of Rome; and, in order to further this laudable undertaking, he received, say the Papists, the power of working miracles in as eminent a degree as any of the ancient saints of the church. One of these miracles was the punishment by sudden death of a man, whom the saint could not convince of the real presence in the sacrament. A yet more stupendous proof of the truth of this doctrine was vouchsafed to the foundress of the reformation of the discalced Carmelites in the sixteenth century. In one of her works, called The way of perfection," she declares that our Lord was, many times, pleased to let her see him in the sacred host. In particular, going one day to receive the blessed sacrament, she saw him in great majesty, in the hands of the priest, in the host which he was going to administer to her. At the same time she understood by a vision, that this same priest was in a state of sin, which troubled her exceedingly. But, says she, our Lord himelf said unto me, that I should pray for him; and told me, that he had suffered what I had seen, that I might understand what power and force the words of consecration have; and that God would not be kept from thence, how wicked soever the priest were who pronounced them." For these enormous lies this woman was sainted.-In fine, the worship of images which began very early to infect the church, and which was first openly established by Boniface the fourth in the year 607, was ultimately confirmed by the second council of Nice, in the year 787. The decrees of this council, which is justly called by Mr. Mede the idolatrous council, contain some curious narratives, full of fabulous invention, adapted to the promotion of image-worship, the purpose for which this misnamed theopneust assembly met together.+

As for the manner in which they that dwelt upon the earth were induced by the two-horned beast to espouse the cause of image-worship, it has already been shewn in part by the preceding account of Popish miracles wrought for that express purpose, and will yet further appear from the famous contest between Gregory the

second and the Emperor Leo respecting the worship of bodily representations of our Lord, his saints, and martyrs. The Emperor had suppressed idolatry at Constantinople and in the East, and attempted to do the same in his Italian dominions. Upon this, Gregory informs him, that he exceeds his proper commission by interfering in spiritual matters; and teaches him, that, although the sword of justice is in the hands of the magistrate, the more formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted to the clergy, who will not spare a heretic even though he be seated upon a throne." You accuse the catholics of idolatry," says he in one of his epistles to Leo, "and by the accusation you betray your own impiety and ignorance." He then proceeds to point out to the undiscerning Emperor the ingenious Popish distinction between pagan pagan idols and Christian images. "The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or demons, at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles, the innocence and merit of this relative worship." The difference indeed between idols and images, hard as it is to be comprehended by the less subtle intellect of a heretic, is, according to Gregory so clear, that the very children would be provoked to cast their horn-books at the head of the imperial enemy of so catholic a mode of adoration. "You assault us, O tyrant, with a carnal and military handYou declare, with foolish arrogance, I will dispatch my orders to Rome; I will break in pieces the image of St. Peter-Are you ignorant, that the Popes are the bond of union, the mediators of peace, between the East and the West? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our hu mility and they revere, as a god upon earth, the Apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. The remote and interior kingdoms of the West present their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from our hands the sacrament of baptism. The barbarians have submitted to the yoke of the Gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice of

the shepherd. These pious barbarians are kindled into rage they thirst to avenge the persecution of the East. Abandon your rash and fatal enterprize; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest: may it fall on your own head." The truth of this declaration the Emperor soon experienced to his cost. "The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had been witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West, who related with grief and indignation the sacrilege of the Emperor. But, on the reception of his proscriptive edict, they trembled for their domestic deities. The images of Christ and the Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in all the churches of Italy; and a strong alternative was proposed to the Roman Pontiff, the royal favour as the price of his compliance, degradation and exile as the penalty of his disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy allowed him to hesitate. Without depending on prayers or miracles, he boldly armed against the public enemy; and his pastoral letters admonished the Italians of their danger and their duty. At this signal, Ravenna, Venice, and the cities of the Exarchate and Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of religion; their military force by sea and land consisted, for the most part, of the natives; and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was transfused into the mercenary strangers. The Italians swore to live and die in the defence of the Pope and the holy images; the Roman people were devoted to their father; and even the Lombards were ambitious to share the merit and advantage of this holy war." The issue of the struggle was the ruin of the Emperor's affairs in Italy, and the complete triumph of the catholic idolaters. Nor was a miracle wanting, in this grand contest, to decide the orthodoxy of image-worship. To restore his dominion in Italy, Leo invaded the Exarchate, and prepared to lay siege to Ravenna. Upon this occasion, "the women and clergy, in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate in prayer; the men were in arms for the defence of their country; and the event of a battle was preferred to the slow miseries of a siege. In a hard fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and advanced, a phantom was

seen, a voice was heard, and Ravenna was victorious by the assurance of victory. The strangers retreated to their ships, but the populous sea-coast poured forth a multitude of boats; the waters of the Po were so deeply infected with blood, that during six years the public prejudice abstained from the fish of the river; and the institution of an annual feast perpetuated the worship of images, and the abhorrence of the Greek tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the catholic arms, the Roman Pontiff convened a synod of ninety three bishops against the heresy of the Iconoclasts; and with their consent pronounced a general excommunication against all, who by word or deed should attack the tradition of the fathers and the images of the saints."*

It is further said, that the second beast had power to give life to the image, so that the image should speak, and cause the death of those who refused to worship it. We have already noticed some marvellous instances of the speaking and moving statues of the Virgin; and I doubt not but that they did appear to the deluded populace both to speak and to move. The prophecy teaches us, that it was the ecclesiastical beast that enabled them to perform these functions of rational and animal life; and the event has abundantly proved the truth of the prediction. The ridiculous puppets, which were held forth as gods to the blind adoration of the secular beast, were so contrived with internal springs as to be easily worked by a concealed operator; whose voice at proper intervals seemed to issue from the mouth of the miraculous image. At the Reformation, nothing ténded so much to wean the people from their attachment to idolatrous superstition as the public exposure of these contemptible tricks of the Popish ecclesiastics. "For their images," says Bp. Burnet, "some of them were brought to London, and were there at St. Paul's cross, in the sight of the people, broken; that they might be fully convinced

* Hist. of Decline and Fall, Vol. ix. p. 112–141.

+ I strongly suspect, that the inimitable Cervantes had some such images as these in his eye, when he wrote his account of the wonderful inchanted bead. Be this as it may, nothing can afford a better explanation of the talking images of the Papists. See Don Quixote, Part II. chap. 62.

of the juggling impostures of the monks: and, in particular, the crucifix of Boxley in Kent, commonly called the Rood of grace; to which many pilgrimages had been' made, because it was observed sometimes to bow, and to lift itself up, to shake, and to stir head, hands, and feet, and to roll the eyes, move the lips, and to bend the brows: all which were looked on by the abused multitude as the effects of a divine power. These were now publicly discovered to have been cheats: for the springs were shewed, by which all these motions were made. Upon which John Hilsey, then Bishop of Rochester, made a sermon, and broke the rood in pieces. There was also another famous imposture discovered at Hales in Gloucestershire, where the blood of Christ was shewed in a vial of crystal, which the people sometimes saw, but sometimes they could not see it: so that they were made believe, that they were not capable of so signal a favour, as long as they were in mortal sin; and so continued to make presents, till they had bribed heaven to give them a sight of so blessed a relic. This was now discovered to be the blood of a duck, which they renewed every week: and the one side of the vial was so thick, that there was no seeing through it; but the other was clear and transparent and it was so placed near the altar that one in a secret place behind could turn either side of it outward. So that, when they had drained the pilgrims that came thither of all they had brought with them, then they afforded them the favour of turning the clear side outward; who upon that went home very well satisfied with their journey, and the expence they had been at.'

To these idols, thus impiously set up to be the gods of the Christian church, it may probably be said with truth, that no fewer human victims have been immolated than to the demons of Paganism. One special mark of heresy was a refusal to worship images; and that refusal, like

Similar vile mummeries have actually been exhibited even in the present generation, when one might have thought that well-deserved ridicule, if not religious principle, would have effectually put an end to them. In the year 1796 various miraculous appearances are asserted to have been observed at Rome: pictures of madonnas opened and shut their eyes; images of saints altered their position ; and crucifixes moved their eyelids! Zouch on Prophecy, p. 180.

↑ Hist. of Reform. Vol. 1. p. 243, cited by Whitaker and Zouch.