more for the purposes of instruction, than for those of worship and discipline. The first evil was the elevation of these officers into a separate, dignified and endowed class. The wealth of the world, and the speculations of the philosophers, flowed into the church, destroying alike simplicity of manners, faith and worship. Then came new doctrines, and new methods of stating and enforcing doctrine, by creeds, anathemas, and decisions of councils: ecclesiastical power reared its head: heretics (all who believed differently from the strongest party) were driven from communion, consigned to future and endless punishment, and the strong arm of imperial authority invoked to crush them: the Bible became a prohibited book: proud man sat in the temple of God, as God, and dispensed the pardon of sins, and fixed the terms of everlasting life. The Reformation left the principle of these enormities, though its extravagancies were pruned. Churches still tell you what you must find in the Bible, though you are allowed to read it. Even Dissenters play their little game of tyranny, and make Christians pass to the Lord's table through the pool of baptism, or under the forks of the Assembly's Catechism. (b) All this is not more unchristian than pernicious. Mental liberty is essential to mental strength. That a man does not think for himself in religion, not only keeps him ignorant, but it makes him slavish, bigotted,

and subservient to the bad designs of others; it enlists him under the banners of the principle of evil; makes him a soldier in the armies of corruption, and an enemy of the human race, whose improvement he retards, and whose debasement he would perpetuate.

The next mark of an anti-christian church is, alliance with temporal authority, which is not only suggested by the expression, "with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication," (Rev. xvii. 2,) but appears from the whole description, in which the beast represents the civil powers, and the woman is an emblem of the corrupt church supported by their interposition. The Romish Church had the extraordinary address, or fortune, to gain for itself a political existence, and become a state. This anomaly is supposed to be the subject of distinct prophecy, and to be shadowed out in the little horn of Daniel's fourth beast. Other churches have stopped short of such a consummation; but the subservient connexion in which they have rested can scarcely be deemed less pernicious. They are kingdoms of this world, established by its authority, subservient to its designs, paid from its treasures, and armed with its vengeance; consequently far indeed from being the kingdom of Christ. By such alliances Christians have lost the freedom of their minds, the simplicity of their faith, the purity of their worship, the independ

ence of their characters; and they have gained the exclusive possession of wealth and honour, a patent to dogmatize, and a power to persecute.

The gospel was distinguished by simplicity; it was preached to the poor, and adapted to their capacities; it revealed many mysteries, or secrets, by which they ceased to be so, but it taught none; on the contrary, mystery is inscribed on the forehead of apostacy, and is presented as a test that, however intermixed with the doctrines of Christ, we may detect and discard the corrupt additions of after ages. Secrecy was resorted to by the early Christians, under persecution, in the celebration of their worship, from necessity or prudence; it was retained from policy, for the purpose of exciting reverence for particular ceremonies, and being thus introduced, it gradually pervaded the whole system, until every thing was mysterious, from the most important proposition in a creed, to the most trifling article of dress of the priest by whom it was repeated. The senses and the understanding were alike bewildered. Against the Eastern Church, with which, indeed, the notion of Transubstantiation originated, at the second Council of Nice, this charge may be as completely made out, as against the Church of Rome. And was mystery got rid of at the Reformation? Look at the Athanasian Creed; read the Institutes of Calvin, and the Confession of the Westminster Assembly; take

any statement of Trinitarianism, Papal or Protestant, Lutheran or Calvinistic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Independent; mystery glares on its front, and enters into its very essence.

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The doctrines concerning demons, of which Paul speaks, very accurately describe that prevalent invocation of saints, which was evidently borrowed from those notions of the souls of dead men, and acts of homage to them, which are so prominent in the mythology and superstitions of antiquity. On this ground, Protestants have often advanced the charge of idolatry against Papists. This offence is certainly elsewhere connected with Antichrist; and Bishop Newton very justly observes, that it is hinted at in the term Apostacy, (falling away, our translators have rendered it,) which was idolatry in the Jewish Church, and therefore is the same in the Christian.” Yet it should be remembered that the saints were honoured, not as gods, instead of the Father, but as mediators, instead of the Son. There could be nothing analogous to this error during the Jewish dispensation, nor any propriety in defining it by terms previously employed to describe a different offence. It is, doubtless, the demonology of New-Testament prophecy; but where shall we find the apostacy and idolatry? There are two kinds of idolatry; 1st, The adoration of any other being or person than the One God, the Jehovah of the patriarchs, and the Father of

Christ; and, 2ndly, that of a visible or imagined form, even if it be nominally identified with the true God. He is the Infinite Spirit, and any material representation of him is strictly forbidden. Yet some have worshipped his bodily picture or statue; while others adore him as incarnate, existing in a man, whose form may be painted or fancied, and who is besought to hear prayer by his birth, circumcision, agony, death, burial and resurrection. In addition to God the Father, the uniform and sole object of scriptural worship, we hear supplications addressed to God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and to that mysterious and complex idea, formed by their union, called God the Trinity. For the worship of the Holy Ghost and the Trinity, not even the shadow of Scripture precept or example can possibly be alleged; while that of Christ is in opposition to his express prohibition, "In that day ye shall ask me nothing; verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." (John xvi. 23.)

It is said of the power described in Dan. vii. 8, and again Rev. xiii., that he should "speak great words against the Most High; and open his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven." Does this refer to the assumption, by ecclesiastical dignitaries, of titles which ought to have been held sacred to the Deity? Does it