worship of Images;" if it be, "not only an accounting or worshipping that for God which is not God, but also a worshipping the true God in a way unsuitable to his nature, and particularly by the mediation of images;" how, without using these terms, can a Protestant describe the practices of monkery? How can he speak of the morality of the casuists, relics, miraculous images, and, above all, the great mystery of the Romish Church?

THE CREED OF PIUS IV.

You have inserted in your fintroduction, Sir, the creed of Pope Pius IV., published in 1564, in the form of a bull, as an authentic exposition of the faith of the Roman Catholic Church. You present it as an accurate and explicit summary of the Roman Catholic faith, to which all proselytes who are admitted into that Church publicly testify their assent, without restriction or qualification.

This profession of faith commences with the Nicene creed, after which, thirteen articles are appended. Those articles express, that the Romanist most firmly admits and embraces apostolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and all

other constitutions and observances of his Church; that he admits the Scriptures according to the sense which the Church holds, to whom it belongs to judge of their true interpretation; and that he will never interpret them otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the fathers: that there are seven sacraments instituted by our Lord for the salvation of mankind; that he admits the ceremonies received in the solemn administration of those sacraments; that he receives all and every one of the things defined and declared in the Council of Trent, concerning original sin and justification; "that in the mass is offered to God a true, proper, and propitiatory sacrifice for the living and the dead; and that in the most holy sacrifice of the Eucharist, there is truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, which conversion the (Roman) Catholic Church calls transubstantiation: that under either kind alone, whole and entire Christ and a true sacrament is received; that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls detained therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful; that

the Saints reigning together with Christ are to be honoured and invocated; that they offer prayers to God for us, and that their relics are to be venerated; that the images of Christ and of the Mother of God, ever Virgin, and of the other Saints, are to be retained, and due honour and veneration given them; that the power of indulgences was left by Christ in the Church, and that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people. The Roman Catholic acknowledges the Roman Church as the mother and mistress of all Churches, and swears true obedience to the Roman Bishop, the successor of St. Peter the Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ: he receives all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general Councils, and particularly by the Council of Trent; and he condemns, rejects, and anathematizes all things contrary thereto, and all heresies whatsoever condemned and anathematized by the Church. Finally, he professes, that out of this true (Roman) Catholic faith, none can be saved.

Before I proceed, a remark may be made here which our good old writers would have called considerable,... it is, that Pope Pius IV. has added thirteen articles to a Christian's creed as necessary to salvation, not one of which was

thought so by the Apostles. Should you smile at the remark, and remind me that two of them relate to the Council of Trent, I must take the liberty of asserting, what has again and again been proved, that the points contained in the other eleven were just as little known to the Apostles, and as little dreamt of by them, as the proceedings of that notable assembly.

To the whole thirteen, however, we are to understand, that the English Roman Catholics fully and unequivocally assent. Do they know to what they have assented? Or am I mistaken in supposing, Sir, that the Bishop of Chester's remarks upon this confession of faith must have occasioned, in one of your generous feelings and practical toleration, thoughts, which, as Burnet says, can be "of no easy digestion"? You remember how fierce an uproar was raised in England against what was called the &c. oath : but could Sir Edward Coke himself have extracted as much from the most productive &c. in Littleton, as is included in this comprehensive and indiscriminating assent? I say nothing of" ecclesiastical traditions, and all other constitutions, and observances;" nor do I press you upon "the unanimous consent of all the fathers;" nor upon the contradictory decrees of different councils; nor will I inquire with what mental

reservation this true obedience to the Pope is promised, when we know, beyond all possibility of denial, that no reservation was intended or allowed by him who drew the bond. But I must remind you, Sir, that among those things "delivered, defined, and declared, by the canons, and general Councils," which the Romanists, according to this your statement, receive at this time without distinction, the most daring assumptions of temporal power by the Papacy are contained; and the most intolerant opinions respecting those whom the Romanists call heretics are explicitly avowed. That the Pope may absolve subjects from their allegiance, depose Princes, and give their dominions to Catholics, to be enjoyed by them when they have exterminated the heretics, is a maxim which has been decreed by the fourth Lateran Council and acted upon by the Popes; and this sentence all temporal lords are declared to incur who do not, to the utmost of their power, assist in rooting out those

* See the canon de Hæreticis in the Bishop of Peterborough's excellent Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome, p. 218. And see also his irrefragable proofs, that this abominable canon applies to temporal lords in general, principal as well as feudal, by the very letter as well as spirit of the law; and that it has been specially applied to the sovereign of England.