LETTER FROM ROME.

WE MUST now bring Dr. Middleton's letter to a close. Mr. Addison, in his travels from Pesaro to Rome, says, that the imposture of the holy house of Loretto might have been suggested by the extraordinary veneration which the pagan Romans paid to the cottage made of straw and clay, in which their first King Romulus dwelt; and which, likewise, took a leap or flight from the Palatine to the Capitoline hill. But the papal Romans exhibit the cradle in which they allege that Christ was laid. It is very homely and made of wood; but it is placed on the high altar of the Church of St. Mary the Great on Christmas day for the adoration of the people!

THE MELTING of S. Januarius's blood at Naples, is one of the standing and most authentic of Popish miracles; yet Mr. Addison who saw it twice performed, assures us that instead of appearing to be a real miracle, he thought it was one of the most bungling tricks he had ever seen, Mabillon who was himself a papist, solves this sacerdotal trick without the aid of a miracle; for he says that during the time that one or more masses are acting to make up the time which the stubbornness of the stuff in the phial may make necessary; the other priests are tampering, that is, chafing with their warm hands this phial of stuff to resemble blood, which is suspended all the while in such a situation, that as soon as any part of it begins to melt by the heat of their hands or other management, it drops into the lower or empty side of the glass; upon the appearance of which the priest proclaims aloud that the miracle has been performed, and the people devoutly believe and adore. Well but who would believe it? it is after all an old pagan imposture mentioned and sneered at by Horace, that the heathen priests in the town of Guatia tried to persuade him that the frankincense in their temple used miraculously to melt and dissolve of itself without the help of fire; but the heathen satirist was

too sagacious to believe them; he only laughed at them and exposed their imposture.

THE PAGAN story of Arion the musician, riding triumphantly on the back of a dolphin which took him up after he was thrown overboard at sea; and out of this palpable lie, the Papal Church has coined many similar impostures, of dolphins rescuing and bringing safely on shore several of their so-called saints that had been thrown into the sea by infidels, either to drown them or to deprive them of Christian burial. There is an altar near one of the gates of the city built by Pope Paschal II, the public inscription on which states that he erected it by divine inspiration in order to drive away a nest of huge demons who used to perch upon a tree in that very place, and terribly insult all who entered the city. This monstrous delusion was borrowed from the pagan fable of the winged harpies or furies which were so troublesome to Eneas and his companions.

THERE is scarcely a prodigy or "lying wonder" or a fable in the heathen historians, but what are imitated and transcribed into the Papal legends and histories of their saints; and which are most devoutly believed by the lie-believing people. Some Popish writers are ashamed of these impostures; and they are forced to allow that most of their relics and miracles have been forged by the craft of their priests, as S. Peter says, for the sake "of filthy lucre." Of their forgeries of reliques, Durantus, a zealous papist, gives several instances, particularly of the bones of a common thief which had been honoured with an altar and worshipped as a saint! In a comment on the Apocryphal story of Bell and the Dragon, Lyra, another Papist, says, "that sometimes also in the church very great cheats are put on the people by false miracles, contrived, or countenanced at least, by their priests, for some gain and temporal advantage." If, therefore, their own authors venture, in the teeth of the Inquisisition, and under the nose of the Pope himself, to confess the cheatery of the lying wonders which they call miracles,

surely we poor Protestants, whom it has pleased God to bless with the illumination of His Holy Spirit and the unrestrained use of the Holy Scriptures, may, without any breach of charity, recognize in them S. Paul's prophecy, "that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocricy; [and] having their consciences seared [as if] with a hot iron."

THE PROTECTION given in their churches to murderers and the greatest criminals, who fly to them as sanctuaries, is a privilege which has been transferred from one of the heathen temples to all the Popish churches in Rome, which stand perpetually open, to shelter the greatest criminals from justice. No doubt it is owing to this sanctuary offered to crime that murders are so frequent in Italy.

IN THEIR Very priesthood the Papal clergy have contrived to preserve a very close resemblance to the heathen priesthood; and the Pope, who is styled the Pontifex Maximus, may very justly be called the successor of the pagan Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest of ancient Rome, who was looked upon as the judge of all things, both sacred and civil, human and divine; and his power established with the foundation of the city "was an omen," says Polidove Virgil, "and sure presage of that [Papal] priestly majesty, by which Rome was once again to reign as universally as it had done before, by the force of arms.' The great variety of their religious orders seems to have been formed on the plan of the heathen colleges of the Augurs, Pontifex's, &c.; and the vestal virgins furnished the hint for the foundation of nunneries.

IT WILL not be denied that the exact uniformity betwixt Popery and Paganism has been established; and this resemblance is vouched for by S. John, Revel. xi. 2, who denominates the Roman church Gentiles; for in the present day the people in Rome worship in the same temples, at the

same altars, and even the same images, but with new names; and always with the same ceremonies as their pagan ancestors; and therefore it cannot be any breach of charity to say of this "new raceof gentiles," who now tread the holy city or church of God under their feet, that they are as superstitious and idolatrous as their heathen forefathers. "I could easily," says Dr. Middleton, in conclusion, " carry on this parallel through many more instances of the Pagan and the Popish ceremonies, if I had not already said enough to shew from what spring all that superstition flows which we so justly charge them with; and how vain an attempt it must be to justify by the principles of Christianity a worship formed upon the plan and after the very pattern of pure heathenism. I shall not trouble myself with inquiring at what time and in what manner these several corruptions were introduced into the Church; whether they were contrived by the intrigues and avarice of priests, who found their advantage in reviving and propogating impostures which had been of old so profitable to their predecessors: or whether the genius of Rome was so strongly turned to fanaticism and superstition, that they were forced, in condescension to the humour of the people, to accommodate and dress up their new religion to the modes and fopperies of the old one. This I know is the principle by which their own writers defend themselves as oft as they are attacked on this head."

Wherefore likewise doth S. Peter ascribe our election to the Father predestinating, to the Son propitiating, to the Holy Ghost sanctifying. Barrow.

Those men have little or no sense of religion, that make no conscience of sanctifying that day [Sunday] or that put no difference between it and other days. Sharp.

WE Concluded our last brief notice with the curse which the Tridentine fathers pronounced against any one who should eny the necessity of the priests' intention for the validity of all their sacraments; it is our duty now to record a schism in the Council.

IN THE Congregation which was held on the 15th of Jan., 1547, the subject of non-residency was again debated; and the beginning of non-residency was altogether fathered on the Court of Rome. It commenced with giving a neighbouring prelate a vacant bishopric for six months, until a new prelate or abbot was appointed; but, in the plentitude of Papal power, this gift was extended gradually for longer periods and for life; and it is well known that our own Cardinal Wolsey held two bishoprics in commendam besides his archbishopric of York. Father Paul tells us that "great exorbitancies were committed in the number of benefices commended; so that after the Lutheran stirs began, and all men demanded reformation, Clement VII., in the year 1534, was not ashamed to commend unto his nephew [that is, his illegitimate son] Hippolitus, Cardinal de Medicis, all the benefices of the world, secular and regular, dignities and parsonages