ROME AND HEU CHURCH, 137 



after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, 

 and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.' Is 

 this, then. Eternal God ! the man who professes to call himself, like 

 Thee, infallible, the sovereign judge of truth, and the unerring guide of 

 Christians ! Unhappy souls, that are under the guidance of such a 

 man, — a man, too, who hath been declared subject to no law, but, by 

 the plenitude of his power, entitled to make right wrong and wrong 

 right ; to make virtue vice and vice virtue ; to dispense with all laws, 

 human and divine ; and to do all things above law, without law, and 

 against law. With what peculiar propriety does the apostle, the most 

 masterly of all writers, term his impudent deceiver, — that wicked one, 

 or lawless person, as the original word signifies, and still more em- 

 phatically, — the man of sin, the son of perdition. 



" Such he hath always been in his public character ; in his private 

 one, he hath often, God knows, been very little better: — very little 

 better, did I say ? Were there ever more execrable monsters than some 

 of the popes have been ; whose names are infamous to this day for 

 perfidy, for cruelty, for voluptuousness, for infidelity, for blasphemy, 

 for every brutal, every diabolical excess, that can outrage Heaven or 

 shock humanity ? I appeal to the testimony of their own historians — I 

 appeal to the confession of the keenest advocates of Popery ; and could 

 those monsters — stupendous impiety ! unparalleled eflVontery ! — yes, 

 those very monsters could call themselves the representatives of Jesus 

 Christ, — of that adorable character ' God manifested in the flesh,' who. 

 whilst he preached to mankind the divine life, was himself a perfect 

 model of it, the brightness ofhis father's glory, and the express image of 

 his person ! I leave you to imagine what effects are likely to be pro- 

 duced on the manners of a religious society, from having such revei-end 

 profligates at the head of it ; especially considering their extraordinary 

 influence and vast domination : indeed, their example alone, in such 

 circumstances, must be infinitely dangerous. Nor is the matter at all 

 mended by the example of many of their saints, whose principal recom- 

 mendation to the honour of saintship appears, from history, to have 

 been often fiagitiousness, or singular frenzy ; so that they were com- 

 p.imented with a distinguished place in Heaven, who were unworthy or 

 ui.fit to live on earth : and those canonized wretches are held up as 

 patterns of imitation, — nay, as objects of adoration, as well as the first 

 l6vourites and privy counsellors of the Almighty, and powerful interces- 

 scrs with him, for their mortal brethren! Now, I submit it to the 

 ireanest understanding, what sort of impression it must necessarily 

 ir.ake on ignorance or enthusiastic minds, to be taught, that persons may 

 be, and actually are, exalted to the highest imaginable dignity in the 

 other world, for committing the greatest imaginable villany in this ; 

 and, withal, to be worked up by all the machinery of superstition to the 

 most sacred veneration for such odious characters. After what hath 

 been said, we need wonder the less, though we must wonder, at the 

 abominable artifices the Roman Church hath devised, to assure men of 

 Heaven, without a single grain of holiness, provided they will pay 

 her sufficiently for their admission. Our master, who came from thence, 

 declares, that none can enter there but l)y the strait gate and the narrow 

 way of real regeneration, efficacious faith, and persevering obedience : 



