"devil, who made it his business to occasion me many "sorrowful and restless nights, began a dispute with me

in my mind. Dost thou hear, said he, most excellent "doctor? Dost thou not know, that thou hast said pri"vate masses almost every day, for fifteen years togeth"er? and what, if in those masses thou hast practised "downright idolatry, &c?" Lib. de missa privata et sacerdotum unctione. Luther answers the devil in defending what he had done. The fiend pretends to prove his charge, by telling Luther, he must have been guilty of idolatry, because he had no true faith at that time, and consequently no ordination. By which it seems that the devil's attempt was to persuade the reformer, that there was neither true faith nor true ordination in the Catholic Church at that time, when he professed himself a member of it and said mass. As if the Church of God had been extinguished, notwithstanding the solemn promise of Christ, that the gates of hell should never prevail against it. The spirit of darkness urges likewise the unlawfulness of saying a mass, in which no one communicates but the priest: as if Christ had given any precept on this head. But without taking the trouble to confute minutely the devil's arguments, I presume every sensible man will allow that Luther, instead of giving any assent to them, should have rejected them with contempt, as so many certain impostures, and charged his antagonist with being the known enemy of truth. He should have rebuked him at once with the words of our Saviour: "Away with thee, satan," Matth. iv. 10. "Thou wast a murderer from the beginning, "and thou stood not in the truth; because truth is not "in thee: when thou speakest a lie, thou speakest from "thy own, for thou art a liar, and the father of lies." John viii. 44. But the reformer, instead of foiling his adversary with these arms, gives him up the victory, allows his own conviction, and triumphs in the imaginary discovery; concluding thus: by these means “ we are "freed from private masses, and from the ordination of "bishops-Let them consider how they can defend "their Church." And from that time he desisted from saying mass.

Zuinglius in like manner, while he was in great perplexity and deep meditation how to explode the real presence in the Eucharist, was furnished with an argument for that purpose by a nocturnal "monitor, whether black or white he did not remember;" as he relates himself, Lib. de subsidio Euchar.

The whole explication here given of the allegory of the locusts, we presume, appears so consonant to the History of the Reformation, that the propriety of it will not be denied. Nor ought the author to be censured for presumption, since he is not the first who has thus applied that prophecy. LA CHETARDIE did so, about the end of the last century. Bellarmine did the same towards the end of the century before, and others had preceded him, as he testifies. In general, it appears from the writers of that period, that, no sooner did the numerous tribe of reformed religionists spring forth, than the Catholics, as if by a sudden inspiration, judged they saw the locusts of the Apocalypse. The application is even so obvious, that the learned protestant divine, Dr. Walton, used it for describing the multitude of new sectaries, that swarmed out of the English church. Thus speaks he in the preface to his Polyglot: "The bottomless pit seems to have been set open, from "whence a smoke has arisen which has darkened the "heavens and the stars, and locusts are come out with stings, a numerous race of sectaries and heretics, who "have renewed all the ancient heresies, and invented 66 many monstrous opinions of their own-These have "filled our cities, villages, camps, houses, nay, our pul"pits too, and lead the poor deluded people with them "to the pit of perdition."

66

The short sketches we have given from the general history of the Reformation for the illustration of the text, we hope will be deemed sufficient, especially considering the limits of this work. It would be endless to attempt a narrative of all the different parties, into which the Reformation has been split. They are not even to be enumerated. But one may in general observe, that its case is the same with that of all the heresies in preceding ages. Variation was always their

character. Thus it was with the Arians, with the Pelagians, with the Eutychians, &c. They never remained steady to their first plan of religion, nor could they keep their proselytes within the boundaries they first prescribed to them. St. Hilary, writing to the emperor Constantius, thus speaks of the Arians : "case is the same with that of unskilful architects, who 66 are never pleased with their own work; you do no"thing but build up and pull down.-There are now as

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many models of faith as men, as great variety of doc"trine as manners; we have yearly and monthly creeds; "we repent of our old creeds, we frame new ones, and "those again we condemn." Such was the confusion among the Arians. The number of different confessions of faith made by the Lutherans and the other reformed churches, demonstrates in like manner, the instability of their doctrine. They never could agree among themselves, nor could they ever settle their tenets; as is fully shown and related in the "History of the Variations," by the celebrated bishop of Meaux. Not content with what they pretended to have reformed, they would still go on reforming, without knowing where to stop. But indeed what wonder that people are bewildered, when they have no sure guide to direct them! The church which Christ had commanded every body to hear*, they had left, and thus become so. litary, they wandered in unknown paths, into which the spirit of seduction led them. Faith is one, but error easily multiplies, having the devil for its parent, who hates truth and concord. Abaddon, who contrived and conducted the Reformation, was also the author of its divisions and contradictions, and the lying spirit in the mouth of all its prophets. 3 Kings, xxii. 22. He still continues to actuate it in the same manner; and hence we see rise up every day new teachers, who, dissatisfied with what they find established, are ever proposing amendments and innovations. What idea can we form of a religion or an institution composed of such a number of dissonant parts, and cameleon like, varying its

* Matt. xviii. 17, and Luke x. 16.

colours every day? What idea, I say, can we form of it, but of a monster, such as St. John describes it under the type of a frightful deformed locust, which has a man's face, a woman's hair, a lion's teeth, an iron breast, and a scorpion for its tail? In fine, the license of judging for himself being the claim of every member of the new religion, what could it produce, but what experience shows to have really happened, a defection from all religion? Some, uneasy under any restraint, declare themselves indifferent to every form of doctrine and worship, and are styled "Latitudinarians;" others, contenting themselves with the simple belief of a God, renounce all divine revelation, and are denominated "Deists," or "Free Thinkers;" and some are even said to be sunk into mere Materialism, that is, to believe no future state at all. "They who have made "bold with one article of faith," said St. Vincent of Lerins, in the fifth century, "will proceed on to others; " and what will be the consequence of this reforming of "religion, but only that these refiners will never have "done, till they have reformed it quite away?" Common. c. 29.

How different is the government and proceeding of the Catholic church! Founded on the rock, which is Christ, and governed by him according to his promise, she is always uniform und unanimous in her doctrine. Her faith is always the same. She received it from her divine Founder, and she preserves the sacred depositum inviolable. No jarring opinions, no innovations are allowed on that head. When a dogmatical point is to be determined, she speaks but once, and her decree is irrevocable. The first general council of Nice, declared her faith against the Arians; the council of Constantinople against the Macedonians; the council of Ephesus against the Nestorians; that of Chalcedon against the Eutychians; the second of Nice against the Iconoclasts; and so through the whole period of the Christian æra. These solemn determinations have remained unalterable, and will ever be so. Pursuing invariably the same course, she assembled in a general council at Trent, in 1545, where having examined the

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When one reflects that, of the three hundred years allowed to the reign of the locusts, there remain only fifty or fifty-five to run *, one cannot but wish with an earnest heart, that the people represented by those insects would enter into a serious consideration of that circumstance. What a happiness! if, during this short remaining interval, some part of them at least would submit to see their errors, and the great mischief that has been done to the Church by their revolt against it: It is full time to lay down all animosity against their ancient Mother, think of a reconciliation, and ask to be received again into her bosom. She is an indulgent parent, and her arms are always open, even to her rebellious children, when they come in tears to implore her forgiveness. They should be sensible, that Christ is not only the protector of his beloved Spouse, the Church, but also the avenger of the injuries done to her. This power he has frequently exerted. four preceding ages furnish us with the most evident proofs of it, under the respective four Vials of the wrath of God. She was revenged in the punishment of her persecutors, the Roman emperors, in the first age. The Arians, who impugned her faith and harassed her cruelly in the second age, felt also the avenging hand of the Son of God, whom, with his Church, they had blasphemed; after sore calamities, they were doomed to sink into annihilation. The third age exhibited to us a most conspicuous exertion of the two-edged sword of Christ, in the destruction of the cruel idolatrous Romans, for their having spilt the blood of his and his Spouse's children. The fourth age was distinguished by the punishment of the Grecks for their rebellion against the same Church, and the world still sees them groaning under slavery for their inflexible obstinacy. Such having been the conduct of the supreme Guardian of his Church through the course of all the Christian ages, is it not an object of consideration highly interesting to the Protestants, lest some such disaster should also be their fate? The Saviour

* This work was first printed in the year 1771.