Virgin Mary." There is the difference between the Psalmist. Protestants in this case side with the Psalmist: and, in this particular, our religion is not only older than Luther, but older even than the Pope. After I would inquire of the reader whether these prayers which the Pope would have the whole church address to the Virgin Mary, are not precisely such as are proper to be addressed to God, and which others do address to him? Do they not ask of her, just what ought to be asked of Him, and what He alone can give? asking such things as the Roman Catholics are directed to ask of the Virgin Mary, what remains to be asked of God in prayer? And is not this putting a creature in the place of God? Indeed, is it not putting God quite out of the question? The eyes are raised in prayer to the Virgin; and they are lifted no higher. There they fix. Is not this idolatry? And you see he is not satisfied with being an idolater himself; but he wants the entire clergy, and of course the whole Roman Catholic church, to join him in his idolatry! I wish the Pope had explained how the blessed Virgin destroys heresies. He says she does it, and she alone. I should think it rather belonged to "the Spirit of Truth to destroy heresies, and to guide into all truth." But no, says the Pope, the Spirit of Truth has nothing to do with it. It is all done by the blessed Virgin! She "alone destroys heresies." The Roman Catholics complain, that we call their Pope Antichrist. But I would appeal to any one to say if he is not Antichrist, who, overlooking Christ altogether, says of another, that she is "our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope?" Is not that against Christ? The Bible speaks of Him as "our hope," (1 Tim. i. 1); yea, of Him as our only hope; for "other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. iii. 11.) "Neither is there salvation in any other." (Acts iv. 12.) It would seem from this, that Christ is the ground of hope, and the only ground of hope. But not so, says the Pope; the blessed Virgin is the entire ground of our hope." By the way I should not be surprised, if that hope should disappoint its possessor. Now, is not the Pope Antichrist? Well, if he is an idolater and Antichrist, ought he to be adhered to? What sort of a body must that be, which has such a head? I think I should not like to be a member of it. And I must confess, that I am against such a person having any more power in our free, enlightened, and happy America, than he has already. Pray let us not, after having broken the chains of political thraldom, come in bondage to idolatry. 19. Charles X. an Idolater. Having proved his holiness the Pope an idolater, I proceed now to prove "his most Christian Majesty' that was, the ex-king of France, an idolater; which having done, I shall have gone a good way towards proving the whole Roman Catholic church idolatrous; since, as you know, it is their boast that they all think alike, and that there are no such varieties of opinion among them, as there are among us unfortunate Protestants; though, by the way, it is not so strange that they should all think alike, when one thinks for all. I proved Gregory XVI. an idolater out of his own mouth. I shall do the same in the case of Charles X. On the occasion of the baptism (with oil, spittle, &c., an improvement on the simple water-baptism of the Bible) of his young grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux, this was his language: "Let us invoke for him the protection of the mother of God, the queen of the angels; let us implore her to watch over his days, and remove far from his cradle the misfortunes with which it has pleased Providence to afflict his relatives, and to conduct him by a less rugged path than I have had, to eternal felicity." He was anxious that the little boy should have a protector, one to watch over him, and to remove his misfortunes, and to conduct him by an easy path to eternal life. For this purpose, one not educated a Roman Catholic would have supposed, that he would apply to the omniscient and Almighty God. I do not know who can do those things besides God. But no, "his majesty" does no more apply to God, than did his holiness in a similar case. I suppose it would have been heresy if he had. They would have thought he was going over to Protestantism. His holiness and his majesty both make application to the creature rather than to the Creator. Charles X. does not say, "Let us invoke for him the protection of God," but of a woman; a woman indeed highly favoured of the Lord, and of blessed memory, but still a woman. Roman Catho He calls her, according to the custom of his church, "the mother of God." I suppose you know that phrase is not in the Bible. And there is a good reason for it -the idea is not as old as the Bible. The Bible is an old book, almost as old as our religion. licism is comparatively young. I will not remark on the phrase, mother of God, seeing it is not in the Bible, and since it has often been remarked upon by others. But there is another thing the ex-king says of her, on which I will spend a word or two. He calls her "the queen of the angels." Now we read in the Bible, of Michael, the archangel, or prince of angels, but we do not read of the angels having a queen. We read also of a king in heaven, but not a word about a queen. I don't know where he got this idea of a queen of angels. He certainly did not get it out of the Holy Scriptures; and yet these Scriptures, I always supposed, contain all that we know about the angels. I wish he would tell us from his retirement, where he got the idea; for he speaks very positively about the angels having a queen. It is true, we do read, in one place in the Bible, of a queen of heaven; but the worship of her was so evidently idolatry, that I presume the Roman Catholies will not quote it as authorizing the title they give, and the honour they pay, to the Virgin Mary. The account is found in Jeremiah xliv. If any one will read the chapter he will see, what that prophet thought of those worshippers of the queen of heaven. Now, if the worship of a queen of heaven by the Jews was denounced as idolatry, and ruin came on them in consequence of it,-is not a similar worship, performed by Roman Catholics, as idolatrous, and as dangerous? But no matter what he calls her, he asks her to do what only God can do. He treats her precisely as if she were divine. Is it not so?-and is not this idolatry? He ascribes divine perfections to her :-omniscience, else how could she watch over the child? and omnipotence, else how could she ward off evil from him? and he speaks of her as the guide of souls to eternal life. The Psalmist considered, that it was the prerogative of God to do this. He says, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." (Ps. lxxiii. 24.) But the ex-king looks to Mary to conduct the young duke to eternal life. What the Psalmist expects from God, the ex-king expects from Mary. Is not this putting a creature in the place of God, the Creator? Every one must see, that it is shocking idolatry, and that the man who uses such language is as truly an idolater as any devotee of Juggernaut. I do really wonder that the Roman Catholics continue to call their system Christianity. It is by a great misnomer that it is so called. It is not the proper name for it at all. It should be called by some such name as Marianism, rather than Christianity. In Christianity the principal figure is Christ; but He is not the principal figure in the Roman Catholic religion. Mary is. Therefore the religion should be called after her, Marianism; and not after Christ, Christianity. Roman Catholics are not the disciples of Christ, but of Mary; * It should rather be the votaries, or the worshippers. If they had been the disciples of Mary, she would have taught them to she is their confidence and hope. Pope Gregory says she "is our greatest hope, yea, the entire ground of our hope." Now, I think that the religion of such people ought to be called after the one who is their greatest hope; and I have suggested a name to the Roman Catholics, which I advise them to adopt. Let their religion be called Marianism; and let them leave to us the name Christianity, since Christ "is our hope." Having proved his Holiness, and his most Christian Majesty, the two principal characters in the church of Rome, idolaters, I think I may as well stop here.* 20. Idolatry near Home. It is wonderful what a propensity there is in fallen men to idolatry. How they do love to worship the creature rather than the Creator! In a certain church, which need not be named, the blessed Virgin, though a mere woman, receives ten, perhaps a hundred times as much religious honour as does the blessed Saviour,. though He is "the mighty God," deserving of all do as she did; that is, to "magnify the Lord," and to "rejoice in God her Saviour" (Luke i, 46, 47); and not to put their trust in, or to worship, a creature.—A.S. T. *For further illustration of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome, the reader is referred to a book under that title, published by the Protestant Association; and to another, entitled "Mariolatry," by the late Rev. Thomas Hartwell Horne. Or, if he wishes to search out the matter for himself, he may examine "The Glories of Mary, Mother of God, translated from the Italian of Saint Alphonsus Ligiuori, and carefully revised by a Catholic Priest"-Dublin, 1861; and "The Devotion and Office of the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c., including the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, &c." A new edition, Dublin, 1842. He will find in these books such gross idolatry as he scarcely could have imagined, without reading for himself. The most awful illustrations of the gross idolatry of the Romanists in worshipping the Virgin Mary will be found in "the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary" by St. Bonaventura :-in which the whole of the Psalms, with the Te Deum |