ostentatious, magnificent, proud behaviour, the riches and luxuries of the other. Who would believe, that the present splendid claimants of the apostolick functions were the imitators of the humble and lowly Saviour, who often knew not where to lay his head, who despised, and taught his followers to contemn the forms and pageantry of this world; that they pretend to be the successors of those heroick disciples and inspired heroes, who suffered exile, persecution, poverty, distress, death, for the religion, of which they were the worthy and disinterested professors? In place of setting at nought the honours and pleasures, the vanities and luxuries of this life, you must search every thing which is rich, magnificent, costly, luxurious, of high value amongst men, all the fine arts, all which can contribute to pride, splendour and human gran deur, in the palaces of cardinals, popes and their relations. What is the Vatican, what St. Peter's, but the coverings to the splendid mausolea of deceased popes, little if any inferiour to those of Augustus, of Trajan, or Adrian ?

One might forgive this splendour, this perversion of the first principles of christianity, if it was not accompanied with the impious claims of exclusive sanctity. But what can you say of it, when you perceive its effects in society? In order to maintain a system so flattering to pride, so gratifying to human ambition, yet so repuguant to reason and the correct principles of christianity, men must be made dupes. Such expenses can be defrayed only from the treasury of tyranny; it must be a tyranny over the purses and the bodies, or over the minds of men, over the purses at any rate. This can be effected only by making men uperstitious, and they can be made

so only by rendering them ignorant, See then, in two words, the great secret of Catholick influence, ignorance and its sister, superstition.

But this you will say is commen place; you are repeating the fine sayings of Voltaire, and a thousand others, who have said them much better. Not at all. I came into Italy free from prejudices. My ideas, feelings, wishes are all against the New School, all averse to innovation. I was and still am disposed to overlook, to pardon the errours of papacy; but I cannot, in my conscience, refrain from censuring the proud luxury of these Roman lords, or the miserable blindness of their tools.

When I see men believe, because they are told they must, the most absurd legends, infinitely more ri diculous than the doctrine of witchcraft, when I see indulgences daily offered for sale, when I observe even the talents of men of genius employed in pictures to represent modern saints, Capucins, Franciscans and others, as curing the blind and even raising the dead, when I see the Catholick doctrine of purgatory represented with all the eloquence of the pencil, and perceive souls rais ed by prayers, after punishment, from hell to heaven, (for such representations have I seen) how can one help feeling a degree of indignation at men, who can countenance, or who do not condemn errours so fatal to the genuine practice of the gospel principles? What people will ever be willing to mortify their unruly passions, to live a life of self-denial, to wage a perpetual warfare with sin, who believe, that a few masses, a death-bed repentance, and an absolution by a priest, who knows nothing of their state of mind, can wipe away every transgression? ·

Do you need other arguments in

proof of the dangerous security, in which the Catholicks of Italy find themselves? You will see it in their habits and manners. The Sunday is with them a day of gaiety and festivity even at Rome. There are no sermons, to enlighten or instruct; no exhortations at most of the churches; no conveniences for the worshippers. The priests are conceived to do all. The people enter at all periods of worship, stay as long as they please, pray when they please, and depart with joyous and happy faces; convinced that a kiss of St. Peter's foot and the holy water, has expiated all the sins of the week. Such never was, and never cau be the design of the gospel. If the Protestants do not practice better, the greater will be their condemnation, because they certainly think more correctly.

They know that our holy religion is of the heart, and not of ceremonials only. Perhaps I ought to except some of our own sects, who place as little reliance on good works, and as much on unintelligible mystery, as the Papists. I have been puzzled to know, how the Catholicks get rid of the commandment, which forbids them to worship" any graven image in the likeness of any thing, that is in the heavens above," when it is notorious that they do worship many graven or sculptured images. In vain shall they say, that they worship the person typified by the image, and not the image itself, because, "out of their own mouths I will condemn them." If they worshipped the person, and not the image, then all images of the same person would be held in equal veneration, but so far is this from being true, (without mentioning our Lady of Loretto, and the Virgin of Bologna, which are worshipped because they are the workmanship of

St. Luke, whom the Catholicks say, was a sculptor and painter,) we will notice only those cases, which occur in Rome, and which, being under the immediate notice of the father of the faithful, he must be responsible for.

There is a picture of the Virgin near the house, in which we reside, in the open street upon a wall (a thing not uncommon here) which attracted my attention, from having observed that all descriptions of persons, the better informed as well as vulgar, pulled off their hats with great devotion as they passed. Upon inquiry, I found, that this particular image was called Notre Dame des Miracles, our lady of miracles, and it is averred, that she has been known to perform a great many.

There is another of this kind near St. Peter's, where the grateful patients, who have been restored by this particular image of the Virgin, have offered up their praises and ac. knowledgments by paintings suspended around the chapel, descrip tive of the particular calamity or evil, from which they were delivered by the influence of this image. You see drawings of legs, hands and other parts of the human body, which have been put on, after being cut off, or otherwise restored miraculously.

When you add to this the devotion paid to St. Peter's bronze statue, which is not paid to any other of St. Peter's likenesses, with which Rome abounds, I think I am justified in saying, that the worship of the papists at Rome bears very hard upon a breach of the commandment above cited.

Another remark on the religion of this nation, and I believe you will be glad that I have closed. In no place, in no quarter of Europe, or I believe of the world, do you see so much poverty, distress, such truly heart-breaking semes, as

at Rome. In vain do the sovereign pontiffs intimate upon their coins, that the "poor you have always with you;" the maxim is forgotten as soon as uttered, and in no part of the civilized world are the poor ap

parently so neglected. Pray heav en that the government are not answerable for this neglect ; it would be too weighty a burden! !

Yours, &c.

the history of Jesus Christ, are called the Gospel, or Good news, a literal translation of the word euxyyeArov, as these sacred writings contain the best tidings, which could be communicated to mankind.

The canon of scripture is either the Received Canon or the True.

The Received Canon comprehends the whole of that collection of books, which is contained in the New Tes tament, and which are generally received by christians, as of apostolical authority. The True Canon consists of those books only, the genuineness of which is established upon satisfactory evidence.

When, or by whom, the received Canon was formed is not certainly known. It has been commonly believed, that it was fixed by the council of Laodicea, A.D 364, but this is certainly a mistake. The first catalogue of canonical bookɛ, which is now extant, was drawn up byOrigen, A. D 210. It leaves out the Epistles of James and Jude.

The genuineness and authority of every book in the New Testament

rests upon

its own specifick evidence. No person, nor any body of men, has any right authoritatively to determine concerning any book that it is canonical and of apostolical authority. Every sincere and diligent inquirer has a right to judge for himself, after due examination, what he is to receive as the rule of his faith and practice. The learned Jeremiah Jones on the Canon, and Dr Lardner's laborious work upon the Credibility of the Gospel History contain the most accurate and copious infor mation upon this subject.

The most important distinction of the books of the New Testament is that mentioned by Eusebius bishop of Cesarea in the third book of his Ecclesiastical History. He dis. tinguishes them into the books which were universally acknowledged, py, and those which though generally received were by some disputed, are opesvœ.

The books universally acknowl. edged are, the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of Paul, the first Epistle of Peter, and the first Epistle of John. "These only," says Dr. Lardner*, should be of the highest authority, from which doctrines of religion may be proved."

The disputed books, aveva, are the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the second of Peter, the second and third of John, the Epistle of Jude, and the Revelation. "These," says Dr. Lardner, "should be allowed to be publickly read in christian assemblies, for the edification of the people, but not be alleged as affording alone sufficient proof of any doctrine.'

These distinctions prove the great pins, which were taken by the prim

Lardner's Supplement. vol. 1. p. 29: ch. ii. § 4. Vol. V. No. X. .3 T

itive christians in forming the Canon, and their solicitude not to admit any book into the code of the New Testament, of the genuineness of whichthey had not the clearest evidence. It is a distinction of great impor tance to all, who desire to appreciate rightly the value and authority of the several books, which compose the received Canon.

Sec. 2.-Brief Account of the received Text.-Editions of the Greek Testdment by Cardinal Ximenes, by Erasmus, Robert Stephens, Beza, and Elzevir.

A text perfectly correct, that is, which shall in every particular exactly correspond wish the autograph of the apostles and evangelists, is not to be expected We must content ourselves with approximating, as nearly as possible, to the original. The utility of this is too obvious to need either proof or illustration.

The Received Text of the New Testament is that, which is in gen eral use.

The degree of credit,which is due to the accuracy of the Received Text, will appear from the following brief detail of facts.

The New Testament was origin. ally written in Greek: perhaps with the exception of the Gospel of Matthew, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, of which books, however, the earliest copies extant are in the Greek language.

Previously to the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Greek copies of the New Testament were grown into disuse: the priests used an imperfect Latin translation in the publick offices of religion, and all translations into the vulgar tongue for the use of the common people were prohibited or discouraged

In the beginning of the sixteenth century Cardinal Ximenes printed at

Alcala, in Spain, a magnificent edition of the whole Bible in several languages. In this edition was contained a copy of the New Testament in Greek, which was made from a collation of various manuscripts, which were then thought to be of great authority, but which are now known to have been of little value. This edition, which is commonly called the Complutensian Polyglot, from Complutum the Roman name for Alcala, was not licensed for publication till A D 1522, though it had been printed many years before. The manuscripts, from which it was published,are now irrecoverably lost, having been sold by the librarian to a rocket-makerabout the year 1750*. A. D. 1516, Erasmus, residing at Basle in Switzerland for the purpose of superintending the publication of the works of Jerome, was employed by Froben the printer to publish an edition of the Greek Testament from a few manuscripts, which he found in the vicinity of that city, all of which were modern and comparatively of little value. Erasmus was not allowed time sufficient to revise the publication with that attention and care,which the importance of the work required: he complains that the persons, whom he employed to correct the press, sometimes altered the copy without his permission, and he acknowledges,that his first edition was very incorrect. He published a fourth edition, A. D. 1527, in which, to obviate the clamour of bigots, he introduced many aiterations to make it agree with the edition of Cardinal Ximenes.

A. D 1550, Robert Stephens, a learned printer at Paris, published a splendid edition of the New Tes

* See Dr. Marsh's edition of Michaelis's Introduction to New Testament, vol. ii. p.

241.

tament in Greek, in which he availed himself of the Complutensian Polyglot, and likewise of the permission. granted by the king of France to collate fifteen manuscripts in the Royal Library. Most of these manuscripts are to this day in the National or Imperial Library at Piris, and are found to contain only parts of the New Testament and few of them are either of great an tiquity or of much value. They were collated, and the various readings noted by Henry Stephens, the son of Robert,a youth about eighteen years of age. This book, being splendidly printed with great professions of accuracy by the editor, was long supposed to be a correct and immaculate work: but, upon closer inspection, it has been discoved to abound with errours. The text, excepting the Revelations, in which he follows the Complutensian edition, is almost wholly copied from the fifth edition of Erasmus, with very few and inconsiderable variations t

A. D 1589, Theodore Beza, professor of theology at Geneva, and successor to John Calvin, published a critical edition of the Greek Testament, in which he made use of Robert Stephens's own copy, with many additional various readings from the manuscripts collated by Henry Stephens. Beza was also in

+ Robert Stephens was the person who divided the New Testament into verses. He performed this task, while he was upon a journey from Lyons to Paris, in order to adapt it to a Greek Concordance, which he was then preparing for the press. He placed the figures in the margin of his page. The first edition, in with the number prefixed to each, was which the verses were printed separate the English New Testament, printed at Geneva, A. D. 1557. The division into chapters had been made in the thirteenth century by Cardinal Hugo, to adapt the New Testament to a Latin Concord

ance.