knowing or unknowing, willing or unwilling, with or against conscience, while they continue true

will not be thought that time has improved the honesty: and yet since this was written it has in part, for in the English Vespers, 1828, pp. 109, 110, the translation is

'Thyself a mother shew,

May he receive thy prayer.'

But does 'thy' express per te? But enough remains; and I simply add the Prayer, which begins, in the Garden,' &c. "THE LITANY OF OUR LADY OF LORETTO. Anthem, We fly to thy patronage. O holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us from all dangers, O ever glorious and blessed Virgin.'

What are we now to say to the frequent and confident declaration of the Romanists, in apology for their worship of the Virgin-we ONLY pray to her to pray for us? It is only necessary further to observe, in order to preclude objection, that the Hymn given above in part, occurs, in the original, in the ROMAN BREVIARY (that, for instance, which I am now consulting, Antwerp, 1619, 4to.), as often as eight times, beginning at the Proprium Sanctorum, in Festo Conceptionis, Dec. 8. I have a word to add about adoring the host. In any Roman edition of the Canon of the Mass, the Rubric after consecration directs the priest in these wordsHostiam consecratam genuflexus adorat. Nothing can govern hostiam but adorat. But in the English Roman Missal printed by the authorized printers in 1815, this is rendered, p. xxxv., ' After pronouncing the words of Consecration, the Priest kneeling, adores and elevates the sacred host.' By inserting the word elevate, and omitting commas after adore, and elevate, which would determine the construction and the sense, the effect is produced of making the word adore intransitive and ambiguous.

I am happy in the opportunity which the subject of this note supplies of uniting my acknowledgments with those of every friend of Protestantism to the learned, acute, and eloquent R. SOUTHEY, Esq., for his invaluable efforts in that righteous cause. I refer particularly to his Vindicia Ecc. Ang., and therein more especially to Letter X. in that work. I am likewise by the same subject reminded of the important services of another triumphant defender of true religion against the corruptions of a perverted one, whom I have the satisfaction of numbering among my friends, the Rev. JOHN GARBETT, in his able and decisive work, The Nullity of the

and faithful to their service, they must proceed and draw. Do the sons of Romanism in this

Roman Faith, &c., and, for the reader's gratification, as well as my own, subjoin the following forcible confirmation of the sentiment delivered above 'Believing the accusation of the Church of England to be as true as it is decisive, and holding the Church of Rome to be idolatrous, I should tremble not to avow it. If mistaken, it is a mistake I hold in common with the thousands who, in the devastated vales of Piedmont, in the fires of Britain, in the desolation of the Netherlands, and wherever persecution "found them out," sealed the sincerity of their belief with their blood. I hold it in common with Hall, and Usher, and Field, and Morton, and Barrow, and Taylor, and Chillingworth, and Burnet, and Bull, and Leighton, and Stillingfleet, and Tillotson, and Wake, and Secker, and Horsley, and Porteus; in short, with almost every name, good, great, and venerable, which the United Church presents.' Pp. 365, 6. The illusion on the subject of idolatry is kept up by not attending to Bp. Taylor's distinction between material and formal idolatry—the act and the intention of the agent. In the second, Romanists may be guilty; in the first, they must be. Lib. of Prophesying, § xx. Another illusion, which will justify the heathen as well as themselves, is to make an absence of all regard to the Supreme God a necessary ingredient of idolatry. But Wake has completely driven them from this subterfuge. I should like to add a passage or two from the Theatrum Jesuiticum by Ildefonso de S. Thomas (an assumed name), a Dominican, occurring in the Morule Pratique des Jesuites, Tom. ii., where, in answer to the plea of the necessity of disguise for their idolatrous compliances, the author ascribes such conduct to ignorance cr laxity; 'for,' adds he, the habit of a Bonze naturally implies the worship of idols, and is consequently a profession of idolatry: ce qu'aucun Théologien ne croit permis, tout Chrétien ne pouvant user de signes extérieurs, qui soient une marque du culte des Idoles, non pas même sous prétexte de la conversion des Ames.' §i. He again charges them with suffering the Mandarins to offer idolatrous sacrifices, provided a little cross be concealed in the hand, or under the altar of the idol, and the intention be directed to the adoration of the cross. § v. But even allowing this apology, he asks, is not the external action, in which they unite with the idolaters, profane? and, if such concurrence is forbidden in their ceremonies, because they are the marks and professions of idolatry, how much more are sacrifices forbidden, although consisting but in external ceremonies ? § vi. Quam

temere!

6

country consider what they owe to a Protestant Government, which shelters them from the tyranny, and moderates the absurdities in much of the ceremonial, of their own religion?

A regular and chronological examination, likewise, of the Roman-Breviaries, Missals, Manuals, Horæ, &c., particularly those of our own country, or, which amounts to nearly the same, of Salisbury, would be a present of essential value, both as, in that respect, abundantly justifying our reformation, and as elucidating the history and contents of our national liturgy*; which, however, is no

* Fox has in some degree done this in his Acts, &c.; but not with sufficient precision. He has given large extracts from Queen Mary's Primer, at the beginning of her reign. From the following subjoined specimen, however, imperfect as it is, the reader may perceive what I desire.

It is proposed to examine and describe, in some particulars, the doctrine and religious practice of Rome, as it is discovered in two of the authorized Rituals of this country, or of Salisbury, containing, as usual, the Offices of Baptism, Confirmation, the Lord's Supper, Matrimony, Visitation of the Sick, &c., adopted as the national Formulary, in the reigns of Henry VIII. and his daughter Mary I. These æras, the first, of the incipient and imperfect Reformation, the second, of the re-establishment, after that Reformation had attained a more perfect form, of the doctrine and superstition of Rome, are peculiarly adapted to discover the real nature of that which at the time was triumphantly represented by its adherents as the Old Doctrine. What that Old Doctrine was these books will shew.

In conducting this examination, as in all other matters of charge or controversy with our Roman brethren, some precision is advisable, and must therefore be borne. The Jury will be challenged by the prisoner, if for no other reason, for the good one that he is tolerably sure beforehand that they cannot return a verdict of acquittal. The witnesses are not

more liable to exception for retaining what is good, and either is, or may be presumed to be,

likely to receive more indulgence; and woe to the luckless wight who in any instance miscalls a place, mistakes a date, or forgets a name.

Our first witness is, in our opinion at least, unimpeachable. His name, quality, and abode, are as follows:-Manuale ad usum insignis ecclesie Sarum. Jam denuo Antverpie impressum: et a multis erratis et médis quibus scatebat repurgatum ac emunctissime vindicatum. Anno dñi. MCCCCCXLII. The colophon is imperfect, and has nothing peculiar in it but the name of the printer, Christophorus Ruremundensis, with the date repeated. It is in 4to. and has 200 foll.

The other witness is-Manuale ad usum percelebris ecclesie Sarisburiensis. Londini recenter impressū, necno multis mendis tersum atq. emūdatum. Londini. Anno Domini 1554. The colophon contains no additional information. The book is a 4to. and contains 168 foll. It is of a larger form and fuller page than the first.

The first is not contained in the extensive catalogue of Liturgic books, principally of Salisbury, in Gough's British Topography, under Wiltshire, Vol. ii. but the second, which he there describes, is the identical copy now before me, and which formerly belonged to Herbert, and to Baker, both whose autographs appear in rather copious notes.

I beg to premise that it is not my object to give a complete or extended description of these works, which, in the portions richly deserving remark, would far exceed the limits of a note. All which my purpose, as will be seen, requires, is to select some of the more prominent and observable particulars. I therefore, beginning with the first, forbear all comment respecting the superstition with which it starts-the Benedictio Salis et Aque. Nor do I rest upon the curious passages out of the few in English, fol. 2, where, in the Benedictio fontis, the father and mother of the child to be baptized are required to kepe it from fyer and water; and other perels to the age of vii. yere: &c. Neither do I dwell upon the rubric after the prayer, under the title De secundis nuptiis, fol. lxxvi. verso, farther than to notice the recognition of the use of the cup in the Lord's Supper: Post missam benedicatur panis et vinum vel aliud quid potabile in vasculo et gustent in nomine domini sacerdote dicente, Dominus nobiscum. There immediately follow some prayers referring to a ceremony strangely objectionable; and which was objected to by the Spanish Bishops at the Council of Trent, as Schelhorn,

antient and original, than are our canonical Scriptures, for having in like manner disengaged them

in his Amæn. Hist. Ecc. &c., Tom. ii., p. 587, has recorded. The place where I shall first seriously detain myself and the reader is in the Canon, at fol. lxxxix, where the rubric instructs the Priest how he is to conduct himself relative to the elevation of the host. Before the consecration he is to elevate it but a little, so as not to be seen by the people; for if it be then elevated and shewn to the people, as is done by some foolish priests (fatui sacerdotes), they cause the people to commit idolatry, by adoring simple bread as the body of Christ; and in this they sin-faciunt populū idololatrare adorando panem purū tanq; corpus xpi. The fatui and stulti sacerdotes came under correction again for certain errors. But this is not the point. This passage renders it indisputable, that what is called adoration is adoration in the proper and strict sense of the word; it is that divine honour which is only, in the estimation of the Roman Church, not idolatry, because it is directed to the actual person of Christ in a corporal sense. What then is the act which the Church of Rome enjoins on her members and subjects, if Transubstantiation be not true, but idolatry, by her own shewing? There can be no escape from this conclusion: the Romanistic adoration of the host is proper adoration and proper idolatry.

In the Order for visiting the sick, at fol. 104, after the confession of the sick person, the priest waives the injunction of any penance, but prescribes certain alms to be performed either by him or his executors; and then grants a variety of indulgencies, with the merit of all his good deeds, which, united with the passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the merits of the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary and all other saints, and the suffrages of the Holy Catholic Church, shall procure the remission of all his sins, to the increase of his merits and the attainment of eternal rewards. Then follows the absolution in form. In case of the recovery of the sick person, notwithstanding this plenary absolution, there is a reserve for particular offences, for which he is to confess to the individual who has the authority of absolution; otherwise he relapses into his original state. We shall have to remark an addition here in the Manual of Mary's reign. Under the head of Extreme Unction there is an article so gross and disgusting that we cannot farther allude to it than to say, that it exists totidem verbis in Queen Mary's Manual, and that it was necessary to alter it, as will be seen, in future Manuals. At the close of the volume under