national rites, as in its centre principle, the condemnation of idolatry.

The apostolic dispensation occupies, therefore, the verge between the ancient prohibition of demon worship, and the Nicene church restoration of it, and attestation of it, by copious miraculous powers-real or pretended. No two systems can be more boldly opposed to each other than are the Mosaic and the Nicene. No principle is more momentous than the one which this opposition brings before us: no practices, called religious, can be more irreconcileable, the one with the other, than are those of the ancient Jewish worship, and of the worship everywhere prevalent in the churches of the fourth century. Both schemes appeal to divine attestations; both claim Christianity as their own;—the one by the golden chain of prophetic anticipation; the other by the suspicious links of tradition.

To which, then, in fact, does the apostolic dispensation belong? or does it belong to both? In other words, are we to believe that, though a stern theology had been imposed upon the Hebrew race-a theology which forbade them to touch or taste the poisonous luxuries of idol worship, the milder christian law invites the nations anew to the banquet of demons? Such is the question which our Hypothesis involves!

Before we have gone far in adducing evidence bearing upon this question, many readers probably will be inclined to stop me, in some such manner as this "Well, even if too much that is very blameworthy may be gathered from the pages of later writers, you can never prove christian demon-worship to have been of high antiquity. You can never give a colour of probability to the supposition that it was an element of apostolic tradition."

Now although, in fact, a very high antiquity may be claimed for the rudiments, at least, of this pernicious superstition-an antiquity quite as high as belongs to other favourite portions of church doctrine, yet, so far as the present controversy is involved, I would willingly take my position on the ground of this very objection.

-The undisguised demonolatry of the fourth century was either an invention of that age; or it had descended, in its rudiments, from an earlier time.

-If it were an invention of that age, it either commands our submission as a legitimately evolved addition to apostolic doctrine (this is popery) or it was a gross and ruinous corruption.

-But if a corruption-then can we dare to go on attaching our faith to the men who were the very inventors and zealous promoters of it? If a corruption-then what is the tendency of the modern endeavour to bring the church back to this same foundation?

Let us however assume as true, what I cannot doubt to be the legitimate supposition in this case; namely, that the church of the fourth century only amplified the various superstitions connected with the invocation and commemoration of the dead, which it had inherited from the preceding age, and which came to it recommended by immemorial opinions and practices.

In this case, the facts present themselves as furnishing a critical instance which must be fatal to the HYPOTHESIS now in question. For here are superstitions of the very worst tendency, and which, at an early time, covered Christendom with all the enormities and follies of polytheism, yet springing from the bosom of the antenicene church. We are therefore compelled to conclude that, although it be probable that the ancient church was possessed of some genuine apostolic traditions, and which are not found in Scripture, these, whatever they may be, have become so blended with the most dangerous errors as to throw us back upon the only rule-the WRITTEN CANONICAL REVELATION of the Divine will. When we let go our hold of this Rule, we lose all safe guidance, and are sure to be misled.

Returning then to this only Rule, we do not hesitate to condemn, as impious and idolatrous, under whatever modifications it may appear, the ancient demonolatry. We utterly refuse to listen, even for a moment, to any of the tortuous extenuations by which, from Jerome's time to this, these adulterous practices have been excused or promoted. We have only one word for these vilifying impieties: we can only say-Away with them! Let not a vestige of such sin and folly be allowed to attach to any of our religious usages!

But as a necessary consequence of our taking this decisive course, we must strictly examine, by the sole guidance of the canon of

Scripture, every other article of the ancient church system. We care not to be told that such and such practices or notions are "of high antiquity"—that they are "undoubted apostolic traditions." We are at length cured of our timidity as to all pretensions of this sort. We must pass everything ancient, and which is not Scriptural, through the same sieve; and lest it should hereafter appear as if a trap had been laid for the reader, I will distinctly avow my belief that the sacramental doctrine and practice of the early church is involved, as well as its demonolatry, in the rejection of the Hypothesis we are considering.

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THE HYPOTHESIS OF CHURCH PRINCIPLES EXEMPLIFIED IN THE INSTANCE OF THE ANCIENT DEMONOLATRY.

A TREATISE On the portentous subject now before us—the ancient demonolatry, would demand a separate examination of the several elements of the complicated superstitions which we here bring under consideration in their collective form. The reader however is requested to keep some leading distinctions in view, although we may not be able, in bringing together our evidence, to observe an exact order. Our miscellaneous citations will relate to

I. The notions, practices, and sentiments of the christian VULGAR.

II. The opinions, explicit or implied, of the great divines, or, as we may call them, the philosophical class in the church:

III. The apologies and extenuations resorted to, and the active measures employed for promoting these superstitions, by these leading persons:

IV. The endeavours of such to check the abuses thence arising:

V. The miracles perpetually appealed to in attestation of practices directly idolatrous.

Then, as to the superstition itself, it embraces

I. Opinions and practices connected with endeavours on the part of the living, to solace or benefit the souls of the departed.

VOL. II.

II. Practices founded on the belief that the departed-especially eminent saints and martyrs, hear the prayers of their terrestrial votaries, and act in the presence of God as mediators, procuring for them, by their merits and advocacy, temporal and spiritual favours, not otherwise to be obtained.

III. Practices connected with the visible and tangible memorials and remains of the saints and martyrs, and the miraculous indwelling energies of their dust, bones, hair, teeth, or garments. Under this latter head might be ranged perhaps one-third, or let us say one-fifth, of the entire mass of what is called church history, from the fourth century downwards.

No one (not a romanist) who travels in countries where the Roman Catholic worship prevails (and the same is true of the East) is able, how indulgent soever may be his religious sentiments, or lax his protestantism, to resist the conviction that, in its practical meaning, and as to the great mass of the people, the invocation of saints, the adoration of images and pictures, and the veneration of relics, is-IDOLATRY; and that it is substantially the same as any other polytheistic worship. Even that eminent anti-protestant, the late Mr. Froude, although his training at home had led him to take the most favourable view possible of this sort of worship, and had induced him to "think people injudicious who talk against the Roman Catholics for worshipping saints, and honouring the Virgin, and Images, &c.," which things

may perhaps be idolatrous "-he could not "make up his mind about it"-yet even Mr. Froude, when he came to be better acquainted with the sentiments and practices of the people, finds he can no longer withhold what the protestant world has always thought to be the fitting designation of these devotional usages:

"Since I have been out here, I have got a worse notion of the Roman Catholics than I had. I really do think them idolaters, though I cannot be quite confident of my information as it affects the character of the priests. . . . What I mean by calling these people idolaters is, that I believe they look upon the saints and virgin as good-natured people, that will try to get them off easier than the Bible declares, and that as they don't intend to comply with the conditions on which God promises to answer prayers,