniquity"-for all these, temporal punishments, as they are technically denominated, there are indulgences, and by repeating the appointed number of Ave-Marys, and Pater Nosters, with the usual fee to the priest, absolution must be pronounced, the sin is forgiven, and the penance is removed. Consequently, as all the doings of the confessional are transacted without witnesses, and as there is no crime so unpardonable, as that of divulging the secrets which occur at confession; and as there is no dread upon a Papist's mind, so weighty and terrifying as that of exposing