held at Florence, in 1439, "that the Court of God and the Pope is the same as that of a bishop and his vicar, and therefore there is no higher tribunal upon earth." The first of the thirty-five Articles of Faith found in the pocket of the Irish rebel priest, Murphy, who was killed at the battle of Arklow, was this: "We acknowledge that they (the Pope, bishops, and priests) can make vice virtue, and virtue vice, according to their pleasure."* Such a confession is directly sanctioned by Bellarmine, who says, "If the Pope should err by commanding vices or forbidding virtues, the Church would be bound to believe that vices are good and virtues evil." We have the same features of Popery described in other words, namely, "showing himself that he is God." One of the articles for holding which Luther was condemned, was this: "It is not in the power of the Church or Pope to make new Articles of Faith." + Anthony Pucci applied to Leo X. the prediction relative to the Messiah in Psa. lxxii. 11: "As if that prophetical saying ought to be fulfilled in thee, the only true and legitimate vicar of Christ and of God, 'All the kings of the earth shall worship Him, all nations shall serve Him." Some of his deluded followers have called him "Our Lord God the Pope." This blasphemous appellation occurs more than once in the Articles of Faith found on the person of priest Murphy. The 14th is to this effect: "We are bound to believe that Christ's Vicar, the Lord God the Pope, can absolve all men (heretics excepted), and has given the like power to all his inferior clergy," but we have not heard if such flatterers have been charged with heresy and summoned before the Holy Office. In the catechism of the Council of Trent, not the Pope alone, but every priestly confessor is designated the "vicegerent of God." This is enough of itself to fix upon the universal priesthood of the Church of Rome, the charge of blasphemy, and leave no doubt remaining as to where we must look for the fulfilment of this prophecy. Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ireland, by Sir Richard Musgrove: Appendix, p. 152; Dublin, 1801. + Bellarium de Romano Pontifici, lib. iv., cap. v., tom. i., col. 815 B. Can. et Decret. Conc. Trid., p. 272, No. 27; Leipsic, 1846, A note of the time when the Apostacy might be 'expected is now introduced: "Ye know what with-holdeth." It was the opinion of the early Fathers-an opinion which has been continually gathering strength since that this refers to the Roman Empire. There was no room for the ecclesiastical chair till the removal of the imperial throne. This took place early in the seventh century. We are led to believe either that this prophecy has not been accomplished at the time indicated, or that the Roman Pontiff is "the Man of Sin"-" the Son of Perdition." There is no other party to whom it can, with any show of reason, be applied. When Popery is predicted as the "mystery of iniquity," we learn no more than that system, which was before unknown, was foretold and revealed by the Apostle. Another descriptive epithet is given in the 8th verse-" That wicked," or that lawless, “one.” Some of the advocates of Popery have made such statements as these: The Pope is freed from all human law; God and the Pope have their will for a law. When we find such statements as these, unauthorized they may be, strictly correct in fact, and uncondemned by the head of the Church (and there is a remarkable coincidence between them and the words of inspiration), they cannot but be regarded as signal-posts to direct the traveller in search of truth. The special wickedness indicated is also Idolatry, which is emphatically lawlessness, for it is not only a breach of the first commandment, but is the essence of all sin. Every transgression, as well as covetousness (Col. iii. 5), might be called, and with equal propriety, idolatry. We have seen how idolatry has not only been introduced into the Church of Rome, but sanctioned by its highest authorities, and is universally practised. We shall only further notice the manner in which Popery has been propagated and established, as foretold by the inspired penman: Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders." Deceit and guile have ever been the great instruments of Satan's working (John viii. 44; 2 Cor. xi. 3); so it is in the present instance. The words power, and signs, and wonders in the New Testament do not refer to different things; they are used indiscriminately with very slight varieties of meaning, and are synonymous with miracles. Hence we learn that the chief means to be employed in disseminating the Apostacy, are pretended miracles. How this particular statement has been fulfilled throughout the whole history of Popery! To illustrate this, some short account is given in Chapter II. As an additional exemplification of these pious frauds, and by no means an exaggerated one, may be mentioned, on the authority of Bellarmine, the story of a hungry mare, which though kept without food for three days, yet when provender was set before her in the presence of the host, forgot her meat, and bowing her head and bending her knee, adored the sacramental wafer. As a very recent illustration of the very same thing, an incident may be related on good authority, respecting the reigning Pontiff. Before leaving Naples to enter Rome, Pio Nono is said to have become calm and hopeful because the blood of St. Januarius had liquified twice in one day. It is truly humbling to be constrained to believe that some men should be so foolish and unmanned as to be misled in their most important affairs by such childish trifling and such obvious knavery, and that others should be so abandoned as to invent and propagate such lying wonders. Both cases may be explained, and only in one way. We are indebted to the inspired writer for the explanation which, while clear and satisfactory to reason, is full of the weightiest reproof to the members of the Church of Rome, and the most solemn warning to all men: "Whose coming * is with all deceivableness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." : CHAPTER V. The Original Rise and Progress of the Religious Orders in the Church of Rome which flourished in this Country previous to the Reformation. "The picture, indeed, is more instructive than pleasing, as "Have you ne'er seen a Drone possess at ease "Proh Dolor! hos tolerare potest Ecclesia Porcoa PALENGENIUS. HISTORICAL FACTS RESPECTING POPERY. It is amazing that the Christian religion, whose characteristic is love and humility, should be so far debased as to carry no other marks than those of cruelty and pride; that vows of poverty should entitle men to the riches of the whole world; that professions of chastity should fill countries with uncleanness; that solitary anchorites should engross the pomps of the city, and that the servant of servants should become the king of kings! But what contradictions are not designing priests capable of, when the enlargement of their power is in view? It was with this view that auricular confessions were introduced, that a new hell of purgatory was invented, and the power of even creating their own God was blasphemously assumed. By these arts came the secrets of families into the hands of priests; by these arts, they seized on the purses of whole nations; and by these arts, they arrived to be the idols of the people, who were glad to part with their estates, with their liberties, and with H their senses too, to these spiritual usurpers. Not to mention the follies of other nations, our own chronicles can inform us to what a degree bigotry had once prevailed, of which let this instance suffice-John Babb, an author of unquestioned fidelity, who was himself a Carmelite friar, informs us in his "Acts of English Votaries," that in the year 1017, King Canute, by the superstitious counsel of Achelnotus, then Archbishop of Canterbury, was prevailed upon to believe that monks' bastards were his own children, and that Fubertus, the old Bishop of Carnote, in France, was even then suckled by the Virgin Mary. Nor did he stop here, but after having burdened this land with the payment of that Romish tribute, called Peter's pence, he went to Winchester, where, by the afore-mentioned bishop's advice, he formally resigned his regal crown to an image, constituting it king of England. Thus was a mighty king converted to be the tool of his priests, and thereby became the darling of the Church, whose practice then was, not only to feed upon the spoils of the people, but to make their monarchs a prey to their ambition. And in those times a prince acquired the title of good or bad, not from his conduct in the secular government of his subjects, but according as he was either more or less the promoter of the grandeur of his clergy. Thus, Canute, though an usurper and a tyrant, could merit a canonization; whilst King John (from whom we received that great security of our liberties, the statute of Magna Charta), merely for not encouraging the corruptions and spiritual tyranny of the Romish Church, was branded with the name of "Apostate," and forced, at length, by an usurping priesthood, to hold his crown as tributary to the See of Rome. When our kings were thus managed, it was no wonder if our laity followed their example, submitting their necks to the same priestly yoke. The monks were masters of above fourteen parts out of twenty of the whole land of the kingdom! And out of the six parts which were thus kindly left dependent on king, lords, and commons, were the four numerous orders of mendicants to be maintained, against whom no gate could be shut, to whom no provision could be denied, and from whom no secret could be concealed. If this calculation should be greater than what the |