The Popish writers themselves acknowledge that, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, it is impossible to dispute that many of the bones recently consecrated must be spurious, and that many, so far from belonging to saints, did not probably belong to Christians, or even to human beings. Pope Alexander III. discovered that a drunkard had been worshipped as a saint, so he publicly corrected the blunder; and, in short, such relics are as apocryphal as the relic lately exhibited of "Oliver Cromwell's skull when he was a boy."

No doubt the popularity of Romanism proceeds, in some degree, from its being merely an exaggeration of human nature; for, as Archbishop Whateley points out, all men have a natural tendency to Papal weaknesses. Who does not, with harmless affection, keep as a relic of his deceased friends, a lock of hair, an old letter, or perhaps even an old glove, though not certainly any morsels of his bones, teeth, or skin,-who does not with pardonable partiality describe the departed members of his own family as having been so perfectly faultless, that it was a condescension in them to have lived some years in a world so unworthy of their merits, - who does not endeavour in letters or biographies to represent that his lamented relative deserved to be almost translated into glory, — who does not gaze at the portrait of those he has loved and lost, till it seems almost to live again, — in

ARCHBISHOP WHATELEY.

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how many schools do the children pay a fine for misconduct as if purchasing an absolution: in what nursery are children not told hobgoblin stories to frighten them by a pious fraud into being good: and who has not some favourite preacher, wiser, better, and holier than all others, to whom he listens with profound veneration, and whom he believes to be almost infallible?

If the Apostle Peter could look back from that happier world to which, through the merits of his Divine Master, and not his own, he is gone, how impossible it would be for him now to recognize his own representative in a single point of similarity. After the Apostle had replied to our Lord: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," and our Saviour had said upon that rock He would build His Church, upon the doctrine, not the disciple, Peter still was evidently not infallible. That Apostle said subsequently, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee; " but not having been really infallible in saying so; the erring Apostle "went out and wept bitterly." Paul spoke like a Protestant, when, long after our Lord's decease, he "withstood Peter to the face, because he was to be blamed;" and when a dispute arose among the disciples who should 'be greatest, our Divine Saviour did not name Peter. It is remarkable that when Papists have leave to read the circular letters of all Popes,

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they are not allowed St. Peter's Epistles, whom they consider the first Pope. In fact, the Apostle is not sufficiently Popish," le roi n'est pas assez royaliste." In Peter's last Epistle, written in the near prospect of death, he says not a syllable about the duty of all successive Christians to submit to his successors; but refers his followers back for direction to the prophets and apostles, and to Paul's Epistles. In Revelations, too, Our Lord speaks of the seven churches as each independent of any earthly infallibility. The Greek church is universally acknowledged to be as old as that of Rome; and though the sacred writers speak of "one Lord, one faith, and one baptism," they never add "one Pope, one council, and one form of government.

Paul wrote six of his Epistles from Rome during his first imprisonment, and one during his second, twenty-four years after Our Lord's ascension; yet he never once mentions St. Peter being at Rome, though, had that Apostle been head of the church there, could Paul have said "all men forsook me?" In his last Epistle (2d Timothy), written just before his death, Paul says, "Only Luke is with me." A modern Papist, much perplexed for an answer when asked in argument lately where Peter was when all men at Rome

*Cautions for the Times.

had forsaken Paul, replied, "I suppose he had gone to the country!"

There is in fact no positive proof that Peter ever was at Rome, therefore the chain of Popish succession wants the first link. In a consultation held by the Apostles and Elders, long after Our Lord's death, St. James, Bishop of Jerusalem, takes the lead, and pronounces what his Acts, xv. 19. sentence is, in a tone of authority which, had it been used by Peter, would have been supposed, among the Papists, to settle the matter for ever. When Our Lord said, "I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," He plainly meant the church on earth, they being then the usual emblem of authority. Peter merely received power to admit proper persons into the church, and to exclude improper persons from it, a power equally given to all the other Apostles; therefore Peter assumes no supremacy when he begins his own epistle by saying, "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ." St. Augustine counts over about eighty heresies existing in the early Church; and Jeremy Taylor remarks that "the matter of the Pope's infallibility is so ridiculous and improbable, that the Papists themselves do not believe it."

A Protestant clergyman diligently acquaints himself with every scriptural argument against all who differ from him, while he studiously pre

pares to rectify the errors of Unitarians, Baptists, Greeks, or Romans, — but the Popish priest has a short and easy method with Protestants. He merely announces in an authoritative tone the infallibility of his own church and of his own teaching, while he forbids his people to read any book not of his opinions, especially the Bible, with which he is most of all at variance. In a court of justice, parties interested in any case are not allowed to pronounce judgment. Any church might assume the same peremptory language (the Mormons do in very positive terms), and, like the Chinese empire, promulgate a law that they must be considered perfect; but what infallible authority has proved the Romish priest infallible, except his own assertion: yet having to his own satisfaction declared that point, he may build upon it any wood, hay, and stubble that the wildest tradition can dictate.

The Chinese quite outshine all Romanists in the splendour of their religious ritual; and if mere unity of opinion held by numbers be a sanction for Popery, the Chinese Mahometans and Hindoos are each more numerous, and greatly more united. Bishop Warburton says, "The gods, temples, and ceremonies of Pagan times were adapted by Papists to Christianity with the souls of men. The bronze statue of Jupiter became St. Peter, and Juno has transmitted her peacock feathers to the