civil as well as sacred, human as well as divine ;-whose power, established almost with the foundation of the city, was an omen,' says Polydore Virgil, and sure presage of that priestly majesty by which Rome was once again to reign as universally as it had done before by the force of its arms.' But, of all the sovereign pontiffs of pagan Rome, it is very remarkable, that Caligula was the first who ever offered his foot to be kissed by any who approached him; which raised a general indignation through the city, to see themselves reduced to suffer so great an indignity. Those who endeavoured to excuse it, said, that it was not done out of insolence, but of vanity, and for the sake of showing his golden slipper set with jewels. Seneca declaims upon it as the last affront to liberty, and the introduction of a Persian slavery into the manners of Rome. Yet, this servile act, unworthy either to be imposed or complied with by man, is now the standing ceremonial of Christian Rome, and a necessary condition of access to the reigning Popes; though derived from no better origin than the frantic pride of a brutal pagan tyrant."*

IX. Absolutions and Indulgences. The sale of Indulgences is a stretch of prerogative not wholly without precedent in the conduct of the pagan emperors. Among other indecent plans for raising a revenue, to which the Emperor Vespasian had recourse, he is represented as selling absolutions to persons charged with crimes, whether innocent or not. To this remarkable fact may be added, that the ancient privilege possessed by the vestal virgins, of demanding the life of a convict whom they chanced to meet on his way to execution, is now a prerogative of the cardinals.‡

X. The Monastic Orders. It has been shown by the ingenious writer to whom we are indebted for tracing out many of these remarkable vestiges of ancient superstitions in modern Rome, that several distinguishing features of the pre

Middleton's "Letter from Rome," pp. 377, 378. Mr. Blunt states, that Diocletian was the first who offered his foot for salutation.

"Nec reis, tam innoxiis quam nocentibus, absolutiones venditare cunctatus est." Suetonius. Vespas. 16. Cited by Blunt, p. 190.

Blunt's "Vestiges," p. 191.

sent mendicant orders, are primarily derived from the priests of Isis and Serapis. Those priests, like the mendicant monks, were bound by vows of temperance and abstinence; were supported by the charity of the public; were accustomed to go their daily rounds, begging with the sistrum in their hands; had recourse to the same stratagems, in order to maintain their credit with the vulgar; and even their costume was in most respects precisely that of the monkish orders. The chief difference is, that the dress of the former was linen, while that of the latter is woollen. But the loose cloak and cowl, the sandal, and the tonsure, of the Franciscan, are all copied from the servants of Isis and Serapis.* The parallel might be pursued into further details; but this brief enumeration of the more striking points of conformity between the modern and the pagan superstitions, will sufficiently illustrate the true source of most of the corruptions by which every thing but the name of Christianity has been well nigh obliterated in the churches of Italy, Sicily, Spain and Portugal, Greece and Russia, as well as in more eastern countries; where, to use the words of Bishop Stillingfleet, "Christianity has become nothing else but reformed Paganism, as to its divine worship."†

"It was at Rome," says the great infidel Historian of Christianity, "when musing amid the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, (now the church of the Franciscan friars,) that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the city first started to my mind." To a man destitute of the sound religious knowledge which is inseparable from true piety, who identified the Christian religion with the borrowed institutions of a corrupt church, the suggested contrast between the fallen majesty of

* Blunt. pp. 127–137. In the chamber of the young Apollo, in the Vatican, is a bas-relief, representing a priest of Isis, clad in the very costume of a Franciscan. St. Jerome, reprobating the absurd practice of the tonsure, refers to it as an acknowledged imitation of those pagan priests. "It is clear," he says, "that we ought not to be seen with our heads shaven, like the priests and worshippers of Isis and Serapis." Cited by Bingham. (vi. c. 4.) See also Middleton's "Letter," pp. 247, 379.

See Stillingfleet. "Defence of the Charge of Idolatry against the Romanists."

classic heathenism and the extant mummery of the intrusive faith, could not but be altogether to the disadvantage of the latter. Viewing the revolution effected by the propagation of the gospel simply as the enthronement of the papal power on the ruins of the Augustan empire, little might seem to have been gained, as regards the state of society, by the change of dynasty and of ritual that had consigned the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus to the bare-footed monks of St. Francis; and, accordingly, the scarcely disguised object of the Historian is to show, that that revolution was a baleful one for the happiness of mankind. The truth of Christianity is staked upon its being possible, and indeed easy to show, that the religion of the Bible has nothing in common with that anti-christian superstition which, in fulfilment of inspired prediction, has usurped its name; a superstition which was less the effect of priestcraft than its cause, for human nature is the author of its own delusions. The corruption of the Christian faith was but the relapse of society into a masked Paganism, which, in all ages and all countries, is the natural religion of the mass of mankind. It has always, however, been one distinctive feature of superstition, that it allows of an esoteric and a vulgar creed; presenting to those who soar above the implicit credulity of the priest-led multitude the philosophy of its fables, which gratifies the pride of reason without making any demand upon the faith. Hence, a decent scepticism has always afforded shelter from the grossness of idolatry, to men of letters and science, from the days of Socrates down to the time of Julian; and not less so within the pale of nominal Christianity. A mystical deism or a grosser infidelity has at all times extensively prevailed, as an esoteric creed, among the higher orders of the hierophants of that church which, by teaching and exacting submission to doctrines not merely without evidence, but at variance with it, shuts up her votaries to the alternative of an implicit reliance upon her own authority, or a pathless scepticism.

It is a characteristic of the Christian religion, that, while it makes its demand upon our faith, on the ground of Divine authority, it offers as the basis of that faith rational and

sufficient evidence.* But, when political authority is employed to determine what is truth, or to decree what shall be received as true, the ground of obedience is changed, and an obligation which cannot bind the conscience is substituted for the genuine evidence which alone can command a rational faith. Belief, as an exercise of religious obedience, must rest upon reasons to which human authority can add nothing;-must be enforced by religious obligations which human laws cannot strengthen. The authority of councils and conclaves is purely a political authority. Whether their decrees were or were not in accordance with the facts and doctrines of the Holy Scriptures, the Christian faith was removed from its proper basis of evidence by the very means employed to terminate disputation and to extinguish doubt. It was not as truth, but as law, that the doctrines embodied in such decisions required to be assented to on the authority of the tribunal which promulgated them, an authority which compelled submission, but which could not produce or warrant faith.

The authority of testimony is the authority of evidence. The authority of Scripture, that of Divine testimony, is the highest evidence, and the only sufficient evidence of revealed truth. The definitions of creeds and synodical decisions do not partake of the character of evidence, nor can they add any thing to the strength or clearness of the scriptural testimony. Not having the authority of evidence, by which alone truth can be enforced, they must derive their binding power from the will of the ruling and ordaining authorities, enforced by political sanctions. But, as bad laws and good laws are equally binding, if ordained by the supreme and lawful authority, so, the same rule that requires truth to be received in submission to ecclesiastical decisions or political edicts, makes it imperative to receive error and falsehood, if predicated by the same authorities. Accordingly, general councils of equal authority have decreed, as the matter of belief, what is now acknowledged to be pernicious error. It is

Bp. Butler has shewn, in his " Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion," that this circumstance constitutes a main part of religious probation. Part II. c. 6.

not their having erred, however, which can make the authority they claimed to determine and enforce religious truth, legitimate or otherwise. If the first council of Nice had authority to issue the Nicene Creed as the rule of faith, the council of Trent had as good authority to issue the Creed which is received as the test and standard of Catholic orthodoxy by the Roman church. There is no escape from this inference, but by denying to either, or to any ecclesiastical judicature or tribunal, the slightest degree of that species of moral authority -the authority of evidence of which alone truth is susceptible. It is from the confounding of the opposite kinds of authority which rule in the distinct provinces of morals and political law,-from the attempt to amalgamate things so distinct as evidence and power,-that have proceeded all the misguided and abortive efforts to propagate and uphold the Christian faith by pains and penalties. Historical records and ecclesiastical documents may establish facts: political authorities may institute laws: but religious truth admits of no other law or proof than the Divine authority and the inspired testimony. The Scriptures, therefore, are, to a true believer, the only rule and law of faith. Men who have not religious faith, or whose faith, if sincere, is unenlightened by sound scriptural knowledge, unable to discriminate the true evidence from the false, are glad to find themselves taken by the hand, though it is by a blind guide, who conducts them to a resting-place in the maze of scepticism, which they mistake for the goal of their inquiries. Welcome is the proffered authority of the church to one who wishes to repose upon a creed, and has not found rest at the feet of the Great Teacher. The experimental evidence of Christian truth is the highest reason of faith to the heart; but, where this is not discerned or possessed, the rule of faith itself becomes involved in so much apparent uncertainty, that a credulous surrender to human authority seems preferable to bewildering doubt. Hence it is that we find individuals passing over from uninformed scepticism to the extreme of implicit faith; and the Romish church numbers such converts among her most zealous and bigoted votaries.