gious worship is the subject under discussion, and when the question is, shall this worship be given to any but the true God? the difference between the highest creature and the lowest-between the angel Gabriel or the Virgin Mary on the one hand, and a worm of the dust on the other, the difference shrinks into nothing. The reptile is as much entitled to devotion, in a religious sense, as the Virgin Mary, or the angel Gabriel; and no man can deny this who believes these words of the God of Israel, "I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt worship ONLY me."

By this romantic devotion to the virgin, Mr. Andrews shows himself to be a true disciple of Loyola; that is, a true Jesuit. He believes in the immaculate conception, seeing he calls her, "that spotless woman;" and, no doubt, like Loyola, he is ready to knock on the head any man who denies that she was born without sin; though in that case he would shut her out of heaven altogether; for we are sure there are none of the race of Adam there, but those who acknowledge and declare, that they owe their salvation to him that loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood.

In reply to what I had said about the saints in heaven having done with worldly cares, the Vindicator maintains "that the saints do trouble themselves with worldly matters, since it is written in the sixth chapter of the Apocalypse of St: John, vs. 9 and 10. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them who were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, (holy and true,) dost thou not judge and revenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth. This passage from holy writ convincingly shows that the blessed in heaven do concern themselves with the things of this world; for if they cry out to God to avenge their blood on their enemies, common sense tells us they are as likely to supplicate for blessings on their friends. Lest, however, our adversary should not be satisfied with the testimony of the beloved disciple of Christ, I will give him the word of God himself as recorded by St. Luke, chap. xv. v. 10- I say unto you there shall be joy before the angels of God upon one sinner doing penance.' Col. 422, 423. Here I must cut my opponent short, for he is, as usual, running quite away from the point, and asserting things which are not disputed. What I said was, the saints in heaven are at rest, with their Saviour, and have done with worldly cares; meaning the little affairs of this world, such as herding swine, feeding geese, and such other undignified employment as Papists assign to them. See Vol. I. p. 339. But the glory of God by the punishment of his enemies, and the increase of the church by the repentance and salvation of sinners, are not worldly cares, but spiritual and heavenly things, which certainly do engage the attention of both saints and angels. In this way the Vindicator evades all the main points at issue; that is, by writing about one thing instead of another; and thus he draws away his reader's attention from those deformities in his system, which even he has not the face to defend. He does not say a word about the ridiculous drud

This is the Douay translation; and, like every thing else that is peculiarly popish, it degrades the subject to which it relates. Angels rejoice when a sinner repents, which implies a change of mind that is connected with salvation; but the Douay ver sion would represent the angels as rejoicing when a sinner torments himself, which is an exercise with which salvation has no necessary connexion.

gery with which the church of Rome employs the saints in heaven, as exposed at the conclusion of my forty-fifth number. He slurs it all over, without the least notice, as he does many other things which he cannot deny, and which he has not the grace to acknowledge. Nay, though he boasts that he has gone over, and answered my work, paragraph by paragraph, there is scarcely a paragraph in twenty that he has touched.

It is not necessary that I inform the intelligent reader, that the above two passages of scripture give no countenance whatever to the practice of praying to either saints or angels. Let us see if the Vindicator is more successful in his other references to the Bible. "A glorified saint," our accuser says, "is but a finite creature. He cannot be in more than one place at one time, any more than a sinner on earth can be. I certainly do not pretend like this presumptuous man, to know the mysteries of heaven, or to limit the omnipotence of God. I know that the saints in heaven are in a state of perfection and glory, that they know what passes in the hearts of men upon earth, but how is not for me to inquire or explain; for, as I said in my last Vindicator, it is not for man to scan the wondrous works of his Creator." As to the impossibility of a saint being in more than one place at one time, this is no obstacle to his knowing of what is going forward in the world. If Eliseus could see the ambush which the king of Syria had prepared for the Israelites, without being on the spot, (4 Kings vi. 9,) surely the saints in heaven, by the same divine power, can tell whether a Papist is praying to him or not." Col. 423, 424.

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Here the Vindicator again ascribes an attribute of deity to his idols. He says, "they know what passes in the hearts of men upon earth.” This prerogative the Almighty challenges for himself as peculiarly as the work of creation; and the saints in heaven can know no more of what is passing in my heart than Mr. Andrews does, unless God is pleased to reveal it to them; and they cannot know who is, and who is not praying to them, but by such a revelation. In the passage respecting Elisha, which, in our version of the Bible is, 2 Kings vi. 9-12, there is not a word about the prophet seeing what he was not on the spot to see; or hearing what he was not present to hear. It is said, indeed, that he could tell the king of Israel the words which the king of Syria spoke in his bedchamber; but this was not by any extraordinary faculty of seeing or hearing with which he was endowed, but because God, who knows all things, had revealed it to him. This, therefore, is no proof that the saints in heaven hear the prayers which are addressed to them by their votaries on the earth.

"Universal presence," says the Vindicator, "is not necessary, if knowledge and power is given to the saints and angels by the omnipotent Lord of all; and we have the Bible in our favour in support of this belief. Jacob prayed the angel that delivered him from all evil, to bless the children of Joseph. (Gen. xlviii.) But will THE PROTESTANT charge the holy patriarch with idolatry and blasphemy for thus invoking the assistance of an angel? I imagine he is not quite so presumptuous; and yet, notwithstanding Catholics do no more than what Jacob did, they must be idolaters. Is this impartiality and justice?" Col. 424. The Vindicator has said, that he would not be surprised by any thing that I should write, else I would surprise him by saying, that I would

have the presumption to charge the holy patriarch with idolatry, had he, like modern Papists, invoked a created angel, in the language which he used in blessing the sons of Joseph; but every intelligent reader of the Bible knows, that The Angel whom Jacob invoked, was no other than Jehovah the God of Israel, who appeared to him as the Angel of the everlasting covenant; and therefore, the words of the holy patriarch furnish no example for praying to saints or created angels.

"The royal prophet David," says the Vindicator, "teaches, that whosoever puts his trust in God, angels shall defend him, and keep him from harm. Here are his words, 'He shall give his angels charge over thee, in all thy ways; they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.' Ps. xci. 11, 12." Col. 423. But what has this to do with worshipping of angels, who, on every recorded instance of its being offered to them, peremptorily rejected it? See Rev. xix. 10, xxii. 8, 9; see also Col. ii. 18, in which it is expressly condemned. Angels are ministering spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation; but this is no reason why we should worship them any more than the elements which are employed by Christ in the same service. He made the stars in their courses fight against the enemies of Israel; and he makes fire, hail, snow, vapour, and stormy winds, fulfil his word; but this is no reason why we should worship the winds, the fire, or the snow.

The Vindicator next refers to a prayer of an angel for Jerusalem, Zech. i. 12; but though it were admitted that this was a created angel, it would be no warrant for men to pray to angels.

We are now come to his last and concluding argument for the lawfulness of praying to angels. It is taken from the apochryphal book of Tobit: "In the 12th chapter of Tobias, and 12th verse, the angel Raphael tells that holy man, When thou didst pray with tears, and bury the dead, didst leave thy dinner, and hide the dead by day in thy house, and by night buried them, I OFFERED THY PRAYER TO OUR LORD.'" Col. 425. Though this were admitted to be real canonical scripture, it would scarcely make out the lawfulness of a practice which is so positively condemned in other passages. It is needless, however, to insist on this, seeing the book of Tobit is of no authority whatever. It is indeed such an absurd and contemptible romance, that none but persons who take a creature for their god, could ever take it for the word of God. That Papists so take it, is another proof that the state of intellect and taste, as well as knowledge, among them, must be deplorably low.

The contemptible character of the book of Tobit appears even from the short quotation which is given above. Vast importance is attached to the holy man's leaving his dinner in order to carry the body of a dead brother off the street. One would think the angel Raphael had mistaken Tobit for a London alderman, or some such worshipper of the good things of the table, which is a very ancient species of idolatry; as the apostle Paul says, there were many in his time whose god was their belly. Few days pass, in which I am not called to leave my dinner to attend to far less important business than that of burying a dead friend, by persons who have an idea that the dinner hour is the most likely time to find me disengaged. I never thought of attaching merit to this, or supposing it would give weight to my prayers, as the

angel is represented, very absurdly, to address the holy man, who could no doubt return to his dinner as easily as I can do, when he had done his duty.

Part of the manuscript referred to in my last has been received, and has gone to the press.

CHAPTER CLX.

FOLLY OF IDOL WORSHIP.

ARGUMENTS ADDUCED IN SUPPORT OF SAINT WORSHIP. REPLY TO SOME OF THEM. THE VIRGIN MARY; HOW SPOKEN OF IN SCRIPTURE, AND WHY. LITURGY OF ST. JAMES, A PALPABLE FORGERY.

SATURDAY, August 4th, 1821.

A MAN who worships the true God in spirit and in truth, needs no other object of worship. The perfections of the divine nature, revealed in the scriptures, present enough for the devout contemplation, and grateful adoration of the soul of man to all eternity. The mind that is truly engaged in the worship of God has no room for any creature, however exalted; and cannot look upon angels and glorified saints in any other light than as fellow-worshippers, and fellow-servants of Him who is God over all, and blessed for ever. God was pleased to make himself known in the character of the just God and the Saviour to our first parents, immediately after the fall. It became their duty to teach this knowledge to their children; but they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, in those characters by which he was pleased to make himself known; for which cause he gave them over to a reprobate mind. They became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things, Rom. i. 20-32. The same thing happened again after the ascension of Christ and the promulgation of the gospel by his apostles. Men called Christians, not liking to retain God in their knowledge, in those characters in which the gospel presents him, fell into the very same errors; they were given over to the same reprobate state of mind; and they soon came to pay their devotions to objects as low as creeping things and four-footed beasts. Their voluntary humility led them first, indeed, to worship angels; from these they descended to dead men and women; then to their rotten bones, and remnants of their clothes;— then to objects still more vile and loathsome.

In my last number, I gave the Catholic Vindicator's vindication of the popish practice of worshipping angels; on concluding which he proceeds as follows: "So much in defence of the doctrine of the church of Rome, so far as angels are concerned: that saints are also to be included we may gather from the Revelations of St. John, who writes, chap. viii. ver. 3 and 4, 'I saw another angel that stood before an altar, having a golden censer: and there were given to him much incense, that he should offer of the prayers of all saints upon the altar of gold, which is before the throne of God. And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascended up before God, from the hand of the angel.' From hence it is clear that the prayers of the saints are pro

pitious in heaven; and as they can have nothing to ask in favour of themselves, having received their reward, their supplication, common sense leads us to infer, are made in behalf of those they have left behind, and their prayers are delivered by the hand of the officiating angel, according to the testimony of St. John.

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In farther corroboration of this opinion we have the evidence of the apostles, who, in forming the creed which goes by their name, and is the symbol of Catholic faith, expressly enjoin a belief of the communion of saints, which has always been understood, from their time to the present day, as embracing prayers to them. That the apostles invoked and prayed to the blessed Virgin Mary and other saints, I think cannot be doubted, when it is known, that in all the most ancient liturgies of the church, commemoration is made of her by name, as well as the saints. I know it will be objected by some, that mention is not made in scripture of praying to the Virgin Mary and the apostles, but to this I answer, no mention could be made of this circumstance, because the objects of veneration were living on earth when the New Testament was written. In the gospel of St. Luke, however, chap. 1st, ver. 28, we find the angel Gabriel saluting the holy virgin with these words,— Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee! Blessed art thou among women.' In the same chapter too, verse 42, we see that her cousin Elisabeth, inspired with the Holy Ghost, cried out, as the Virgin Mary was approaching to visit her, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.' The immaculate virgin is also related, in the same chapter, to have said, verse 48, under the spirit of prophecy, Behold, from henceforth all generations shall be blessed' Accordingly, the apostles honoured her memory by invoking her aid, and teaching those who believed in the doctrines they taught to follow their example. So early as the first century we have the writings of St. Clement the third pope, who was the disciple of St. Peter, and fellowlabourer with St. Paul, and is mentioned by him in his epistle to the Philippians, chap. iv. ver. 3, as having his name in the book of life. These writings testify, that in the liturgies then in use among the Christians, commemoration was made of the saints. In the liturgy of St. James the apostle, who was the first bishop of Jerusalem, there is this mention made of the blessed virgin,- We make commemoration of our most immaculate, most glorious, and blessed lady, mother of God, and ever Virgin Mary, and of all the saints and just, that by their prayers and intercessions we may obtain mercy.' St. Dennis, the Areopagite, who was a disciple of St. Paul, in his ecclesiastical hierarchy, notices the practice of invoking the saints. Lindanus says, that commemoration of our blessed lady was the same in St. Peter's liturgy as the Latins have it now. The Ethiopian liturgy (which is attributed to St. Philip the apostle) hath the following prayer:-'O virgin, in all times mother of God and Christ, offer up on high our prayer, with the elect of thy Son, that our sins may be remitted. Rejoice, O lady, who hast born to us the true light, Jesus Christ our Lord; pray for us to God, that he may have mercy on our souls; pray for us in the sight of the throne of thy Son Jesus Christ. Rejoice, O immaculate queen, O true mediatrix before our Lord Jesus Christ; we humbly beseech thee, that thou be mindful of us; pray for us, that our iniquities may be blotted out.'-Thus we see the doctrine of praying to the holy mother