representative of the Church in the imperial city, assumed a supremacy over the whole Roman empire.

This claim, however extravagant, is less absurd than the arguments on which it rests. In looking around among the apostles for some one superior to his brethren, the choice naturally fell upon Peter for a patron, and upon the declaration made to him, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." But the difficulty was to point out any connection between Peter and the Church of Rome. There is no authority to prove that St. Peter was ever at Rome. Jerusalem, not Rome, was his proper residence; and if he had any authority to bequeath to the locality in which he lived, Jerusalem, not Rome, must have profited by it, and become the seat of the spiritual empire. But, above all, in this attempt at reasoning, there is the confusion of the authority of an apostle with that of a bishop of an authority strictly personal, consisting in being an eye-witness of Christ's miracles, and being the organ of divine revelation,-an authority which was therefore incommunicable by succession, and the authority of a primitive bishop, which consisted in teaching and ruling a single meeting of Christians. The Pope has been equally prosperous as a reasoner in temporals and spirituals. He has succeeded to an authority which St. Peter never possessed, and which, even if it had been possessed, could never, from the nature of things, have been

transmitted. And by an equally successful use of logic, he has obtained, as the heir of the fishermen of Galilee, the banks of the Tiber, and the lordship of the eternal city.

IV. While the Christian doctrines were changed, and the form of Church government altered, the simple rites of Christianity were also disguised by ceremonies borrowed from the Jews and from the Pagans. There was much in the Jewish religion, when imperfectly and carnally understood, to please the vitiated taste, and to allure the self-interest of a corrupted priesthood. The pomp of a ceremonial worship was heightened in its allurements by the ample and fixed revenue of the tithes. It was in vain to observe that these ceremonies were no longer of use, since they were fulfilled and terminated in the Saviour; and that the tithes were not the portion of a peculiar order, but of a whole tribe, who received them as a compensation, being excluded from all territorial possessions, except towns for residence. The Christian priesthood, corrupted from their first purity, dwelt with much more pleasure upon these costly oblations of the Old Testament, than on the example of St. Paul, working with his own hands, or upon the simple maxim that the labourer is worthy of his hire. It has been said that the proprietors of land voluntarily gave up the tenth part of the produce for the support of the priesthood, and this is true; but it is also true that they had

previously been informed by their instructors that the curse of God would rest upon them, if they held back what was the unalienable property of the Church.

The Popes and the priesthood did not confine their imitation to the Jews, but borrowed largely from the heathen: sometimes they copied from the High Priest of Jerusalem, sometimes from the Pontifex Maximus of Rome; and not only were the rites of the heathens in a great measure restored, but also a similar worship. Deceased martyrs were avowedly substituted for heathen heroes, and the Christian demons, or souls of dead men, like their prototypes in Paganism, were supposed to watch over the concerns of those who paid them this idolatrous homage, to avert the evils that threatened them, and to make intercession in their favour with the Father of Spirits.

V. The final and complete identity of Paganism and Popery is exceedingly well proved by Middleton in his ingenious and well written Letter from Rome. The sceptical turn of Middleton's mind has injured the popularity and usefulness of his writings, but true Christianity has nothing to fear; however much Popery may suffer from his attacks, revealed religion must be a gainer from every examination. The subject of the conformity of Popery to Paganism, embracing such a variety of particulars, must suffer always from being abridged,

and Middleton has been as brief as the nature of the case will allow. Still, detached passages, though they lose much by being disjoined from their connection, are not without their own force and conclusiveness. Middleton had traced the altars of the Romanists to the altars of the Pagans. His Papist adversary of course preferred deriving them from the altar of incense in the temple of Jerusalem; "and is surprised therefore how I can call it heathenish. Yet, it is evident, from the nature of that institution, that it was never designed to be perpetual, and that during its continuance, God would never have approved any other altar, either in Jerusalem, or any where else. But let him answer directly to this plain question. Was there ever a temple in the world, not strictly heathenish, in which there were several altars all smoking with incense within one view, and at one and the same time? It is certain that he must answer in the negative, yet it is as certain that there were such temples in Pagan Rome, and are as many still in Christian Rome. And since there never was an example of it but what was Paganish, before the times of Popery, how is it possible that it could be derived to them from any other source? Or when we see so exact a resemblance in the copy, how can there be any doubt about the original? Many altars under the same roof, indicate many objects of worship, and the

polytheism of the Church of Rome is manifested by the first view of the interior of their cathedrals. This similarity in the polytheism of Paganism and Popery is most clearly shown in the Pope displacing Jupiter and all the gods from the Pantheon, to make way for the Virgin Mary and all the saints. The noblest heathen temple now remaining in the world, is the Pantheon or Rotunda, which, as the inscription over the portico informs us, having been impiously dedicated of old by Agrippa to Jove, and all the gods, was piously consecrated by Pope Boniface the fourth to the blessed Virgin and all the saints.' With this single alteration it serves as exactly for all the purposes of the Popish, as it did for the Pagan worship, for which it was built. For as in the old temple every one might find the God of his own country, and address himself to that deity whose religion he was most devoted to, so it is the same thing now; every one chooses the patron whom he likes best, and one may here see different services going on at the same time at different altars, with distinct congregations around them, just as the inclinations of the people lead them to the worship of this or that particular saint."

Middleton shows very well not only that the rites of the Papists are borrowed from the Pagans, but that many of those rites were condemned both by the Christian Church, and by the Christian em